Sarah's Little Stars
Phonics at Sarah's Little Stars
Phonics lays a significant foundation for children in their early years for their future literacy progression. It supports the development of a life long love of reading and helps with spelling and writing. The skills children gain will have an impact on their learning throughout their education and into adult life.
What is phonics?
Phonics is a method used to teach children to decode words through letter-sound (grapheme- phoneme) correspondence. It teaches learners to hear, identify and use sounds (phonemes) and link them to written letters or groups of letters (graphemes). Written language can be compared to a code, so knowing the sounds of letters when they're combined supports the ability to decode words as you read.
Phase 1 Phonics
Here at SLS, we embed phase 1 Phonics in the activities we provide daily for the little stars. At this stage, the focus is on speaking and listening.
Phase 1 phonics covers seven aspects:
• Environmental sounds (sound bingo outdoors listening for traffic, birds, wind)
• Instrumental sounds (shakers and drums to distinguish between loud/quiet and fast/slow)
• Body percussion (clapping and stamping to create rhythms)
• Rhythm and rhyme (singing nursery rhymes to identify words that sound similar)
• Alliteration (readingstories or playing games with words that begin with the same sound)
• Voice sounds (e.g. humming and hissing)
• Oral blending and segmenting (hearing c-a-t and knowing it makes 'cat')
Phase 2 Phonics
While Phase 1 phonics is the focus during a child's preschool years, at SLS we believe in appropriately challenging our little stars to reach their full potential. We believe that all children are capable of amazing things. With this in mind, for those who are ready, and those due to start school, we provide a Phase 2 phonics programme. It is optional for children to take part in these small group sessions and is flexible. Our phonics policy explains how we deliver this.
Phase 2 focuses on the following sounds which are taught in sets:
1 - s, a, t, p
2 - i, n, m, d
3 - g, o, c, k
4 - ck, e, u, r
5 - h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
Through the introduction of these letter-sound (grapheme- phoneme) correspondences, children will develop the ability to read and write simple CVC words (e.g. 'mat'). Phase 2 supports your little one to blend sounds for reading and segment sounds for spelling.
Reading, writing and spelling are core skills in life, emphasising the significance of laying the foundations in phonics to pave the way for the little stars' future learning. At SLS, we enjoy watching your little ones develop and thrive in a challenging environment and we know that you will too!