PhonicsDeveloping Professional Knowledge

Lewisham Primary Strategy

October 2006

Enunciation

• Teaching phonics requires a technical skill in enunciation

• Phonemes should be articulated clearly and precisely

Some definitions:

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a

word.

A grapheme Letter(s) representing a phoneme.

t ai igh

Some definitions:

Blending:

Recognising the letter-sounds in a

written word, for example c-u-p, and

merging or synthesising them in the order

in which they are written to pronounce

the word ‘cup’.

Some definitions:

Oral blending:

Hearing a series of spoken sounds and merging them together to make a spoken word. No text is used.

For example, When a teacher calls out ‘b-u-s’, the children say ‘bus’.

This skill is usually taught before blending and reading printed words.

Some definitions:

Segmenting:

Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken

word (eg h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating

letters for each sound to form the word ‘him’.

Some definitions:

Digraph:

Two letters, which make one sound.

A consonant digraph contains 2 consonants:

sh ck th ll

A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel:

ai ee ar oy

Some definitions:

Trigraph:

Three letters, which make one sound.

igh dge

Some definitions:

Split digraph:

• A digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent – e.g. make

Some definitions: CVC words

CVC words – clarifying some misunderstandings

Words sometimes wrongly identified as CVC

bow few saw her

Words sometimes wrongly identified as not CVC

bead sheep coat coin

Consonant digraphs

ll ss ff zz hill puff fizz

sh ch th wh ship chat thin

ck ng sing sock

Examples of ccvc, cvcc, cccvc and ccvcc

b l a c k s t r o ng

c c v c c c c v c

f e l t b l a n k

c v c c c c v c c

Some definitions:

Synthetic phonics:

“Synthetic phonics refers to an approach to the teaching of reading in which the phonemes [sounds] associated with particular graphemes [letters] are pronounced in isolation and blended together (synthesised). For example, children are taught to take a single-syllable word such as cat apart into its three letters, pronounce a phoneme for each letter in turn /k, æ, t/, and blend the phonemes together to form a word. Synthetic phonics for writing reverses the sequence: children are taught to say the word they wish to write, segment it into its phonemes and say them in turn, for example /d,o, g/, and write a grapheme for each phoneme in turn to produce the written word, dog.”

Definition adopted by The Rose Review

OHT L 4.6

Phonics skills

Segment to spell

Blend to read

Segmenting into Phoneme

shelf

dress

think

string

sprint

flick

A segmenting activity

A segmenting activity

s

A segmenting activity

s l

A segmenting activity

s l i

A segmenting activity

s l i p

Alphabetic knowledge

1. Phoneme smallest unit of sound in speech can be written down as graphemes

2. Phonemes can be represented by 1 or more than one letter – digraph, trigraph

3. Some phonemes can be written in more than one way

4. The same letters can represent more than one phoneme.

1.1

The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way

burn first term hear work

/ae/ /ee/ /ie/ /oe/ /ue/

/oo/ /ow/ /oi/ /ar/ /au/

Certain representations of a phoneme are

more likely in initial/medial/final position in

monosyllabic words.

• Work in pairs or maximum group of 3• Use HO7 and word cards from envelope• Sort the words into the correct columns, according to the

position of /ae/ in each word.• Underline the grapheme representing /ae/ in each word.• When all the words have been sorted, try and formulate

2 simple rules:1. For representing /ae/ in initial or medial

position.2. For representing /ae/ in final position.

Activity

1. The best bets for representing /ae/ at the beginning and in the middle of a word are a-e and ai.

2. The best bet for representing /ae/ at the end of a word is ay.

Spelling

• There are patterns/regularities which help to determine choices or narrow possibilities – for example for each vowel phoneme some di/trigraphs are more frequently used before certain consonants than others.

• Children need to explore these patterns through word investigations

• Teachers need to understand these patterns in order to structure their teaching and design or select appropriate activities

The same grapheme may represent more than one phoneme

meat bread

he bed

sew new

cow low

Key messages…

• The Rose Review recommended that whatever phonic programme is in use by the school, it should have a systematic progression with clear expectations by teachers and practitioners of the expected pace of teaching and learning.

“It is hardly surprising that training to equip those who are responsible for beginner readers with a good understanding of the core principles and skills of teaching phonic work, including those responsible for intervention programmes, has emerged as a critical issue.”

The Rose Review