Phonics

Phonics Information for Parents

“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.”

Annabel Cooper is the Phonics Lead in school.

What is Phonics?

Phonics is the link between letters and the sounds they make.
Learning Phonics will help your child to become a good reader and writer.
Every child in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 have a daily Phonic session.
Phonics is taught through a daily session with children of the same phonic level.
We follow the 'Read Write Inc' phonics programme.

In phonics lessons, children are taught to use pure sounds (‘m’ not’ muh’,’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.). This is so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily.

To help the children blend these sounds into words, we use Fred (a frog cuddly toy) who is an expert on sounding out words! This is called ‘Fred Talk’. For example, m-o-p, c-a-t, m-a-n, sh-o-p.

The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets throughout their time in EYS and KS1.

Within the phonics lesson, children practise reading words which include the sounds that they have been taught. There are red words and green words. Red words are words that are not easily decodable and challenge words to extend children’s vocabulary. Green words are linked to the sounds they have been learning and are easily decodable.

As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check which takes place in the summer term.

As part of the daily phonics session, the children also have a reading session which follows the Read Write Inc reading programme. Within this session, the children are taught and have opportunity to practise reading words and stories. The emphasis is placed on fluent, efficient and 'speedy' reading (reading on sight) of both common words and those 'trickier' words (words which have uncommon vowel sounds such as said or they). The children will focus on 1 text for either 1 or 3 days depending on their group. They will read the story several times in order to read in fluently and gain good comprehension of the text. As the children move up the colour banded books, there is a great emphasis placed on their ability to read with a 'story teller's voice' in order to add expression and emphasis to their reading.

Set one

These are the Set 1 Speed Sounds written with one letter:

m a s d t i n p g o c k u b f e l h r j v y w z x

These are the sounds written with two letters (your child will call these ‘special friends’):

sh th ch qu ng nk ck

Check if your child can read these sounds. Make sure they say sounds like ‘mmm’, not letter names like ‘em’. Watch the Sound Pronunciation Guide video to help you.

If your child is learning Set 1 Speed Sounds, help them to:

Complete the Speed Sounds practice sheets for the Speed Sounds they have learnt.

Set two

These are the Set 2 Speed Sounds:

ay ee igh ow (as in blow) oo (as in zoo) oo (as in look) ar or air ir ou (as in out) oy

Check if your child can read these sounds.

If your child is learning the Set 2 Speed Sounds, help them to:

Complete the Speed Sounds practice sheets for the Speed Sounds they have learnt.
Read the eBooks at Red Ditty level, then Green level and then Purple level, in order. We recommend children read each eBook three times, as they would at school: once to read the words correctly, a second time with more fluency, and a third time in a ‘storyteller voice’ that shows their understanding.

Set three

These are Set 3 Speed Sounds:

ea (as in tea)

oi (as in spoil)

a–e (as in cake)

i–e (as in smile)

o–e (as in home)

u–e (as in huge)

aw (as in yawn)

are (as in care)

ur (as in nurse)

er (as in letter)

ow (as in brown)

ai (as in snail)

oa (as in goat)

ew (as in chew)

ire(as in fire)

ure (as in pure)

ear (as in hear)