Helping your child with phonics

Phonics is all about the relationship between written letters and sounds.

It is important to know these before using these in reading and spelling.

Does your child know all the letters and sounds?

Does your child’s school have a scheme or a sequence for introducing each of the letters / sounds?

Make sure that your child can say the pure sounds without adding ‘uh.’

Some sounds are ‘stretchy’ e.g. s, f, m and others are ‘bouncy’ and quick to say e.g. b, k, g.

Help with saying the sounds clearly can be found on:

YouTube “Sounds of the English Phonic Code – Synthetic Phonics”

Blending sounds

The sounds of the word are spoken aloud in order and then merged together to say the whole word e.g. c / a / t = cat.

Activities for blending

Break down simple words when you give your child instructions

Examples:

Find your   h / a / t

Sit on the  s / ea / t

What’s in the box / bag?

Have a box or bag of toys or objects  – put your hand in,

Say I can feel a c / u / p

Your child has to guess what it is

I Spy

Find objects in different rooms

I Spy with my little eye, something that has the sounds c / l / o / ck

Segmenting words into sounds

The whole word is spoken aloud then broken up into sounds through the word cat = c / a / t

Say words from dinner time for your child to break up and count the sounds on their fingers

Examples

Chips – ch / i / p / s

Spoon – s / p / oo / n

Or .. words for things you see out the window

I Spy

Reverse roles from blending – your child says the sounds for you to guess the words.

Use magnetic letters to make these words

Linking the letters and sounds

If you haven’t got wooden or plastic / magnetic letters available you could help your child to make some letters from card e.g. from cereal boxes or from dough.

Alphabet Arc

Use wooden or magnetic letters to arrange the alphabet into an arc like a rainbow.

Your child should point and say the sound and the letter name.

Ensure they make the sounds as pure as possible.

Activities

Blending Chunks

Using wooden or magnetic letters, place any two letters together e.g, um, pl, cr, el, iz, pa, gr, st, tw and ask your child to read the sounds together.

Vowel in the Middle

Using wooden or magnetic letters, place all the vowels in the middle – a, e, i, o, u.

The rest of the letters go around the vowels.

Point to a consonant, vowel, consonant so your child makes the sounds and blends for reading e.g, m-a-n, f-a-n, j-u-g, c-a-t

Word Families

Your child might find it easier to work on these three letter words (consonant, vowel, consonant CVC words) in word families – groups of words with the same middle and last letter – so a rhyming end chunk.

Word sliders can help for example the chunk –at stays the same and your child slides the first letter and reads the words they’ve made.

Word Families Sort

Give your child the words which they then sort into groups e.g. –at words, -an words, -in words. They read the words.

Link pictures and actions with the sounds / letters

Your child could think of their own actions.

For example s – have a picture of a snake, move their hand like a snake and say ‘sss’

The ‘H Squad’ and ‘Ing Brothers’

The H Squad are th, ch, sh, wh and ph

You could help your child to think up little stories that will help them to remember these for example

Chuck is a chicken who likes to eat chips.

Also – think of an action / sound

Sound like a train (move arms as a train) for ch

Tell me to shush (finger on lips) for sh

Do similar activities for –ing at the ends of words.

Long Vowels

When some of the three letter words have an e on the end the vowel becomes a long vowel sound.

Some schools use the terms bossy e, silent e, split e or magic e.

For working on words with magic e help your child make a magic wand with a star at the top with the letter e written on it.

Read through a list of words with three letters e.g. mad then place the star at the end of the word and read made.

Activities for using phonics during reading / spelling

Find a word/letter

Using their favourite story book, ask them to spot words with the letter you tell them

Examples

Find words beginning with the ‘th’ sound,

Spot words ending with ‘ing’

Spot words that look the same but have one letter different e.g, hat and hot.

Make a word

Choose a short word from the story you have just read. Ask your child to make the word with magnetic letters and then say the word aloud. Jumble up the letters and ask the child to make the word again from memory.

How many times does the word appear in the whole book?

Repeat with other words.

Sausages and Mash

When reading a book to children have some fun by changing all the words beginning with ‘s’ to ‘sausages’ and all the words beginning with ‘m’ to ‘mash’. This is a fun way to get children to notice sounds and create a funny story.

Website to hear pronunciation of letter sounds.