Phonics
Phonics at Lozells
Phonics is proven to be the most effective method of teaching children to learn to read as it simplifies the English language down into just 44 sounds. Children therefore 'decode' words by breaking them down into its sounds rather than having to memorise 1,000's of words individually.
At Lozells, we teach our children using a rigorous synthetic phonics programme called Floppy’s Phonics. Floppy's Phonics is a beautifully crafted programme that is rigorous, easy-to-use and engages children from the outset, enabling them to learn to read quickly. This wonderful programme teaches the letter/sound correspondences of the English alphabetic code explicitly and comprehensively for reading and spelling. It includes the characters of Floppy the dog, Biff, Chip and Kipper, which engages children fully for the phonics teaching & learning, vocabulary enrichment and language comprehension.
Alongside our programme, we use high quality resources for effective and consistent phonics teaching. Our children engage in fun, multisensory phonics lessons 5 days a week, for 30mins through EYFS to KS1.
Click this link to see how we teach phonics and what we resources we use as part of our Floppy's Phonics programme.
To reinforce the phonics teaching in school, your child may bring home some books and activities to share with you. This includes:
Fully decodable phonics book linked to the sounds/phase they are learning in school.
Floppy Phonics Activity sheet
Say the sounds poster
Grapheme and picture tiles
In addition to a decodable phonics books, we will also send home a sharing book to promote the love of reading. These may need to be read to the children so it is a perfect opportunity to read some great books together.
Phonics Long Term Plan
Phonics Medium Term Plan
Phonics Terminology
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Phoneme A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. Feel/watch how your mouth changes when you say a word, every time your mouth moves/changes shape you are saying a new phoneme, e.g. b-r-i-ck There are 44 phonemes in the English language |
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Grapheme Graphemes represent how a phoneme is spelt. Each grapheme is a unit of sound regardless of how many letters there are. e.g. The word b-r-igh-t is made up of 4 phonemes; the igh phoneme is represented by 3 letters but only makes one phoneme. A grapheme can represent more than one phoneme e.g. C = cat and city |
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Diagraph Two letters, which makes 1 phoneme. e.g. duck A consonant diagraph contains 2 consonants e.g. sh ck th ll A vowel diagraph contains at least one vowel e.g. ai ee ar oy |
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Split Diagraph A diagraph in which the two letters are not adjacent e.g. make - a-e is a unit of sound (diagraph)- it is being ‘split’ by the constant k. |
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Trigraph Three letters, which make 1 phoneme. e.g. light |
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Oral blending Hearing a series of spoken phonemes and merging them together to make a spoken word without corresponding to any graphemes e.g. teacher says “b-u-s” children say “bus” |
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Blending (links to reading) Recognising the letter sounds in a written word and merging them together in the order they are written to pronounce the word. e.g. c-u-p = cup |
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Segmenting (links to writing) Identifying the individual phonemes in a spoken word and writing them down to form a word. |
Phonics Screening Check
In year 1, children will sit a national Phonics Screening where the children have to read 20 real words and 20 ‘alien’ (pseudo) words. This is conducted in a very child-friendly way by the class teachers. At every parents evening you will be informed of your child’s progress in Phonics and at the end of Year 1 the school report will inform you if they have passed or not. If your child does not pass in Year 1 they will be given additional support throughout Year 2 to enable them to pass the next year. We hold a parents workshop on the Phonics Screening check during Spring term where you will gain further information on this.
Click on links provided below to access past Phonics screening check papers.
Useful Websites and Apps
Websites
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www.letters-and-sounds.com | Information and resources on the ‘Letters and Sounds’ programme | |
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www.phonicsplay.co.uk | A site packed with interactive phonics games and resources to help children to learn to read. | |
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Oxford Owl – have over 100 free e-books for children aged 3-11 years old | |
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Oxford Owl videos to help parents understand phonics and tips for reading | ||
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www.readwithphonics.com | Fun games and resources for parents to help their children with phonics (£7.99 one off fee) | |
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Useful website to help you with pronunciation of sounds used in Phonics | ||
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Fun games for children to play to help them with their phonics sounds |
Apps
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Apple App Link | Android App Link | Meet The Alphablocks! |
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Apple App Link | Android App Link | Read with Phonics Games |
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PAID APP |
Apple App Link | Android App Link | Teach Your Monster to Read |
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PAID APP |
Apple App Link | Monster Phonics |
