Phase 1 - Notes for Practioners and Teachers

Each aspect is divided into three strands.

• Tuning into sounds (auditory discrimination)
• Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing)
• Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension). 

Activities within the seven aspects are designed to help children:

1. listen attentively;

2. enlarge their vocabulary;

3. speak confidently to adults and other children;

4. discriminate phonemes;

5. reproduce audibly the phonemes they hear, in order, all through the word;

6. use sound-talk to segment words into phonemes.

The ways in which practitioners and teachers interact and talk with children are critical to developing children’s speaking and listening. This needs to be kept in mind throughout all phase one activities.

Phase One falls largely within the Communication, Language and Literacy area of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage. In particular, it will support linking sounds and letters in the order in which they occur in words, and naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet. It also draws on and promotes other areas of learning described in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), particularly Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Creative Development, where, for example, music plays a key part in developing children’s language. Phase One contributes to the provision for Communication, Language and Literacy; it does not constitute the whole language provision.

The activities in Phase One are mainly adult-led with the intention of teaching young children important basic elements of the Letters and Sounds programme such as oral segmenting and blending of familiar words. However, it is equally important to sustain and draw upon worthwhile, freely chosen activities that are provided for children in good early years settings and Reception classes. The aim is to embed the Phase One adult-led activities in a language-rich provision that serves the best interests of the children by fully recognising their propensity for play and its importance in their development.

It follows that the high quality play activities which typify good provision will offer lots of opportunities to enrich children’s language across the six areas of learning:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Communication, Language and Literacy
• Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy
• Knowledge and Understanding of the World
• Physical Development
• Creative Development.

Practitioners and teachers will need to be alert to the opportunities afforded for language development through children’s play, and link learning from the Letters and Sounds programme with all six areas.

Experience shows that children benefit hugely by exposure to books from an early age.Right from the start, lots of opportunities should be provided for children to engage with books that fire their imagination and interest. They should be encouraged to choose and peruse books freely as well as sharing them when read by an adult.Enjoying and sharing books leads to children seeing them as a source of pleasure and interest and motivates them to value reading.

Practitioners and teachers should provide daily speaking and listening activities that are well matched to children’s developing abilities and interests, drawing upon observations and assessments to plan for progression and to identify children who need additional support, for example to discriminate and produce the sounds of speech.

A rich and varied environment will support children’s language learning through Phase One and beyond. Indoor and outdoor spaces should be well planned so that they can be used flexibly. For each aspect in Phase One, there are photographs and captions that illustrate the ways in which the learning environment can be designed to encourage children to explore and apply the knowledge and skills to which they have been introduced through the activities.

Oral blending and segmenting the sounds in words are an integral part of the later stages of Phase One. Whilst recognising alliteration (words that begin with the same sound) is important as children develop their ability to tune into speech sounds, the main objective should be segmenting words into their component sounds, and especially blending the component sounds all through a word.

Exploring the sounds in words should occur as opportunities arise throughout the course of the day’s activities, as well as in planned adult-led sessions with groups and individual children. Children’s curiosity in letter shapes and written words should be fostered throughout Phase One to help them make a smooth transition to Phase Two, when grapheme–phoneme correspondences are introduced. There is no requirement that children should have mastered all the skills in Phase One (e.g. the ability to supply a rhyming word) before beginning Phase Two.

The ways in which practitioners and teachers model speaking and listening, interact and talk with children are critical to the success of Phase One activities and to promoting children’s speaking and listening skills more widely. The key adult behaviours can be summarised as follows.

Listen to encourage talking – time spent listening to children talk to each other, and listening to individuals without too frequent interruption, helps them to use more, and more relevant, language. This provides practitioners with insights into children’s learning in order to plan further learning, that is make assessments for learning. Practitioners should recognise that waiting time is constructive. It allows children to think about what has been said, gather their thoughts and frame their replies.

Model good listening. This includes making eye contact with speakers, asking the sort of questions attentive listeners ask and commenting on what has been said. Effective practitioners adapt their spoken interventions to give children ample opportunities to extend their spoken communication.

Provide good models of spoken English to help young children enlarge their vocabulary and learn, for example, how to structure comprehensible sentences, speak confidently and clearly, and sustain dialogue. Phase One activities are designed to foster these attributes.

Effective assessment involves careful observation, analysis and review by practitioners of each child’s knowledge, skills and understanding in order to track their progress and make informed decisions about planning for the next steps of learning. This assessment for learning is key to the success of Phase One and for enabling practitioners to make principled, professional judgements about when children should begin a systematic phonics programme. For this reason, examples of what practitioners should focus their observations on are included after each set of the Phase One activities under the subheading ‘Look, listen and note’. These examples are designed to help practitioners keep a careful eye on children’s progress and will help to identify those who may need further practice and support before moving on, as well as supporting those who are capable of making rapid progress. By observing children, listening to them and noting their achievements, practitioners will be well placed to judge how well children are doing and plan next steps.

At the end of each aspect, the ‘Considerations’ section provides some indications of what practitioners need to reflect on to develop their practice and to ensure that the needs

of all the children are met. For example, these sections suggest how activities may be extended where appropriate to provide greater challenge and encourage children to apply their developing language knowledge and skills more widely.

During Phase One, there is no expectation that children are introduced to letters (graphemes). Of course some children may bring knowledge of letters from home, and be interested in letters they see around them on signs, displays and in books. Practitioners and teachers should certainly respond to children’s comments and queries about letters and words in print.

Children who can hear phonemes in words and sound them out accurately are generally well placed to make a good start in reading and writing.

Children learning EAL generally learn to hear sounds in words very easily.

Children need to hear the sounds in the word spoken in sound-talk immediately followed by the whole word. Avoid being tempted to ask any questions in between such as I wonder what that word can be? or Do you know what that word is? The purpose is to model oral blending and immediately give the whole word.

It is important only to segment and blend the last word in a sentence or phrase and not words that occur at the beginning or middle of the sentence. Over time and with lots of repetition, the children will get to know the routine and as they gain confidence they will provide the blended word before the adult.

Using a toy is preferable to a puppet because it is important that children watch the adult’s face and mouth to see the sounds being articulated clearly, rather than focusing on the imitated movements of the puppet.
 

It is very important to enunciate the phonemes very clearly and not to add an ‘uh’ to some (e.g.‘ssssssss’ and not ‘suh’, ‘mmmmmmmm’ and not ‘muh’).

Avoid using words with adjacent consonants (e.g. ‘sp’ as in ‘spoon’) as these will probably be too difficult for children at the early stages of practising blending and segmenting.

Once children have been introduced to blending and segmenting they should be practised hand in hand as they are reversible processes.