Transcript Help At Home with Phonics

Phonics Workshop for Parents
December 2015
Sandcastles
A skill for life.
Reading is the access to lots of
knowledge.
• Sandcastles children have spent the last 3
months learning some of the
sounds/phonemes used in the English
language.
s a t p i n m d g
o c k ck e u r h b f ff
A skill for life.
• They are at the beginning of an exciting
journey. For many of them, how quickly they
develop as an independent reader depends on
how much input comes from home.
Games
• Whilst they are still learning new sounds:
Play lots of sound games/listening skills games
– Oral segmenting (saying words and splitting them
into individual sounds)
– Oral blending (saying sounds and making words )
– Talk about sounds and encourage children to hear
them in words. (mirror with sound cards)
– Model good listening and good spoken English.
Exaggerate hidden sounds.
WOW words
• Extend your child’s vocabulary. Children will use
fantastic WOW words if we introduce them.
• Think big. Have high expectations. A child can
understand long, descriptive words if we explain
what they mean and how we use them. Give
them examples and ask them if they can think of
their own examples e.g. magnificent,
extraordinary, delicious, fabulous,
• Use structured, comprehensible sentences that
children can verbally copy.
More Games.
• Daily – use lots of visual aids e.g. Display boards.
Use objects that children can relate to. Point out
sounds when reading to your child – at every
opportunity, in school, when shopping etc. The
children will then start to point them out to you –
Celebrate this!! It is an exciting time for them. Be
excited for them.
• Write the sound down – play with it – use it in
different words. Show your child that the sound
can also be found in the middle and ends of
words.
Word Build
• Play games involving building words using the
phonemes the child knows.
• If you can read it – can you write it?
• Link reading, writing and talking together.
• As the children progress up the school, it will
be expected that they write lovely, descriptive
stories using imaginative language. They
cannot do this if they have a limited
vocabulary.
Making conversation
• One study (Hart and Risley, 2006) found that the
significant variability in children's vocabulary at the age
of three was strongly related to the amount of talking
parents did with their children. Specifically, they found
that parents who used 'conversational' speech with
their children (talking about what they did, what they
saw and what they thought about what they did and
what they saw-- basically just making conversation with
their children on a regular and on-going basis) had
children with significantly higher vocabularies and IQs
at age three than children whose parents used mainly
directive speech (get this, do that, come over here).
Why are we learning these sounds?
Sometimes it is not obvious to a child.
What is the point?
• So that they can read. e.g. ME a story, read labels
in supermarkets, read story books, read comics.
• What do we make when we blend sounds
together – words!
• And we put words together to make sentences.
Show them what this means in the books that
you read to them. How many words are there in
the sentences in their books?
Tricky Sticky Bug Words
• Words that cannot be phonetically
sounded out. They just have to be learnt
(visual recognition).
• See list in Reading Record Book (e.g.
the, to, no, go, I)
Nonsense Words
• Words that make no sense in the
English language.
• Thanks to the Year 1 Phonics screening
test, children now need to be able to
phonetically sound these words out with
confidence.
Turn it all off!
No app can replace your lap!!!
• Try and have as few distractions as possible when
reading. Turn the television off.
• Be in control. Children will sometimes find any
excuse not to read. Be insistent! This is quiet
reading time before bed.
Books to read at home.
• READ EVERY DAY (sorry about the capitals but
this is important). At whatever stage of their
reading journey, all children enjoy listening to
stories. Please do not replace this with a T.V.
programme or ipad.
• Most progress is made when children read and
are read to daily.
• Model good reading e.g. Bedtime story.
• If a child cannot read they struggle to access the
curriculum.
Stories
• Talk about the pictures, introduce new words, talk
about punctuation and use expression.
• There are many different strategies all leading to the
ultimate goal. Using the picture, reading whole words
by sight, predicting the remainder of the sentence etc.
They are all important strategies.
• Once your child comes home with their reading
scheme book please continue to read their story books
as well. This is really important. They help to extend
their vocabulary and improve their speaking and
listening skills.
Reading Books
• We have begun to issue reading scheme books
to children who are able to hear and make a
blend. It is important that they reach this
stage first before being issued with these
books as it can be frustrating for them (and
you) if they take them home and cannot read
them.
• Books with pictures.
Introducing New Books
• When hearing a child read a new book we always
introduce the book before the child reads it.
• The reasons for this are that the book should not
feel like a test. When you go through the whole
book with the child you are sharing the pleasure
of the story and information within the book. Any
fear of a new book is dispelled.
• Going through the story reminds the child that
there is a storyline and should encourage the
child to listen to his/her own reading, and not
just approach the book word by word.
Book Introductions contd.
• When you introduce the story it allows you to
remove any obstacles for a smooth read – for
example – any obviously unfamiliar vocab.
• Also it allows you to focus on any good
reading behaviour from that child for example
that they look at the picture to cross check the
meaning with the text. Etc.
What Next?
• Once the book has been introduced, the child
can then read it, or part of it (the higher the
level the longer the book).
• Try not to correct the child when they are in
full flow. At an appropriate moment take the
child back to a mistake and see if they can put
it right, giving them positive encouragement
all the way. These are known as prompts.
Prompts
• Prompts are what you might say to the child
before reading or after they have read to you
to help them focus on their skills.
• You are prompting for the child to use an
integrated approach to reading so that they
don’t rely purely on phonics to decode a word.
• Children need to remember to listen to
themselves read to check that the story
makes sense.
Prompt Cards
• Here is a prompt card for you. You can use
these to help your feedback to the child.
• These will help you be more specific with your
praise to the child so that instead of saying
“Good Reading!” you might think the child
had thought hard about the story as well as
looked carefully at the words so you may say
“Good Reading! I really liked the way you used
the picture to help you.”
“Good
looking!”
Pace
We try and encourage the children to read at a good pace to
help improve their processing skills.
Pace and putting words together are really important from
really early on.
When a child can read with good pace the meaning of the
story is not lost.
Selecting books that have repetition and rhyme will help
increase the pace of a read.
Try and encourage pace from early on using prompts from the
prompt card and also modelling sentences of the book and
then asking the child to read the same sentence.
Fluency and phrasing
• This is slightly different to pace, in that it
focuses on words that naturally go together,
as they do when we speak.
Mum and
Dad!
• Eg. “Come on!”
• “Mother Bear”
• “Teddy Bear”
• Good fluency can help children to decode a
word that may come next.
Expression
• This is linked with the punctuation in the text.
• In the book introduction, try and bring in the
importance of changing your voice according
to punctuation.
• Use your prompt card to help you , for
example. “ How could you change your
voice?” or
• “How can you change your voice when you
see these marks on the page?”
AND FINALLY!!
• Try and let the child correct their own mistakes by
using prompts such as
• “You said.......Does that make sense?
• This way you are encouraging independence in the
young reader
• Always make the reading together a relaxed and happy,
positive experience for the child.
• Thank you very much. We are very grateful to you for
your time hearing children read at home. Please come
and see us if you have any concerns or questions.
Christmas Homework
• Over the Christmas period play word building
games using the phonic cards. As well as
making up new words keep revisiting the old
ones so that your child becomes really familiar
with them. This builds up their confidence.
• For an extra challenge, ask your child to write
the words they have made up. Encourage
them to use Hamstreet Harry cursive script.