Phonics
“At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book – that string of confused, alien ciphers – shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader.”
-Alberto Manguel
Phonics at Swimbridge
How we teach phonics at Swimbridge CE Primary School
At Swimbridge CE Primary School, we follow Floppy’s Phonics, a systematic synthetic phonics teaching programme for early reading and writing. We use the interactive phonics lessons and activities to teach children the sounds in words and the code (letters) used to represent them. Children in Reception and Key Stage 1 will take part in a daily phonics lesson. Each lesson begins by rapidly revisiting previously taught sounds and codes before being taught the next new sound. They will use the Floppy’s Phonics Sound Books to look for words which contain this new sound and discuss the meaning of any new vocabulary. They will practise forming the new code, reading words and sentences which contain it and complete spelling games too. This learning will transfer into their daily reading so children can apply and consolidate the new sound and code.
Floppy Phonics
Terminology:
Grapheme – The letter or letter group which is code for the sound.
Phoneme – The smallest identifiable sound of speech.
Blending – When reading a word, identify the graphemes in the word and say the corresponding sounds in order to hear the word as a whole, e.g. read sh – o – p = shop
Segmenting – When spelling a word, break it down into the sounds you hear and write the grapheme for each identified sound, e.g. say shop = writing sh – o – p
Decode – Breaking a word down into sounds to be able to read it.
Encode – Breaking a word down into sounds to be able to spell it.
Digraph – When two letters make one sound when they are together, e.g. boat
Trigraph – When three letters make one sound when they are together, e.g. night
Split Digraph – When two letters that are “split” by having another letter in the middle of them, e.g. a_e in game or i_e in tide.
Tricky Words – These are common or high frequency words with unusual spelling rules which means they can’t be decoded easily. Children will learn to recognise these words by sight.
Floppy's Phonics Parent Information
Floppy Phonics Online
You can access a range of resources on the Oxford Owl website. Login (oxfordowl.co.uk) Your child has their class login for this in their home school diary. Click on the links below to access information on the Floppy's Phonics Practice Zone and a selection of e-books to match your child's reading level.
OxfordOwl_eBook_library_Parent_Info.pdfBook progression for parents.pdf
