1. Debbie Hepplewhite’s simple to complex Alphabetic Code overview   Slash marks /ai/ denote units of sound (phonemes or combined phonemes). Letters and letter groups (graphemes) appear in single apostrophes ‘ay’. References to short vowel sounds relate to the sounds as in ‘apple, egg, insect, octopus, umbrella’ denoted as: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ - said in a ‘staccato’ manner - as opposed to references to the long vowel sounds commonly denoted as: /ai/, /ee/, /igh/, /oa/, /yoo/ as in ‘aid, eel, night, oak, statue’. Key to the 12 units of Debbie’s online synthetic phonics programme, Phonics International: units1-5 simple code with some spelling alternatives 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 6-12 /air/, /eer/, /zh/, split digraphs, complex code 6th 7th 8th 9th simple code complex code graphemes: spelling variations which ARE CODE FOR the 44+ phonemes and combined phonemes such as /k+s/ and /y+oo/ and key words /s/ s /a/ a /t/ t /i/ -ss -ce -se ce ci cy sc palace house cents certain city circle bicycle lacy scissors scythe ascent -st- castle ps pseudonym tent i letter -ed skipped -y -y * insect sunny 12th Debbie’s programme introduces a simple code of at least one letter/s-sound correspondence for each of the 44+ sounds of speech of the English language. It then expands to teach further spellings and their pronunciation variations. * Short words ending with the /s/ sound with short medial vowel sounds usually end with double letters ‘ss’ - as in ‘glass’. *Sound out double consonant letters ‘ss’ as one sound only. *Double consonant letters alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound (see ‘a’ below re ‘glass’) *Letters e, i or y alert the reader that the preceding ‘c’ will represent the /s/ sound. (This is often described as ‘soft c’.) *For ‘a’, teach, “Try the short vowel sound /a/ first, if that does not sound right then try the long vowel /ai/ sound”. *Some people pronounce the ‘a’ in some words as if it were /ar/: e.g. path p- ar -th; glass g-l- ar -s *Double consonant letters ‘tt’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. *Past tense of verbs leads to ‘ed’ graphemes for /t/, /d/, /e+d/. apple -tt 11th teaching points units of sound (phonemes and combined phonemes) snake glass 5th 10th * *Letters ‘i’ and ‘y’ and the sounds they represent have very close links. Here the letter ‘y’ acts as a vowel-letter and vowel- sound. * End graphemes ‘y’, ‘ey’ and ‘ie’ sound between /i/ and /ee/. -ey * -ie cymbals monkey movie Copyright Debbie Hepplewhite 2008

2. /p/ /n/ /k/ p pan n net k kit *Double consonant letters ‘pp’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. -pp puppet -nn kn gn -ine bonnet knot c cat gnome engine -ck ch duck chameleon qu que bouquet /e/ e -ea -ai /h/ h hat wh who /r/ r -rr /m/ m -mm -mb -mn -me egg rat head said *When letter names are taught, point out that the name for the letter ‘h’ is pronounced “aitch” – not “haitch”. *Some people would refer to ‘silent w’ or ‘silent h’; others prefer to say that ‘wr’ and ‘rh’ are code for the /r/ sound (phoneme). wr rh arrow write rhino map hammer /d/ d -dd -ed /g/ g -gg gu gh -gue dig girl plaque *Double consonant letters ‘nn’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. *Some people would refer to ‘silent k’ or ‘silent g’; others prefer to say that ‘kn’ and ‘gn’ are code for the /n/ sound. *Letter ‘c’ represents a /k/ sound when preceding the letters ‘a’, ‘o’ and ‘u’. *Short words with short vowels usually end with ‘ck’ and this grapheme never begins words. *When reading short unknown words with single letter ‘e’, teach, “Try the short vowel /e/ sound first, if that does not sound right then try the long vowel /ee/ sound”. thumb column *Double consonant letters ‘mm’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. *Some people would refer to ‘silent b’ or silent ‘n’; others prefer to say that ‘mb’ and ‘mn’ are code for /m/. *Double consonant letters ‘dd’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. *Past tense of verbs leads to ‘ed’ graphemes for /t/, /d/, /u+d/. welcome puddle rained juggle guitar ghost *Double consonant letters ‘gg’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. *Letter ‘u’ in ‘gu’ acts as a block between the letters ‘g’ and ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’ indicating the ‘g’ is code for /g/ and not /j/. catalogue Copyright Debbie Hepplewhite 2008

3. /o/ /u/ /l/ o wa qua alt octopus watch qualify salt u o umbrella son l -ll ladder schwa kettle touch thorough -il -al -el pencil /f/ f -ff /b/ b -bb bu /j/ /y/ feather cliff bat j jug ough shell -le /ul/ -ou *For ‘o’, teach, “Try the short vowel /o/ sound first, if that does not sound right then try the long vowel /oa/ sound”. *Alert the reader that the graphemes ‘w’ or ‘qu’ preceding a single letter ‘a’ can indicate that ‘a’ is code for the /o/ sound. *For ‘u’, teach, “Try the short vowel /u/ sound first, if that does not sound right then try the long vowel /yoo/ sound”. *The letter ‘u’ is sometimes code for a long /oo/ sound: e.g. flu, judo, truth, Ruth, Pluto. *To make the /l/ sound, roll up the tongue and say “ul”. *Short words with short vowels usually end with ‘ll’ as in bell. *Double consonant letters ‘ll’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound except ‘-all’ (/or+l/). *Teach the ‘schwa’ effect involving /l/ through words such as: little, table, pupil, cymbal, label (pronounced close to “ul”). Teach that literal sounding out when reading, however, helps with spelling: e.g. h-o-s-p-i-t-a-l. *Double consonant letters ‘ff’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. *Short words with short vowel sounds usually end with ‘ff’ as in off and cliff. *Double consonant letters ‘bb’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. rabbit hospital camel ph -gh photo laugh building *Letters e, i or y alert the reader that the preceding letter ‘g’ might represent the /j/ sound. (This is often referred to as ‘soft g’.) *Words ending with the /j/ sound are spelt with ‘ge’ or ‘dge’ (‘dge’ follows single letter, short vowel sounds like ‘fridge’). *Teach early on that letter ‘y’ represents 4 sounds as in ‘yes, my mummy’ and ‘cymbal’. It is often interchangeable with the the letter ‘i’ and the sounds /i/, between /i and ee/, and /igh/. -ge ge gi gy -dge cabbage gerbil giraffe gymnast fridge y yawn Copyright Debbie Hepplewhite 2008

4. /ai/ ai aid -ay a tray table w /oa/ oa ow o oak sundae bow yo-yo -oe o-e ough oboe rope dough plateau i-e ei -y /ee/ e * or /aw/ night tie ee ea or fork dependent on regional and national accents /z/ /ng/ z zebra -n gong eight break wheel i /or/ prey wh /igh/ -igh -ie eel cakes eat behind shy emu bike *The ‘i-i’ as in ‘liking’ alerts the reader to pronounce /igh/. eider -y e-e -ey -ie sunny concrete *The ‘o-i’ as in ‘poking’ alerts the reader to pronounce /oa/. eau key chief *monkey *movie -ine sardines aw au -al oar -oor ore -our war quar augh ough warm quarter caught -zz -s -se -ze x dawn jazz -n jungle *The ‘a-i’ as in ‘baking’ alerts the reader to pronounce /ai/. *Grapheme ‘ea’ as code for the /ai/ sound is rare. Note the three common root words: break, steak, great. *Letter ‘w’ preceding vowel graphemes should alert the reader to different possible pronunciations’; (w)a - wasp, wag; (w)ar - warm, wary; (w)or - work. Note: ‘what’ /w/ web -ae a-e -ey eigh -ea sauce fries chalk oars snore four thought cheese breeze /ngk/ door xylophone -nk -nc ink uncle Copyright Debbie Hepplewhite 2008 *The ‘e-i’ as in ‘competing’ alerts the reader to pronounce /ee/. *The ‘y’ in ‘sunny’ is between the sound /i/ and /ee/. Similarly, so is ‘ey’ in ‘monkey’ and ‘ie’ in ‘movie’. [Also in /i/ row.] *Letter ‘w’ preceding grapheme ‘ar’ alerts the reader to say the sound /or/: (w)ar - war, warn, wart, warder. *Sound /w/ as in ‘qu’ [/k/+/w/] also alerts reader to pronounce ‘ar’ as /or/: (qu)ar - quart, quarter, quartz, quartile. *Double consonant letters ‘zz’ alert the reader to sound out the preceding vowel with its short sound. *Short words with short vowel sounds end with ‘zz’ - jazz. *The grapheme ‘ng’ can be pronounced differently according to regional accent and dependent upon the particular word. *In some words, the ‘n’ and ‘g’ are pronounced separately *Teach ‘nk’ as if it was one sound unit for reading and spelling purposes even though it is really two; that is: /ng/+/k/. This combined ‘sound’ may be denoted as /nk/.

5. /v/ short v violin dove /oo/ oo -oul -u book long *Teach that words ending with the /v/ sound end with the grapheme ‘ve’. -ve should push /oo/ oo -ue u-e -ew -ui -ou -o moon blue flute crew fruit soup move ough through /k s/ -x -ks -cks -kes /gz/ -x -ggs /ch/ ch -tch /chu/ -ture + /sh/ unvoiced /th/ voiced /th/ fox books ducks cakes exam chairs patch sh ch sheep chef schwa eggs picture -ti -ci -ssi station magician mission th thistle th there Copyright Debbie Hepplewhite 2008 *Teach the two sounds represented by the grapheme ‘oo’ at the same time; short /oo/, long /oo/. *Progress to linking the /oo/ as in ‘moon’ with the spelling and pronunciation variations of ‘ew’, ‘ue’ and ‘u-e’ - all of which can represent both the long /oo/ sound and the /yoo/ sound. *Teach the letter ‘x’ as if it was one sound unit /ks/ whereas it is really two sounds /k/+/s/. Provide word lists of ‘-x’ words, ‘-ks’, ‘cks’ and ‘-kes’ words to compare: e.g. fox, boxes, looks, beaks, ducks, likes. *Grapheme ‘tch’ indicates a preceding short vowel sound; e.g. ditch, fetch, thatch, notch, hutch, watch. *Grapheme ‘ch’ follows long vowel sounds (bleach, pooch, reaches); but also some common words with short vowels which need to be noted: rich, which, such, much, touch. *Grapheme ‘ch’ follows consonants; e.g. mulch, wrench, pinch. *Draw attention to ‘ti’, ‘ci’, ‘ssi’ graphemes in long words. *Provide words in groups with the same ‘chunk’ endings: -tion, -cian, -cial, -ssion, -cious. **Progress to the phoneme /zh/ as in ‘television’. *Teach unvoiced /th/ and voiced /th/ together. *Compare the sounds /f/ and /v/ and study mouth movements of these sounds carefully. Pronouncing /th/, /f/ and /v/ frequently causes confusion because of their similarities and the influence of regional accents.

6. *In English, the letter ‘q’ is always followed by the letter ‘u’ and together they are code for two sounds /k/+/w/. Treat as one sound unit /kw/ for both reading and spelling purposes when teaching in the early stages. [‘qu’ can be code for /k/] *The grapheme ‘ou’ as code for the sound /ou/ is never found at the end of a word. *‘ough’ is a rare grapheme as an /ou/ sound: bough, plough. /k w/ qu + queen /ou/ /oi/ ou ow ouch owl oi oy ointment ough plough *The grapheme ‘oi’ is never at the end of a word except in ‘coi carp’. toy /y oo/ -ue u + statue unicorn tube new er ir ur ear wor mermaid birthday /ar/ ar al m al f al v -a /air/ air -are -ear -ere /er/ artist hair palm hare *Point out that the graphemes ‘ue’, ‘ew’ and ‘u-e’ are also spellings for the long /oo/ sound. *The ‘u-i’ as in ‘amusing’ alerts the reader to pronounce /yoo/. u-e ew eu nurse half bear deuce /er/ /u/ schwa or earth world mixer -our -re humour theatre *Mention early on that some people pronounce some words with the ‘a’ grapheme as the /ar/ sound rather than the /a/ sound: path p- ar -th, glass g-l- ar -s. calves father *Teach /air/ along with phoneme /eer/ (below) as there are so many similar or identical graphemes representing /air/ and /eer/ phonemes. Teach the word ‘their’ as ‘their things’. where See /air/ above. /eer/ eer ear -ere -ier deer /zh/ -si television vision ears -s treasure adhere -z azure *Letter ‘w’ preceding ‘or’ alerts the reader to say “wer…” as in: worm, work, worth. *‘er’, ‘our’, ‘re’ may sound like /er/ or schwa /u/ dependent on accent: sister, colour, centre. cashier g -ge courgette collage note: *-y, *-ey, *-ie are pronounced between /i/ and /ee/ when these graphemes are word-endings so they appear in both /i/ and /ee/ rows. Copyright Debbie Hepplewhite 2008 **Progress to this sound from lessons in the /sh/ sound and its spelling variations. There are no words with the grapheme ‘zh’ and the letters zh are used to denote the phoneme only.

7. The complexities of the English Alphabetic Code include: 1. one sound (phoneme) can be represented by one, two, three or four letters: e.g. k, sh, igh, eigh 2. one sound can be represented by different spellings (graphemes): e.g. /oa/ is represented by: o, oa, ow, oe, o-e, eau, ough 3. one spelling can represent multiple sounds: e.g. ‘ough’: /oa/ though, /or/ thought, /oo/ through, /ou/ plough, /u/ thorough These complexities are taught explicitly and the Alphabetic Code is taught systematically with Debbie’s online Phonics International programme: General advice for teaching the Alphabetic Code:  Choose an order of introduction of letter/s-sound correspondences to create a version of a simple code. (See left-hand column for Debbie’s version). Teach around 2 - 5 correspondences per week. Provide a cumulative word bank (for the simple code) for modelling blending all-through-the-word for reading, and segmenting all-through-the-spoken-word for spelling. The ‘simple code’, in effect, is part of the complex English code but it is just a ‘first step’ of introducing the complexities of the English writing system for reading and spelling based on the 44+ phonemes (smallest identifiable sounds of speech).  Keep the simple code revised and begin to introduce spelling and pronunciation variations of the complex code at a rate appropriate to the age and stage of the learner. With effective direct teaching, the rate of learning can be surprisingly fast-paced but use professional judgement as to the pace.  The Alphabetic Code is not an ‘exact science’ and accents need to be taken into account at all times along with the notion of ‘tweaking pronunciations’ when decoding to reach the regional or preferred pronunciation of the target word. Simply explain the concept of ‘accents’ to the learners.  Tweaking, or modifying, pronunciations also helps to raise awareness of the ‘schwa effect’ (unstressed syllables) whereby in reality a sound close to /u/ is the spoken translation of the written code in words such as ‘sofa’ (sofu), ‘faster’ (fastu), ‘little’ (littul), ‘around’ (uround). The reverse of this is the need to be aware of the spelling possibilities when segmenting spoken words for writing - particularly with regard to the schwa effect. The ability to spell accurately relies on a growing knowledge of word associations (that is, spelling word banks - noting words with the same spelling and sound variations) and this knowledge takes much longer to acquire than learning to decode well for reading. Always emphasise the relationship between sounds and graphemes when teaching spelling rather than relying on visual memory of letter order. Letter names are used only to relay an accurate spelling from one person to another and this is not the actual spelling skill of most literate adults. Even adults spell with a sound-to-print process (identifying the sounds all-through-the- spoken-word) followed by choosing correct graphemes from beginning to end for the specific word. Tell learners explicitly that phonics for reading and for spelling are adult skills, especially for new and difficult words. Phonics is for adults and not just for teaching beginners or infants. Copyright Debbie Hepplewhite 2008