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Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

Phonics

24 replies

NewBikeForChristmas · 13/12/2011 16:27

DS my eldest) is 3.3 and is just beginning to understand about letters and sounds.

I want to help him with this, encourage him but really don't want to push him. I also don't want to teach him things differently to how he'll be taught at school (starts pre school in January). I've heard about phonics from friends. Is this "letter sounds" ? Like "wuu" for "wall" not "double you" for "wall", "ah for apple" not "Aye for apple". We did I Spy like this today.

Can someone point me to a website/book where I can read up on this stuff to help DS at his own pace. Do I sound pushy? Really don't want him to get ahead of his peers (I have a friend whose DD goes 2 classes up for reading at school and is struggling with her friends in her peer group because of this) but want to help him when he is interested.

OP posts:

Tgger · 13/12/2011 20:20

Hi there!
Ruth Miskin, there is a power point presentation of how to say the sounds here www.oup.com/oxed/primary/rwi/forparents/, our reception teacher recommended it to us. Very useful indeed, as this is the way they teach at school and some of the sounds are quite different from how I would have done them. Think you will find more info on it all on that website too.

Have fun!

Tgger · 13/12/2011 20:24

By the way, you don't sound pushy. It's probably helpful to have the right approach from this age (I didn't), but I'm guessing you won't be sitting him down and drilling him on the sounds like they do in reception!

VickityBoo · 13/12/2011 20:31

Marking to watch this - dd is 3 and 2 months and I'm also introducing phonics. Do you have a iPhone/pad? I have a great game called pocketphonic that dd likes.

olivo · 13/12/2011 20:35

something that I didn't take on board was that phonics is not just about pronouncing the letters in a 'baby way'. So while I would have pronounced L as luh, I now know that it is 'ull' when we are spelling out during reading. Jolly phonics CD is what was recommended to us in reception, DDs love it!

Biscuitsandtinsel · 13/12/2011 21:03

Also watching with interest as DS is 3.2 and showing an interest in letter sounds efc. Every day I have to answer enemas 'what does start with?'

So similarly I want to make sure I'm not going in a different direction to what they'll eventually see in school.

Am just downloading pocket phonics -thanks for the tip

cd19882011 · 13/12/2011 21:50

I brought a jolly phonic book on amazon which comes with a CD for about £15:00 worth every penny and most pre-schools and primary schools use them i cannot stress enough how useful this method of teaching children their phonics helps your child and i have seen first hand that children within a short period can name most of their phonics.

cd19882011 · 13/12/2011 21:57

I just wanted to add you can also buy computer games on JOLLY PHONIC's as well as lots of other books, and resources and the CD is ideal for playing in the car for journeys out.

Biscuitsandtinsel · 13/12/2011 22:21

Erm I think I meant endless not enemas....

Will suss out this jolly phonics thing

Biscuitsandtinsel · 13/12/2011 22:26

Don't suppose you could link to the amazon book / cd could you? There's heaps of jolly phonics stuff on there......

mrswrite · 13/12/2011 22:41

Find out what the school you want them to go to uses, I followed one and school another and just confuses!

wellybobs · 13/12/2011 22:49

starfall is great for games, as is phonics play.

I bought the jolly jingles book.

mrswrite · 13/12/2011 22:50

When eldest started school they used Ruth Miskin year later when second started nursery there they changed now follow bbc, no letters all sounds, jumping about and ohhh etc!

cd19882011 · 13/12/2011 23:02

jollylearning.co.uk/jolly-shop/jolly-songs/ (This book is fantastic) and is on the jolly phonics website

mrsalwaysawake · 14/12/2011 11:38

We are a very very long way away from needing to worry about this, but:
Is it a problem if they get to school and can already read 'properly', when everyone else is learning phonics?

Biscuitsandtinsel · 14/12/2011 11:40

Good question!

We also are a looooooong way away from worrying but DS is the eldest in his year so has another 20 mths or so before he starts school, so he might be reading a bit by then?

I know I could read before I went to school?

DeWe · 14/12/2011 11:56

It's not been a problem for any of mine, all of whom were fluent readers before starting school. The only issue we had was the head when dd1 went had top level for each year, so dd1 read free readers pretty much the entire year R, and should have in year 1 too, only they did a lot of group reading.

The only thing is to get lots of books around for them to read as the school ones aren't usually as interesting as their own interests. (Mystery and adventure for dd1 (11), biographies/real life type for dd2 (8) and planes or scientific fact books for ds (4)

I think they get a lot more fun out of reading because they're reading books that are aimed for parents to read to reception, so more interesting for them than one sentence per page books.

Alphablock games on the CBeeBies can be fun for them at 2-3 years too as they're learning putting letters together.

mummymellymoo · 14/12/2011 14:13

My DS is about the same age and has suddenly been able to recognise all the letters in the alphabet. I think this is mainly down to reading all the Letterland books which I'd bought for my five-year-old daughter. They are really lovely and introduce all the letters as different characters and build stories around them. There are also more advanced books when they start learning digraphs (eg ch, sh, oo, ee etc) and trigraphs (igh etc). The other thing I'd say is make sure when you're doing phonics, make sure you pronounce the sounds correctly (ie, not muh but mmmm) as when they come to building words they'll find it very tricky (sat is impossible for little ones to work out if they say suh - a - tuh).

Biscuitsandtinsel · 14/12/2011 14:21

So 'sat' would be ssss-ah-tuh?

Gosh this is more complicated than I thought.

How do I learn the phonics properly?

WowOoo · 14/12/2011 14:27

Listen to some CD's Biscuits and Tinsel.

Jolly Phonics did one that we used. But I know there are lots more. That way you'll not be teaching the wrong sounds. Good to keep them short if you know what I mean - so rather than tuh, it would be t, just t (imagine the word top : t -o- p. Just say the t sound at the start as in top, tin, tricky)

Lots of good websites if you google.

Ophuchi · 14/12/2011 19:12

DD is learning to read phonetically just now and really getting a lot out of it. I had loads of help from primary teachers and experienced parents over on the primary school board. I think I titled the thread 'can any primary teachers or experienced parents please advise re phonics.'

I didn't actually buy Jolly phonics or anything - we just have magnetic letters, a board and library card and that's working very well for us :)

You don't sound pushy at all. People are far too quick to shout 'pushy parents' sometimes when in fact the interest is driven by the child. I once had someone I don't know on mumsnet suggest to me that I read up on becoming a 'chinese (pushy) mother' just because my DD is an early reader and was quick to understand numbers. Ridiculous.

andaPontyinaPearTreeeeee · 14/12/2011 19:20

I loved the Jolly Songs cd, it's about a fiver on amazon. We started with h when dd was 3 and a bit, as we saw a helicopter land in the next cul de sac :o the songs are lovely.

We only did a few and only when she wanted, she has loved it in reception so I'm glad I didn't push it.

Tarenath · 14/12/2011 22:22

We're using Reading Eggs and Progressive Phonics with ds (age 4) We couldn't et along with Jolly Phonics at all.

He originally showed interest in reading shortly after he turned 3 but it's taken some trial and error to find a method that suits him plus he just wasn't quite ready to grasp it when he first wanted to learn so I backed off and just let him enjoy reading with me. He's flying now though and has done really well using the above series'.

It's not being pushy at all. It's helping your child to learn something they want to know.

AuntieBulgaria · 14/12/2011 22:49

I have been using the Mr Thorne Does Phonics videos to get my head round the letter sounds a bit more.

AngelsfromtherealmsofgloryDog · 14/12/2011 23:10

Definitely not pushy. If your DC wants to learn, help them. My DS wanted to learn from about 14 months (he enjoyed playing with foam letters in the bath). It's no different from learning that cows say moo. DS is 23 m.o. now and knows the sounds made by all the letters (plus that o can be short o and long oh). I've made no attempt to properly teach him, just talked to him about letters & sounds when he's wanted to know.

IMO the best way to learn the sounds that letters make is to deconstruct words yourself - but according to the sounds, not the letters. So say what you think s-a-t should be broken down into, then put it back together. If the sound you're making ends in -uh, you're probably saying it wrong. (The t in 'sat' is more like a tutting noise than like a 'tuh' - it shouldn't have a vowel after it.)

Another thing which helps me is to use each consonant with all the different vowels. So instead of saying 'buh' for b, say bah, beh, bih, boh, buh when you're praticising. It helps you identify the bit which is the b without the -uh at the end.

The hardest is h IMO - just a noisy breath out rather than 'huh'.

Lots of letter sounds are actually really quiet when you pronounce them properly.

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