Teach Reading and Writing Issue 19

DOWNLOAD RESOURCES AT Download your FREE phase 4 phonics games at tinyurl.com/tp-P4P T E ACH I NG T E CHN I QUE S How to teach PHASE 4 PHONICS Conquer blending and segmenting with this guide to building on previous learning, from Emma Spiers P hase 4 phonics can feel trickier to teach than phases 2 and 3, because there are no new grapheme-phoneme correspondences to learn. This teaching phase is designed to consolidate and build on all previous learning, challenging children to read longer words, and a larger bank of tricky words, ‘at a glance’. Activity ideas All phase 4 phonics activities should include lots of opportunities to blend-to-read, and segment-to-spell words including adjacent consonants, and words of more than one syllable, including: •CVCC words consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant For example: milk, desk, went, last, soft, chest, shelf, toast •CCVC words Consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant For example: from, stop, plan, frog, flag, grab, green, brush, sport, crash •CCVCC words Consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant- consonant For example: stand, spend, trust, twist, blink, crunch, shrink •CCCVC words Consonant-consonant- consonant- vowel-consonant For example: splash, spring, street, string It’s important to remember that the vowel and consonant digraphs taught in phase 3 are included in these words as a single unit. For example: •b-r-u-sh is a CCVC word. The digraph sh is considered a single consonant unit. •g-r-ee-n is a CCVC word. The digraph ee is considered a single vowel unit. Blending and segmenting We also need to show pupils how to hear adjacent consonants in words. They can find these tricky to determine, as some phonemes are more dominant in words. For example: hearing went as wet . Pupils also need to know how to say the adjacent consonants in words. This can be tricky, depending on clarity of speech. For example: saying jum rather than drum ; chain rather than train ; or vat rather than that . Begin by orally blending and segmenting the chosen words as a class, following the ‘I do, we do, you do’ method (the adult models the blending process first (I do); children and adult blend aloud together (we do); children blend independently as a class (you do)). Keep the number of words limited to no more than eight, using the focus consonants for the session. Repeat this process by segmenting to spell the same words, using the same methodology. Phonics in context It’s important that children learn to apply phase 4 phonics beyond the isolated word level, too. Every phase 4 phonics lesson should therefore include explicit teaching of how to read or write a sentence, including some focus words. This could consist of shared sentence- reading, or dictated sentence-writing, using the ‘I do, we do, you do’ strategy. Another useful strategy is to read or write together as a class, blending or segmenting one word at a time. As each word is read aloud or written, the group should be guided back to the beginning of the sentence to reread previous words. This will significantly improve memory, training the children to check that what they are reading or writing makes sense. Things to avoid: • Asking the children to think of their own sentences to write The objective is for the children to apply the words taught in a sentence, with a high degree of accuracy in spelling. Thinking of a sentence requires the children to consider much more than just that, stepping beyond the purpose of the lesson. •Expecting the children to read or write without a model This part of the teaching sequence is not an opportunity to assess the success of the lesson. It’s a chance to over-model and clearly demonstrate how learning can be applied in reading and writing beyond the phonics session. Securing phase 4 phonics will allow children to have a good foundational knowledge of the basic alphabetic code. This means that they will have a solid basis for successfully exploring the complexities of the alphabetic code taught in phonics phase 5 and beyond. Emma Spiers is an author, early literacy consultant and trainer . @learningladyuk learninglady.co.uk www.teachwire.net | 47