PowerPoint Presentation

Reading and Writing Phonics WorkshopRECEPTION PARENTS1What is phonics?Phonics is the teaching and learning involved in helping your children know all the letter sounds that help them become fluent readers and writers.

We teach the children the pure letter sounds, for example p for pig. This is taught as a quiet sound as opposed to teaching the letter name as in the alphabet or puh.

We use the Letters and Sounds programme which teaches the children in phases: phase 1 to phase 6. In reception we work on phases 1 to 4. Phase 1 covers lots of rhyming, soundtalk, discriminating sounds and rhythm, whilst phases 2, 3 and 4 teach the children letter sounds that they use to read and write an increasingly more complex range of words.1)Explain what phonics is, the purpose and benefits of the children learning to read and write like this. Teaching the pure sound example of pig.2What are the benefits of teaching and learning phonics?

The main reason we teach the children phonics is so that we can equip them to read and spell/write words quickly and independently by learning an increasing range of letter sounds. By the end of reception we aim to teach close to 50 sounds. This will enable your child to begin with simple words like at and rapidly move on to more complex words like rooftop and lightening! 3Our crucial role as adults

Young children love learning to read and write. It is one of lifes greatest gifts but it needs plenty of nurturing and encouragement.

We have just started teaching the first set of sounds (satp) to the children and already we can see some children can remember all of these sounds (which helps them to read words such as sat, pat and tap) whilst others are struggling to recall them and this compromises their ability to read and write independently.

We can help every child succeed and excel with the right support and teaching.

2)Detail the crucial role adults (teachers and especially parents) play in modelling these skills to their children, supporting them as they try and enthusing over their progress. With their parents they can excel, without them they will struggle to fulfil their potential.4How can we help?

Practise the sounds that your child is learning at school everyday. Your childs teacher has sent home resources. Use these to look over the sounds. It only takes a few minutes but the benefits last a lifetime as the better they know their letter sounds, the more fluently they can read and write.Be really enthusiastic, patient and supportive. Sometimes it will take a little longer to remember certain sounds or tricky words (more of them in a minute) but the more encouragement and practise they receive from you and school, the better their chances of securing these essential skills will be!Model the skills of a skilled reader and writer (more of that in a moment too!)With your help the children can excel, with limited or no support they will struggle to fulfil their potential.

2)Detail the crucial role adults (teachers and especially parents) play in modelling these skills to their children, supporting them as they try and enthusing over their progress. With their parents they can excel, without them they will struggle to fulfil their potential.5How do we teach the children?

We aim to teach 4 letter sounds a week. This is assessed every Friday and we make a decision on whether we can move on and learn more the following week based on what the children know. Obviously, the better the children know these sounds, the better they can read words by blending these sounds together to read them.

For example sounding out/blending c-a-t will help the children to read the word cat. As they learn more complex sounds like ar they will be able to read words like f-ar-m-y-ar-d. This shows the progress the children are expected to make. Daily modelling of these skills from teachers and parents leads to the children having a go and learning how to do this independently. This is HUGELY exciting!

There is a 3 step approach to learning new sounds: hear it and say it (we play a Jolly Phonics song to introduce the letter sound), see it and say it (we show a video on Espresso to visualise and display the letter sound) and see it and write it (we show the children how to write the sound, again using Espresso).2)Detail the crucial role adults (teachers and especially parents) play in modelling these skills to their children, supporting them as they try and enthusing over their progress. With their parents they can excel, without them they will struggle to fulfil their potential.6How do we teach the children?

As well as learning letter sounds and using them to read words, the children learn how to segment the sounds in words to help them to spell words and thus become writers!

For example, knowing that the sounds p-a-t are in the word pat and being able to say each one individually will help your child to spell this word. But then they need to know what each of these sounds looks like and how to write them. Again, daily modelling from all of us can reap MASSIVE dividends. Use the letter formation sheets that we are sending home to help your child learn to form the letters they have learnt and practise spelling words with these sounds on. Your childs teacher will send you ideas home for this. Again the children are born enthusiasts when it comes to writing and it is our role to inspire them and encourage them to make the most of this desire to write.

.7How do we teach the children?

TRICKY WORDSTricky words are words that cant be sounded out which poses a problem when we try to read them or spell them.

Examples include: the (t-h-e??) what, was, they and said.

However, these words are only tricky if we dont practise them. They are common words that we see in lots of places everyday (newspapers, books, magazines, online). We teach the children these by explicitly pointing them out when we see them in books, ah wow look there is the tricky word was, you cant hide from us! The more the children see them, the better they recognise and remember them which helps them to spell them too. Look out for these words in your home readers, they are usually shown in the teaching notes at the start of the book. .8How do we teach the children?

TRICKY WORDSTricky words are words that cant be sounded out which poses a problem when we try to read them or spell them.

Examples include: the (t-h-e??) what, was, they and said.

However, these words are only tricky if we dont practise them. They are common words that we see in lots of places everyday (newspapers, books, magazines, online). We teach the children these by explicitly pointing them out when we see them in books, ah wow look there is the tricky word was, you cant hide from us! The more the children see them, the better they recognise and remember them which helps them to spell them too. Look out for these words in your home readers, they are usually shown in the teaching notes at the start of the book. .9More ways to help and effective modelling of reading and writing skills:

Model holding books correctly, reading the blurb on the back, reading the title by pointing to the words and reading the words by reading from left to right.Holding the pen/pencil correctly in a tri-grip using the rhyme nip, flip, grip!Asking questions about what they have read to develop comprehension and a deeper understanding of what they have read. I will put some videos on the website about this to help give you some ideas as well as modelling them now. Also encouragement of our writing voices. This will be more apparent when the children learn more sounds and ideally it would need another workshop. I will put some videos on the website to explain it and briefly model it now..10Please remember:The children NEED TO KNOW the sounds to succeed. Teachers will keep in dialogue with you about target sounds and give you resources to hit these targets. Pace of the scheme is important to help the children become fluent readers and writers..11RESOURCES:

We use a range of resources in school to teach phonics and to help the children make progress.

Some of these you have already had:Soundbutton word sheets: These are very important as they feature the sounds the children have learnt and enable them to practise them at home with support and then independently. Awesome!

Letter Formation sheets: Essential for learning to form the letters that we learn and for embedding knowledge of what they look like.

Sound mat charts: These charts feature a set of sounds that your child has been working on (PHASE 2 or PHASE 3) and allow you both to quickly look at and learn every single sound.

We will also send home Snakes and Ladders games and captions for your children to read. For example, a sad man will be coming up soon!

All these will be supported by videos on our website

.12RESOURCES:Websites:

We have lots of links to great phonics resources on our school website:www.rimrosehope.co.uk I have made a number of videos that support early reading and writing development. These can be found in the Childrens section and Rimrose Studios.

2) I have put all these links in to our reception web page (Children-Class Pages-Reception) on our school website:

Espresso: This plays a big part in how we introduce new letter sounds to the children. ALL the letters sounds we teach to the children (including the PHASE 5 ones they learn in Year 1) are on this and the log in details for you to access it at home are on our website in the class pages section. SEE IT AND SAY IT, SEE IT AND WRITE IT! Youtube link to Jolly Phonics songs. HEAR IT AND SAY IT! Alphablocks.Phonics Play: which covers the 4 phases we teach in reception.

iPad apps: Pocket Phonics is amazing as is Twinkl Phonics. Both of these feature in Rimrose Studios where I demonstrate them!

.13RESOURCES:

Home reading books:Oxford Reading Tree: Absolutely brilliant for practising all the skills we have talked about. Look for and learn tricky words, model effective reading tools. Initially, these need an adult to first model what the books say and then by keeping them a few days and practising/repeating every day the children learn the words which is also an important reading skill.Phonics home readers: these will be matched to the sounds that your child knows so that they can read independently to you using their phonic knowledge.

Guided reading and writing: We take the children in small groups to work on their targets in reading and writing, modelling the skills of a good reader and writer and supporting them to develop these for themselves.

.14What happens if it doesnt work?

We provide daily structured support to children who are struggling to learn how to read and write through our teaching of phonics.

This will involve one to one teaching sessions targetting areas of weakness and embedding sounds that the children do not know. These resources will also be sent home and it is crucial that they are done as together we can get the children to where they need to be much quicker.

What happens when it does work?

With consistent support and encouragement at home and in school, the children can rapidly learn how to read and write. The thrill of going from reading simple words like it to reading larger pieces of text like I went to the town to get fish and chips independently is a source of great pride for the children and us as parents and teachers.

.15Thank you for coming.

Your wonderful and on going support is deeply appreciated and makes a MASSIVE difference!

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