Transcript Letters and Sounds - School

Letters and Sounds
An approach to synthetic phonics.
What is Synthetic Phonics?
• Focus on learning ‘tools’ for reading.
• ‘Phonics first and fast’
• Differing from approaches that focus on the
whole word approach – ‘look and say’.
Letters and Sounds
• Broken into 6 Phases of increasing complexity.
• Focuses on skills needed to read and spell.
• Is meant to be taught throughout Reception
and KS1
• Was introduced by the last Government as an
example scheme.
• Other schemes are available, such as Jolly
Phonics and Letterland.
The Skills:
•
•
•
•
Grapheme/Phoneme correspondence.
Blending
Segmenting
Learning ‘tricky words’.
Skill one:
Grapheme/Phoneme correspondence (GPC)
GRAPHEME = a written symbol representing a
sound. (LETTER PATTERN)
PHONEME = a sound that exists in a language.
(SOUND)
GPC = matching the two up!
Skill one:
In English graphemes (LETTER PATTERN) are made up of letters
or groups of letters
Using one letter (Single letter sounds) went
week
Using two letters separated ( Split Digraph) wine
Using three letters together ( Trigraph) might
Using two letters together (Digraph)
(Using four letters together ( Quadgraph?)
eight)
Skill one:
Phonemes
In English we use around 44 phonemes (depending on our accent)
But there are several graphemes for each phoneme!
might
(articulation of phonemes clip)
wine
sky
Skill 2:
Blending for reading
• Identifying the phonemes in a word and blending them
together to make a word!
• Sound buttons are a common approach
week
(Phase 2 Blending clip)
trip
Skill 3:
Segmenting for spelling
Involves breaking a heard word into its
phonemes. Later this leads to matching
graphemes for spelling.
(Phase 4 Segmenting clip)
Skill 4:
Learning ‘Tricky words’
• Used to be known as ‘High Frequency Words’ or ‘Sight
Words’
• They are common words that are not spelt with a common
spelling pattern
• Each Phase has its own set of ‘tricky words’
• Letters and Sounds suggests that we should highlight the
uncommon spelling pattern to the children to reduce
miscommunication.
Phase 4 Tricky words clip
Phase Structure
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Phase 5
Phase 6
But of course not all children learn at the same rate!
Phase 1
Taught in the very early years, all to do with
recognising sounds in the environment etc.
Vast majority of our children are beyond this
on entry.
Phase 2
s
a
t
p
i
o
c
k
ck
e
f
ff
no
to
(Reading only)
ll
l
go
n
u
ss
the
m
d
g
r
h
b
Phase 3
j
v
w
x
y
z
ee
ch
sh
th
ng
ai
oo
ar
or
ur
ow
he
you
me
her
she
we
they
zz
qu
igh
oi
ear
be
was
all
are
(Reading only but spelling Phase 2 tricky words)
oa
er
air
my
Phase 4
• This phase doesn’t introduce any new graphemes, only
consolidates the previously learnt ones.
• Introduces a focus on words with adjacent consonants
that can easily be mis-spelt e.g. dump
some
one
said
come
do
so
were
when
have
there
out
like
little
what
(Reading only but spelling Phase 3 tricky words)
Phase 5
ay
oy
ea
aw
a_e
wh
ou
oe
au
e_e
i_e
ir
o_e
ph
ie
ue
u_e
• Phase 5 also teaches different pronunciations of
graphemes for example: find, wind.
• Should be able to read and spell all 100 most
frequent words (which include all the previous
tricky words).
ew
Phase 6
This Phase focuses on teaching grammatical
spelling patterns such as adding -ed for the
past tense.
What can I do at home?
Read with your child
 Don’t worry that you may not be ‘doing
it right.’
 Be prepared to spend longer with some
books than others.
 Read any ‘notes for adults’ in the books.
 Get your child into the habit of looking
at the words first rather than relying too
much on the pictures.
Write with your child
 Encourage your children to write at
every opportunity.
 Encourage them to sound out the words
they want to write and worry about the
correct spelling later.
 Practise the spellings of words that are
sent home to learn.