Reception - JP - what do you actually practice?

[Roisinsmysterygiftbearer]

Just wondering, if your dc is going through the letter sounds atm, what do you actually 'practice' with them??

At the moment we will practice the writing of the letter but mostly we are doing things like 'what letter sound does elephant begin with?' and we also play 'I spy' using the letter sounds he has done so far.

Today ds1's reading book says 'ds1 knows 2 sounds from last week - well done blah blah' - it's saying he doens't know 'e' and 'n' but I've just been playing I spy etc at tea and he knows them perfectly well. What he isn't that keen on is learning the actions so perhaps that's what she means?? But does this really matter if he knows the sound well enough to be able to use it correctly in 'I spy' etc?

Did you forget to change your name back ~~

Poo

Sorry, p-p-p-p-poo

We have a book with the 'sounds learnt so far' pasted in, sent home from school. We show ds the letters, one by one, and he tells us the sound.

That's all the 'homework' we are set - but we do play I spy, and practice writing, and ds has chosen to try to read some words by blending the letter sounds together.

On the other thread I guessed you are Gobbledigook/spook. Am I right?!

Roisin - spot on

Bluebear - that's what we've been doing. If I showed him 'e' or 'n' he'd be able to tell me straight away so I'm not sure what she means. Will ask tomorrow but was just wondering if I'm missing something I should be doing.

We've spent ages on the computer at the weekend doing the literacy section of that educationcity website and he's getting 6/6 all the time. I'm confused!!

Just to anwer the original question; I usually suggest a couple of things can be done at home -

Reinforcing the sound/letter correspondences with reference to the picture card set I make for each child to which we add all the spellings on the reverse. There are a couple of games you can play.

I encourage that the actions are dropped as soon as possible If a child particularly needs them, or likes them, then fair enough, but they are only really there for the initial introduction are not needed once the sounds are secure in hearing them in words and recognising them from the picture. Also, once they are at this stage, I also ensure that multiple sounds - like p p p p are said only once and sounds really elongated with the action e.g. llllllllllllick! are shortened, to make it more accurate. You can't have a child sounding out 'like' as 'llllllllllll-ie-ck ck ck ck ck' can you??

Doesn't know 'e' and 'n' might mean the letters for those sounds haven't been introduced yet.

I would suggest, though, taking your example, that using 'elephant' to hear a beginning sound is a little contradictory to the practice - for two reasons. JP and synthetic phonics in general, focusses on all the sounds all through a word - so to use 'elephant' would be a bit unfair with the 'ph' spelling for 'f'. Also, sticking to just the initial sound is also limiting for this reason - better to use words with 'e' at the start and in the middle - and at the end for other sounds (you never get the 'e' sound at the end of a word.)

HTH

Catflap - thanks for your post.

He has done 'e' and 'n' as they are going through in the standard JP order. So far they've done - s, a, t, i, p, n, c/k, e, h, m, d

With regard to multiple sounds vs elongated, I tend to just emphasise the 'p' so I'd say 'ppppat' rather than 'p, p, p, p, pat' - is that what you mean?

'Elephant' is just a word that popped into my head, it's not one that's been used at school I don't think. At this early stage should I be sticking to really simple words like 'egg'?

What do you mean by the picture card set? I've just ordered a few JP things - the CD which apparently has short songs for each sound (I thought I could have this on in the car and will introduce ds2, almost 3, to the sounds as well), a board with magnetic sounds to spell out words on, plus a JP lotto game.

Hi there - the picture card set is something I made - I photocopied and reduced all the pictures from the worksheets in the handbook and made a set of cards which I fixed together with a hole in the corner and a treasury tag. Each child had
a set and then as we learnt each spelling it got written on teh back for reference and practice. Cards are good for games for reinforcement.

You should really, for directed, practice work, just be sticking to words that contain all the letters and sounds covered so far, so that ds can read and write all the words all the way through with knowledge, skills and therefore confidence, so at the moment, with the letters covered, you can use words such as:

sat, sack, sad, sit, sick, sip, set, tap, tan, tip, tick, test, ted, pin, pit, pick, pat, pack, pad, peck, pen, neck, nest, nap, nip, nit, cat, cap, can, had, ham, hat, hit, hip, hid, mat, mad, man, map, men, met, dip, deck, snip, snap, stem etc

Remember that each of letters that have been covered are representing sounds so you wouldn't put a and i together to use in rain, for example, as ai as a whole sound will be covered later.

With regards to elongated and multiple sounds - yes, I think that is what I mean! It is hard to write all this down, isn't it?!

HTH