Phonics for
Parents
Welcome!
Everything starts with
reading
Being able to read is the most
important skill children will learn
during their early schooling and has
far- reaching implications for lifelong
confidence and well- being.
(‘Letters and Sounds’ Principles and
Practice of High Quality Phonics)
???
It iz tiem too gow hoam sed
v kator pilla.
But iy doat wont 2 gow
howm sed th butt or flie.
Iy wot to staiy heyr.
The Rose Review
• The independent review of early reading, conducted
by Jim Rose, confirmed that ‘high quality phonic work’
should be the prime means for teaching beginner
readers to learn to read (and spell).
• The review also highlighted the importance of
developing, from the earliest stages, children’s
speaking and listening skills – ensuring that beginner
readers are ready to get off to a good start in phonic
work.
Phonics and Attendance
We have clear evidence that an attendance rate just
less than 90% has a significant negative impact on
early reading and writing.
Of those children who had attendance of just less
than 90%, less than half of them met the national
average standards of attainment for reading and
writing.
This shows the importance of regular attendance at
an early age. If in doubt, bring them in and we can
always send them home.
What is phonics?
Phonics is the link between letters and the
sounds they make.
Using a highly structured programme working
through 6 progressive phases, children are
taught:
• The full range of common letter/ sound
correspondences.
• To hear separate sounds within words.
• To blend sounds together.
What are speech sounds?
Although there are 26 letters
in the English alphabet,
there are more than 40
speech sounds.
Letters and sounds DVD
Some definitions
Phoneme – The smallest unit of sound in
a word.
Grapheme – What we write to represent
a sound/ phoneme – for some phonemes,
this could be more than one letter.
e.g. t
ai
igh
Oral Blending
Hearing a series of spoken sounds and
merging (blending) them together to
make a spoken word – no text is used.
For example, when a teacher calls out
/b/u/s, the children say bus.
The skill is usually taught before blending
using printed words.
Blending
Recognising the letter sounds in a
written word, for example c- u- p, and
blending them in the order which they
are written, to read the word ‘cup’
sit
can
leg
mop
fit
Digraph
Two letters which make one sound.
A consonant digraph contains two consonants next
to each other, but they make a single sound.
e.g. sh, ck, th, ll
A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel but
the two letters still make a single sound
e.g. ai ee ar oy
Examples of consonant
digraphs
ll
ss
hill mess
ff
puff
sh
ch th
ship chat thin
ck ng qu
chick sing quick
zz
fizz
Examples of vowel digraphs
(Vowel digraphs need to contain at least one
vowel and make one sound.)
ai
ee
igh
oa
oo
rain
meet
might
coat
zoo
book
ar
car
or
for
ur
burn
ow
cow
blow
oi
coin
ch i ll
f or t
th a t
w ai t
d u ck
sh e d
Trigraph
Three letters, which make one
sound.
e.g. s igh t
f ear ch air
t
i
n
sh
i
p
w e
n
t
s
o
p
t
Word
shelf
dress
think
string
sprint
flick
Graphemes
Phonemes
Word
shelf
sh
e
l
f
dress
d
r
e
ss
think
th
i
n
k
string
s
t
r
i
ng
sprint
s
p
r
i
n
flick
f
l
i
ck
t
Some words are more difficult to
sound out and blend – children need
to have understanding of the
phoneme/ grapheme
correspondences.
Some words can not be sounded out or blended
and need to be recognised as a whole e.g.
said the eyes
These are taught as tricky words.
Children develop their ability to do this over
time.
Children develop their own way of remembering
these words.
Quiz
1. What is a phoneme?
2. How many phonemes are there in the
word strap?
3. What is a digraph?
4. Give an example of two letters next to
each other but which don’t make a
digraph.
5. Write strict on your whiteboard and add
the sound buttons/ lines.
Quiz
1.
2.
What is a phoneme? Smallest unit of sound in a word
How many phonemes are there in the word strap? 5
3.
What is a digraph? Two letters next to each other that make one sound
ai, oo, ee, ow
4.
Give an example of two letters next to each other but which don’t make
a digraph. fl, tr, st
5.
Write strict on your whiteboard and add the sound buttons/ lines.
s t r i c t
Charlie Writing
At Shaw Ridge we teach children how to write the
different letters using ‘Charlie Writing’ style.
The benefits of this are:
• That each letter starts from line, so helps children
form letters correctly.
• It helps them when they join up letters later on in
school.
• Each letter has a story which talks them through how
to form the letter correctly.
• We are not expecting perfection.
What you can do at home
• Help complete their phonics book at home IN PENCIL
PLEASE!
• Practice blending and segmenting words together C-A-T,
A-M.
• Read with them, when we feel they are confident enough
with sounds then we will put them on reading scheme.
• Make up silly rhyming strings, cat, mat, fat, sat, don’t have
to be real words, can be made up silly words which can be
more fun.
• Practice their letter sheets regularly.
• Encourage them to have a go at writing using the Charlie
Stories, trying to get them into the habit of doing it!