PHONICS
WORKSHOP
Aims of session
• To understand the language of
phonics.
• To be able to speak in Robot Talk and
spell using phoneme fingers!
• To know the format of a class phonics
session.
• To understand the expectations in
each year group.
Learn the terminology
Phonics is based on the link
between
• sounds (speech sounds that
we can hear)
• graphemes (written sounds).
Speech sounds
Spoken words are formed by
articulating speech sounds.
In the words cat, chat, light, stay
there are 3 mouth movements.
In the words slip, stick, tent, flight
there are 4 mouth movements.
How many speech sounds?
Each language has a different
number of speech sounds:
Finnish – 21
Spanish – 24
Italian – 27
English – (about) 44
Written sounds (graphemes)
The principle of the alphabetic writing system is to
visually codify speech. Ideally each speech sound
is represented with one letter.
English, with its 44 speech sounds, has insufficient
letters for each sound, so groups of letters have to
be combined to make the extra 18! To make it
even harder, each sound is written down in more
than one way.
e.g. ‘f’ is spelt f, ff, ph
‘ay’ is spelt ay, ai, a-e, aigh, eigh, eig, ei!
Complex Alphabetic Code
Unsurprisingly, this is called the
complex alphabetic code.
Children learning English have over
150 graphemes (groups of letters used
to write the sounds) to learn in order to
read and spell the 44 sounds!
Decoding
When we read a word, each
letter (or letter group) triggers a
speech sound.
The speech sounds are then
blended into a spoken word.
This is called ‘decoding’.
Encoding
When we write a word, we start
with the spoken word.
We segment the word into
speech sounds and write the
corresponding grapheme for
each sound.
This is called encoding.
Simple Sounds Chart
• There are 44 sounds in our language
• Look at the sounds chart (Sheet 1)
• It is very important to say the sounds
correctly both for reading and for
spelling – these are called ‘pure’
sounds.
• Let’s practice saying the ‘pure’
sounds correctly…
Stretchy consonant sounds
Practice stretching each sound and avoid saying
‘fuh’, ‘luh’, ‘muh’, ‘nuh’ etc.
fffff
llllll
mmmm nnnn
rrrr ssss
vvvv
zzzz
ssshhh
tttthhh
nnng
nnnk
Now say the shortest sound you can without an
‘uh’!
f l m n r s v z th ng nk
Bouncy consonant sounds
Practise ‘bouncing’ each sound (avoid saying
‘cuh’, ‘puh’, ‘tuh’, ‘chuh’)
c-c-c-c h-h-h-h p-p-p-p t-t-t-t ch-ch-ch-ch
k-k-k-k
Now say the shortest sound you can without an
‘uh’!
c h
p t ch
Challenging ‘bouncy’ sounds!
These are also ‘bouncy’ sounds, but it is harder
not to say ‘uh’ – just do your best!
Practise bouncing each sound:
b-b-b-b d-d-d-d g-g-g-g j-j-j-j w-w-w-w
y-y-y-y
Now say the shortest sound you can without an
‘uh’!
b
d
g
j
w
y
Double consonant sounds
x
(c s)
qu
(c w)
nk
(ng k)
Vowel sounds
The English language can be confusing because there are
only 5 vowel letters (a,e,i,o,u) but 20 vowel sounds.
a – apple
e – egg
insect
o – orange
umbrella
more…
i–
u–
More vowel sounds
ay – may I play?
ee – what do you see?
igh – fly high
ow – blow the snow
oo – poo at the zoo
oo – look at the book
ar – start the car
And more…
or – shut the door
air - that’s not fair
ir – whirl and twirl
ou – shout it out
oy – toy for a boy
Let’s say them all!
f l m n r s v z sh th
c h p t ch
b d g j w y
x qu nk
a e i o u
ay ee igh ow oo oo ar or
air ir ou oy
Graphemes
• Each of the 44 sounds may be represented by
more than one grapheme
• Eg, ‘f’ can also be written as ‘ff’ or ‘ph’
‘c’ can also be written as ‘k’, ‘ck’ or ‘ch’
‘igh’ can also be written as ‘i-e’, ‘ie’, ‘ie’, ‘i’,
‘y’
• Look at the complex sound chart (Sheet 2)
Each word contains the same number
of sounds & graphemes
i-n contains 2 sounds and 2 graphemes
c-a-t contains 3 sounds and 3 graphemes
ch-a-t contains 3 sounds and 3 graphemes
l-igh-t contains 3 sounds and 3 graphemes
c-r-a-sh contains 4 sounds and 4 graphemes
s-t-r-ee-t contains 5 sounds and 5 graphemes
Practise Robot Talk and Phoneme fingers
Activity 1 (sheet 3)
Robot Talk to read the words
Phoneme Fingers to spell the words
Activity 2 (sheet 4)
Practising the vowel sounds
More challenging –
Activity 3 (Sheet 5)!
Say the word in Robot Talk (now that you are experts!)
Draw a dot under each one-letter grapheme (e.g. a, c,
d, g etc.)
Draw a dot/dash under each two- or three- letter
grapheme (e.g. sh, ch, ai, aw)
Draw an arc to join each split grapheme
(a-e, i-e, o-e, u-e)
Structure of a phonics lesson
Recap & Review
Hear & Repeat
Hear & Blend
Hear & Identify
Hear & Segment
Read
Apply
Phonics lessons 1
Recap and Review
Flash initial sounds/digraphs
Hear and Repeat
T says words containing a new sound – ‘north’, ‘corn’,
‘porch’, ‘for’, storm’, torn’,
Hear and Blend
T robots using robot arms or phoneme fingers and blending
arm ‘n-or-th’; children blend using blending arm
Phonics Lesson 2
Hear and Identify
T says ‘porch’ and then asks chn for
1st sound – ‘p’; 2nd sound – ‘or’ and 3rd sound – ‘ch’.
Hear and Segment
T says word e.g. ‘corn’; Children robot using robot arms or
phoneme fingers and blending arm ‘c-or-n’
Read
T reveals word, one phoneme at a time – e.g p-or-ch
Children blend sounds together
Apply
A reading or writing activity using the new digraph
‘The storm went north.’
As children say each word they ‘tap’ the sentence on their
head, shoulders, tummy then count the words in the
sentence. They then write on whiteboards.
Mantras
When reading our mantra is:
“Look at the word, make the sounds, blend the
sounds together.”
When writing our mantra is:
“Say the word, robot the word, write the word.”
EXPECTATIONS IN THE
YEAR GROUPS
From the beginning of
Reception to the end of Year 2
Early skills in Reception
Phase 1
Working on:
• Showing awareness of rhyme and alliteration,
• distinguishing between different sounds in the
environment and phonemes,
• exploring and experimenting with sounds and
words and
• discriminating speech sounds in words.
• Beginning to orally blend and segment
phonemes.
By the end of Reception
Phase 2
Working on: Using common consonants and vowels Blending
for reading and segmenting for spelling simple CVC words.
Working on: Knowing that words are constructed from
phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes.
Letter progression:
Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
Set 4: ck, e, u, r
Set 3: g, o, c, k
Set 2: i, n, m, d
Set 1: s, a, t, p
End of Reception, into Year 1
Phase 3
Working on: Knowing one grapheme for each of the 43 phonemes
Working on: Reading and spelling a wide range of CVC words using all letters and
less frequent consonant digraphs and some long vowel phonemes.
Graphemes:
ear, air, ure, er,
ar, or, ur, ow, oi,
ai, ee, igh, oa, oo
Working on: Reading and spelling CVC words using a wider range of letters, short
vowels, some consonant digraphs and double letters.
Consonant digraphs
ch, sh, th, ng
Working on: Reading and spelling CVC words using letters and short vowels.
Letter progression
Set 7: y, z, zz, qu
Set 6: j, v, w, x
Year 1
Phase 4 (YR/Y1)
• Working on: Segmenting adjacent consonants in words
and apply this in spelling.
• Working on: Blending adjacent consonants in words and
applying this skill when reading unfamiliar texts.
End of Year 1, into Year 2
Phase 5 (Yr 1)
Working on: Reading phonically decodable two-syllable
and three-syllable words.
Working on: Using alternative ways of pronouncing and
spelling the graphemes corresponding to the long vowel
phonemes.
Working on: Spelling complex words using phonically
plausible attempts.
Year 2
Phase 6
Working on: Recognising phonic irregularities. and
becoming more secure with less common graphemephoneme correspondences
Working on: Applying phonic skills and knowledge to
recognise and spell an increasing number of complex
words.
End of Year 1 Phonics Test
• Statutory assessment that takes place at the end of
Year 1.
• Children read a range of real and nonsense words to test their
ability to read phonic sounds in words.
• ‘Pass’ mark is around 32 out of 40. Parents are informed of the
result and we tell you exactly which words were read
correctly/incorrectly.
• If a child does not ‘pass’ we use the assessment information to
help inform our planning in Year 2 (i.e. focus on the phonic
sounds that they found tricky in Yr1) and these children are
retested in Year 2.
Revisiting the aims of the session.
• To understand the language of
phonics.
• To be able to speak in Robot Talk and
spell using phoneme fingers!
• To know the format of a class phonics
session.
• To understand the expectations in
each year group.