This assignment will describe and explain the teaching of phonics as an approach to teaching reading. It will do this by identifying the research that underpins systematic synthetic phonics and setting out the statutory expectations set by the government. It will also explore why phonics is a priority in primary schools. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayPhonics is a method of learning where children learn to read by teaching them the relationships between sounds and letters. Children need knowledge of the alphabetic code and skills in blending and segmenting to be able to read. In phonics, letters are synthesized so that children learn to mix letters. The national curriculum expects children to be “able to read fluently and confidently” by the end of their primary school education. The aims of the national curriculum are for children to be able to “write clearly, accurately and coherently” and “read easily, fluently and with good understanding”. This highlights the importance of teaching phonics from an early age, as children are expected to be reading by the end of Key Stage One. The curriculum states that “spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing”, which highlights the importance of teaching phonics from early childhood. The legal reading requirements in Year 1 all involve children using their phonics knowledge, as the curriculum states that children must learn to 'decode words' and 'blend sounds'. (DoE, 2013) In primary school, children are taught that phonemes are the sounds of letters and that graphemes are the individual written sounds. They then learn the different types of phonemes. A digraph is made up of two letters that make a single sound; for example /sh/, /th/, /ee/. A trigraph is made up of three letters that produce a sound; for example, /igh/, /tch/. A quadrigraph is made up of four letters that produce a sound; for example, /ough/, /eigh/. Teaching children the correct terminology is valuable because it avoids confusion. Children should then notice phonemes in words, which will help them develop their reading and writing skills. Phonological awareness is a broad skill that includes recognizing and manipulating parts of the English language, for example words, syllables, onsets and rhymes. Children who have phonological awareness are able to identify and pronounce rhymes, express the number of syllables in a word, and recognize words with the same initial sounds like "most" and "money." Phonemic awareness is the ability to focus on and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words. There are 44 phonemes in the English language that can be mixed together to form syllables and words. Phonemic awareness is important for children because it provides the foundation for spelling and word recognition skills. Phonemic awareness can predict how well children will learn to read during the first two years of elementary school. Students who have reading difficulties generally have lower levels of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness than their peers, excluding SEND and EAL. You might also be interested in How to Read When You Hate Reading: Tips + Reading Exploration Unlike the previous century, the accelerated pace of life and the massive transition to.