Phonics

Phonics is the first strategy used to teach children to read and write. Children are first taught the sounds (known as phonemes) that the letters (known as graphemes) make. Then they learn how to blend these sounds to make words. At Our Lady of Lourdes we follow the Jolly Phonics scheme.  Children are taught the main 42 sounds, with an action to help children remember the letters.  Sounds that have more than one way of being written are initially taught in one form only and then alternatives follow later.

The five basic skills for reading and writing are:

1. Learning the letter sounds

2. Learning letter formation

3. Blending

4. Identifying sounds in words

5. Spelling the tricky words

How can I help my child with Phonics at Home ?

Preschool:

There are lots that you can do as a parent to help your child be really ready for phonics when they start school.This includes;

• Reading lots of books,
• Listen to all kind of sounds,
• Make all kinds of sounds,
• Talk about different types of sounds.

In Preschool, we play lots of games that encourage children to listen carefully and discriminate between sounds. We listen to and talk about stories, encourage children to join in with repeated lines. We also explore language and sounds by reading rhyming stories and singing nursery rhymes. 

The seven different aspects:

• Aspect 1 - Environmental Sound Discrimination
• Aspect 2 - Instrumental Sound Discrimination
• Aspect 3 - Body Percussion Sound Discrimination
• Aspect 4 - Rhythm and Rhyme
• Aspect 5 - Alliteration
• Aspect 6 - Voice Sounds
• Aspect 7 - Oral Blending and Segmenting

You don't have to teach children the 7 aspects in any particular order. Just make phonics part of your every day activities by getting children to listen to the sounds around them.

You could try:

• Listening and comparing the sounds of different toys or musical instruments
• Making sounds a part of your storytelling
• Singing songs and rhymes
• Clapping along to words or songs
• Introducing rhyming words

Reception:

It is really important to read, please read with your child daily. Once children are confident with the sounds learnt so far, they will start to bring word boxes home. Practice sounding out and blending these words. Once the children start to learn the tricky words, we will send home reading books with words in.

• Read a book for 5 to 10 minutes every day.
• Talk about your book; what happened, who the characters are, where the story is set and what you enjoyed most about the book that you are reading. 
• Make  time to play phonics games and revise the sounds you have learnt so far (check your sound books).
• Have a look at the Home Learning English page for more ideas.