The Jargon – A Quick Guide

phonics (also known as ‘synthetic phonics’) – The teaching of reading by developing awareness of the sounds in words and the corresponding letters used to represent those sounds.

blending – Putting together the sounds in a word in order to read it, e.g. ‘f – r – o – g, frog’

segmenting – Breaking a word into its constituent sounds in order to spell them, e.g. ‘frog, f – r – o – g’’

Phonics learning relies on children being able to hear and distinguish the sounds within words. Children with poor listening and/or attention skills can struggle with phonics learning. Listening skills begin at birth and there are lots of things that parents and carers can do to support these skills. Children are also taught listening and attention skills during their early years education (age 0-5). The first phase of formal phonics education (Phase 1) also focuses on key listening skills. Without these skills, children may struggle to master the next stage of their phonics learning. There are different phases to phonics so we have added relative information in each section for you to pick and choose from different activities. We have also included links to useful websites we think might help!