As artists, it took us a while to get round phonics, even though we’re parents with children in this age group. It’s always hard to support your child’s learning if you’re worried that you’re “not doing it right”. That’s why we helped create the Break 3 reading guide for families in and around Frome.

Phonics is now the main way children are taught to read in the Frome Schools Partnership. Phonics looks at the sounds that letters make when they are put together. For example “oo” in the word “moon”, gives the same sound as “ew” in the word “screw”.

In phonics children are taught to identify and use these sounds to put words together. Depending on how they are doing, and which year group they are in, this will be taught differently at different stages. At each stage children are encouraged to discover and learn patterns themselves.

This phonic table was edited out of our Family Reading Guide, but looks nice and is really useful for reference.

Fooling around with phonics guide

Supporting your child’s learning can feel stressful! We think the best way to learn together is play together.

Try googling “phonics games” for fun ways to learn together – here are some useful ones:

http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/phonics/

http://www.jollylearning.co.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/play/