PhOrMeS is free to download & ready to teach

Allowing you to focus on what you do best - teaching your students

Who is behind PhOrMeS?

Meet the Lead Author of PhOrMeS or read below to find out what PhOrMeS covers.

What PhOrMeS Covers:

Word Reading, Spelling & Learning

 

Word Reading & Spelling

Word Reading, or decoding, is taught in a sequential manner. Beginners are taught to read short, simple, phonetically regular words and progress to increasingly more difficult words across their primary schooling.

Spelling is best taught side-by-side with word reading/decoding. This is what PhOrMeS does. Students are taught to spell words with the same target graphemes, spelling rules, morphological concepts or etymological roots they are learning to read.

Phonemic Awareness is both taught separately and embedded in word reading and spelling activities.

Reading Fluency is practised daily from Foundation to Year 3 with opportunities for extended practice from Year 4-6.

Word Reading & Spelling- Phonology

1. Early Systematic, Synthetic Phonics including:

  • introducing letter-to-sound relationships (codes) in a sequenced manner

  • reading words containing taught codes using blending from left to right.

  • spelling words containing taught codes using segmenting.

  • building from VC & CVC syllable structures, right through to CCCV+ and into multisyllabic words.

Word Reading & Spelling- Orthography

2. Reading & Spelling of irregularly spelt words, or ‘Weird Words’.

  • Teaching children to link the letter strings of irregularly spelt words to their linked phonemes.

  • Teaching children to retrieve spellings for irregularly spelt words

3. Reading & Spelling of common ‘irregular patterns’ such as ‘wa’ words (e.g. want).

4. Reading & Spelling of commonly misspelt homophones in context.

Word Reading & Spelling- Morphology & etymology

5. Early introduction of reading words with grammatical morphemes such as -s, -ing, -ed.

6. Learning and practicing rules/patterns governing orthographic choice in spelling (e.g. oi vs oy)

7. Year 3-6 focus of reading words with Latin and Greek roots (words with multiple morphemes, or suffixes and prefixes)

  • taught within the concept of morphology

  • becomes an assistance to vocabulary development

Phonemic Awareness- Phonology

1. Blending and segmenting embedded in word reading and spelling from day one

2. Foundation- 28 week daily blending and segmenting training

3. Morphological awareness built more and more as years progress

Reading Fluency

1. Paired fluency until year 3

2. Opportunities for paired fluency during post Year 3 for students who need specific fluency practice

Handwriting- Orthography & Phonology

1. Foundation - Year 2 10 minutes of daily practice on a fortnightly rotation where each upper and lower case letter is practised

2. Links between letters and sounds strengthened

3. Focus on parameters of formation, sizing & baseline

4. More varied handwriting tasks to be completed in future

Word Learning

Semantics is the part of language involved with meaning. PhOrMeS aims to give children foundational knowledge about word meanings which can then be used to understand spoken and written language to a high level and use mature vocabulary within writing.

Vocabulary is a critical component of literacy instruction and should be taught both during reading and within explicit vocabulary lessons. PhOrMeS covers your school’s explicit vocabulary needs. In the PhOrMes Vocabulary Scope & Sequence, new words are taught using student-friendly definitions, example sentences, morphological families and synonyms.

A key in teaching vocabulary is helping children understand morphology. Morphology is the study of the forms of words or words’ morphemes (their smallest units of meaning). Teach children the underlying patterns of meaning in English (prefixes, base words, root words and suffixes) and boost their ability to accurately predict meanings of words they have never been taught! Morphology reveals the beauty of our English language and benefits word reading, learning and spelling. And PhOrMeS teaches this as early as Foundation!

Tier II Vocabulary- Semantics, Morphology

1. Tier II Vocabulary Scope & Sequence compiled from a range of sources

2. Daily explicit vocabulary sessions

3. Children will learn each word’s

  • part(s) of speech

  • synonyms

  • definition

  • use in a sentence

  • morphological family

4. Opportunities for daily reviews and retrieval practice

Suffix & Prefix Learning- Morphology, Semantics

1. Learning of most frequent suffixes and prefixes in Years F-3

2. For each affix, children will learn:

  • meaning

  • function

  • example words

  • usage within a word embedded in a sentence

3. Early learning of prefixes and suffixes allow morphology and etymology spelling lessons to proceed from Year 3

Tier II & III Content Vocabulary- Semantics, Morphology

*Future planning- vocabulary sessions will include Tier II and III words taught within the read2Learn (r2L) curriculum

Selected vocabulary taught in r2L sessions will be re-taught and reviewed within PhOrMeS lessons.

Links back to curriculum content areas including:

  • geography

  • history

  • science

  • civics & citizenship

  • literature

  • business and economics

PhOrMeS targets word-level literacy skills & knowledge

But, there’s more to literacy

What PhOrMeS doesn’t cover:

Reading Comprehension & Writing

PhOrMeS is primarily about sound, letter, morpheme and word-level knowledge and the skills requires to use this knowledge and read, spell and understand words:

PhOrMeS teaches:

  • decoding

  • spelling

  • word meanings

  • phonemic awareness

  • handwriting

As such, PhOrMeS will deeply assist in, but does not directly teach reading comprehension or written expression.

Your school needs separate curricula for these areas. If your school is on the lookout for great methods or resources in these areas, below is a brief guide about what you need to do this well. Check out our SoR & SoL Links page for more information.

Reading Comprehension

Even if a child can read accurately and efficiently, it does not guarantee strong reading comprehension. Reading comprehension relies on many things.

How do kids get better at Reading Comprehension?

Read accurately & fluently. Read lots. Read broadly. Read deeply. Learn lots. Learn to write.

More to Come…

Written Expression

Even if a child can spell accurately and efficiently, it does not guarantee strong written expression. Writing relies on many things.

How do kids get better at Writing?

Handwrite efficiently. Spell accurately & fluently. Write often (quality, not quantity). Practice syntactic control. Write about what you learn. Learn text structure. Plan, draft, revise, edit, repeat. Get feedback.

More to Come…