Phonics

What is phonics?

Phonics is a way of teaching children how to read and write. It helps children hear, identify and use different sounds that distinguish one word from another in the English language. Written language can be compared to a code, so knowing the sounds of individual letters and how those letters sound when they’re combined will help children decode words as they read. Understanding phonics will also help children know which letters to use when they are writing words. 

Phonics involves matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. For example, the sound k can be spelled as c, k, ck or ch. Teaching children to blend the sounds of letters together helps them decode unfamiliar or unknown words by sounding them out. For example, when a child is taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, they can start to build up the words: “tap”, “taps”, “pat”, “pats” and “sat”.

How do we teach phonics at Greenfields?                                  

At Greenfields The Song of Sounds is a phonics programme that teaches children their letter sounds (phonemes) through a song and a huge range of games and activities that help them to learn. The song teaches the children the letter sounds and how to read and write them. The tune, colourful pictures and actions for each letter sound all help the children to learn quickly. The 26 letters of the alphabet are covered first, followed by two- and three-letter sounds e.g. sh, air.

Phonics helps children learn to read and write by teaching them the letter sounds (known as phonemes), rather than letter names, for example, the sound that ‘c’ makes, not the alphabetic name.

 There are 42 sounds in the English language that can be heard in words. These include the 26 sounds in the alphabet but also some more complex sounds that are made up of 2 or even 3 letters e.g. ‘sh’ in the word ‘shark’ or ‘oo’ in the word ‘moon’ or ‘igh’ in the word ‘night’. 

For each sound in the Song of Sounds there is an action which helps the children remember the sound the letter makes and the song is sung every day! As the letter sounds are taught, it would be hugely beneficial if you can practice these sounds with your child every day.

Practise singing the song as much as you can, but practise in different ways to keep it interesting for your child. Here are some ideas….

Sing the song EVERYWHERE - at home, in the car, at Granny’s house, during bathtime etc.
You sing a song lyric and ask your child to perform the corresponding action. The swap over so your child sings and you perform the action. Make sure you make some mistakes – children love it when grown-ups get it wrong.
This time, perform an action and ask your child to sing the song lyric. To make this even more challenging, you could perform an action and your child should say the sound! Again, take turns with your child to make it lots of fun.
Sing a jumbled up version of the song – you sing the first word e.g. ‘sharks’ and your child must complete the lyric e.g. ‘on the shore sh sh sh’.
Use the song to help you with chores e.g. play musical get dressed in the morning (every time you stop singing they must freeze!) play musical tidy up, sing-a-long at bathtime/mealtimes/bedtime, can they get dressed before the song finishes etc.
You could even challenge your child to sing the song backwards!

You can listen to them by clicking on the year group:

Nursery song                      Reception song                    Year 1 song                       Year 2 song              

Here are the sounds each year group will learn:

                     Reception                                         Year 1                                           Year 2 

Tricky Words

During Reception, we start to add ‘tricky words.’ These are words which cannot be ‘sounded out’ but instead will need to be learnt by having lots of practice. Here are the tricky words that we will learn for each year group:

                   Reception                                            Year 1                                                 Year 2

At every stage of the programme, the children are provided with texts that are fully decodable for them. This means they must be composed entirely of words made up of grapheme-phoneme correspondences and a small number of common exception words that the child has learnt up to that point. Song of Sounds are fully aligned with Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds decodable readers. The books provide an exciting mix of fiction and non-fiction that will foster a love of reading in all children. The books are matched exactly to the Song of Sounds progression and are mapped through the programme.

How do we assess phonics at Greenfields?

We are constantly formatively assessing the children in phonics, so that we can close any gaps as they arise. Early identification of any barriers to learning phonics is key to ensuring children learn to read fluently and confidently by the time they leave school. 

Every half term children will have an assessment on the sounds they have been taught, and this will inform their next half term’s learning.

In Year 1 the children take part in the national Phonics Screening Check, which uses nonsense words and real words to assess children’s knowledge of the 44 different sounds that make up most words. The children usually enjoy doing this and don’t find it worrying. 

For more information, please click here.

An example of the phonics check:

Do we teach phonics in KS2?

When a child reaches year 3, we expect them to be confident in using the phonics that they have been previously taught to read most words. However, when this is not the case the children receive continuing phonics tuition either as a small group or class. All children up to year 6 have access to Song of Sounds sound mats which have all of their taught sounds on and reference will be made to them during spelling lessons and in their writing, to support children’s spelling.

In the Song of Sounds programme, letter formation is taught alongside GPCs to ensure handwriting skills are also developed, and correct letter formation is achieved. In every daily session there is instruction on how to form each letter with a bit of handwriting ‘patter’ for the teacher to use to model forming the letter correctly with clear start and finish points.

See below for our letter formation resources to help you support your child with the correct formation of each letter using a clear visual, formation phrase:

                   Lower case letter formation                                         Upper case letter formation

Parent support and help with phonics:

You can find more information about how to support your child with phonics here on the Song of Sounds website.

How to pronounce pure sounds | Oxford Owl
When children are learning to read and write, it is much easier for them if you say the sounds in a very ‘pure’ way. E.g. ‘c’ rather than ‘cuh’, ‘mmm’ rather than ‘muh’. This makes it much easier for children to blend sounds together to read words as it is easier for them to put c-a-t together than ‘cuh’-a’-tuh’. Saying the sounds in this pure way also helps children to hear sounds in words much easier which helps them to write.

If you are finding it difficult to know how to pronounce some of the sounds we have been learning in school this video may help.