This week we will begin our daily phonics sessions. These are fun sessions involving lots of speaking, listening and games. The children will learn to use their phonic knowledge for reading and writing activities and in their independent play.
Your child will develop an understanding that spoken words are made up of different sounds (phonemes) and they will learn to match these phonemes to letters (graphemes). Phonics is about children knowing how letters link to sounds (graphemes to phonemes), e.g. c as in ‘cat’, ll as in ‘fell’, ee as in ‘sheep’.
This approach has been shown to be a quick and efficient way for most young children to learn to read words on the page, fluently and accurately. We want children to develop this skill so that it becomes automatic.
How you can help?
Play ‘What do we have in here?’
Put some toys or objects in a bag and pull one out at a time. Emphasise the first sound of the toy/object by repeating it – e.g. ‘c c c c – car’, ‘b b b b – box’, ‘ch ch ch ch – chip’.
Learn how to ‘sound-talk’
Find real objects around your home which have three phonemes (sounds) and practise ‘sound talk’ – first just let them listen, then see if they will join in, e.g.
‘I spy a p-e-g – peg’
‘I spy a c-u-p – cup’
‘Where’s your other s-o-ck – sock?’
Remember, the children don’t need to match the written letters with the sounds at this stage.
Have fun!