How do you start teaching phonics? I fear teaching the wrong thing the wrong way

[bytheMoonlight]

My daughter is almost 3 and has started to show an intrest in letters. She likes it when I write her name and other peoples name's that she knows.

The net step I think is to spell each letter out to her so she start to learn them but I have read that teaching them the wrong way is worse than teaching them nothing at all as the school will have to unteach her before they do anything else.

I do not know anything about phonics and have looked about different websites but am wary that they might be teaching it a different way to what her school might show her. I'm not sure what school she will go to so cannot find out what system they use.

So where do I go from here with her? She can count to 10, knows basic colours and shapes so feel this is a natural progression that she seems keen on learning but we are stuck due to my ignorance!

Any advice greatly recieved

It's best not to introduce letter names too early as some children become confused when trying to build words. The names don't actually help us to read words .
As Feenie says keep the sounds "pure" so no adding "uh" - "duh" "uh" "guh" isn't dog neither is "dee" "yoo" "jee".

All words can be decoded once you know the "rules" even "the" but children may want to read and write some words before they know the rules so words like "the" & "was" are introduced as whole words

overview of how sounds are written

some nice early games

Ooh, thanks mrz. I'm really interested in this (as you can tell from my babbling) and my daughter is at an age where she's asking me to teach her things and soaking everything up.

I do clip the word short, by the way, just wasn't sure how to write the sound on here so it made sense. But I always combine as part of the explanation - like, this is called a Dee but it makes a noise of "d[uh]" like "Daddy", so I say the Duh clipped to be consistent.

[it's all about me emoticon]

I do something similar to tortoise and say "Aitch says hhhh" etc, mainly because that's how the Fridge Phonics game does it!

I was taught using ITA and then TO. We had to read Janet and John Through the Garden Gate in ITA, then it TO when we transferred to conventional spelling.

What is the Fridge Phonics game?

(it's going to rain all day tomorrow AGAIN, I am desperate for ways to entertain my daughter!)

saying the name of the letter and then the sound it makes, makes perfect sense to me. I could teach dd that way with the help of the alphablocks.

I would like to know about the fridge phonics as well - could be a useful aid! Does it make the correct phonic sound?

Really appreciate all the advice on this thread

Fridge phonics

It's a magnetic toy which comes with all the letters. You put each letter in and it does a little song "A says ah, A says ah" etc.

It's a good toy for keeping them occupied while you cook!

It's a while since I was in a school environment but we used to teach that letters had both sounds and names.

I wouldn't worry about teaching spelling or word recognition - just go with whatever she likes. You can play letter games, cut out letters, stick words around the house or play I SPY. Anything which enriches her is great. Reading to your child is the most important thing you can do.

We don't teach letter names initially in schools as we find it is easier for the children to wait until they are secure in the letter /sound relationship before introducing names. As a SENCO I find lots of the children struggling with reading only know the names of some letters and both the name and the sound of others so can't build words.

www.dyslexics.org.uk/resources_and_further_5.htm

It's tricky to read (magnify?), but really worth the bother as Bonnie Macmillan's article on 'Giving your child the best start: Games to play with young children' is truly excellent -and designed for 3 year olds.

Would anyone recomend the jolly phonics dvd, I'm thinking of buying it for dd?

Thanks for the link Maverick

The dvd is OK (younger children might find it entertaining and enjoy the characters) but the Jolly Songs CD is fun www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1844140695/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1870946227&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0D5DM3AN0EXHP9AEJKH2

and wall frieze

www.amazon.co.uk/Jolly-Phonics-Wall-Frieze-Christopher/dp/1870946324/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1282643804&sr=1-1-spell

Thanks mrz, does look really good.

Do you think it would confuse dd if they do not teach jolly phonics at her school?

The Jolly Songs are available on
on YouTube:

I got these for DS. They're supposed to help as they use a lot of the same phonic in different words throughout the story. We read them together.

DS also loves the Alphablocks website. On rainy days, I print off the letters of his name and he colours them in :)

Love the jumbly letters on the fridge idea by the way. We have the fridge phonics game so I'll do it with those :)

That's good advice, Feenie.

And,bythemoonlight, your instinct will tell you whether your 3/4 year old wants to learn to read now and is enjoying it.

The books that I'm involved with start with only 5 sounds - and the first 3 books contain just these 5 sounds. They were chosen by a team of linguists as they are amongst the easiest of sounds to blend together. Lots of 3 and 4 year olds have learned to read with them, and love the excitement of reading a book; also numerous children diagnosed with dyslexia.

The government, I believe, will discourage the use of 'sight' word practice (agony for some children!).

If you'd like to look at the website, all the information is on there - www. piperbooks.co.uk. And for anyone really interested in the whole reading process www. dyslexics.org.uk is a treasure trove of information.

It's only the struggling 20%-30% for whom a structured sound - based approach is absolutely essential. But these are the kids who will grow up to be disenfranchised, and, before then, will tend to be the disruptive elements in a class.

Mrz. observation is spot on. 6-7 year olds struggling to read are very confused about whether to use letter names or sounds.

'We don't teach letter names initially in schools as we find it is easier for the children to wait until they are secure in the letter /sound relationship before introducing names. As a SENCO I find lots of the children struggling with reading only know the names of some letters and both the name and the sound of others so can't build words.'