Dunsville Primary School

Phonics

At Dunsville Primary, children learn phonics throughout Early Years and Key Stage 1. Phonics is taught daily, in short sessions so that the children can build up and practise the skills they need to use in reading and writing. Phonics teaches children how to decode letters into their respective sounds - a skill that is essential for them to read unfamiliar words by themselves.

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 and 4

Year 1 - Phase 5

Year 2 - Phase 6

At Dunsville, we follow the Letters and Sounds programme which can be found here:

What comes before reading?

 Whilst there are many aspects of Phase 1 phonics, there are lots of things that you can do before your child begins to read. These aspects are valuable for your child's listening and attention and contribute towards your child's readiness to reading. 

Phase 1 

Phase One of 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. Each aspect contains three strands: tuning into sounds (auditory discrimination), listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing) and talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension).

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 Letters and Sounds.

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

In phase 2 graphemes and their sounds are introduced. A set of letters are taught each week, one at a time. Here at Dunsville, the children are given a set of letter cards each time a new grapheme is taught and they put them in their 'phonics wallet' in their bookbag. You will find that as the children begin to learn more sounds, they will begin to build more words. The children will begin to learn to blend to read the 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 are given opportunities to build the words using magnetic letters and write them on whiteboards, in sand and on paper. 

Learning each of the new sounds can be quite fast-paced and you will find that your child builds up a bank of sounds and words quickly during the Reception year. 

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

Set 3: g o c k

Set 4: ck e u r

Set 5: h b f, ff l, ll ss              

Here are some decodable words that the children will begin to read and spell throughout Phase 2 phonics. Tricky words are also taught in Phase ; however, tricky words 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.

Over the twelve weeks which Phase 3 is expected to last, twenty-five new graphemes are introduced (one at a time).

Set 6: j v w x

Set 7: y z, zz qu

 The following sounds are also taught during Phase 3:

During Phase 3, children will also learn the letter names using an alphabet song, although they will continue to use the sounds when decoding words.

Decodable words can be broken down into their sounds by the child. More tricky words are taught in Phase 3 also. 

Phase 4

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 tricky 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 words which have adjacent consonants, such as trap, string and milk.

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. 

Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will be introduced, e.g. ea in tea, head and break.  

Phase 6

By the time children begin Phase 6 they should be able to spell words phonetically although not always correctly. In Phase Six 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.

In each Phase of Phonics tricky 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. We play lots of games to try and remember these words by sight. For example, tricky word bingo, tricky word dash, chalking outdoors etc. 

These videos will help your child to remember the tricky words...

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. 

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