Phonics

= **Phonics**  =

__**Stage One- Alphabet**__

 * The first stage of phonics is the recognition of letters of the alphabet.To begin, the children are instructed to recognise, say and write the letters of the alphabet and identify what upper and lower case letters are.
 * After learning the basic letter recognition, the child will be taught that letters are divided into consonants and vowels and they would then learn the difference between the two.
 * The children are introduced to consonant and vowel sounds and with time, they recognise variations in those letters. Consonants can either have soft or hard sounds while vowels have short and long sounds.

Alphabet Activities

__**Stage Two- Onsets and Rimes**__

 * The second stage of phonics is the recognition of onsets and rimes. Onsets and rimes are an effective phonics strategy as it helps familiarise children with word families. This stage is easier for children to grasp the concept than splitting words into individual phonemes.
 * Any consonants in a syllable that precede the vowel is known as an onset. This can be seen in the example 'straw'. The onset in this word is 'st'.
 * The rime is the vowels and other consonants that are present after the onset. For example in the word 'string', the rime is 'ing'.
 * This strategy is considered very important and useful as it allows children to make analogies between known and unknown words.

Onsets and Rimes Activities

__**Stage Three- Blends**__

 * The third stage of phonics is known as blends and this stage is divided into three phases.
 * Blends are created when two or more letters are combined to form sounds as this is seen either at the beginning of single syllable words or the end.
 * In the first phase, the child learns two letter initial consonant blends. For example:


 * bl, br, cl, dr, fl, fr, gl, pl, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, tw** ect.


 * In phase two, the child learns the thwo letter final consonant blends. For example:


 * ft, ld, lk, lp, lt, mp, nd, ng, nk, nt, py, ry, sk, sp, st, ty** ect.


 * In phase three, the child learns the three letter initial consonant blends. In this blend of three letters, the third letter is always 'r' or 'l'. For example:

Splurge- 'l'=3rd letter**
 * Stream- 'r'= 3rd letter

Blends Activities

__**Stage Four- Digraphs**__

 * The fourth stage of phonics is digraphs which are two letters that make a single sound.
 * Digraphs can either be consonant digraphs or vowel digraphs.
 * Like stage 3 of phonics, stage four is divided up into four phases.
 * In phase one, consonant digraphs are examined and the following are an examples of such digraphs:


 * ck, sh, ch, th, ph, wh, qu, ng**


 * In phase two, the children are introduced to vowel digraphs. For example:

'e'= ee, ea 'i'= i-e, ie, y, igh 'o'= oe, o-e, o, oa, ow 'u' u-e, oo, ue**
 * 'a'= ai, a-e, ay


 * In phase three, the child is exposed to diphthongs which are vowels that make two sounds in the mouth. For example:

ow, ou au, aw**
 * oil, toy


 * Phase four looks at other combinations such as:

short /oo/ sounds- could, tough, new, brought talk, laugh, fruit, caught**
 * air, ear, ure, (er, ir, ur)

The third stage also looks at silent letters**.**

Digraph Activities

__**Stage Five- Structural Analysis**__

 * Stage five is the final stage of phonics and looks at structural analysis.
 * This phase involves making structural changes to base words by adding inflectional endings for plurals and tense (-s, -ed, -ing), prefixes, suffixes (pre-, un-, -less) and compound words.

Structural Analysis Activities