Parent Workshop 3.10.19.
What is Phonics?
Phonics is recommended as the first strategy that children should be taught in helping them learn to read.
Phonics is a systematic approach to teaching children the sounds that make up words. Words are broken down into the sounds they’re made up from and then these sounds are ‘blended’ together to make the word.
At Hawes Side we follow the SFA curriculum. The Foundation Stage aspect is Kinder Corner and it is a whole day strategic programme, designed to ensure that children maximise progress in their Reception year. The phonic aspect of the day is called Sound Steps. Initially this concentrates on learning our sounds and as skills progress it becomes a group daily reading session. The children will continue with the SFA curriculum as they continue through school.
Blending and segmenting? ď ľ
Blending Blending is for reading. The children will say the phonemes individually in a word and gradually blend them together
s-a-t =sat ď ľ
Segmenting Segmenting is used for spelling. This is the opposite to blending, the children break up the word into its individual phonemes.
So, for example, with ‘dog’, children learn the sounds the letters d,o, and g make separately and then how they blend to say ‘dog’.
d - o - g = dog
Note that it’s the sounds the letters make that are important at this stage and not the letter names (i.e. not ‘ay’, ‘bee’ as in the alphabet song etc).
Phonics also helps children spell as they can hear the sounds in a word and then translate them back into the letters needed.
Letter Sounds and Names •Each
•
letter has:
A sound (phoneme)
•A
name (capital letter)
•A
shape (written form called a grapheme)
•As
the children progress with their phonics they discover that some phonemes are made up of two or more letters.
Learning the letter sounds is the first step. We start off with simpler single letter sounds (s,a,t,p,i,n) and then move to those which involve two letters such as ‘oi’, ‘ou’ and ‘ai’, or more e.g. ‘igh’, ‘ough’ or ‘eigh’. How quickly they progress through the sounds will vary.
The really important bit is to teach the children what to do with these sounds. How to blend them together for reading and how to listen for them in a word to spell it. We start simply with CVC words [consonant vowel consonant words, such as cat, hat, hop] and gradually introduce longer and more complex words.”
Applying phonics when reading.
Ask them to look at the first letter of the word
Encourage sounding out each phoneme, using sound buttons, to build the word and blend the sounds together .
To ensure that we work together please note down any phonemes children struggle to recognise, or the things they are doing well, in the home school diary. This informs our teaching.
What about words which can’t be decoded with phonics?
They might need other strategies to work these words out, including looking at context, sounding out some of the word if part of it is regular and using that to work out the rest of it, and thinking of other words that look the same and could provide clues.
Your child will receive a list of ‘tricky words’ to learn from school.
Home Reading
This is the reading that your child does outside of school. Your child will bring home a book which is a reading level below their guided reading book
They can read this book or any other book at the correct level for them.
It is important to remember that books that are too difficult will not accelerate reading progress – in fact these may turn emergent readers into reluctant readers. For more details about home reading, please look at your child’s reading record book.
Remember! ď ľ
Remember that reading does not just have to be about books. Encourage your child to read newspapers, TV guides, comics, cookery books, magazines, brochures, food packages, street signs on the way home or signs in shops too. Anything that interests the child.
The most important thing about reading is that the child is enjoying it!
The importance of Rhyme
We share a different rhyme with the children every day. Rhyming teaches children how language works. It helps them notice and work with the sounds within words. ... When children are familiar with a nursery rhyme or rhyming book, they learn to anticipate the rhyming word. This prepares them to make predictions when they read, another important reading skill. Children’s early literacy skills are about listening and speaking rather than reading and writing. It is very hard to learn phonics and sight words if you can’t discriminate sounds and rhyming patterns in an audible way.
How to help Odd-one I-Spy
Out
Sequencing
the Letters in your child's name 'What does it start with?' box Jolly Phonics Songs on Youtube Letter formation Flash cards Useful web sites: www.lettersandsounds.com www.phonicsplay.com www.ictgames.com
Thank you for listening