Phonics (Letters and Sounds)
Letters and Sounds is the resource we use at Newbridge on Wye C in W School to support the systematic teaching of phonics. Children begin the Letters and Sounds programme at the start of Reception year and continue across the Foundation Phase. Every child between Reception and Year 2 has a 20-25 minute phonics session every day.
The Letters and Sounds programme is separated into six Phases - your child's teacher will be able to tell you which Phase your child is currently working on.
Within this site you will find information for each Phase. Please select the appropriate Phase from the dropdown menu. There is a brief explanation of what is taught and a selection of resources (word cards, games & record sheets) which you can use to support your child's learning.
If you require any further support, please come into school and speak with your child's class teacher.
Sources of Information
The Oxford Owl website has some excellent information for parents. There are a couple of useful videos as well as a really helpful player that allows you to hear each letter sound. Click on the icon to visit the site.
Phonics Glossary
We hope the following glossary is useful to you when using our Letters and Sounds pages. Always feel free to come in and talk to us if you require any further support.
blending
Blending is the skill of joining sounds together to read words. Children are taught to say the separate sounds in a word and to then blend them together to decode the word.
digraph
A digraph is a sound that is represented by two letters e.g. the sound 'a' in rain is represented by the digraph 'ai'.
grapheme
A grapheme is a visual representation of a sound e.g. a letter or a group of letters. Some sounds are represented by a single letter whilst others are represented by more than one letter.
phoneme
A phoneme is a unit of sound e.g. the word 'cat' contains three phonemes; c - a - t.
segmenting
Segmenting is the opposite of blending. Children are taught to segment a word into its separate sounds in order to spell it.
split digraph
A split digraph is a digraph that is separated by other letters e.g. the sound 'a' in the word take is represented by the split digraph a-e.