Phonics
What is Phonics?
Words are made up of small units of sounds called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to hear and recognise the sounds that make up each word, for example in the word cat we can hear each sound c-a-t. The teaching of phonics helps to support children to be able to read and spell words.
In our phonic sessions we aim to teach children the three main aspects:
GPCs (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence)
Children are taught all the phonemes in the English language and the different ways of writing them down. These sounds are taught in a particular order. The first sounds to be taught are: s, a, t, p.
Blending
Children are taught to say the sounds in a word and blend them together to hear what the word is. This is a vital skill in learning to read.
Segmenting
Children are also taught to segment words. Children are encouraged to break a word down to hear the phonemes (sounds). This is a vital skill in spelling.
When does my child learn Phonics?
In Reception, we have a 20 minute phonics session each morning. We learn a different sound each day and explore the different words containing this sound. We then practise blending phonemes to read words and sentences and segmenting words to spell through fun activies such as Picnic on Pluto and Buried Treasure.
What can I do to help?
It is important for your child to practice their phonics at every opportunity. However, it is vital you model the correct sounds. We have added a video to the bottom of the page to help you learn the sounds with your child.
Phonics is an enjoyable activity for you and your child to learn at home, with fun songs and actions and games to play. By searching for Jolly Phonics on YouTube you can sing-a-long to the fun songs and learn the actions to represent each sound. PhonicsPlay is an enjoyable website to share with your child where you can explore free phonics games such as Picnic on Pluto, Buried Treasure and Dragon's Den.
We have added videos and links to the bottom of the page. If you have any further questions about Phonics or other fun activities please ask.
Whilst the children are at home over the coming weeks. They can access games for free by logging in on the website phonicsplay.co.uk
Username: march20
Password: home
Please anticipate it may not a successful login every time due to high demand but if you get to enjoy the games, great!