Phonics

Before we begin this week's phonics learning we felt that we should answer a question which has come up about what to expect from the children when they are doing their writing.

Each child will be at a different stage according to their knowledge of phonemes and this will be refected in what they write. For example if your child is confident with the phase 2 phonemes then you might expect them to be able to write CVC words (consonent, vowel, consonent) for example rug, cat, fan and smaller key words such as in, up etc. Children who are confident with Phase 3 or who are working on learning phase 3 phonemes should be able to build words using phase 3 phonemes. You might see them use more digraphs (two letter sounds) in their writing such as feet, chip, shock, thin. Children who are working on Phase 4 phonics might be using blends in their writing (two or three letters together) such as splash, drink, trip.

To find out what phoneme set your child is working on go through the phoneme charts from school, or the ones below, with them. At school we read them like this;

s as in sock, a as in apple, t as in tomato and so on.

When your child is not sure of the sounds, stop and this is the level they will be working at. This is what you might expect to see in their writing and their reading. You could go through the appropriate phoneme frame regularly to help your child to learn the next set of phonemes.

When your child is writing we would not expect them to spell every word correctly, in fact insisting on this could make writing a miserable and worrying experience, what we expect is that they will be writing and spelling according to their phonic knowledge.

For reading, if your child is confident with Phase 2 phonics you could read the reading book on Monday learning web page together. Children on Phase 3 phonics could try the reading book on Wednesday as well and children on Phase 4 phonics could have a go at the Friday reading book.

We hope this information is helpful in answering any concerns you may have had.

This week in phonics we are looking at different ways to make the long vowel o sound. 

Today we are looking at the 'oa' digraph. 

Remember a digraph is when two letters work together to make one sound. Click on the picture below to look at some words with 'oa' in them. 

Challenge

Look at the pdf below. It has picture clues for 'oa' words on it. Draw three of them in your book and then have a go at writing the correct 'oa' word next to it.