Phonics

What is phonics?

Phonics is a method of teaching reading that focuses on teaching the relationship between individual sounds (phonemes) and the letters that they represent (graphemes). Children learn to blend these sounds together to read words and to segment words into sounds to spell them. It is a systematic approach, meaning it follows a structured and explicit sequence. 

How we teach phonics

At Ley Top Primary School, we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their Literacy development.  Miss Hammond is our Early Reading Leader so if you have questions about RWI, please contact the main office and a convenient time to meet will be arranged. Any questions directly related to your child, should still be directed to their class teacher.

Some useful language you may hear your child use and what it means

Phoneme - the sound a grapheme makes

Grapheme - how the sound is represented (the written letter)

Blend - putting phonemes together to make a word ( c - a - t makes cat)

Segment - breaking a word into its phonemes (sat is s - a - t)

Decode - words that can be broken down into their sounds

Digraph - 2 graphemes together that make one sound (th)

Trigraph - 3 letters together that make one sound (igh)

What is Fred talk?

At Ley Top Primary School we use a frog puppet called Fred who helps children segment and blend words.

Green and red words

Within all the phonics sessions and books that the children bring home they will learn red and green words to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable and challenge words to extend children’s vocabulary. Green words are linked to the sounds they have been learning and are easily decodable.

How to support your child at home

Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers, relating to their reading stage. You will find they will bring home a phonics based book, this will aid application, speed and fluency- developing speedy reading!  Following on from this, they will bring a comprehension based book which will begin to enrich their reading, which will require decoding skills.