Phonics at Fernvale
At Fernvale we have fully embraced phonics as a key aspect of teaching children to read and write.
We start in Foundation where the children learn sounds using the 'Jolly Phonics' images, actions and songs. We use the Jolly Phonics to resource our application of the 'Letters and Sounds' document which we use to plan the pace and progression of our phonics teaching through its six phases. We aim for the majority of children to be confident up to Phase 4 by the time they leave the Foundation class.
In Year One we continue to use the 'Letters and Sounds' document to plan our phonics teaching and we aim for the majority of children to be confident up to Phase 5 by the time they leave Year One.
In Year Two we continue to use the 'Letters and Sounds' document to plan our phonics teaching and we aim for the majority of children to be confident up to phase 6 by the time they leave Year Two.
If children need extra support with their phonics learning we offer a range of intervention sessions and groups to help them progress further. If they are not confident up to phase 6 by the time they leave Year Two we offer a range of support for them to achieve this while they are in Key Stage Two.
What is phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. They are taught how to:
- Recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes (s, a, t)
- Identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make – such as “sh” or “oo”
- Blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word
Key information:
- It’s important that you use the pure sound when pronouncing sounds with your child as this will support them in hearing the sounds when segmenting and blending simple words.
- When we teach the children a new sound we also teach them the letter name for this sound.
- We refer to two letter sounds as a digraph. The children will be taught that a digraph is two letters, one sound.
- We refer to three letter sounds as a trigraph. The children will be taught that a trigraph is three letters, one sound.
Letters and Sounds
Here at Fernvale, we teach phonics using the “Letters and Sounds” programme. We use the Jolly Phonics to reinforce the actions for each sound. Children have a phonics lesson every day, which is at least 20 minutes long. The children are split into groups according to the phonic level they have reached. Phonics is taught in six phases:
Phase 1
Children do a lot of preparation to prepare them for phonic work. Children ‘tune’ into sounds, patterns and rhymes around them. It’s important to sing songs and nursery rhymes.
Phase 2
Phonic work begins.
- Children learn 19 sounds – s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f ff l ll ss
- They learn to blend the sounds together to make words.
- They learn to segment the sounds to spell words.
- Children begin to read VC (two letter) words – at, in, on
- CVC (3 letter) words – man, dog, sat
- They read “tricky” words – words which you just have to learn – the, why, come
Phase 3
Phonic work continues
- Children learn another 25 sounds – j v w x y z zz qu ch sh th ng ai ee igh oa oo ar ur ow oi ear air ure er
- They continue to read CVC words and practise blending and segmenting as in Phase 2
- They read more “tricky” (Common exception) words.
Phase 4
No new sounds are introduced in this phase.
- Children continue to practise spelling and reading words containing adjacent consonants – went, lost, stop.
- They read polysyllabic words – thunderstorm, chimpanzee, champion.
Phase 5
The children learn about sounds which are spelt in more than one way – ee (in seen) and ea (in seat), ou(in round) and ow (in down).
- They are encouraged to broaden their knowledge of sounds for use in reading and spelling.
- They will become quicker at recognising sounds which have more than one letter.
- They will become better at blending the sounds to make words.
- They read more “tricky” words.
Phase 6
The children will be able to read hundreds of words, doing this in three ways:
- They will be reading words automatically if they are very familiar.
- They will learn about tenses, suffixes, prefixes
- Their reading will become increasingly fluent, but spelling is known to lag behind. This phase addresses this.
Common Exception Words
These are words which the children will come across many times during their reading. They need to read these quickly on sight. They are taught alongside the sounds in each of the phases.
What can you do at home?
- Ask your child what sounds they have been learning at school.
- When reading with your child encourage them to use sounds to break down the word and then blend them together to read it.
- Read with your child and read stories to them each day. Other family members can help too!
- Word games such as “I Spy” can be an enjoyable way of teaching children about sounds.
- Encourage your child to read words all around them such as your shopping list, signs and adverts.
This you tube clip shows examples of how to pronounce each sound in a 'pure' manner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v-1s&safe=active . We encourage sounds to be pure as it helps greatly with spelling and reading.
In all classes we strive to plan a range of exciting hands on lessons which build on the skills needed to achieve each phase of the phonics programme. We subscribe to a range of web based resources which bring the phonics lessons alive with games and challenges. Some of these are then made available to parents to use at home.
We offer all parents an invitation to a phonics and reading meeting as their child starts at Fernvale, here we model how we teach the skills of blending and segmenting and show how parents can continue the learning at home.
Each of our class pages has more detail on how we teach phonics. Please click here to go to our Class Pages