Any Reception teachers here please? Phonics help needed!

[Grockle]

I have an interview for a FS teacher. I'm currently in Y1 and am not really an early years teacher but I reckon I can adapt. I really want to do it.

I need to do a 30 minute lesson where I'll be observed teaching phonics (ng sound). Can anyone suggest how to structure the session and tips for any activities. In Y1, we'd do the whole session on the carpet but I don't think I can expect 4 year olds to manage that, can I?

I teach Reception to a very mixed ability class! You are absolutely right, I wouldn’t expect my children to sit for the whole of the phonics session and try to be as active is possible. This is how I taught ng during an observation once and got good feedback. I introduce a ‘friend’ at the start of the session (an action man/he man (or woman 😊) type doll would be good as you are doing ng) Usual review of sounds learnt so far to impress my ‘friend’, ‘friend’ them whispered to me that he has a new sound to teach the chn, introduced MG, friend has a gym he wants to invite the chn to, handed out gym membership (a5 size) cards to practise letter formation of ng on one side and name writing in other. We then did circuit activity we org the chn going round the ‘gym’ doing active phonics activities (graphemes on stepping stones, choosing a photo and then running to the correct initial sound etc) Yoy could do this as a whole group as you don’t know the children yet 😬 but I split my class into four and we rotated round, going in to the next activity when I rang a bell. Worked well 👍🏻

I'm a reception teacher. We do 10 mins phonics:

• go through previously learnt sounds using flashcards. You can make this active by getting them to say them while jumping etc.

• today we're going to learn a new sound. We will learn how to say it, read it and write it. Show them the card with 'ng' and tell them that these two letters make one sound. It's called a digraph. Get them to say it while looking at the card. Use funny voices/volumes. We can say the sound!

• on the other side of the card have a pic of a ring. When you see this 'ng' say 'ng'. When you see the pic of the ring, say bling ring. Do this a few times, moving around the room and making it faster and faster. Now you can read it! Another fun game if you have time is hide the ng in with the previously learnt flashcards. When you see 'ng' stand up and pull a funny face. They love this.

-show them how to write it in the air, on your whiteboard. Get them to write it on their knee etc using their finger.i use big rolls of paper, give each child a pen and give them 2 mins to write as many 'ng' as they can. You can then display this in the classroom so they can practice more during free play

Ps after this 10 min phonics stage, then plan activities they can do around the classroom eg highlighting ng in words, writing ng and words in sand

First step (if you haven't already) is find out what scheme they follow, as the children will respond better if it's a structure they're used to.

Good luck

I’m a reception TA working with the deputy head/eyfs lead. By the time we are teaching “ng” we would have worked through all the phase 2 sounds and a few phase 3. Our phonics sessions start with a review of the sounds already taught, we then use a bear to introduce the new sound. This bear goes on little adventures, eg the park, to our houses for tea (the children love this) and we build story around that. So the bear might have been trying to lift something heavy and made a “ng ng ng” sound...meaning strong.
We would then tell the children a few words with the “ng” sound in before the children sound talk the word with a partner using their robot arms.
Finally, they would be given a caption sentence. The children would count the number of words first before attempting to write. The caption should have at least one tricky work (revisited in the session) and two words containing the sound.
The whole phonics session would last maybe 30 minutes which is long enough for reception to sit.
We have a phonics table with a few objects on relating to the sound of the day, sand tray for writing, phonics games etc.

Oh, and if you haven’t already make sure you are acquainted with the eyfs areas of development and age related expectations, elg. It is one of our eyfs lead’s bugbears when interviewing that people don’t know it!