Read stories together

Children learn a huge amount from being read to. Enjoy stories
together. Talk about what is happening. Point at the words as you
read. Show your child how you can sound out simple 3 letter words
and blend the sounds to read (for example h-a-t, hat). Your child will
receive books to read themselves by sounding out and putting the
sounds together.

Writing sounds
If your child is ready to learn the sounds letters make, help them to
practise writing the sounds. You don't need to use a pencil and
paper, they can practise writing the sounds with their fingers in a
sand tray, with finger paint or water in the bath. Help them to form
the letter correctly, starting in the right place.

Useful Websites for practicing sounds learnt

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/games/alphabl
ocks-games/
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/Phase2Menu.htm
http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-2-games.html

Useful Apps for practicing sounds learnt

LetterPing designed by Mr Ewins who used to teach here! ($2.99)
Abc PocketPhonics (Free)
Abc Spelling 1 (Free)
Mr. Thorne does Phonics: Letters and Sounds (2.99)

The information in this booklet has been taken from:

Learning to Read through Phonics: an information guide for parents Department for
Education
www.jollylearning.co.uk
http://www.hamiltonacademy.org.uk/children/reception/helping-your-child-with-phonics

A Parents
Guide to
Phonics

Table of Contents

How can you help?

What is Phonics?.........................................................................1
St. Thomas More Phonics Programme ...................................... 2

Importance of pure sounds

Description of Jolly Phonics actions..3

Handwriting worksheet..4
Description of Jolly Phonics actions (contd).. 6
Phonics lessons .......................................................................... 7
Learning sounds..7
Blending and segmenting ...................................................... 7
Learning letter formation ...................................................... 7
Remembering sounds learnt................................................. 8
Tricky words.................................................................. 8
How can you help? .................................................................. 9

The way sounds are pronounced is very different to what we ourselves

were perhaps taught. There are lots of helpful websites that reinforce
the correct pronunciation which is crucial in helping your child to read
and write. Please help your child to say the sounds correctly!
Useful websites demonstrating pure sounds:
Mr Thorne does Phonics
http://www.mrthorne.com/category/phase-2/
Jolly Phonics (correct sounds but we learn them in a different
order)
http://jollylearning.co.uk/2010/10/29/hear-the-letter-sounds/
Useful apps demonstrating pure sounds:
abc PocketPhonics (free)
Mr. Thorne does Phonics: Letters and Sounds (Mr Phonics 1)
2.99

Make time to listen to your child talking

Make time to listen to your child talking....9

As you walk, or travel home by car, in the supermarket as you shop,

at meal times, bath times, bedtimes any time! Listen carefully and
talk back in your home language. Children need to hear adults
modelling clear and fluent speech to learn themselves.

Playing I spy.....9

Playing I spy

Simon Says......9
Read stories together.......10

You can play this game anywhere, in the car, on the bus, walking to
school.... Use the sound the letter makes, not the letter name. Playing I
spy will help your child to hear the sounds at the beginnings of words.

Writing sounds.......10

Simon says

Useful websites.....................................................................10

Ask your child to complete everyday activities in sound speak. "Get your coa-t" or "Find your h -a-t." It is important in this game that you say each
sound not each letter.

Importance of pure sounds.....9

Useful apps...........................................................................10

Remembering the sounds learnt

It is crucial that the children can remember all the sounds
they have learnt before as well as learning the new ones.
Each lesson starts with reviewing the sounds children have
learnt.
Phase 2 order of sounds learnt
s,
a,
t,
i,
n,
m,
g,
o,
c,
ck,
e,
u,
h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
(This order is different to Jolly Phonics)

p
d
k
r

Tricky words
All words can be broken up into the sounds they make.
Unfortunately in English those sounds are made up of
many different spellings. To help children to read quickly,
we introduce tricky words to them. These words are
words that children have not yet learnt the sounds for but
are very common in books. We play games to help
children learn these by sight.

What is Phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read
quickly and skilfully. They are taught how to:

recognise the sounds that each

individual letter makes;
identify the sounds that different
combinations of letters make - such as
ck or sh; and
blend these sounds together from left
to right to make a word.

Children can then use this knowledge to decode new words that they hear or see.

This is the first important step in learning to

read.
In Foundation Stage, we concentrate on using
lowercase letters (not capital letters) and only
in Reception start to learn letter names.

St. Thomas Mores Phonics

Programme

Phonics lessons

We use the Governments Letters and Sounds programme

throughout Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 to structure the
way Phonics is taught.
We use other Phonics resources to
support our teaching. Each week four or more new sounds are
learnt.

Learning the sounds

In Foundation Stage we use Jolly Phonics actions to help children

remember the sounds as this is the best way of children learning:
combining the visual letter, saying the sound and doing an action
uses all the ways children learn.
The Jolly Phonics actions are set out for you in the middle of this
booklet on the back of the letter formation sheet. Alternatively
there is a great YouTube video which shows the songs that go
with the actions and shows a diagram of the action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCjJYB07aSU
The actions are always used in our teaching.
Research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way
starting with the easiest sounds and progressing through to the
most complex it is the most effective way of teaching young
children to read.
During your childs time in Foundation Stage, you will receive a
weekly email detailing the sounds your child has learnt and saying
the sounds we hope to cover in the next week.

We teach Phonics daily. Learning phonics successfully requires a lot of

different skills for the children.

Most lessons require the learning of a new sound. The sound is taught
using the Jolly Phonics action.

Blending and segmenting

These are words that come up frequently. Your child will already have
completed Phase 1 of the Letters and Sounds programme which helps
children to hear individual sounds (segmenting sounds) and putting
sounds they hear together (blending sounds.) These are crucial skills
which your child needs to develop before being able to read and write.
They are skills used daily in Phase 2 Phonics.

Learning the letter formation

Most sessions encourage the children to have a go at writing the new
sound they are learning. We encourage them to form letters in the
correct way. In Nursery we concentrate more on learning what the
sound looks like, picking out the correct letter and being able to have a
go at representing the letter (not necessarily formed correctly.) In
Reception children concentrate on correctly forming the letters.
Encouraging correct formation is important but requires children to be
able to use a pencil with good control. Good control develops at
different rates if your child finds this tricky, whilst we work on
developing the skill further, we use magnetic letters, writing in sand
with fingers, using paint and making large letters are some examples of
how we know your child can recognize the letter.