Professional Development Videos
This professional development video supports teachers in their teaching of synthetic phonics. The video explains what a structured literacy approach involves and how it can be implemented in the classroom. It also explores the key features of the Sunshine Decodables programme, showing how it is structured, the order of teaching, what the books contain and the various elements of the programme.
These 10 videos follow a year 2/3 teacher as she uses the Sunshine Phonics Decodable books with a student.
Meet Charlotte, a Years 2/3 teacher, talking about using the Sunshine Decodable books with her students, especially those struggling with reading.
Charlotte talks about her experience with a group of boys and their struggles with the alphabetic principle.
Charlotte looks at the inside front cover of the book and talks about preparing children for the story and looking at tricky words, also known as high-frequency words.
To assess a child’s knowledge of the letter sounds, there are assessment sheets to help plan and check on progress.
Charlotte emphasises the importance for children to get the vowel sounds right at this early stage. She shows some of the ways she does this.
A brief introduction to describe the basis of synthetic phonics.
A demonstration for using manipulatives to reinforce the vowel and consonant sounds in cvc words.
How children can use manipulatives to practise spelling cvc words.
The teacher prepares Arthur for reading a Set 4 text that focuses on the /th/ sound.