Phonics in Reception Class and Beyond
What is phonics?
Phonics refers to a method for teaching children to read and write in English. It involves connecting the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters (e.g that the sound /k/ can be represented by c, k, ck or ch spellings) and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations of unknown words.
In this way, phonics enables people to use individual sounds to construct words. For example, when taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, one can build up the words "tap", "pat", "pats", "taps" and "sat"
(source: www.literacytrust.org.uk)
Phonics refers to a method for teaching children to read and write in English. It involves connecting the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters (e.g that the sound /k/ can be represented by c, k, ck or ch spellings) and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations of unknown words.
In this way, phonics enables people to use individual sounds to construct words. For example, when taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, one can build up the words "tap", "pat", "pats", "taps" and "sat"
(source: www.literacytrust.org.uk)
The Phases
Letters and Sounds is split into 6 phases. Below is an overview what is included in each phase.
Phase One
The aim of this phase is to foster children’s speaking and listening skills as preparation for learning to read with phonics. Parents can play a vital role in helping their children develop these skills, by encouraging their children to listen carefully and talk extensively about what they hear, see and do. An understanding of rhyming and alliteration and oral segmenting and blending are introduced at this stage.
Phase Two – Four
Phase Two is when systematic, high quality phonic work begins. During Phase Two to Four, children learn:
The Letters and Sounds Programme progresses from the simple to the more complex aspects of phonics at a pace that is suitable for the children who are learning.
Phase Five
Children learn alternative ways of representing the sounds and practise blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.
Phase Six
During this phase, children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.
Phase One
The aim of this phase is to foster children’s speaking and listening skills as preparation for learning to read with phonics. Parents can play a vital role in helping their children develop these skills, by encouraging their children to listen carefully and talk extensively about what they hear, see and do. An understanding of rhyming and alliteration and oral segmenting and blending are introduced at this stage.
Phase Two – Four
Phase Two is when systematic, high quality phonic work begins. During Phase Two to Four, children learn:
- How to represent each of the 42 sounds by a letter or sequence of letters.
- How to blend sounds together for reading and how to segment (split) words for spelling.
- Letter names
- How to read and spell some high frequency ‘camera’ words containing sounds not yet learnt (e.g. they, my, her, you).
The Letters and Sounds Programme progresses from the simple to the more complex aspects of phonics at a pace that is suitable for the children who are learning.
Phase Five
Children learn alternative ways of representing the sounds and practise blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.
Phase Six
During this phase, children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.
StoryTime Phonics in Class 1
StoryTime Phonics is an inclusive synthetic, whole-class phonics reading and writing programme based on Letters and Sounds, for all children learning to read and write in Foundation and Year 1. It can also be used as an intervention programme for older children who have learning difficulties, enabling children to read at a Level 2a and above once they have completed the programme.
The lessons are all contextualised through the use of a ‘real’ book. Each sound is taught through a real story book written by some of the best-loved
authors, with a truly memorable Magical Moment Film of the story being read by the Phonic Fairy herself. To accompany each of the storybooks there are “Talking Bookmarks” comprehension questions to assist teachers to deliver quality talk sessions to help develop a rich and deeper understanding of the stories.
The inspirational lesson plans enable and empower you to engage all of the children in your class, regardless of ability, on a multi-sensory journey where learning phonics has a real purpose. Each sound has an action linked to the story, so children remember and relate the sound directly to the book.
(Source: M Larbey, 2016)
The alphabet contains only 26 letters. Spoken English uses about 42 sounds (phonemes). These phonemes are represented by letters (graphemes). Phonemes can be represented by a single letter (e.g. ‘s’ or ‘h’) or a group of letters (e.g. ‘th’ or ‘ear’)
Once children begin learning sounds, they are used quickly to read and spell words. Children can then see the purpose of learning sounds. For this reason, the first six letters that are taught are ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’, ‘p’, ‘i’, ‘n’. These can immediately be used to make a number of words such as ‘sat’, ‘pin’, ‘pat’, ‘tap’, ‘nap’
As a parent, your involvement in supporting your child’s learning will be a vital factor in determining their success in learning to read and write.
StoryTime Phonics is an inclusive synthetic, whole-class phonics reading and writing programme based on Letters and Sounds, for all children learning to read and write in Foundation and Year 1. It can also be used as an intervention programme for older children who have learning difficulties, enabling children to read at a Level 2a and above once they have completed the programme.
The lessons are all contextualised through the use of a ‘real’ book. Each sound is taught through a real story book written by some of the best-loved
authors, with a truly memorable Magical Moment Film of the story being read by the Phonic Fairy herself. To accompany each of the storybooks there are “Talking Bookmarks” comprehension questions to assist teachers to deliver quality talk sessions to help develop a rich and deeper understanding of the stories.
The inspirational lesson plans enable and empower you to engage all of the children in your class, regardless of ability, on a multi-sensory journey where learning phonics has a real purpose. Each sound has an action linked to the story, so children remember and relate the sound directly to the book.
(Source: M Larbey, 2016)
The alphabet contains only 26 letters. Spoken English uses about 42 sounds (phonemes). These phonemes are represented by letters (graphemes). Phonemes can be represented by a single letter (e.g. ‘s’ or ‘h’) or a group of letters (e.g. ‘th’ or ‘ear’)
Once children begin learning sounds, they are used quickly to read and spell words. Children can then see the purpose of learning sounds. For this reason, the first six letters that are taught are ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’, ‘p’, ‘i’, ‘n’. These can immediately be used to make a number of words such as ‘sat’, ‘pin’, ‘pat’, ‘tap’, ‘nap’
As a parent, your involvement in supporting your child’s learning will be a vital factor in determining their success in learning to read and write.
Phonics glossary
blend (vb)
To draw individual sounds together to pronounce a word, e.g. s-n-a-p, blended together, reads snap
segment (vb)
To split up a word into its individual phonemes in order to spell it, e.g. the word 'cat' has three phonemes: /c/, /a/, /t/
Phoneme
The smallest single identifiable sound, e.g. the letters 'sh' represent just one sound, but 'sp' represents two (/s/ and /p/)
grapheme
A letter or a group of letters representing one sound, e.g. sh, ch, igh, ough (as in 'though')
grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC)
The relationship between sounds and the letters which represent those sounds; also known as 'letter-sound correspondences'
digraph
Two letters making one sound, e.g. sh, ch, th, ph.
vowel digraph
Two letters which, together, make one vowel sound, e.g. ai, oo, ow
split digraph
Two letters, split, making one sound, e.g. a-e as in make or i-e in site
VC, CVC, CCVC
The abbreviations for vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel-consonant, consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant, which are used to describe the order of letters in words, e.g. am, ham, slam
(source: www.literacytrust.org.uk)
Tricky Troll words
Tricky Troll words (sometimes referred to as tricky words or camera work) are words that cannot be ‘sounded-out’ but need to be learned by heart. They don’t fit into the usual spelling patterns
Fairy Words
Fairy words or High frequency words are words that recur frequently in much of the written material young children read and that they need when they write.
Beegu Words
To early readers any unknown word is approached as a Beegu word. Beegu words, also known as alien words, are used to check how well children are able to use their sounds to decode unfamiliar words. Beegu words are a collection of letters to which the children can apply their phonic knowledge to decode but are nonsense words.
To draw individual sounds together to pronounce a word, e.g. s-n-a-p, blended together, reads snap
segment (vb)
To split up a word into its individual phonemes in order to spell it, e.g. the word 'cat' has three phonemes: /c/, /a/, /t/
Phoneme
The smallest single identifiable sound, e.g. the letters 'sh' represent just one sound, but 'sp' represents two (/s/ and /p/)
grapheme
A letter or a group of letters representing one sound, e.g. sh, ch, igh, ough (as in 'though')
grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC)
The relationship between sounds and the letters which represent those sounds; also known as 'letter-sound correspondences'
digraph
Two letters making one sound, e.g. sh, ch, th, ph.
vowel digraph
Two letters which, together, make one vowel sound, e.g. ai, oo, ow
split digraph
Two letters, split, making one sound, e.g. a-e as in make or i-e in site
VC, CVC, CCVC
The abbreviations for vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel-consonant, consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant, which are used to describe the order of letters in words, e.g. am, ham, slam
(source: www.literacytrust.org.uk)
Tricky Troll words
Tricky Troll words (sometimes referred to as tricky words or camera work) are words that cannot be ‘sounded-out’ but need to be learned by heart. They don’t fit into the usual spelling patterns
Fairy Words
Fairy words or High frequency words are words that recur frequently in much of the written material young children read and that they need when they write.
Beegu Words
To early readers any unknown word is approached as a Beegu word. Beegu words, also known as alien words, are used to check how well children are able to use their sounds to decode unfamiliar words. Beegu words are a collection of letters to which the children can apply their phonic knowledge to decode but are nonsense words.
