Phonics at St Bega's
Subject Lead: Mrs K Robertson
"In the daily phonics lessons, our children are learning about the sounds which we speak and how we write them. We do this to make them better readers and spellers. We work on this daily because English is a difficult language for all of us to read and spell."
At St Bega's, even in the Nursery we are getting our little learners to listen carefully to the sounds which we speak from an early stage. From the start of Reception, we build on this work and teach the children how to write the sounds using letters. We use 'Sounds Write' which is a systematic phonics programme. This is taught on a daily basis from Reception Class until the end of KS1 (Y2). Beyond this, phonics is taught to those children who have been identified as still requiring some support with reading and spelling as they continue through KS2 developing fluency and accuracy.
The teaching of phonics is progressive and allows the children to rehearse and review previous learning whilst they are also learning new sounds and spellings of those sounds.This enables the children to know more and remember more.
To be fluent and accurate readers and spellers we need to have conceptual knowledge (understanding), code knowledge (of letters and sounds) and to develop specific skills.
Conceptual Knowledge:
- Letters are symbols (spellings) that represent sounds.
- A sound may be spelled by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. (Dog, street, night, dough).
- The same sound can be spelled in more than one way. (Rain, break, gate, stay).
- Many spellings can represent more than one sound. (Head, seat, break).
Skills:
- Blending – the ability to push sounds together to build words. (/k/ /a/ /t/ = cat)
- Segmenting – the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words. (pig: /p/ /i/ /g/).
- Phoneme manipulation – the ability to insert sounds into and delete sounds out of words. (This skill is necessary to test out alternatives for the spellings that represent more than one sound) (spelling Is it /o/ as in hot, /oe/ as in no, /u/ as in son?)
The programme starts with what children acquire naturally, and from a very early age, the sounds of their own language. We teach that letters represent those sounds when we read and write. The programme is taught through specifically targeted units of work and within each lesson children will develop skills in reading and writing/spelling.
Alphabet Code Knowledge – Initial and Extended:
Our youngest children in Nursery learn to discriminate sounds at every opportunity. In Reception Class, our children begin work on the Initial Code. Within this Code, they will learn to blend, segment and manipulate sounds in words written with a single letter and a limited number of digraphs (2 letters spelling 1 sound) so they can read and spell them. In Year 1, the children will then move on to the Extended Code. (one sound but different spellings and one spelling but representing different sounds).
Progression in Phonics
How you can support your child at home to read and spell.
Useful information and websites which will help you to support your child at home.
How to say the sounds precisely
A free course for parents/carers
We encourage all parents/carers to access the free Sounds-Write online course so that they are well informed about how best to support their children with reading and spelling at home.
Please visit https://sounds-write.co.uk/support-for-parents-and-carers/
The course will show you how to:
- help your child take their first steps in reading and spelling
- understand how to help your child build, write and read simple cvc (consonant, vowel, consonant) words
- understand how to correct your child when they make a mistake in their reading or writing simple words
- have a basic understanding of how phonics works
Sounds-Write App
This App has been specifically designed to work with an iPad. The app offers a variety of activities to develop the skills of blending and segmenting, sound spelling correspondence, word reading and writing and some sentences reading and writing. Visit the Sounds-Write website to learn more.