Phonics
At Henham and Ugley we follow the DfE Validated SSP programme from Jolly Phonics.
What is phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. They are taught how to:
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recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes;
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identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make – such as ‘sh’ or ‘oa’; and
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blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word.
Children can then use this knowledge to ‘de-code’ new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read.
Why phonics?
Research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way – starting with the easiest sounds and progressing through to the most complex – it is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. It is particularly helpful for children aged 5 to 7.
Almost all children who receive good teaching of phonics will learn the skills they need to tackle new words. They can then go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and to read for enjoyment. Children who have been taught phonics also tend to read more accurately than those taught using other methods, such as ‘look and say’. This includes children who find learning to read difficult, for example those who have dyslexia.
Did you know . . .
Phoneme – is the sound a letter or a group of letters make (there are 44)
Grapheme – is what the phoneme looks like (it could be represented in more than one way e.g. ai ey ay).
Digraph – is when two letters come together to make a phoneme (‘oa’ as in boat).
Trigraph – is when three letters come together to make one phoneme (‘igh’ as in high).
Split digraph – is when a vowel digraph is split by a consonant letter (e.g. ‘ae’ in make).
Segmenting – consists of breaking words down into phonemes to spell.
Blending – consists of building words from phonemes to read.
How do we teach phonics at Henham?
In school we follow the Jolly Phonics programme. Discreet phonics sessions are taught daily and are fun and multi-sensory to appeal to the different learning styles. We use Jolly Phonics to help the children learn the first 42 sounds via songs and actions.
Jolly Phonics is a comprehensive programme, based on the proven, fun and multi-sensory synthetic phonics method that gets children reading and writing from an early age. This means that we teach letter sounds as opposed to the alphabet. These 42 letter sounds are phonic building blocks that children, with the right tools, use to decode the English language. When reading a word, they recognise the letters and blend together the respective sounds; when writing a word they identify the sounds and write down the corresponding letters. These skills are called blending and segmenting. These are two of the five skills that children need to master phonics:
Learning the letter sounds: Children are taught 42 letter sounds, which is a mix of alphabet sounds (1 sound – 1 letter) and digraphs (1 sound – 2 letters) such as sh, th, ai and ue. Using a multi-sensory approach each letter sound is introduced with fun actions, stories and songs. We teach the letter sounds in 7 groups of 6 letters. Children can start reading after the first group of letters have been taught.
Learning letter formation: This is taught alongside the introduction of each letter sound. Typically, children will learn how to form and write the letters letter down during the course of the lesson.
Blending: Once the first few letter sounds are learnt, children begin blending the sounds together to help them read and write new words.
Segmenting: When children start reading words, they also need to start identifying the phonic components that make the word sound the way it does. By teaching blending and segmenting at the same time children become familiar with assembling and breaking down the sounds within words.
Tricky words These are words with irregular parts, such as ‘who’ and ‘I’. Children learn these as exceptions to the rules of phonics. Introducing the common tricky words early in the year increases reading fluency (as they frequently occur in those first simple sentences you might expect them to read).
Alongside these skills children are also introduced to the main alternative spelling of vowels. These five skills form the foundation that children build on with each year of grammar teaching.
Learning the letter sounds in Jolly Phonics
Learning letter formation in Jolly Phonics
Identify sounds in words in Jolly Phonics
Phonics Screening Check
The National Phonics Screening Check is a quick and easy check of your child’s phonics knowledge. It helps school confirm whether your child has made the expected progress and helps teachers identify which children need extra help with phonic decoding. It is for Year 1 children and it takes place in the Summer term. The check contains a mix of real words and ‘non-words’ (or ‘alien words’). The purpose of including alien words is to check that the child knows the sounds and can blend them together to read the words. They will be new to all pupils, so there won’t be a bias to those with a good vocabulary knowledge or visual memory of words. Children who have not met the standard in Year 1 will retake the check in Year 2.
A few points to remember!
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It must always be remembered that phonics is the step up to word recognition. Automatic reading of all words – decodable and tricky – is the ultimate goal.
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To become successful readers, children must understand what they read. They need to learn a range of comprehension strategies and should be encouraged to reflect upon their own understanding and learning.
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Phonics works best when children are given plenty of encouragement to read and enjoy books. Parents play a very important part in helping with this. Try to make time to read with your child every day. Grandparents and older brothers or sisters can help too. Encourage your child to blend the sounds all the way through a word.
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It is important to articulate the phonemes correctly (please look at the link below). In the phases 1 and 2, we home in on the sounds letters make, not their names.
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Your child will be given phonics tasks to do at home. Please support your child in learning their phoneme-grapheme correspondences and key words.
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A systematic approach to phonics is a great way to learn how to read BUT it is not the only way.
Don’t forget learning should be fun for both your child and you!