Phonics and Early Reading

Currently, at Ladybridge, we use ‘Letters and Sounds’, which is a systematic, synthetic programme for teaching phonics. This approach is used consistently across EYFS and Key Stage 1. Phonics is a method schools use to teach your child to read the sounds in words.  It helps your child to learn to read quickly and skilfully and is an essential part of your child's early education. We will be using resources from 'Unlocking Letters and Sounds' to complement our current practice. This is a DFE validated scheme.  It has been developed based on the original Letters and Sounds, but extensively revised to provide a complete teaching programme meeting all the expectations of the National Curriculum for Reading, preparing your child to go beyond the expectations of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check and to provide your child with the knowledge and skills that they need to be become a lifelong reader.

 

· Phase 1 – Nursery /Pre-School and early on in Reception

· Phase 2 – Reception

· Phase 3 – Reception (Reviewed in Year 1)

· Phase 4 – Reception (Reviewed in Year 1)

· Phase 5 – Year 1 (Reviewed in Year 2)

Key Stage 1 phonetically decodable books are from Collin's Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds.

Phase 1 · Sharing books from an early age is hugely beneficial for children. · Enjoying and sharing books from being young, enables children to see reading as a source of pleasure. · Through the sharing of good books, children’s vocabulary increases which encourages them to talk confidently. This is the beginning of the systematic learning of phonics. It falls primarily in the Communication, Language and Literacy are of learning in the EYFS curriculum. During this phase, children should be exposed to a language-rich environment.   Useful Tips This phase is divided into seven strands: Aspect 1: Environmental sounds  Aspect 2: Instrumental sounds Aspect 3: Body percussion Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme Aspect 5: Alliteration Aspect 6: Voice sounds  Aspect 7: Oral blending and segmenting

Ways you can support your child at home Share a range of rhymes. Practise oral blending in and around the home. For example: · c-a-t cat Can you put on your s-o-ck? Initially, the children will just listen and then with time, they will be able to join in, hearing the words the sounds create.

 

Phase 2

This phase builds on the oral blending and segmenting of the previous phase. They will also be taught the grapheme-phoneme representations (letters) for 19 sounds. During this phase, your child will be on Pink books to embed their phonics. Additionally, they will be taught that phonemes (sounds) can be represented by more than one letter. For example: fin, huff.

Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4	Set 5
s    a    t     p	i   n   m   d	g   o   c    k	ck   e   u    r	h    b   f/ff l/ll ss

 

You can see how these letters are pronounced along with the actions that are taught alongside them here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzBoqtayewI

During this phase, children will be taught to read different words using the sounds an letters they have been exposed to.

V = vowel

C = consonant

VC Words are those that consist of a vowel and then a consonant (am, on, it). CVC words are those that consist of a consonant then a vowel and then a consonant (cat, dog, pen). Some words such as bell are also CVC words becayse they only have three sounds – b-e-ll

Useful Tip Pure sounds should be used when children are saying sounds. This means, where possible, the ‘uh’ sounds after consonants should not be said. E.g. the sound ‘f’ should be pronounced ffffff rather than fuh.

Tricky Words

During this phase, the children will also be exposed to tricky words; words that cannot be sounded out: the, to, I, no, no

Ways you can support your child at home

Using the sounds the children have been exposed to, the following games and activities can be done:

· Using flashcards, expose children regularly to the sounds they have learnt. Remember to use pure sounds.

· Magnetic letters – Using magnetic letters on the fridge or any type of magnetic surface, children can practise making words.

· Make words using letter cards of magnetic letters. Ask the children to blend the sounds together to make the words.

· Ask children to spell out CV and CVC words both orally and on paper.

During this phase, the children will also be exposed to tricky words; words that cannot be sounded out: the, to, I, no, no

 

Phase 3

The purpose of this phase is to:

Teach more graphemes; the remaining letters of the alphabet and some sounds of which are made up of two or three letters, known as digraphs and trigraphs. E.g ee as in bee.

Practise blending and segmenting a wider range of CVC words.

Read more tricky words and begin to spell them.

To read familiar words on sight, rather than decoding them.

The following sounds are taught:

Set 6	Set 7	Digraphs	Trigraphs
j  v  w  x	y  z,zz   qu	ch  sh  th  ng  ai  ee  oa  o oar  or  ur  ow  oi  er	igh   ear   air   ure

 

Here are some examples of the words your child will be reading in this phase:

Ship cook fork high beard chair

During this phase, your child will be on red/yellow books to embed their phonics.

Frequent practise allows your child to become more fluent.

 

Useful Tip It is important children quickly learn to recognise digraphs and trigraphs as one sound, rather than as separate letters. E.g rain should be read as r-ai-n not r-a-i-n.

 

Tricky Words

During this phase, the children will also be exposed to more tricky words – words that cannot be sounded out.

Ways you can support your child at home Using the sounds the children have been exposed to, the following games and activities can be done. Use flashcards, expose children regularly to the sounds they have learnt. Remember to use pure sounds. Try to increase the speed at which children are shown the sounds.

 

Phase 4

Useful Tip It is important children learn to read the words without segmenting as soon as possible. Children progress from blending out loud, to blending in their head before reason on sight. The sooner they can read on sight, the quicker their fluency will improve. The purpose of this phase is to consolidate the sounds already taught. Children are also exposed to adjacent consonants and multisyllabic words. During this phase, your child will be on blue books to embed their phonics. CVCC and CCVC Words Blends and consonant clusters such as the following are taught: ‘nt’ ‘st’ ‘pl’ ‘sp’ Tricky words During this phase, the children will also be exposed to tricky words e.g

 

Ways you can support your child at home Using the sounds children have been exposed to, the following games and activities can be done: · Continue to use flashcards with the sounds already taught. · Practise sounding out a range of CVCC and CCVC words. Ask your child to make a word using magnetic letters or write a word down.

Said, so, do, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what

 

Phase 5

Typically, phase 5 is taught in Year 1. During this phase, your child should be on green/orange books to embed their phonics.

Children will be taught new graphemes for reading:

Useful Tip

Split digraphs are introduced in Phase 5.

a-e   e-e   i-e   o-e   u-e 

Children will learn that the ‘e’ on the end causes the initial vowel to make the longer vowel sound rather than the shorter one.

ay    ou    ie   ea   oy   ir   ue   aw   wh   ph   ew   oe   au   a-e   e-e   i-e   o-e   u-e 

They will also be taught alternative pronunciations for graphemes and alternative spellings for phonemes such as ai as in rain and a-e as in make.

Tricky Words

The tricky words taught in this phase are:

Oh   Mrs   people   Mr   called   looked   could   asked   their 

Ways you can support your child at home

Using the sounds children have been exposed to, the following games and activities can be done:

·   Ask your child to make or spell words. Support them whilst they figure out how the sound needs to be represented.

·   Focus on split digraphs using flashcards, try to increase the speed you show children.

·   Encourage children to write as many sounds/words in a set amount of time.

·   Expose children to a wider range of stories to include longer texts.

When children enter Year 2, they should know most of the common grapheme-phoneme correspondences and will be reading longer texts in book bands turquoise, purple, gold, white and lime. As a result of this, they should be able to read hundreds of words. In Letters and Sounds, this is classed as phase 6 however in Little Wandle, this phase is introduced earlier than Year 2. This will be through:

Reading the word on sight when they are familiar

Decoding the word quickly and/or silently.

Decoding the word aloud.

Read words in the past and progressive tenses

Read words with suffixes e.g -s, -es, -ing, -er, -est

As reading and spelling are reversible processes, and because we teach spelling alongside reading, children will learn to spell words with these suffixes too. We have also considered that spelling is harder than reading so we will continue to teach spelling by applying alphabetic code and rules about suffixes in Year 2, as detailed in the National Curriculum. 

There are 12 different suffixes taught:

-s -es -ing -ed

-er -est -y -en

-ful -ly -ment –ness