Early Years Foundation StagePhonics

PhonicsLetters and Sounds

• UK Phonics Programme - 2007

• Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics

• A systematic way of teaching phonics in the school: • From Nursery – Year 2+

Letters and SoundsPhonics terminology

Terminology Description example

phoneme a single unit of sound 44 phonemes in the English language

grapheme written form of a phoneme

digraph a single sound/phoneme represented by two letters

wh, ch, th, sh

tri-graph a single sound/phoneme represented by three letters

igh, air, ear, ure

Split digraph when a vowel sounds is split by a consonant

a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_ewrote – the o-e here make oe sound split by the tlake – the a-e here make ae sound split by the kComplete – the e-e here make ee split by the t

segmenting how you spell a word c-a-t / d-o-g / m-a-t / p-i-g /

blending how you read a word cat / dog / mat / pig

Letters and SoundsPhase 1

Your child will be learning to:

• Have fun with sounds• Listen carefully• Develop their vocabulary• Speak confidently to you, other

adults and children• Tune into sounds• Listen and remember sounds• Talk about sounds• Understand that spoken words

are made up of different sounds

Phase 1 is made up of 7 different areas:

• Environmental sounds• Instrumental sounds• Body percussion• Rhythm and rhyme• Alliteration (words that begin with

the same sound)• Voice sounds• Oral blending and segmenting

Letters and Sounds: Phase 2 and Phase 3

In Reception, children begin to formally learn the letters to sound correspondence in the English language.

Phonics sessions are fun daily sessions involving lots of speaking, listening and games.The letter sounds are not introduced in alphabetical order.

The sounds are delivered in the sequenced order of the Letters and Sounds.

Phase 2 Phase 3

Set 1: s, a, t, pSet 2: i, n, m, dSet 3: g, o, c, kSet 4: ck, e, u, rSet 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Set 6: j, v, w, xSet 7: y, z, zz, quDigraphs: ch, sh, th, ng ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

Letters and SoundsPhase 4 – 6

Phase 4 Reception/ Y1

Phase 5Y1

Phase 6Y2+

This phase consolidates Phase 3 digraphs andintroduces consonant blends such as st, pr, dr, cl etc. These are taught as blended though s-t-o-p – stop or with a digraph sh-e-l-f – shelf.

Children will be taught new graphemes and alternative pronunciations for these graphemes.Vowel digraphs: wh, ph, ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, ew, oe, auSplit digraphs: a_e,

e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e

The focus is on learning spelling rules for suffixes.

-s -es -ing-ed -er -est-y -en -ful-ly -ment -ness

Learning the sounds

Segmenting and blending

Segmenting - breaking down words for spelling.

Blending – building words from phonemes to read

c a t

d o g

Segmenting and blending

i t

o n

a n d

g o t

a t

b a ck -

sh o p-

What does a phonic lesson look like?

Revisit/review Flashcards to practice phonemes learnt so far.

Teach Teach new phoneme.

Practice Practice reading, spelling and writing words with new letter.

Apply Read word and captions – segment and blend.Eg: a cat in the hatthe dog on the logDad and Sam

Ways to help at home

Read stories together. Most powerful way to extend a child’s language, vocabulary, imagination…. and awareness of sounds and reading.

Games such as i-spy for hearing and using initial sounds. Reading games – pairs and lotto.Writing games – writing in the air, writing in chalk, magnetic letters, bath

paints. Fun practical ways without always using pencil paper.With learning any new skill, little and often is the best policy and make it fun.

Useful websites• https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks Phonics information for segmenting

and blending to read- a very popular show with the children.

• Mr Thorne does phonics – on Youtube

• https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

Learning letter formation

Letter school app

Write in shaving foam or rice.

Answers to questions asked

https://youtu.be/_s-1sxzjPX8

This is the link to the songs and actions from Jolly Phonics which can be used to support

visual learners. This link has all of the phase 2-5 sounds but the alphabet sounds are in the

order we teach them at the beginning.

Oxford Owl website has some Project X books as ebooks if you want a change from Biff and

Chip books. We also try to send some Ruth Miskin books home as a change but we do not

have a full set and, due to quarantining of books, this will not be possible every week.

The writing expectation for the end of Reception is that the children will be able spell

tricky words for Phase 2 (the, I, to, go, no, he) and at least some phase 3 ones (e.g. she,

me, be, we, he, was). Children make phonetically plausible attempts at spelling simple

words.

We will put the focus sounds and tricky words we are learning in class on the weekly

learning map.