Phonics

The teaching of phonics at South Failsworth

At South Failsworth Community Primary School we have a structured approach to the teaching of phonics. Synthetic phonics is planned for following Red Rose Letters and Sounds, which is a detailed, systematic programme for teaching phonic skills over five phases.

Below is a breakdown of the 5 phases which are primarily taught across Early Years and Key Stage 1:

Phase 1

(This phase will be taught in Nursery.)

Phase 1 falls largely within the Communication, Language and Literacy area of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage. It focuses on activities to promote speaking and listening skills, phonological awareness and oral blending and segmenting.

Phase 1 covers the following aspects:

1. Environmental sounds

Purpose - To develop children listening skills and awareness of sounds in the environment

2. Instrumental sounds

Purpose - To develop an awareness of sounds made with instruments

3. Body percussion

Purpose - To develop an awareness of sounds and rhythm

4. Rhythm and rhyme

Purpose - To develop an awareness of rhythm and rhyme in speech

5. Alliteration

Purpose - To develop an understanding of alliteration

6. Voice sounds

Purpose - To develop an awareness of oral blending and segmenting

7. Oral blending and segmenting

Purpose - To develop oral blending and segmenting skills

Phase 2

(This phase will be taught in the autumn term in Reception.)

Children entering Phase 2 will continue to build on the foundations from Phase 1. The purpose of Phase 2 is to teach 23 GPCs with single letter graphemes and some digraphs, with application into reading and writing. Explicit teaching focuses on the recognition of GPCs alongside oral blending and segmenting, and application into reading and writing words and simple sentences. Children will also be taught how to read and spell 6 tricky words.

New graphemes:

s a t

p i n

m d g

o c k

ck e u

r h b

f ff l

ll ss

Phase 2 tricky words: the I to go no into

Phase 3

(Most children will move on to phase 3 at the beginning of the spring term in Reception.)

The purpose of Phase 3 is to teach 28 GPCs including single letter graphemes, digraphs and trigraphs, with application into reading and writing. Explicit teaching focuses on the recognition of GPCs alongside oral blending and segmenting, and application into reading and writing of VC and CVC words. Letter names are used during this phase when teaching digraphs and trigraphs. Children will also be taught how to read and spell 12 Phase 3 tricky words, and be introduced to 14 Phase 4 tricky words.

New graphemes:

j v w

x y z zz

qu ch sh

th/th ng

ai ee

igh oa

oo/oo

ar or

ur ow

oi ear

air ure er

Phase 3 tricky words: he she we be me was my you they her all are

Phase 4 tricky words: like said when have one come do so were some there out little what

Phase 4

(Most children will be taught this phase at the end of Reception. They will also briefly revisit this phase at the start of Year 1.)

The purpose of Phase 4 is to explicitly teach oral blending and segmenting, blending for reading, and segmenting for spelling using adjacent consonants within CVCC, CCV, CCVC, CCVCC, CCCVC, CCCVCC word combinations, and polysyllabic words containing Phase 2 and 3 graphemes. Children will apply this learning when reading decodable texts alongside writing words and sentences. Children will also revisit reading and spelling 14 Phase 4 tricky words, introduced in Phase 3.

No new graphemes are taught during phase 4

Phase 4 tricky words: like said when have one come do so were some there out little what

Phase 5

(Most children will be taught Phase 5 throughout Year 1.)

The purpose of Phase 5 is to teach a further 21 GPCs, as well as a number of alternative pronunciations for graphemes, and alternative spellings for phonemes, with application into reading and writing. Explicit teaching focuses on the recognition of GPCs alongside oral blending and segmenting, and application into reading and writing. Letter names are used during this phase when teaching digraphs, trigraphs and four letter graphemes. Children will also be taught how to read and spell 12 Phase 5 tricky words and 25 high frequency words.

New graphemes:

ay ou ie ea

oy ir ue/ue aw

wh ph ew/ew

oe au a-e e-e

i-e o-e u-e/u-e

Phase 5 tricky words: Mr Mrs people looked called asked oh their could water where who

Phonics screening

When children are in Year 1, they will complete a Phonics Screening Check in the final half-term. This is a quick assessment, which confirms whether a child has made expected progress. The assessments are carried out individually with the class teacher, and consist of 40 words containing the graphemes taught throughout phases 2-5. The assessment contains both real and pseudo (nonsense) words, which the child has to read. At the end of Year 1 a report is sent out to families, to share the results of the Phonics Screening Check. Any child who does not reach the acquired standard will receive support in Year 2, before they retake the Phonics Screening Check at the end of the year.

School Strategies

Decoding for reading: Children are taught to decode words with their ‘phonics finger’, before swiping over the word from left to right to blend the phonemes and read the word.

Segmenting for spelling: Children are taught to segment words using their ‘segmenting fingers’ (they place these on their chin).

Application of phonics

At South Failsworth, we encourage children to apply their phonic knowledge during all reading and writing activities. This includes during typical literacy based learning such as English lessons, shared reading, guided and independent reading. As well as in reading and writing activities across the curriculum, and during their independent play in the Early Years. We ensure children are only asked to independently read texts that contain previously taught graphemes, and we provide visual displays and resources to support the children to develop their phonic knowledge successfully.

Working in partnership with parents/carers

We are committed to working closely with families to create a partnership that enables all children to become successful and competent readers. We send phonetically decodable reading books home weekly and we encourage parents and carers to contribute to their child’s reading development. Throughout the school year, we also offer families the opportunity to engage in phonics workshops and regular reading events.

Useful links for families:

How to pronounce phonemes correctly: Phonics: How to pronounce pure sounds | Oxford Owl - YouTube
Phase 2 tricky word song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMyssfAUx0
Phase 3 tricky word song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R087lYrRpgY
Phonics Play: https://new.phonicsplay.co.uk/
Phonics Bloom: https://www.phonicsbloom.com/
Teach Your Monster to Read Flashcards: https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/digital-flashcards

Phonics Terminology

GPC: is short for grapheme phoneme correspondence. Knowing a GPC means being able to match a phoneme to a grapheme and vice versa.

Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound. There are approximately 44 in the English language.

Grapheme: the written form of a phoneme. They can be made up of different amounts of letters for example 1 letter – s, 2 letters – ai, 3 letters – igh.

Digraph: two letters that make one phoneme, for example oo, oa, ee.

Trigraph: three letters that make one phoneme, for example ear, igh, air.

Split digraph: this is a digraph (e.g. ie) that has been split and a consonant has been placed in the middle (the ‘ie’ is still making the sound despite a letter in the middle). The children learn five split digraphs in phase 5:
i_e like in time
a_e like in cake
o_e like in joke
e_e like in theme
u_e like in tube

Pure sounds: pronouncing the sounds of letters and combinations of letters correctly, for example not saying ‘muh’ but ‘mmmmm’. (Top tip: avoid trying to say an ‘uh’ at the end of a phoneme.)

Oral blending: hearing a series of sounds and merging them together to say the word, for example an adult says ‘b-u-s’ and the child says ‘bus’.

Blending: children see a word, say the individual sounds in the word and then merge those sounds together to hear the whole word (e.g. c-a-t makes ‘cat’). This is vital for reading!

Segmenting: the opposite to blending. Children break up the word into its component sounds. This is vital for spelling and writing words.

Decoding/decodable: being able to ‘sound out’ the word into its component phonemes.

Polysyllabic: a word that is made up of more than one syllable.

Tricky words: there are words within each of the phonics phases that cannot be decoded. Instead, the children are taught the ‘tricky part’ and are supported to read these word with automaticity. (Sometimes a tricky word taught within a phase can become a decodable word once your child moves up the phases, for example ‘out’ and ‘like’ are tricky in phase 4 but become decodable during phase 5.)

High frequency words: these are words that occur most often in books and stories. They can be either decodable or tricky words.

Sound buttons: a button drawn or placed under each individual grapheme. Every time the button is pressed your child makes the sound and then blends all the sounds together to read the words.

Pseudo/alien words: words that can be decoded but are made up. These words really test phonics skills and if a child has good phonic knowledge they should be able to decode both real and alien words.