year 1 phonics parent information session october 2019
TRANSCRIPT
Meeting objectives
• To understand what the Y1 Phonics Screening Check is
• To have an overview of how we teach phonics at school.
• To look at cursive handwriting
• How you as parents/ families can help your child at home
• To answer any of your questions
•Children are taught to read by breaking down
words into separate sounds or ‘phonemes’
(segmenting). They are then taught how to blend
these sounds together to read the whole word
•Children are encouraged to use these sounds to
read, spell and write in other lessons
What is phonics?
•Spoken English is generally thought to use 44 sounds or
‘phonemes’. Twenty of these are vowel sounds and 24 are
consonant sounds.
•Phoneme – smallest unit of sound in a word for example
c-a-t in cat or sh-o-p in shop.
•Blend – two or three single sounds but said together very
quickly as in bl, cr, dr, gl, thr . Make sure that the
children are very clear that these still count as separate
sounds.
• Digraph- 2 letters representing one new sound –
eg c and h saying ch in chop or o and a saying o in coat
• Trigraph- 3 letters making one new sound – eg igh
saying i in night and a, i and r saying air in fair
• Split digraphs- 2 vowels making one new sound with a
consonant in between (magic e) – shine the i and the e
making the i sound
Terminology
• It is really important that children learn the names of the
letters as well as the sounds they represent. By the end of
Foundation Stage children are expected to know and be able to
use both sounds and letter names.
• When segmenting a word like Tuesday T-ue-s-d-ay it has 5
sounds but 7 letters. Children must refer to ay as the a sound
and not a y when blending and segmenting. Similarly the word
flower f-l-ow–er has 4 sounds but it has 6 letters
• Children need to continuously revisit the sound patterns they
have learnt to ensure that they are not just learning them for
their weekly spelling test.
Important points to remember
• Children really begin to struggle with phonics when they are
presented with different ways of representing one sound. This is
why continuous revision of sound patterns is essential.
e.g. the i sound can be written as:
ie, igh, y at the end of a word, or i magic e
• With time and practise children will begin to recognise and
apply patterns and rules for example with the a sound ay is
used at the end of a word and ai is used in the middle of a
word
e.g p-l-ay and r-ai-n
Important points to remember
• We often use the idea of sound buttons with the children. Give
your child a word and ask them to write the sound buttons
underneath. A small circle indicates a single sound and a large
oval represents a digraph or trigraph. For example
octopus rainbow
Sound Buttons
• We also use these phoneme frames as a strategy to help
children distinguish between different sounds in a word. One
sound fits into a box for example
• Draw a phoneme frame if your child is struggling to spell a
word. Remember the number of boxes matches the number of
sounds in a word and NOT the number of letters.
• Encourage your child to put in the sounds they already know.
Phoneme Frame
b oa t
Useful websites to help your child at home.
www.letters-and-sounds.co.ukinteractive games and resources Mr Thorne does phonics
Clips available on You Tube
BBC Words and Picturesinteractive games and resources
Phonicsplay.co.uk interactive games
• Espresso has a fantastic
section on Phonics with
video clips for each
individual sound.
• Introduced 5 years ago
• Every Year 1 child in the country will take the
assessment in the same week
• Starting week beginning 8th June
• The check is very similar to tasks the children
already complete during phonics lessons
What is the screening
check?
Nonsense Words
• 40 words
• 20 real/ 20 nonsense
• Nonsense words have an
Alien/ monster image next
to them
You will be informed in the
Summer report as to whether
You child has met or has
not met the required standard
• 1:1 with a teacher
• 2 to 10 minutes
• Rest breaks if necessary
• In a quiet room
How will it be carried out?
How school will support?
• Daily phonics 20 minutes
• Differentiated groups
• Send home spellings weekly to learn to read and spell
consolidating sounds taught in school
• On going assessments every half term/ sounds and tricky
words
• Interventions to boost gaps from now and throughout the
year
• At St George’s we use the cursive style of handwriting. We have
found that this style has had a huge impact on the quality of
handwriting across the school.
• We teach the children to write every letter with an entry and
exit stroke. This is a much better foundation for teaching joined
handwriting as they get older. Children are taught that
every letter starts on the line
Handwriting