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Parent workshop: Phonics and early reading in Year 1, Phase 5

Teach reading: change lives

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A love of reading is the biggest indicator of future academic success.

OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

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How many times have you already read today?

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Phonics

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Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised

Our school has chosen �Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) programme to teach early reading and spelling.

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Phonics is:

making connections between the sounds of our spoken words and the letters that are used to write them down.

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Terminology

Phoneme

Grapheme

Blend

Digraph

Segment

Trigraph

Adjacent consonant

Split digraph

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The progression

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Let’s say the Phase 3 sounds

Video

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Let’s say the Phase 5 sounds

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This term we are teaching Phase 5

In Phase 5 children learn:

new graphemes for the sounds they already know
that the same grapheme can have alternative pronunciations.

The ‘Grow the code’ lessons support children with reading and spelling these alternative spellings.

Slide purpose:

To provide an overview of Phase 5 'Grow the code’

Suggested script:

The children learn the last set of graphemes, including ones with alternative pronunciations.
Play the video which explains how we teach Phase 5. (The first 20 seconds are a repeat of the ‘How to say the sounds’ video but then goes on to explain what the alternative graphemes are for the sound /ai/.)
They will also learn to ‘Grow the code’ where children will explore different ways of spelling the same phoneme and reading the same grapheme. This means that they are able to read increasingly challenging words and books.
Children learn strategies so that they can distinguish between the same grapheme, different phoneme and the same phoneme but different grapheme. ‘Growing the code’ will support children as they get older with accurate spelling.

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Reading words

Children will be able to:

blend independently
blend in their heads with increasing fluency and confidence.

They will also begin to distinguish between different phonemes/graphemes.

Slide purpose:

To introduce the strategies that children need to become fluent readers

Suggested script:

Most children will now be confident using the strategy ‘blend in your head’ to build their fluency.
Blending in your head means children say the sounds quietly in their heads and then read the whole word out loud.
If your child is struggling with a word, encourage them to blend in their head.
Children are also taught to spot digraphs in words before reading the word as a whole. This also helps their developing fluency.
Show parents how to spot digraphs in words. Show a word such as ‘head’. Point to ‘ea’ and say: This is a digraph. Model reading the word: h-ea-d head. Show another word e.g. ‘bread’. Ask parents to spot the digraph and read the word: b-r-ea-d bread.
Eventually, reading becomes automatic and children will be able to read words that they know fluently.
Fluency is the ultimate goal of phonics teaching and fluent reading is explicitly taught.

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Tricky words

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Tricky words:

have unusual spellings e.g. all, people
are taught in a systematic way.

Children are now learning to read Phase 5 tricky words.

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Phase 5 tricky words

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How we make learning stick

Slide purpose:

To provide an overview of the programme’s efficacy

Suggested script:

There are specific resources for the Little Wandle programme which the children will be very familiar with.
Each sound that we teach to begin with has either a mnemonic (like the astronaut that you can see here) or a phrase like boing-boing for ‘oi’. This helps the children recognise and remember the graphemes.
Every time we teach a new sound, we also read words during the phonics lesson that contain that new sound so that the children practise what they have learned.
We then go on to reading a sentence containing some of those words.
We have displays in the classroom and on the tables to support the children throughout the day.
Your children learned all the mnemonics needed to recognise and remember graphemes in Reception. They can still use the resources in the classroom to help them with their learning. Their teacher will refer to the mnemonics learned in Reception to build on their Year 1 learning.

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Reading and spelling

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Spelling

This term, your child will be taught how to spell words every day using the graphemes they have been taught so far.

They will practise writing a dictated sentence.
Handwriting is referred to but is taught at other times of the day.

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Spelling

Say the word.
Segment the sounds.
Count the sounds.
Write them down.

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How do we teach reading in books?

Reading practice sessions are:

timetabled three times a week
taught by a trained teacher/teaching assistant
taught in small groups.

Slide purpose:

To introduce decodable readers

Suggested script:

The children apply their phonic knowledge to reading a decodable book.
Books are carefully matched to children’s secure phonic knowledge.
They read the same book three times in a week.
The first time we work on decoding (sounding out) the words.
The second time we work on prosody which is reading with expression – making the book sound more interesting with our ‘storyteller voice’ or our ‘David Attenborough’ voice.
The third time we look at comprehension – understanding the text.
We read the books three times at school because we want to develop the fluency. The more children see words, the more they begin to read them automatically without having to sound them out, which is the ultimate goal.
Children’s book will then be sent home, so that they can practise their fluency further.

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We use assessment to match your child the right level of book

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Reading a book at the right level

This means that your child should:

know all the sounds and tricky words in their phonics book well
read many of the words by silent blending (in their head) – their reading will be automatic
only need to stop and sound out about 5% of the words by the time they bring the book home – but they should be able to do this on their own.

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Reading at home

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The most important thing you �can do is read with your child

Reading a book and chatting had a positive impact a year later on children’s ability to…

understand words and sentences
use a wide range of vocabulary
develop listening comprehension skills.

The amount of books children were exposed to by age 6 was a positive predictor of their reading ability two years later.

Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skills: A five-year longitudinal study (2002) Senechal, M. and Lefvre, J

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Books going home

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Listening to your child read their phonics book

Your child should be able to read their book without your help.
If they can’t read a word, read it to them.
Talk about the book and celebrate their success.

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Read to your child

The shared book is for YOU to read:

Make the story sound as exciting as you can by changing your voice.
Talk with your child as much as you can:

Introduce new and exciting language.
Encourage your child to use new vocabulary.
Make up sentences together.
Find different words to use.
Describe things you see.

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Supporting your child with phonics

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One of the greatest gifts adults can give is to read to children

Carl Sagan