‘Funky Phonics’ workshop in the EYC

The week beginning, November 25, saw Ms Catherine and Ms Jasmine lead a session called ‘Funky Phonics’ for the parents of children in the EYC. The aim of the workshop was to make parents more aware of the learning that goes on in our phonics lessons at BIS. 

Phonics is an approach to learning the sounds that letters make so that children can start to read and write words and sentences. Ms Catherine and Ms Jasmine explained that the phonics programme we teach follows six different phases. The children begin their learning journey in phonics at Phase 1. In Phase 1 they listen to and identify different sounds around them, practise rhymes and rhythms and make sounds. Then, in Phases 2-6, the children learn the sounds the different letters and letter combinations make. There are over 44 different sounds patterns to learn in English!

In the session, parents were explained how they can assist their children at home. Our teachers spoke about listening to and reading stories and rhymes together, reading every night, talking about sounds they read and asking their children to blend words together using their knowledge of sounds. Blending sounds together to form words is a fundamental aspect of phonics. For example, the children learn that the sounds, /c/ /a/ /t/ (not the letter names) blend together to make the word cat.  

If you have any questions about phonics, please be sure to ask your class teacher and they will be happy to explain how you can help too. In Term 2, we will have opportunities for parents to come in and watch phonics lessons so they can see how our teachers teach phonics.

Darragh Shanahan

Assistant Head of Primary