Letters and Sounds cont.....

At Unity High School Nursery we use the Letters and Sounds programme.  In Nursery we focus mainly on Phase 1 but do introduce the children to letters in a very relaxed manner.  In Preschool we use a combination of Phases 1 and 2 alongside each other to ensure the children have good recognition of letters and the sounds they make by the time they enter Reception class.  Please note the order in which the letters are introduced:

 

Set 1: s, a, t, p
Set 2: i, n, m, d
Set 3: g, o, c, k
Set 4: ck, e, u, r
Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

 

Phase 1

Introduction to Letters and Sounds Phase One

Click here if you're looking for printable Phase 1 Resources.

Phase One of Letters and Sounds concentrates on developing children's speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2. The emphasis during Phase 1 is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills.

Phase 1 is divided into seven aspects. Each aspect contains three strands: Tuning in to sounds (auditory discrimination), Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing) and Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension).

It is intended that each of the first six aspects should be dipped into, rather than going through them in any order, with a balance of activities. Aspect 7 will usually come later, when children have had plenty of opportunity to develop their sound discrimination skills.

Aspect 1 - General sound discrimination - environmental

The aim of this aspect is to raise children's awareness of the sounds around them and to develop their listening skills. Activities suggested in the guidance include going on a listening walk, drumming on different items outside and comparing the sounds, playing a sounds lotto game and making shakers.

Aspect 2 - General sound discrimination - instrumental sounds

This aspect aims to develop children's awareness of sounds made by various instruments and noise makers. Activities include comparing and matching sound makers, playing instruments alongside a story and making loud and quiet sounds.

Aspect 3 - General sound discrimination - body percussion

The aim of this aspect is to develop children's awareness of sounds and rhythms. Activities include singing songs and action rhymes, listening to music and developing a sounds vocabulary.

Aspect 4 - Rhythm and rhyme

This aspect aims to develop children's appreciation and experiences of rhythm and rhyme in speech. Activities include rhyming stories, rhyming bingo, clapping out the syllables in words and odd one out.

Aspect 5 - Alliteration

The focus is on initial sounds of words, with activities including I-Spy type games and matching objects which begin with the same sound.

Aspect 6 - Voice sounds

The aim is to distinguish between different vocal sounds and to begin oral blending and segmenting. Activities include Metal Mike, where children feed pictures of objects into a toy robot's mouth and the teacher sounds out the name of the object in a robot voice - /c/-/u/-/p/ cup, with the children joining in.

Aspect 7 - Oral blending and segmenting

In this aspect, the main aim is to develop oral blending and segmenting skills.

To practise oral blending, the teacher could say some sounds, such as /c/-/u/-/p/ and see whether the children can pick out a cup from a group of objects. For segmenting practise, the teacher could hold up an object such as a sock and ask the children which sounds they can hear in the word sock.

The activities introduced in Phase 1 are intended to continue throughout the following phases, as lots of practice is needed before children will become confident in their phonic knowledge and skills.

 

 

Phase 2

Introduction to Letters and Sounds Phase 2

Click here if you're looking for free, printable Phase 2 Resources.

In Phase 2, letters and their sounds are introduced one at a time. A set of letters is taught each week, in the following sequence:

Set 1: s, a, t, p
Set 2: i, n, m, d
Set 3: g, o, c, k
Set 4: ck, e, u, r
Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

As soon as each set of letters is introduced, children will be encouraged to use their knowledge of the letter sounds to blend and sound out words. For example, they will learn to blend the sounds s-a-t to make the word sat. They will also start learning to segment words. For example, they might be asked to find the letter sounds that make the word tap from a small selection of magnetic letters.

Phase 2 Set 1 Letters and Words

In Set 1, the first four letters are introduced and seven words can be used for segmenting and blending (high frequency words are shown in italics):

s, a, t, p

at, a, sat, pat, tap, sap, as

 

Phase 2 Set 2 Letters and Words

Set 2 includes four new letters. As each new letter is learnt, children will be able to sound out several new words, as follows:

i	it, is, sit, sat, pit, tip, pip, sip
n	an, in, nip, pan, pin, tin, tan, nap
m	am, man, mam, mat, map, Pam, Tim, Sam
d	dad, and, sad, dim, dip, din, did, Sid

Phase 2 Set 3 Letters and Words

Set 3 introduces four new letters, with 28 new decodable words suggested, including four high frequency words, shown in italics below:

g	tag, gag, gig, gap, nag, sag, gas, pig, dig
o	got, on, not, pot, top, dog, pop, God, Mog
c	can, cot, cop, cap, cat, cod
k	kid, kit, Kim, Ken

Phase 2 Set 4 Letters and Words

Set 4 introduces four new graphemes, with 36 new decodable words suggested. For the first time, some of the suggested words contain two syllables, such as pocket, sunset etc., which some young children might find too difficult at this stage. Personally, I would leave these out if they cause problems. At this stage, it is more important for children to experience success at sounding out short words. Their ability to decode longer words will improve as their short-term memory develops.

At this point, two "tricky words" (not fully decodable at this stage) are taught: the and to.

ck	kick, sock, sack, dock, pick, sick, pack, ticket, pocket
e	get, pet, ten, net, pen, peg, met, men, neck
u	up, mum, run, mug, cup, sun, tuck, mud, sunset
r	rim, rip, ram, rat, rag, rug, rot, rocket, carrot

 

Phase 2 Set 5 Letters and Words

Set 5 introduces seven graphemes (three of which are doubled letters), with 69 new decodable words suggested.

New "tricky" words: no, go and I.

h	had, him, his, hot, hut, hop, hum, hit, hat, has, hack, hug
b	but, big, back, bet, bad, bag, bed, bud, beg, bug, bun, bus, Ben, bat, bit, bucket, beckon, rabbit
f, ff	of, if, off, fit, fin, fun, fig, fog, puff, huff, cuff, fan, fat
l, ll	lap, let, leg, lot, lit, bell, fill, doll, tell, sell, Bill, Nell, dull, laptop
ss	ass, less, hiss, mass, mess, boss, fuss, hiss, pass, kiss, Tess, fusspot