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The British
Government has now withdrawn the two main phonics programmes
implemented over the last decade and schools are free to choose
commercial programmes.
The
THRASS phonics programme scores full marks against all the
Government’s published core criteria for
an effective phonics programme and THRASS UK was one of the
first publishers to submit self-assessment details of the programme
for publication on the Government’s new
dedicated phonics website.
Part
1 - Snapshot Assessment
The self-assessment below provides a snapshot of how this programme
meets the core criteria for a high quality phonics programme.
Part 2 - Detailed Self-Assessment
This self assessment form gives schools and settings detailed
information about this programme set against each core criterion.
Part 1 - Snapshot Assessment
Name of programme:
THRASS - Teaching
Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills
For larger image,
please click here.
Please explain how your programme
meets the core criteria above:
THRASS is a ‘ten-skills’ programme for the systematic teaching
of synthetic and analytic phonics.
The programme focuses on the 44 phonemes of spoken English, the
120 keygraphemes of written English (the most frequent graphs,
digraphs and trigraphs) and the reading and spelling of the 500 high
frequency words.
By the end of Key Stage 1, learners know the many different ‘jobs’
that letters do in the high frequency words, so they are competent
and confident with the alphabetic principle.
15
Minutes a Day x 2 is a
four-year scheme of work for teaching and assessing the ten skills.
All skills are assessed by criterion-referenced tests with observable
standards of achievement -
recorded on a Profilecard.
Simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities are
encouraged throughout (VAK skills).
The free Phoneme
Machine software has a
SYNTHESIZE THE WORD button for blending the phonemes, from left to
right, ‘all through the word’ for reading, in 500 high frequency
words.
Most of our resources show the phoneme/grapheme relationship,
through having all words clearly separated into their graphemes.
‘Fidelity to the Model’ is encouraged through high quality
accredited training. Tens of thousands of evaluations, from hundreds
of courses, can be viewed on Professional
Development Courses.
Please provide a
brief explanation of what your programme provides, e.g. resources:
TEACHING
THRASS is the guide to the ten skills. 15
Minutes a Day x 2 is our four-year scheme of work. Our printed,
audio, video, magnetic and software resources are all listed on FULL
LIST OF RESOURCES. Our free Phoneme
Machine software, accredited by SMART Technologies and showcased
by Microsoft from May 2007, is downloadable (as is the associated PowerPoint).
Contact details:
Alan Davies
Educational Psychologist
THRASS UK
Units 1-3 Tarvin Sands
Barrow Lane, Tarvin
CHESTER
CH3 8JF
Tel. 01829 741413
Fax. 01829 741419
Email. enquiries@thrass.co.uk
Website. www.thrass.co.uk
Part
2 - Detailed Self-Assessment
Name of programme:
THRASS - Teaching
Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills
Please explain how your programme meets the following core criteria:
The programme should:
present high quality systematic phonic work, as defined by the
Independent review of teaching of early reading and now encapsulated
in the Primary Framework, as the prime approach to decoding print:
The core criteria are met through a ‘ten-skills’ programme
for the systematic teaching of synthetic and analytic phonics.
A key feature is that essential speaking and listening skills are
taught from the outset, in the first of ten stages, known as T1
Picture Location. The second stage, T2
Letter Location, is based on the recommendation that the naming
of letters should be part of early phonic work. The programme
progresses through eight further stages to ensure that all the core
criteria are met. The stages are: T3
Letter Formation, T4
Grapheme Location, T5
Keyword Location, T6
Phoneme Location, T7
Keyword Synthesis, T8
Keygrapheme Recall, T9
Keyword Analysis and T10
THRASS 500 Tests.
‘Fidelity to the Model’ is encouraged through high quality
accredited training. Tens of thousands of evaluations can be viewed
on Professional
Development Courses. We also provide a free
email course and demonstration lessons as videostreams
and downloadable iPods.
enable children
to start learning phonic knowledge and skills systematically by the
age of five with the expectation that they will be fluent readers
having secured word recognition skills by the end of key stage one:
15
Minutes a Day x 2 is a four-year scheme of work for teaching and
assessing the ten skills. Ideally, the programme should be started
in nursery and the second, third and fourth years are Reception,
Year 1 and Year 2.
By the end of Year 2, the Profilecard
and Assessment Chart should indicate that the learner has
successfully achieved the outcomes for all ten skills. In
particular, they should be able to name and correctly form the
letters, pronounce the 44 phonemes and ‘blend read and spell’
the 500 high frequency words.
By using the 120 keygraphemes for cross-curricular comparisons
between words, including further alternative graphemes for the same
phoneme, life-long word solving skills are well-established and can
be further developed in Key Stage 2. Older learners are encouraged
to help younger learners become fluent readers, through assisting
with the acquisition of the ten skills and through paired reading.
be designed for the teaching of discrete, daily sessions
progressing from simple to more complex phonic knowledge and skills
and covering the major grapheme phoneme correspondences:
15
Minutes a Day x 2 is a
four-year scheme of work for teaching and assessing the ten skills.
In the first year, learners are taught for fifteen minutes a day and
they progress to two fifteen minute sessions a day in the second,
third and fourth years. Ideally, the programme should be started in
nursery and the second, third and fourth years are Reception, Year 1
and Year 2.
The ‘First 15 Minutes’ is for teaching the simple to more
complex phonic knowledge and the major grapheme phoneme
correspondences as displayed on the Picturechart
and Graphemechart.
The ‘Second 15 Minutes’ is for targetted reading and spelling
practices for the 500 high frequency words.
The programme focuses on the 44 phonemes of spoken English, the
120 keygraphemes of written English (the most frequent graphs,
digraphs and trigraphs) and the reading and spelling of the 500 high
frequency words.
enable children’s progress to be assessed:
Successful completion of the outcomes explained in the guide and
the scheme of work are recorded by colouring and/or dating the boxes
on the Profilecard,
created and designed to be a day-to-day version of the more formal
Assessment Chart. Ideally, both the Assessment Chart and the Class
Profile Chart (Sheets 3 and 4 in the guide) should be completed at
the END of each school year and passed-on to the next teacher, as a
clear record of the scores and outcomes that have been achieved—and
when! The profilecard is a concrete visual reference of progress, to
be shared with the teacher, peers and parents. The profilecard can
be shaded-in by either the child or the teacher, though it is a good
idea to involve children in their own assessments.
All skills are assessed by group or individual
criterion-referenced tests with observable
standards of achievement - recorded on the profilecard.
use a multi-sensory approach so that children learn variously
from simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities which
are designed to secure essential phonic knowledge and skills:
Simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities are
encouraged throughout (VAK skills).and are described in detail in
the guide TEACHING
THRASS and the 15
Minutes a Day x 2 scheme of work. All of the ten stages involve
multisensory activities, largely related to activities involving the
printed charts (such as the desk-size Picturechart
and Overwrite
Chart), Raps
and Sequences CD, Phoneme-Grapheme
Cards, Phoneme-Grapheme
Big Book and Book,
software (Phoneme
Machine and also THRASS
IT) and the Magnetic
Graphemes (170 x 9cm high magnetic tiles made from 3mm thick
laminated card).
The Phoneme
Machine software is accredited by market leader SMART
Technologies for use on its interactive whiteboards. The associated PowerPoint
also has a section on Interactive Teaching.
Our printed, audio, video, magnetic and software resources are all
listed on FULL
LIST OF RESOURCES.
demonstrate that phonemes should be blended, in order, from
left to right, ‘all through the word’ for reading:
In T7
Keyword Synthesis, learners are assessed on their ability to ‘blend,
read and spell’ the THRASS 120 keywords in the Phoneme
Grapheme Book, simultaneously with the associated eight tracks
on the Raps
And Sequences CD. The activity can also be performed with a
further eight tracks that have music and some sound effects in the
background - which is distracting, but fun, and allows for the skill
to be consolidated.
The free Phoneme
Machine software has a SYNTHESIZE THE WORD button for blending
the phonemes, from left to right, ‘all through the word’ for
reading, in 500 high frequency words. There is a ‘Blend-Read’
auto-function in the ‘Auto on’ area of the Word Grid for set
lists of words or compiled lists.
In the THRASS
IT software, in the Reading Section, words have to be created by
selecting the phonemes in order and points are awarded for correct
answers.
demonstrate how words can be segmented into their constituent
phonemes for spelling and that this is the reverse of blending
phonemes to read words:
All the THRASS resources show learners that words can be
segmented into separate phonemes - as illustrated by keygraphemes
and/or vowel graphemes being printed in bold type and/or all the
graphemes being physically separated within the words. For example,
the Hotwords
and all the Phoneme
Grapheme resources have the phoneme/grapheme relationship
clearly shown through having all the words separated into their
graphs, digraphs and trigraphs.
Segmentation and analysis skills are first introduced in stage T4
Grapheme Location (using the Magnetic Grapheme tiles), T6
Phoneme Location (by finding the graphemes in the keywords that
share the same phoneme. This analysis is further developed and also
assessed in T9
Keyword Analysis, using the Word
Level Workchart, Grapheme Grid, Keyword Analysis Tests (Test C
and Test V) and the Spelling
Tiles (used with the associated downloadable Spelling
Tiles Grid and Grapheme Grid).
ensure children
apply phonic knowledge and skills as their first approach to reading
and spelling even if a word is not completely phonically regular:
Learners are encouraged to consider the letters of the alphabet
as being similar to players in a team, with the lower-case letters
being the letters and the capitals merely substitutes - so
they share the same name.
Learners are taught the many different ‘jobs’ that letters do
in the high frequency words, so they are competent and confident
with the alphabetic principle. Speaking and listening skills are
taught with reference to the printed words on the THRASS charts and
books - along with reading favourite books at school and at home.
Learners are encouraged to associate phonemes with a specific letter
or groups of letters (i.e. graphs, digraphs and trigraphs) and to
blend all the phonemes to read the word.
As stated above, learners are assessed on their ability to ‘blend,
read and spell’ the 120 keywords and the Phoneme
Machine has a SYNTHESIZE
THE WORD button for blending phonemes.
ensure that children are taught high frequency words that do not
conform completely to grapheme/phoneme correspondence rules:
In the ‘Second 15 Minutes’, learners read and spell 500 high
frequency words. The spelling is taught using the THRASS ‘Say Name
Cover Write Check’ procedure and the use of Spelling Logs.
Learners start with 30 one- and two-letter words, 85 three-letter
words, the 100 ‘Hotwords’ and progress to 160 four-letter, 128
five-letter, 35 six-letter and, finally, 52 seven- eight- and
nine-letter words. On the Phoneme
Machine software the words are separated into their
grapheme/phoneme correspondences (as seen on the Screen
Captures webpage). The phonemes are reinforced with the help of
moving human lips. There is the option to display consonant
grapheme/phoneme correspondences in blue and the vowels in red.
Non-Phonographic Spellings are spellings that are not graphemes,
because they represent more than one phoneme or they are
abbreviations e.g. the ‘x’ in box and the ‘d’ ‘r’ in Dr.
Non-Phonographic spellings are underlined and displayed in black.
ensure that, as early as possible, children have opportunities to
read texts (and spell words) that are within the reach of their
phonic knowledge and skills even though every single word in the
text may not be entirely decodable by the children unaided:
In the early stages, especially T1
Picture Location and T5
Keyword Location, teachers, assistants and parents work together
to develop essential speaking and listening skills by acting-out,
matching, naming, describing, categorizing and discussing 120 key
pictures and the associated keywords with their children. The
creation of phrases, sentences and stories is also very much
encouraged to develop imagination, competence and confidence.
Parents also use the English
Calendar Chart to develop reading and spelling skills, by asking
questions about the days, dates, months, numbers, colours and
letters on the chart.
In the ‘Second 15 Minutes’, learners first read and spell 30
one- and two-letter words, 85 three-letter words and 100 Hotwords.
Learners are encouraged to turn over the pages of a book, with
the help of an older child or adult, to ‘pretend-read’ a
favourite story. As stated in the Rose Review, ‘sharing and
enjoying favourite books’ is a key activity.
Contact details:
Alan Davies
Educational Psychologist
THRASS UK
Units 1-3 Tarvin Sands
Barrow Lane, Tarvin
CHESTER
CH3 8JF
Tel. 01829 741413
Fax. 01829 741419
Email. enquiries@thrass.co.uk
Website. www.thrass.co.uk
Download the Assessments
THRASS
SELF-ASSESSMENTS pdf (130KB)
THRASS
SELF-ASSESSMENTS doc (49KB
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