Phonics in Year 1

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If your child/school used Jolly Phonics for Year R phonics, what did they do in Year 1 to continue learning/practicing phonics (and/or preparing for the Phonics Test)?

I should "declare" that we home ed. DS has flown through JP, supplemented with other activities/work (he thinks coloring is a waste of time but loved practicing his writing on the JP sheets/in activity books so I found other opportunities to practice writing and sounding out/blending) in addition to all of the practice opportunities JP has (he has made books of his words boxes and lists, books of phonemes, alternative spelling, a binder of his practice writing, etc., all of which he regularly revisits). I know the Yr 1 Phonics Test is a big deal but haven't worked out how children continue phonics after learning it in Reception other than to keep on reading/practicing reading with readers and other books. Do schools tend to follow a program/curriculum?

Jolly Phonics is one of the schemes that the phonics test used when deciding which graphemes to test. So if you have done JP including the alternative spellings in the handbook then he's probably already prepared for the test.

Letters and sounds, which is the scheme of work produced by the government, goes much slower than JP. It only teaches one way to spell each sound in Reception and spends year 1 teaching the alternatives. It teaches more alternatives than JP so you could download a copy and look at phases 5&6 to see if there are any gaps.

Alternatively, there is Jolly Grammar 1, which follows on from JP and teaches grammar and spelling. The pace of spelling in that is very slow and does mostly spend the year recapping the alternative spellings in JP without teaching any new ones.

alphabeticcodecharts.com/free_charts.html

One of these might be better than Letters and sounds. This gives you most of the spellings for each sound. If you go through this a sound at a time looking at all the spellings and doing the additional activities you say he's already doing, he should be more than prepared for both the phonics test and reading and writing in general.

Thanks, Rafals. I have been looking at the Jolly Grammar books (and have heard good things about it). Right now we do a lot of spelling verbally because DS often refuses to write it down until he knows it's right/perfect but he can read well and works out himself when he's made a mistake (long versus short vowels, etc) when faced with a new word.

I'll see if I can find Letters and Sounds. The other night I found the Phonics Tests from the last three years so have printed those out to see if I can identify any gaps. He clearly is enjoying his phonics work and got on with JP so I think I might continue with that and the supplemental activities we've been doing.

I suggest you have a look at Phonics International. It's available online, it's cheap, it's incredibly well resourced and you can start the programme at whatever place you need to for your child.

www.phonicsinternational.com

The Jolly Phonics handbook introduces 42 sounds with some (not all) alternative spellings for some of the vowel digraphs. It's a popular programme that can work well in reception as an introduction to phonics.
Jolly Grammar does teach more alternatives but IMHO isn't as systematic as other newer programmes.

Many schools use the free ?etters & Sounds programme and supplement the lack of resources by using resources from other programmes.

High quality phonics programmes teach 44 sounds and the 180ish common ways the sounds can be represented in English words in a systematic progression from simple to complex.

The Y1 phonics screening is to identify children who haven't/aren't learning to read through the use of synthetic phonics and also hopefully identify gaps for some schools in their teaching.

It's a big deal for schools as the results are published and they are obviously accountable for unusually low 'pass' rates, but not a big deal for the children, as it takes 5 mins with a member of staff they know.

The LA and Ofsted will have the results, but they aren't published for the public in the same way SATs results are.

The results of the Phonics Screening Check aren't published. Parents will be informed how their child scored.

It is also important that reading and (spelling) writing are taught in parrallel as they are two sides of the same coin. Every lesson needs to include both.

I wouldn't worry about phonics screening test, as it actually doesn't show what the children know. Surely it is more important to teach how to read and spell real words, rather than having to waste time teaching them to read fake words to pass an unimportant test! Rant over.

you don't have to teach them to read fake words. The phonics screen identifies what sounds the child is able to read. There is no problem with fake words, all unfamiliar words are a 'fake' words to a child.

Your rant makes no sense.

Yes, is proven to be an effective screen for later reading difficulties even in children who appear to be reading well and tells you where the gaps in a child's knowledge are is totally pointless.

Any teacher with good subject knowledge of teaching reading won't be teaching fake words anyway.

Given what the OP has said I suspect the screening check isn't going to give her DS much of a problem, even if she gave it to him now.

I work in a school and children have to be taught monster words that are words made up of phonic sounds. It has been proven that good readers will try to make them into real words, so teachers waste phonic time teaching a method to read not real words, when they could be teaching how phonics work in real words! We didn't have this check four years ago, and children who do not meet the requirement, repeat it in year 2, then are not screened again, even if they do not meet the requirement again.

It has been proven that good readers will try to make them into real words,

No it hasn't. That's just a myth put around by teachers who care more about 'making meaning' than about reading what is actually written in the text (and who dislike the phonics check). No 'good reader' tries to force a set of letters on the page to become a word they 'know'. And the concept of a 6y old 'knowing' every single word they encounter when reading is laughable.

The Sfr data proves quite the opposite. Children who meet the pass mark in year one achieve higher results in ks1 assessment than those that only pass in year 2. Both of those groups achieve higher than children who do not pass in year 1 or year 2. The percentage of children who achieved level 3 at the end of year 2 (i.e the highest achievers) but who hadn't yet passed the check is 0%, with 95% having passed in year 1.

Many, many schools do not spend any time teaching monster or non words in order to get their children to pass and get results of close to 100%. If a school is having to teach monster words that isn't because of the test. It's because something is going wrong with what or how the children are learning. Fix that, and you don't need to spend time learning to read non-words.

Sorry, we've been out for the day going to wind & water mills (it's National Mills Weekend) and having cream tea at a local National Trust mill.

All of the information, links, etc., have been a very interesting read.

I'm not teaching DS fake/monster words but we have come across some in books ("zog" in the Songbirds books instantly comes to mind) which DS thinks are silly but does use his phonics to work them out (and then asks me why the author has made up silly words). I downloaded the past phonics tests primarily to use for a self-assessment to see if there are gaps in his knowledge/understanding and then I know what I need to focus on. I used JP to fill in his gaps and reinforce what he knew and he has flown with it. While I don't make him write spellings down on paper (yet) he can spell out-loud (both phonetically and with letter names). We do word games on paper such as crosswords, word searches (which he loves), and "missing letter/s."

I often hear him sitting in his bedroom with his stuffed friends, reading stories to them. I know he's reading as he pulls a book from a pile of Oxford Learning Tree/Bif, Chip & Kipper/Songbirds books we have borrowed (from the library and from friends) and he's never seen before. I can hear him fly through the words and sound out (then confidently say and if he's made a mistake with his phonics he can tell when he puts them together and he goes back and tries again (I'm thinking of the various sounds of oo, as an example)) the words he doesn't already know and then he'll come running to find me to tell me about the book he just read. I'm not worried about his reading or his comprehension but have been aware that phonics are taught in Year 1 and as he's finished the Yr R phonics work have been looking for the next steps (and he has loved his phonics work so I'd like to carry on with the reinforcement while he's actively bringing me his work binder and asking to "do reading work").

Many thanks for all of the suggestions!

Lots of 'silly' words in Roald Dahl!

If he's reluctant to make mistakes in his writing, try using a small whiteboard or chalk board, so that he can instantly rub out something that is wrong.

And if you don't already have it, you will find the following entertaining and useful:

An inexpensive and easy to use book, that can encourage children with reading, spelling and writing, and really help them to understand Phonics, is reviewed in the MN Book Reviews section. Just search ‘Phonics’.

[National Trust do the BEST CREAM TEAS in the whole world!]

Lovewearingjeans why does your school teach "monster" words?

It definitely hasn't been proven that good readers will try to make real words from the pseudo words. But it is a great excuse.

Good readers read what's on the page they aren't so arrogant as to assume that every word they meet will be familiar to them. What would your good readers do if faced with "snew" or "epopt" or "limbus" ?

Scout phonics in Y1,2,3,4,5,6,... Isn't about reinforcing it is new teaching building on what has been taught previously.

Op if you home ed, why are you so concerned with the phonics screening when your child won't be doing it?

You talk about plugging gaps but surely you would just do this as you read with him anyway

If I were home educating I would use a much more robust assessment than the phonics screening check.

Mrz, that's what I'm trying to work out. If phonics is taught in Reception how is it continued to be taught if it's not just strengthening what he's already learned? Unless it's more than just phonics which I'm assuming it is then why call it phonics?

When I was in school, in university doing training and even teaching, we called it Language Arts and Reading and it encompassed everything -- reading/learning to read, comprehension, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, etc. Phonics as something separate is as foreign to me as I am to the British system.

We read, a lot. And it's not limited to phonics readers. In fact, most of what DS likes to have read to him you wouldn't find in a school library. But he desperately wants to read on his own, so he can do his own research (he has an idol that he wants to be like and he has asked what needs to be done to be like him). Plugging in the gaps may have been the wrong phrase but I knew he knew most of his (Reception) phonics before. There were a few he didn't know but I couldn't work out what they were just through reading with him so I systematically went through to find which they were (which meant he was practicing/showing off what he did know). We don't limit ourselves to one book and use a variety of reading and activity books to practice, go back to, practice some more (reading, phonics, sight words, grammar, comprehension).

I'm not concerned by the phonics screening per se. I'm using it as a tool, like schools. I'm also always aware that some day DS might be in the school system. I'm confident enough in us, as a family (that's DH and me and the wider family) to do a good job but I always keep "things change and DS may go in" at the back of my mind and i don't want him to be at a disadvantage if that happens (hence trying to work out how phonics is taught all the way through though I focused on Yr 1 since we've just finished Yr R phonics work). I also want to do my best to help DS become the best reader he can be so he can achieve his dreams (he wants to be an astronomer/physicist and knows to do that he needs to read and write well along with all of the math and science he sees an astronomer do).

Thank you for the resource ideas/sites mentioned for continuing our phonics learning. I'm going to be busy tonight when DS goes to bed (after another day of wind & water mills).

Phonics taught in reception is just the basics. Teachers will continue to build on this in the following years.

If you used Jolly Phonics I'm assuming you have taught 42 sounds (most other programmes teach 44) and one way to spell most of those sounds. Letter is the sound /s/ for example but children also need to be taught that /s/ can also be spelt ( representing two sounds /k/ & /s/). /t/ can be spelt

The letter can represent the sound /a/ in cat /ae/ in David /o/ in what /or/ in water
Etc etc etc so as you can see there is much more to learn.