Phonics+2

By [|Mark Gibson] , [|Andrea Gomes]  and [|Lauren Mitchell]
 * Phonics - Lauren M, Andrea G, Mark G **

=**The Joy of Phonics **=  Phonics is a key element of the development of literacy skills amongst children in Key Stages 1 and 2, and it is imperative to have a good range of knowledge in this area for a teacher to develop these skills. Phonics is involved with teaching children how to connect the sounds made whilst speaking English with letters and groups of letters, and then teaching them how to blend these sounds together to produce an attempt of speaking unknown words.
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Firstly it's important that we take a look at some of the different terms that we are going to encounter on our journey through phonics:


 * Phoneme ** - A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that is found within a word. There are approximately **44** in the English language. Each phoneme may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. Phonemes can be split into 6 catergories:


 * 1) Stretchy Consonant Sounds - f l m n r s v z sh th ng
 * 2) Bouncy Consonant Sounds - c/k p h t ch
 * 3) <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Harder Bouncy Consonants - b d g j w
 * 4) <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Double Consonants - x(c s) qu(cw) nk ng
 * 5) <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Bouncy Short Vowels - a e i o u
 * 6) <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Stretchy Long Vowels - ay ee igh ow oo oo ar or air ir ou oy ire ear ure

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 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">G ****<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">rapheme **<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - A grapheme is the written representation of a sound, which involves a letter(s) encased inside a pair of forward slashes. Example : /b/, /ng/, /a/


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Digraph **<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - A digraph is where two letters are put together to represent one sound. Example : th/sh/wh


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Trigraph **<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - A trigraph is where three letters are put together to r ﻿ epresent one sound. Trigraphs are sometimes grouped in with digraphs when being referenced. Example : chr/dge/tch.


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Segementing - **<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Segementing is taking a word apart by seperating all of the different sounds within it.


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Blending - **<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Blending is when a word is put together by the reader by combining all of the individual sounds in the correct order.


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;">Here are some useful websites to help you through your phonics journey: **

<span style="color: #3b5998; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">@http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/ <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - This website goes through each phase very clearly and provides resources which can be used in the classroom and also games.

<span style="color: #3b5998; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">@http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/cll/lettersandsounds/ <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - Again this site has some great resources for the classroom especially the sound mats which have all the phonemes on for a phase.

<span style="color: #3b5998; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">@http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/english.htm <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - This website splits phonics into two parts, the first teaches the basics such as the phonemes and th e second is more advanced such as adding affixes. The resources on this site are contributed by professionals.

<span style="color: #3b5998; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">@http://www.synthetic-phonics.com/ <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - The methods of teaching phonics are explained on this site and there is a good section on books and other materials which can be used to support the teaching.

<span style="color: #3b5998; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">@http://www.youtube.com/user/breakthruchris?blend=8&ob=5 <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 11px;"> - This is Mr Thorne Does Phonics and contains videos where Mr Thorne teaches a sound, the videos are great and he asks questions to the children so it would be useful in the classroom.