Parents’ guides to Phonics

WHAT IS PHONICS?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read and write by blending and segmenting individual sounds. Written language is like a code. Knowing and being able to use the sounds represented by letters and groups of letters will enable children to be able to unlock this code and to become confident readers and writers.

HELP WITH PHONICS

At St. Patrick’s, we know how important it is for home and school to work together to give each child the best start. To support children in becoming effective and confident readers, we work closely with parents in order to help children to develop their phonic knowledge and to enable them to decode to read with increasing fluency. In this section, you will find information on the way we teach phonics and some ideas about how you can support your child at home.

For more information about phonics at St. Patrick’s, you may like to watch this short video and read these guides.

Parents’ Guide 1 Reception

Parents’ Guide 2 Year 1

Parents’ Guide 3 Year 1 and Year 2

One of the most important aspects of helping your child with phonics is encouraging them to correctly pronounce letters and sounds.

This short video models how to say each sound.

Pure sounds video

When children are able to recognise and say written sounds (graphemes), they can use this knowledge to blend to read words.

You may like to watch these videos, which show how we help children to blend to read words and phrases.

Blending to Read Words Video https://youtu.be/dudBKSZpaz0  

Blending to Read Phrases Video https://youtu.be/dvRLeAE8L4Q  

Spelling is the reverse of reading. In order to spell a word, children need to be able to segment the word in order to hear each sound and then represent them in order.

This video shows how we help children to segment to spell.

Segmenting to Spell Video https://youtu.be/QGLaSVNt_8U  

As children become more confident in using phonics, they are introduced to the idea of making choices about which written sounds (graphemes) to use in order to spell words.

This video shows how we teach this to children. https://youtu.be/JLX8QjKNQ3c

Some words contain written representations of sounds that children will not have come across. We call these words, ‘tricky words.’

These videos show how we teach children to read and spell these words.