AIMS
 To share how phonics and spelling is taught at
Winklebury
 To teach the basics of phonics and some useful
phonics terms
 To outline the different stages in phonic
development
 To show examples of activities and resources we
use to teach phonics to help you support your child
at home
1. What is phonics?
2. Why is the teaching of phonics so
important?
3. How is phonics taught?
•
•
Learning the letter sounds
• Blending/Segmenting
Identifying sounds in words
• Tricky words
4.Spelling
What is phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. They
are taught how to:
recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes;
identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make - such
as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’;
blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word.
[Source: DfES]
Knowledge of 44 phonemes and 140 graphemes.
Skills of blending and segmenting.
Phonics = Skills of reading and spelling + knowledge of
the alphabet
Ready to have a go?
‘Ghoti’
Did you get it right?
TI – ‘sh’ as in station
Light - by - pie - find
side
Letters and Sounds
(5 distinct phases)
Support for Spellings
Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the
Department for Education and Skills in 2007.
It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in
their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to
read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills.
It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for
teaching phonic skills for children starting by the age of
five, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age
seven.
‘Pure Sounds’
Need to ensure that pure sounds are used at all times.
Do not add an “uh” or “er” sound to the end of sounds
such as ter, mer, per
Are you using pure sounds when you help your child?
Pure Sounds Clip
Beware: Adjacent consonants are not digraphs – they have
two distinct sounds
S-t-a-m-p not st-a-m-p
igh
air
ure
ear
Sound buttons
r
.
i
ng
ch
i
ck
.
_
_
.
_
n
igh
t
_
.
.
Using pure sounds/knowledge of digraphs
and trigraphs children are taught to say the
sounds and then blend them together
c-a-t
n-ee-d
m-igh-t
Some words unfortunately
have to be learnt by sight
these are called
‘Tricky words’
said
because
This is the opposite
S-t-r-e-t-ch-i-ng
the word out and applying the
corresponding grapheme (letter)
•
•
Daily
Focused and independent activities.
The group a child is in depends on their phonic
ability and phase they are working on.
To split up a word into it’s individual phonemes in
order to spell it –
e.g. cat has 3 c-a-t
ship has 3 sh-i-p
Say the word
Repeat using ‘sound talk’
Identify the initial phoneme – the first sound we
can hear at the start of the word?
How are these represented – which letter/digraph?
Repeat until word is completed
•Children are encouraged to ‘stretch’
words out for spelling applying their
knowledge of phonics from taught
sessions
•Children are encouraged to be
independent spellers so they have the
confidence to write independently
A common mnemonic for remembering tricky spellings
is to create an easily remembered acronym. For example:
‘said’
Sam and I dance
Give children ownership - that way
they will remember them!
3. Teach
New grapheme and tricky word(s)
4. Practise
Words containing new grapheme
5. Apply
Read or write sentences using new digraph/tricky
words
Half-Termly - each child is assessed on the phase they
have been learning. If they have achieved at least 90%
of the phase, they will then be moved onto the next
phase.
The children’s assessment sheets will then follow them
from year group to year group and later from infants to
juniors so their progress is continually monitored.
•
•
•
•
Help your child use phonics to read unknown words
that they come across in their reading books and
encourage them to use their phonics independently.
Continue to practise keywords everyday in the pink
word books as the children need to recognise these
words from sight memory.
Discuss any tricky words you come across in your
child’s reading book. Sometimes they just need to
be told a word that cannot be sounded out.
Practise writing words/sentences using phonics.