Dunsville Primary School

Phonics

 "Getting all children to read well, quickly" ELS

At Dunsville primary, we believe that phonics underpins the foundations of learning which enables children to become fluent readers and writers. We believe that Phonics has a high priority throughout the Foundation stage and Key Stage One as we value reading as a key life skill. We acknowledge that phonics teaches children how to decode letters into their respective sounds - a skill that is essential for children when learning to read unfamiliar words by themselves. As children progress with their phonics learning at Dunsville Primary, they learn to blend sounds to read unfamiliar vocabulary and segment words to support their spelling with increasing accuracy. We value the importance of these skills but we also recognise and encourage reading for pleasure, which starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills. We believe that phonics teaching should be systematic, discrete, practical and engaging. Through the use of consistent terminology by teachers, children and parents and the use of consistent resources we are giving repetition and reinforcement of learning to the children, allowing them to ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’.

The overarching aim for Phonics is for all pupils to be fluent readers and writers by the end of Key Stage One. We do this across our four year group stages;

• By the end of Nursery, children will be confident with oral blending and segmenting, using robot talk;
• By the end of Reception, children will be able to write one grapheme for every phoneme in the English language. Children will be becoming more confident when blending and segmenting words containing adjacent consonants and they will be able to read some words, including common exception words by sight;
• By the end of Year One, children will use their knowledge of alternative sounds with confidence, which will equip them to successfully pass the phonics screening check at the end of the year;
• By the end of Year Two, pupils should be proficient in their phonics knowledge which has enabled them to become more fluent readers and more accurate spellers.

At Dunsville, we follow the Essential Letters and Sounds programme. Essential Letters and Sounds has a systematic programme from Phase 1 to Phase 5, with opportunity to work 'beyond' Phase 5 in Year Two. As in ELS, our Nursery children work on their 7 aspects of Phonics over the year, which underpin the key listening skills that children need, prior to starting Phase 2 in Reception. 

Different phases of phonics are taught as the children progress through school. Here is a breakdown of what phase is taught in each of the year groups:

Nursery - Phase 1 

Reception - Phase 2, 3, 4 and an introduction to Phase 5 

Year 1 - Phase 5

Year 2 - Beyond Phase 5

What comes before reading?

Phase 1 

Phase One of Essential Letters and Sounds concentrates on developing children's speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2. The emphasis during Phase 1 is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills. Phase 1 is divided into seven aspects; Environmental sounds, Instrumental sounds, Body percussion, Rhythm and rhyme, Alliteration, Voice sounds and Oral blending.

By the end of Phase 1, the children will have been given various opportunities to develop their oral blending and segmenting skills. To practise oral blending, the teacher could say some sounds, such as d-o-g and then see whether the child can pick out the dog from a group of objects. For oral segmenting practice, the children will begin to use their 'robot arms' to practise sounding out words such as sock, cat, pig etc. Lots of practice is needed because Phase 1 underpins the learning that continues into the next phase of Essential Letters and Sounds.

 What can you do to help your chid before they begin to read?

 Whilst there are many aspects of Phase 1 phonics, there are lots of things that you can do before your child begins to read.

Children should learn to hear and experiment with sounds through play! When a child is playing they are fully involved in their learning. You can practise using robot talk at home by practising oral blending and segmenting.

Segment: is when you split a word up into its sounds (phonemes), you are "sounding it out" Eg. cat would be c-a-t.
Blending: is when you say the sounds (phonemes) together to make a word, you are pushing the sounds together. Eg. d-o-g (segment) dog (blend).

Another aspect that is important is encouraging a child's interest in books and reading! Experience shows that children benefit hugely by exposure to books from an early age

Here are some things you can do before reading:

1) Take your child outside on a listening walk – sit in the garden, the park, the beach, at home. What can they hear? Can they distinguish between the sounds they may hear in different places? Are the sounds the same? Are they different? 
2) Take a spoon or any beater and go on a drumming session outside, can you gather items together and listen to all of the different sounds you can make when you drum. Experiment with different drumming beats etc.
3) Make a shaker using different types of container. Fill it with bits and bobs from around the house.
4) Does your child have a favourite sound? Can you copy each others sounds? e.g. of waves crashing.
5) Story time: Read a familiar story book and change voice for different characters. Use loud, quiet, soft, hard voices.
6) Learn and sing familiar songs and rhymes (if you dont know any, Google some or even better have a look on Youtube). This old man, Old Mc Donald, Twinkle Twinkle, Incy Wincy Spider etc.

These aspects are valuable for your child's listening and attention and contribute towards your child's readiness to reading. 

As the children begin Phase 2 Phonics (in Reception) they begin to learn a phoneme for each of the graphemes.

Pure sounds

In order for the children to have great success in phonics, it is vital that they are introduced to the correct articulation of the phonemes as they are taught. Here is a video to demonstrate how the sounds should be pronounced. You will notice that the sounds are short, for example, instead of muh - 'm' is pronounced. The correct pronunciation is important, especially as the children are learning to blend to read words.

Phase 2 pronunciation 

Phase 3 pronunciation 

Phase 5 pronunciation 

Phase 2

In phase 2, graphemes and their phonemes are introduced. A set of letters are taught each week, one at a time. You will find that as the children begin to learn more phonemes, they will begin to build more words. Teachers use Seesaw to let parents know the graphemes that are being taught each week. The teacher will also use the voice tool to tell you the phoneme so that the pure sounds can be rehearsed at home. The children will begin to learn to blend to read words. For example they will sound out a word such as s-a-t and blend it together to read the word 'sat'.

In phase 2, children will also learn to segment to spell words such as  tap, cat, pat, pin, mat etc.

Children in Reception and Year One all have their own 'apply' workbooks where they are able to practise the letter formation and complete phonics activity tasks. Learning each of the new phonemes can be quite fast-paced and you will find that your child builds up a bank of phonemes and words quickly during the Reception year. 

Children participate in paired reading or a workbook activity, following the ELS scheme, where they are apply their taught knowledge into their reading.

The more that you read the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you'll go! Dr Seuss

Letter progression (one set per week)

Set 1: s a t p

Set 2: i n m d

Harder to read and spell words introduced: I, the, no

Set 3: g o c k

Harder to read and spell words introduced: put, of, is

Set 4: ck e u r

Harder to read and spell words introduced: to, go, into

Set 5: ss

Harder to read and spell words introduced: pull   

Set 6: h, b, f, ff, l, ll

Harder to read and spell words introduced: as his

Harder to read and spell words, also known as ‘tricky words’ are also taught in Phase 2; however, they need to be recognised and known because they cannot be sounded out using phonics (i.e. learn them off by heart!)

Here are some decodable words that the children will begin to read and spell throughout Phase 2 phonics. Harder to read and spell words are also taught throughout each phase however, we tell the children that they need to be recognised and known because they cannot be sounded out using phonics (i.e. learn them off by heart!)

Phase 3

Phase 3 is where the children are introduced to digraphs (2 letters making 1 sound) and trigraphs (3 letters making 1 sound). 

By the time children reach Phase 3, they will already be able to blend and segment words containing the 19 letters taught in Phase 2.

Phase 3 of ELS covers more than just the Phase 3 graphemes - we introduce some challenge from Phase 4 (in the form of adjacent consonants) alongside the Phase 3 teaching to extend children's sounding out and blending skills.

Set 7: j v w x

Harder to read and spell words introduced: he, she, buses

Set 8: y, z, zz, qu, ch

Harder to read and spell words introduced: we, me, be

Set 9: sh, th, ng, nk

Harder to read and spell words introduced: push

Set 10: ai, ee, igh, oa

Harder to read and spell words introduced: was, her

Set 11: adding –es (where there is no change to the root word)

Set 12

Harder to read and spell words introduced: my, you

Set 13: oo (book)

Set 14: ar, ur, oo (food), or

Harder to read and spell words introduced: they, all, are

Set 15: ow, oi, ear, air

Set 16: ure, er, ow

Harder to read and spell words introduced: ball, tall

Set 17:

Harder to read and spell words introduced: when, what

 The following sounds are also taught during Phase 3:

Decodable words can be broken down into their sounds by the child. More harder to read and spell words are taught in Phase 3 also. 

Phase 4

When children move onto Phase 4 in the summer term of Reception, they will have already been introduced to some of the words containing adjacent consonants as this challenge is introduced throughout Phase 3 teaching.

When children start Phase Four, they will know a grapheme for each of the 42 phonemes. They will be able to blend phonemes to read CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and segment in order to spell them.

Children will also have begun reading straightforward two-syllable words and simple captions, as well as reading and spelling some harder to read and spell words.

In Phase 4, no new graphemes are introduced. The main aim of this phase is to consolidate the children's knowledge and to help them learn to read and spell more words, such as CVCC, CCVC, CCVCC, CCCVC, CCCVCC and those with suffixes.

Children will practise adding the following suffixes to words:

-ed /ed/       -ed /t/    - ed /d/     -er    -est

The children will also learn more words with adjacent consonants, however they will have  previously been exposed to them throughout ELS so this will not be totally new learning for them.

 Harder to read and spell words taught in Phase 4:

Phase 5

In Phase 5, children will learn more graphemes and phonemes. For example, they already know ai as in rain, but now they will be introduced to ay as in day and a-e as in make. 

In the Summer term of Reception, children are introduced to Phase 5 for reading. They will learn 20 new GPCs and 16 new Harder to read and spell words. 

As the children enter Year One they will begin in the Autumn term by revising previously taught Phase 5 GPCs before learning 2 new GPCs and 9 new HRS words.

Alternative spellings for previously taught sounds are taught over the Spring term in Year One, where 49 new GPCs are taught as well as 4 new HRS words. The children will continue to practise oral blending as well as revising all of their previously taught content from Phase 2, Phase 3 and Phase 4 until they are confident. You will find that as your child becomes a more confident reader, they will rely less on the phonic strategies to read words and they will build up their fluency when reading.

 Harder to read and spell words taught in Phase 5:

All of the Phonics content taught in Early Years and Year One contributes to the Government Phonics Screening Check that takes place at the end of Year One.

Beyond Phase 5

Once children have learned the Phase 5 content, they should be able to spell words phonetically although not always correctly. In the Summer 2 Term of Year 1, children should have proficient knowledge of phonics which will equip them to successfully pass their phonics screening check. Children will then work on 'beyond phase 5'

Once children are ‘beyond Phase 5’, the main aim is for children to become more fluent readers and more accurate spellers. They will be able to read many familiar words automatically. When they come across unfamiliar words they will in many cases be able to decode them quickly and quietly using their well-developed sounding and blending skills. With more complex unfamiliar words, they will often be able to decode them by sounding them out.

With ELS, phonics teaching does not stop at the end of Year 1, but continues as children move through the school, with links being made between their GPC knowledge and spelling, revision of all previously taught GPCs for reading and spelling and wider reading, spelling and writing curriculum.

ELS overview and progression map - Phase 1 to 5

Phonics screening check 

At the end of Year 1, children throughout the country will take part in a 'Phonics Screening Check' in June. Children in Year 2 will also take the check f they did not achieve the required result when in Year 1. 

What happens during the test?

The test contains 40 words. Each child sits one to one and reads each word aloud with a familiar adult, usually their teacher. The test contains 20 real words and 20 pseudo/alien/nonsense words. A little alien picture is next to the alien words to show your child that it is a pseudo word. Pseudo words are included because they will be new to all pupils; they do not favour children with good vocabulary knowledge or visual memory of words.

Your child's result regarding the screening check will be in your child's Summer term report at the end of the year where it will confirm whether your child has met the standard threshold. Children who do not achieve the expected level will retake the test when they are in year 2. 

In each Phase of Phonics harder to read and spell words are introduced - these words cannot be sounded out using phonics and therefore we tell the children to ‘take a picture of them’ and remember them. 

These videos will help your child to remember the harder to read and spell words, which are also known as 'tricky words'

What can I do to help my child?

• Read at home regularly; we recommend at least 3 times per week
• Practise your phonics sounds regularly with your child, build words and have a go at making real and alien words 

Use these websites to play some games with your child:

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=phonics 

Further information about ELS can be found on their website: https://essentiallettersandsounds.org/ 

Dunsville Primary School parent presentation