Tom Craven

Literacy Coordinator & Teacher Mentor

BGE, February 2015.

tom.craven@braeburn.ac.ke

Phonics for Adults

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Key Concepts

• Sounds are represented by letters.

• A sound can be represented by one or more letters

• The same sound can be represented/spelt in more than one way: ai / ay / eigh / ey

• The same spelling can represent more than one sound: ow (cow, low) / ea (head, bead)

Technical vocabulary

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. A phoneme may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. Eg. t ai igh eigh

A syllable is a word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. E.g. hap/pen bas/ket let/ter

A grapheme is the letter(s) representing a phoneme. Written representation of a sound. May be more than 1 letter. e.g. The sound ‘s’ can be represented by the letters s (sun), se (mouse), c (city), sc or ce (science)

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Some definitions:

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.

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Some definitions:

Sounds can be made of more than one letter:

t oi ai igh

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Some definitions:

Digraph:

Two letters, which make one sound.

oa ee oo ay oi ph

sh ck th ll ng

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ll ss ff zz

fill miss huff whizz

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The same sound can be spelled in different ways:

• burn

• first

• term

• heard

• work

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Enunciation

• Using phonics requires a technical skill in enunciation

• Sounds should be articulated clearly and precisely

Articulation

Long oo

spoon

moon

balloon

smoothie

Soft Sound

think

thin

thick

thumb

Short oocookbooklookhook

Spoken Soundthethattherethis

This is one reason why the English

language is tricky!

Children won’t grasp this

overnight, they need to be

immersed in an awareness of

language throughout the

day.

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Blending (reading):

Recognising the letter-sounds in a

written word, for example cup.

c-u-pand merging them in the order in which they

are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’.

BlendingBuilding words from sounds, to read.

c a t

cat

Blending

Qu ee n

queen

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Blending - practice

stick

brick

lick

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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’.

Segmenting• Breaking down words into sounds for

spelling.

“cat”

c a t

Segmenting

“Queen”

qu ee n

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Segmenting (spelling):

The child hears the word ‘him’, then breaks the word into separate sounds

h – i – m and writes ‘him’

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CVC words: activity

3 sounds in a word:

consonant / vowel / consonant

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p i g c h i c k

s h i p c a r X

b o y X c o w X

f i l l w h i p

s o n g f o r X

d a y X m i s s

w h i z z huff

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How many sounds in these words?

• b l a c k• s t r o ng• f e l t• b l a n k

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A segmenting activity – draw a grid like this. Listen to the word I say. Identify the separate sounds – use your fingers!

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A segmenting activity

s

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A segmenting activity

s l

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A segmenting activity

s l i

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A segmenting activity

s l i p

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Segmenting – write down the separate sounds in these words:

shelfdressthinkstringsprintflick

sh e l f

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Segmenting - practice

WORD PHONEMES

shelf sh e l f

dress d r e ss

think th i n k

string s t r i ng

sprint s p r i n t

flick f l i ck

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The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way

a a-e ai ay ey eigh

e e-e ea ee y

i i-e ie igh y

o o-e oa oe ow

u u-e ue oo ew

oo u oul

ow ou ough

oi oy

ar a

or aw ore a ough

air are ear

eer ear

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The same letters may represent more than one sound:

• meat bread

• he bed

• bear hear

• cow low

Presentation Title

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She was really mean.

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High frequency words

• The majority of high frequency words are phonically regular

• Some exceptions – for example the and was – should be directly taught.

• (some, you, my etc…)

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

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

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Resources for parents:

Pronunciation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v-1s

All the sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksblMiliA8

Phonics Play: http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

Phonics games: http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html

BBC Phonics Y2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/phonics/

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What else can I do at home?

• Ask your child to find items around the house that represent particular sounds, i.e. ‘oo’ - ‘spoon’ ‘bedroom’

• Play matching pairs – with key words or individual sounds/pictures.

• Key words on the stairs• Play tricky word bingo• Flashcard letters and words – how quickly can they read

them?• Notice words/letters in the environment.• Go on a listening walk around the house/when out and

about.

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Phase 2 (Reception)

• To teach at least 19 letters• To move children from oral blending and segmenting

to blending and segmenting with letters

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

•Read and spell regular CVC words

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Phase 3 (Reception)

• To teach another 25 graphemes, mostly comprising 2 letters

• To represent each of 42 phonemes by a graphemeSet 6: j v w xSet 7: y z,zz qu

Graphemes: ch sh th ng ai ee igh oa oo ar or ur ow oi ear air ure er

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Phase 4 (Reception)

• To consolidate children’s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words with adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words

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Phase 5 (Year 1)

Recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught

For example:New graphemes for reading: ay oy wh a-e ou ir

ph e-e ie ue ew i-e ea aw oe o-e au u-e

Alternative pronunciations for graphemes: i (fin,find) ow (cow,blow) y (yes,by,very) o (hot,cold) ie (tie,field) ch (chin,school,chef) c (cat,cent) ea (eat,bread) ou (out,shoulder,could,you) g (got,giant) er (farmer,her) u (but,put) a (hat, what)

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Phase 5 (Year 1)

Recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught

For example:Alternative pronunciations for graphemes:

i (fin, find) ow (cow, blow) y (yes, by, very) o (hot, cold) ie (tie, field) ch (chin, school, chef) c (cat, cent) ea (eat, bread) ou (out, shoulder, could, you) g (got, giant) er (farmer, her) u (but, put) a (hat, what)

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Phase 5 (Year 1) Recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and

spelling the phonemes already taughtFor example:Alternative spellings for phonemes

a a-e ai ay ey eigh

e e-e ea ee y

i i-e ie igh y

o o-e oa oe ow

u u-e ue oo ew

oo u oul

ow ou ough

oi oy

ar a

or aw ore a ough

air are ear

eer ear

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Children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers

“The shift from reading to learn to learning to read takes place and children read for information and for pleasure.”

Consolidation of using digraphs to decode and development of understanding spelling through word structure

Phase 6 (Year 2)