At St John’s we use the Read Write Inc. programme and take a systematic approach to teaching phonics through discrete daily sessions. Children are taught individual phonemes (sounds) and corresponding graphemes (written letter) and then develop skills in blending and segmenting. Blending involves putting sounds together for reading e.g. c-a-t (cat), sh-o-p (shop). In Reception we use a soft toy character, Fred the frog, to help with this. Fred speaks only in sounds, which is referred to as Fred talk. Segmenting involves splitting sounds up for spelling e.g. dog (d-o-g), thick (th-i-ck). The children use their fingers to assist with this as they segment the words. This is referred to as using their Fred fingers.

Pure sounds are taught to the children which involves them being articulated clearly and precisely. For a demonstration of each sound please click the following links. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gxxLnfS5Ts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qATYGeyyL6c

If you require further support with helping your child with phonics, please speak to their class teacher or Miss Coyne, our Phonics Leader. Our phonics workshops have proved extremely popular so continue to check the school diary for future dates. These will also be announced in the school weekly newsletters.

For phonics games and activities please click on the links below:

Alphablocks
Phase 2 phonics
Letters and Sounds

Phonics – sound order

m a s d t i n p g o c k u b f e l h sh r j v y w th z ch qu x ng

ai (snail in the rain)
ee (what can you see?)
igh (fly high)
oa (goat in a boat)
oo (look at a book poo at the zoo)
ar (start the car)
or (shut the door)
ur (nurse with a purse)
ow (brown cow)
oi (spoil the oy)
ear (what can you hear?)
air (That’s not fair)
ure (sure it’s pure)
er (a better letter)
ay (may I play?)
ou (shout it out)
ie (salute and say “ie”)
ea (cup of tea)
oy (toy for a boy)
ir (whirl and twirl)
ue (oo you!)
aw (yawn at dawn)
wh (what, where, when why?)
ph (elephant on a dolphin)
ew (chew the stew)
oe (oh, that’s my toe)
au (autumn)
ow (blow the snow)

Split digraphs

a-e (make a cake) e-e (Eve the athlete)
i-e (nice smile) o-e (phone home) u-e (huge brute)