Yolanda Soryl Phonics

Monday 24th of February 2020

Introduction to Phonics
Marie Clay’s searchlight model
Components of Reading

The 7 Stages of Phonics

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 2 lesson (15 mins)
Children who forget what you have taught them
Writing
Stage 3
Stage 4
Phoneme Fingers Game
Stage 4 Lesson
Seesaw phonics
Kill the robot!
Progression
How to get children to produce quantity in writing
Stage 5
Stage 5 lesson
Stage 6

Management

Resources

Important information to remember!

Things to do/get

Introduction to Phonics
Blending​ sounds is necessary for reading, it involves putting the bits together into the whole sound.
Segmentation​ is when you have the whole sound, and you have to break it down into bits, as you do in
spelling.
Blending and segmentation are opposites.

Phonics​ is the skills of segmentation & blending ​plus​ a knowledge of the alphabetic code.

Phoneme Smallest sound that you can hear in a word

Grapheme The written form of a phoneme

A grapheme can have one letter, or two (a digraph), or three (a trigraph), or more. No
matter how many letters, it is still only one grapheme.
 CVC words Consonant-vowel-consonant words, e.g. ​bus,​ ​cat​, ​dog

Digraph Two letters, one sound, e.g. ​sh

Phonics is only one tool in the literacy toolbox.

Marie Clay’s searchlight model

1. Phonics​ ​searchlight​ is word-level, not looking at meaning, sense, pictures.
2. Word recognition and graphic knowledge​ ​searchlight​ is also word-level.Graphic knowledge is
memorisation of the visual pattern, e.g. a two year old can learn to recognise their name or the
McDonald’s logo because they recognise the pattern.
Ideally a child puts these two searchlights together to get a word faster than just sounding it out.
“Attack that word!”, do pretend punches in the air before the start of a lesson to get them into the
mindset of attacking the word; teach them how to attack a word. Children who look at the word and
attack it are much more successful readers. Look at the word before looking at the picture (or the
teacher!).
3. Grammar (syntax) searchlight​, this involves thinking about how the reading sounds. This is a
sentence-level searchlight. PM readers are highly repetitive and patterned to teach children what a
sentence is. Also happens at writing level - teaching children to re-read their writing is one of the
most powerful things we can do in writing to teach chln to monitor that their writing makes sense.
NE chln re-read after every sentence, Year 1-2 chln need to re-read every sentence. Teach them to
do this, that it is just part of what we do when we write! Senior students need to re-read after every
paragraph.
4. Context searchlight​, which is a text-level strategy. This also involves re-reading both in reading
and writing lessons.

Poor readers tend to focus in on only one searchlight, and don’t use any of the others. The best students
(and teachers!) use all four.

HFW - only 100 words make up half of all reading. Lowest readers don’t have this graphic knowledge yet
(Year 1/2) and so phonics is all the more important. Principles of teaching phonics are the same no matter
the level.

Components of Reading
1. Decoding​ is being able to read black squiggly lines
2. Comprehension​ is understanding what you are reading. A large vocabulary is essential to reading
comprehension. Never before is it more important to talk before and during reading, to prime them
with vocabulary. Comprehension is underpinned by:
a. Decoding
b. Vocab
c. Fluency
3. Fluency​ is when you read easily and effortlessly. Stilted reading results from the brain being so
focussed on decoding that they cannot understand or appreciate a story. Reading needs some
automaticity to allow fluency. We need fluency at word level, i.e. instant recognition of words. We
can actually start this before they even start school!
Our brains are not wired for reading, we have only done it for 4,500 years. We are wired for speaking and
walking, but not reading. The brain will not just flick on instantly, we have to help them to turn the light on.

Reading is a left-brain dominant activity. A good reader will do this, a struggling reader will use both sides.
Switching on the left hand side of the brain:
1. Phonological experiences. Phonics can rewire the brain.
2. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Especially true for a dyslexic child.
It is never too late! This works for adults, too.

Children who are taught phonics are better at reading and writing for years in the future. Children who get a
particular advantage from learning phonics:
1. Boys
2. ESL children
3. Māori and Pasifika
4. Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds
5. Children with any type of reading or learning difficulty, e.g. dyslexia, Down’s syndrome
Everyone benefits from phonics in the first two years of school, but it particularly helps the five groups
above.

Single most effective way of accelerating a child who is struggling is to hear them read out loud every day
at instructional level.

Single greatest predictor for reading success is phonological awareness.

Teaching the Brain,​ Duncan Milne

The most effective reading programmes feature:

1. Systematic explicit phonics instruction
2. Large amounts of reading out loud and quality feedback - ​not​ silent reading!
3. Word-level practice to develop fluency

The 7 Stages of Phonics

Stage 1
Objectives:
1. Listen to and discriminate sounds in language
a. This is harder for children who live in high-noise environments (they tune out), who have
constant sound around them (music,TV, iPads), or who have missed out on repeated
conversations about sounds in the world around them.
b. Children need to tune into and discriminate between sounds, e.g. between ​t ​and ​d.​
c. Ask chln to close their eyes and listen to the sounds that they can hear. Ask them to identify
sounds they heard, and if they cannot identify any sound or tell you that there were no
sounds, only silence, then this tells you they can’t hear/differentiate sounds in their
environment.
i. Use ​Soundtracks bingo
ii. Have a sounds table in your classroom, change every week
d. Play “I say, you say” when reading books, e.g. when reading a big book say word and get
them to copy, to feel the sound son their tongue
2. Hear alliteration, rhythm, sounds breaks and rhyme
 a. Animalia​ is a wonderful book for this, especially before children start school. Perfect 4th
birthday present, read it daily!
b. Rhythm - hear and copy a rhythm, including in a different way, e.g. by stomping feet to
rhythm that teacher has given them, but the teacher clapped the rhythm.
c. Kapa haka and singing are perfect for this
d. Start reading lessons with singing, as it lights up the same parts of the brain
e. Can children clap out the syllables of their name? The only way for children to learn this is
for you to teach this, every day practice clapping out the syllables three words and/or their
names.
f. Memorising nursery rhymes is absolutely key for three year olds. Key indicator for reading
success. ​Every junior teacher needs to have a ​book of nursery rhymes​ with them, read them
before the bell!​ Can also use Roald Dahl’s revolting rhymes for older children. ​Teach
children nursery rhymes and repeat them, repeat them, repeat them!​ For senior students,
have a poetry recital once per year. Dr Seuss is good for this.

Robot walking: Hands alternate, one foot for each syllable. “C-a-t” and then sweep finger from left to right
and blend sounds into a whole word: “CAT”.

Have to teach these things highlighted in green systematically, repeatedly, throughout the year. It needs to
be integrated into your classroom programme.

Watch Yolanda’s YouTube clips of a demonstration of ​how to teach phonological awareness​.

Trigger is a set phrase that Ts use in their classes, removes mental processing for children. E.g. ​get your
mouth ready…​,​ On your marks...​,​ e
​ tc.

Train the brain for automaticity by asking children to do things they already know faster and faster, e.g.
making the sounds of known animals faster and faster, naming fruit that has been lined up.

Stage 2
Objectives:
1. Hear, read and write the initial phoneme
2. Hear, read and write

Phonics is best taught little and often! One letter a day, keep moving to a different letter.

Stage 2 lesson (15 mins)

1. Hear (4 mins)
a. Use picture cards only, ​not​ letter cards yet
b. T names the picture, Ss repeat
c. Repeat first sound
d. Feel the sound, e.g. by touching the throat, the lips, for vowels hand in front of mouth and
feel the breath
2. Read (3 mins)
a. Mnemonic, e.g. crunchy carrot, clever cat
b. Focus is completely on the phoneme
c. Alliterative sentence: “Crunchy carrot, c c c” (say this rhymically)
d. “What is the first sound?” “This is how I write it”... Then write the letter up on the board
 e. Transfer: “Later on, if you see word that you don’t know in a story, get your mouth ready and
make this sound”
f. “Don’t make the sound until I touch the sound” - Eyes have to be on it so they make the
connection between the letter and the sound.
g. Move letter card around and repeat (f), checking that they are tracking
h. Teach it​ in phonics,​ model it​ in shared reading, ​demand it​ in guided reading.
3. Write (3 mins)
a. Volunteer traces the letter on the board, the whole time making the sound
b. Rest make the letter on the palm, the whole time making the sound. This is a phonics
lesson, not a handwriting lesson! (But do the same letter in both lessons, handwriting
dictates which letter you do as the order of the letters doesn’t matter in phonics. Have two
letters for handwriting, one is the letter of the week, one is the same letter as in phonics and
changes daily)
c. Ss write phoneme/sound on their whiteboards.
d. “Look at mine, look at yours”, Ss check it’s the same and not reversed (has to be facing the
sun)
e. Ss give their letter a tick and show the teacher, T must check that it’s the right way around
and check their ticks.
f. “Write the letter for the first sound of ​cupboard​” - use an unfamiliar word. Repeat sound as
writing.
g. Transfer: “If you are writing a word that starts with this sound in writing time, what will it look
like?”
4. Revise (5 mins)
a. Hear: mixed set of cards with ​known​ sounds, say first sound (fast!)
b. Read letter cards (known only)... do it fast!
c. “On your writeboard, write the first letter for the sound ​needle”​ - make sure Ss are making
the sound as they do this. Focus is on speed.

Every day is a new letter! Keep going, don’t do a letter to death for a week. Keep coming around.

Use lowercase letters only. If you teach both capital and lowercase together, then children think that they
are equivalent. When you have taught ALL of the lowercase letters, then introduce capitals with caution.

“Oh Max, I see you have a capital. What’s your reason?” If Max has no reason, then rub it out and correct it.
If he has a reason, he can “keep it”. Teach children that if they don’t know if it’s a capital or lowercase letter,
then use the lowercase letter because most of the time they will be right.

Everyone has to be joining in, eyes open and looking, mouths open and working. Not joining in is just as
naughty as climbing the curtains, it is disengagement. Get a TA to sit behind and work with those not
joining in.

TA can also take a revision group later in the day. Must be done in a quiet space.

The word is “A” but the sound is “ah”​.

Repeat to teach the difference between names and sounds.

Give me the name!
Give me the sound!
Give me the sound!
Give me the name!
Every term, self-assess by watching a video of yourself or getting someone to watch you. Tick off
everything that you do on the lesson plan.

X = “ks”
Q = “qw” (technically this is two phonemes, unpick this in Stage 5”
W = quiet “w”, ​don’t​ let Ss make the sound “wuh”

Alphabet Poems book

Children who forget what you have taught them

Increase the number of opportunities to revise!
Independently say the sounds of each letter, if they can’t remember then they can look at the picture and
think of the first sound in that word.
2-second reminders before the child goes to the toilet, before morning tea, in the playground.

Writing
PW cards:
● Phonics on one side, Words on the other
● Use during writing modelling as well as guided/independent writing

During guided reading in small groups:

● Ss clap each word as they say it, give you their sentence. T jots it down. They have to write the
sentence as they told you, they can’t change it as this is where everything goes wrong!
● For words like “I” then use graphic knowledge (word side)
● One hand holds the paper, one hand writes. Both hands have to work together. “Talk” to the hand
that is not pulling its weight and tell it to help the child!
● For words not on the word side, e.g. “game”, then ask them what the first sound of “game” is. If they
don’t know, say “What’s the first sound of g-g-g-g-game?”
● Don’t start story writing with a picture, start it with talking! Pictures are for publishing time.

Stick ​vowel strips​ on the desks, helps Ss during writing time.

With an English accent, get Ss to model the ​vowel sound​ for you, e.g. “John, what’s the first sound in
​ ”
apple?

Stage 3
Objectives:
1. To be able to hear, read and write the ​final​ phoneme

Use a puppet, model the puppet saying a word and getting the last sound wrong.
Ask them to help the puppet fix it up.
E.g. Show a picture of a fish, puppet says “fig”, Ss help to fix up the last sound and say “sh”

Still ask for first sound, this is part of revision.

Do a stage 3 assessment for the whole class, make sure they can’t copy each other. Ask for the first sound
in a word. Ask for the last sound.

Be explicit about transfer, tell Ss that when they have learnt something they need to show you this skill in
writing, e.g. “We’re stage 3 now, we have to write 2 sounds now!”

Stage 4

Phoneme Fingers Game

Ask how many phonemes in the word “dog”, Ss count out the sounds, hold hand to shoulder. Ask them to
show you their fingers, count out the phonemes, then blend with finger from left to right. Ask for the
graphemes: D-O-G.
For shin, there are three phonemes and three graphemes: SH-I-N, not s-h-i-n. However many phonemes
there are, there are always the same number of graphemes, e.g. S-M-A-CK

In “frog”, the phonemes are F-R-O-G, ​not​ FR-O-G

For words where phonics doesn’t work, e.g. “rocket” where children are likely to write “rockit”, then say
“There’s a trick” and this is your cue to children that there is some graphic (visual) knowledge of the word.

For words like “cog”, ask what the sound is and then say that it could start with a C or a K. Use the cue
“there’s a tick”

Stage 4 Lesson
2. Hear
a. Key word but NOT on a word card yet, e.g. hog
b. RIBS:
i. R​hyme
1. Free, as many as they can think of
2. String, e.g. hog, cog, log
3. Middle sound, like eating an orange
ii. I​dentify first, last and middle sounds
iii. Blending of sounds, first by the teacher then by the Ss
iv. Segment: One volunteer S segments the word by being a robot, this allows you to
monitor their ability
3. Read
a. Word cards
b. Robot with T pointing at letters
c. Freeze the pointer: say sound only when T points at letter, makes sure everyone is watching
and paying attention
d. Robot with no T pointing
e. Dump the robot! Blend sounds together
f. In second week, start mixing the sets of words (e.g. cat and dog sets)
g. Go fast with Ss saying the words!
h. Transfer: use this in reading, from now on in reading it is not good enough to look at the first
letter only, they have to look through to the last and the middle sounds.
4. Write
a. Write on whiteboards
 b. Some words have “a trick”, e.g. cog not kog. This is the place to teach this graphic
knowledge trick. Get Ss to say the “trick” out loud with you, this aids their memory.
c. Give ticks for writing a word correctly, and two ticks if they remember a “trick” e.g. cog starts
with c not k
d. Experiment:
i. Change the first, middle, last letter to make a new word, Ss tell you the word
ii. Then tell Ss you want them to change “cog” to “cot”, get them to talk out loud about
how they will do this
iii. Transfer: you can use this to help you get many words. Now it’s not good enough to
have two sounds, use three. Use a word you already know to get the new word
e. Silly sentence! “The cat sat on the top”. Tell them they have only one capital that they can
use, they have to work out where it goes. Reminder that there has to be a full stop. Ss get a
tick for using capital at the start of the sentence, but have to take it away if there’s a capital
anywhere else! Also tick for the full stop.
i. Once they have the basics, you can move on to question marks, speech marks, etc.
ii. If Ss slow, tell them this is OK and they might not finish. If finish early, then they have
to check that they didn’t miss anything out.
5. Revise
a. All about going FAST!
b. Take a word to fluency, i.e. going as fast as they can. Ss write word “dog” but can only start
when told to. Repeat, repeat, repeat with same word, focus on fluency without losing
accuracy.
c. Letter cards (mix up from week 2 onwards)
d. Word cards (mix up from week 2 onwards)

Explicitly teach a digraph: “Do the wiggle! 2 letters, 1 sound.”

Teach Ss how to be a learner:

1. Face the teacher
2. Eyes on the teacher
3. Mouths ready and working
4. Everyone joining in

Seesaw phonics
If Ss don’t get the segmentation of words during robot part of phonics, then line them up and go down the
line taking their hands and pulling/pushing them

Kill the robot!

After 3 months, no one should be doing the robot when they are writing, as it impedes fluency. Get them to
“do the robot in their head”.

Progression
If doing the “cat” rhymes is tough, don’t move on yet. Keep working on “a” cvc words starting with cat,
before moving on to “can” words.
How to get children to produce quantity in writing
Once they can write a sentence without T help, then you want two from them. When they can do this, you
want three.
We have to teach fluency in writing as well as reading:
1. Phonics - revising writing a word again and again faster and faster, e.g. with DOG
2. Vocabulary - expect them to ​know​ how to write “the” and “is” without looking. Do this through shared
writing:
a. Everyone has a whiteboard
b. When T gets “stuck” with a word, everyone picks up their whiteboard and has a go writing
“rocket”
c. Ben thanks for the R, Jenny thanks for the O, Charlie thanks for the CK, etc.
d. Can do similar things for what to use at the end instead of a full stop, e.g. exclamation mark
e. Take one word that would be great to know off by heart, e.g. “like”, tell them we will be
learning how to spell this word. Spell out the letters pointing at them, then say the word. Ss
join in and spell with you then say the word. Sing the letters, shout them, whisper them, say
them silently in their heads. Write them on the whiteboard over and over. Cover your
modelling, they write it again, check their word looks like yours.

Stage 5

Stage 5 lesson
1. Hear
a. Key word but NOT on a word card yet, e.g. clock
b. RIBS:
i. R​hyme
1. Free, as many as they can think of
2. String, e.g. block, sock, smock
ii. I​dentify all sounds, count on fingers
iii. Blending of sounds, first by the teacher then by the Ss
iv. Segment: One volunteer S segments the word by being a robot, this allows you to
monitor their ability
2. Read
a. Word cards
b. Ask what is the last phoneme in clock, then ask what the grapheme is for this (ck)
c. Robot ​without​ T pointing at letters
d. Freeze the pointer: say sound only when T points at letter, makes sure everyone is watching
and paying attention
e. Robot with no T pointing
f. Dump the robot! Blend sounds together
g. In second week, start mixing the sets of words (e.g. cat and dog sets)
h. Go fast with Ss saying the words!
i. Transfer: use this in reading, from now on in reading it is not good enough to look at the first
letter only, they have to look through to the last and the middle sounds.
3. Write
a. Write on whiteboards
b. Introduce phoneme lines, e.g. ​b​ ​l​ ​o​ ​ck
c. Give ticks
 d. Experiment:
i. Tell Ss you want them to change “block” to “clock”, get them to talk out loud about
how they will do this
ii. Transfer: you can use this to help you get many words.
e. Silly sentence! “It is bad to shock a duck”. Tell them they have only one capital that they can
use, they have to work out where it goes.
i. Change it into a question
ii. If Ss slow, tell them this is OK and they might not finish. If finish early, then they have
to check that they didn’t miss anything out.
4. Revise
a. All about going FAST!
b. Take a word to fluencey, i.e. going as fast as they can. Ss write word “clock” but can only
start when told to. Repeat, repeat, repeat with same word, focus on fluency without losing
accuracy.
c. Grapheme cards (mix up from week 2 onwards)
d. Word cards (mix up from week 2 onwards)
e. Write some stage 4 words as revision as well, e.g. hot, hat, cat

Explicitly teach a digraph: “Do the wiggle! 2 letters, 1 sound.”

By this stage, qu is not a digraph, it is two separate phonemes. So by this stage it is ​q​ ​u​ ​ee​ ​n

Stage 6
See the book!

Management
What to do when there are children in your class are at different stages!

Teach the majority

Alternate days
● Only teach one phonics lesson per day
● Teach Stage 2 and 4 alternate days, but Stage 2 go to the Stage 4 lessons as well (but only expect
them to write the first sound during the writing section of the lesson).
● Anyone who is higher, then teach them for an extra three minutes at the end of guided reading

Resources
See the back of the phonics manual to find where to get all the resources