Letters and Sounds A synthetic phonics programme Wednesday 10 th September 2014

1. Letters and SoundsA synthetic phonics programmeWednesday 10th September 2014

2. What is Letters and sounds? • Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the DfE in 2007. • It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills and prepare children for learning to read and write. • It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children. • There are six overlapping phases.

3. Phonics in our school? • Children are split in ability groups. • Phonic expectations at end of each year group. Phonics screening • Reading scheme closely follows the phonics phases. • Homework- Education City, • Phonics used all the time during teaching and learning

4. A spot of terminology! Phoneme -smallest unit of sound Grapheme -a way of writing down a phoneme Digraph -A grapheme containing two letters that makes just one sound (phoneme). Trigraph -A grapheme containing three letters that makes just one sound (phoneme). Blending -This involves looking at a written word, looking at each grapheme and using knowledge to work out which phoneme each grapheme represents and then merging these phonemes together to make a word. This is the basis of reading. (Example) Segmenting -This involves hearing a word, splitting it up into the phonemes that make it, using knowledge to work out which graphemes represent those phonemes and then writing those graphemes down in the right order. This is the basis of spelling.

5. Phase 3 By the time they reach Phase 3, children will already be able to blend and segment words containing the 19 letters taught in Phase 2. In Phase 3 twenty-five new graphemes are introduced (one at a time). They are in the following sequence. Set 6: j, v, w, x Set 7: y, z, zz, qu Consonant digraphs:ch, sh, th, ng Vowel digraphs:ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

6. Phase 4 When children start Phase Four of the Letters and Sounds phonics programme, they will know a grapheme (which is what we write down)for each of the 42 phonemes. They will be able to blend phonemes to read CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and segment in order to spell them. Children will also have begun reading straightforward two-syllable words and simple captions, as well as reading and spelling some tricky words.

7. Phase 4 In Phase 4, no new graphemes are introduced. The main aim of this phase is to consolidate the children's knowledge and to help them learn to read and spell words which have adjacent consonants, such as trap, string and milk. More tricky words are introduced. There are: said, have, like so, do, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what.

8. Phase 5 • Throughout phase 5 we develop children’s knowledge by teaching children; • new graphemes • alternative spellings • alternative pronunciations • new ‘tricky words’

9. New Graphemes Espresso Primary - Ash's phonics

11. Alternative Spellings Espresso Primary - Sal's phonics

12. Alternative Pronunciations Espresso Primary - Scully's phonics

13. Tricky Words

14. Phonics Screening

15. Now it’s your turn...

17. And finally... How can you help???? • Playing sound and listening games • Talking to the children about the sounds/words they have learnt this week. • Looking for those sounds in everyday situations. • Displaying tricky words around the house. • Reminding children to use phonetic strategies when reading and spelling unknown words • Use EducationCity phonics area • Encourage a love of reading and writing for leisure and enjoyment... BE A GOOD ROLE MODEL!