An interactive approach to teaching phonics
Clovenstone’s P1 and P1/2 classes have been enjoying an interactive approach to the teaching of phonics as extolled by Edinburgh City Council’s Achievement in Literacy programme.
The programme is a systematic guide to the teaching of reading and writing in the early stages of Primary. It concentrates on phonemic awareness and uses a synthetic phonics approach to enable pupils to make meaning from texts rapidly.
Teachers model segmenting and blending to pupils through whole class lessons, with interactive teaching strategies and intervention being incorporated. Strategies can be adapted to suit different learning styles, and Clovenstone’s pupils have appreciated the engaging and challenging approaches used by their teachers.
A typical phonics lesson
The phonics lesson usually starts with recall of the sound taught in the previous session, before introducing a new sound and its associated action. Brain gym activities are also incorporated to maximise learning potential and energise the pupils.
Pupils may then be asked to think of words that include the new sound or phoneme, for example ‘sh’. They then spell out the words, looking at mouth shapes made to help. When blending and segmenting letter words, individual phonemes are tapped out with fingers to cement the process.
Whiteboards and dry marker pens are used to consolidate learning and are seen by teachers and pupils as a means of recording that is preferable to worksheets.
Complex words
Essential sight vocabulary is an important part of the programme, with words such as ‘the’ and ‘we’ being referred to as ‘tricky words’. Mnemonics are employed to help pupils remember how these words are put together.
Using the ‘tricky words’ enables pupils to compose whole sentences, and again they use interactive techniques such as tapping out the number of words in a sentence on their heads. They might then be involved in contributing words on the class whiteboard, before reinforcing the building of words from the sentence by making them with magnetic letters.
In addition to being introduced to these basic strategies, the Clovenstone pupils have lots of fun playing with sounds and words in different contexts. Teachers have welcomed this consistent approach to early reading and writing, which lends itself well to cluster working and the sharing of ideas and resources.
Related project
Discover how Minishant Primary made use of phonic- based games and activities to improve the reading skills of their P1-P3 pupils.