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Letterland or Jolly Phonics?

29 replies

katierocket · 28/11/2003 20:18

Both have been recommended to me but I know hardly anything about either. Anyone any advice?

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tamum · 28/11/2003 20:23

They have dropped Letterland at a lot of nurseries/schools round here because children were apparently finding it hard to move on from saying "annie apple" to the sound of the letter a, IYSWIM. The schools here nearly all use Jolly Phonics, and I greatly prefer it (ds had done Letterland at nursery and I didn't think much of it), but I would try and look at both at a good bookshop and see what you think.

Eowyn · 28/11/2003 20:39

they do jolly phonics here too, I'd seen an article recommending it & dd loves the video tho very basic compared with what you can get nowadays. no idea whether she is learning much from it but she enjoys learning & knows all her letters, just not what to do with them - is 3.5

kmg1 · 28/11/2003 20:46

How old is your child katierocket? IMO Letterland is great for early letter learning. (I started teaching my boys their letters when they were 2.) I like the Letterland material, and my boys are both exceptionally good readers now.

But they use Jolly Phonics at school here (we moved), and it seems a very good, solid system too.

Most of the JP material I've seen is mainly focused on children who are also learning to write - usually age 4-5. Some children are ready to learn letters far, far earlier than this, and Letterland appeals more then. IME.

The most important thing with letter learning is to take it slowly - just introduce one or two letters at a time, and do loads of different activities with those letters, and concentrate only on lower-case letters. Don't bombard them with the whole alphabet at once.

HTH

kmg1 · 28/11/2003 20:48

Eowyn - if you want to encourage her to put the letters together, the best thing I've come across is BBC Words and Pictures Plus. They have these great programmes doing simple sound blending. It sometimes takes a bit of trial and error to find the right programmes on their timetable to video. I'll have a look for you, and post back in a second.

KatieMac · 28/11/2003 20:54

Our school has just introduced THRASS (lots of stuff on internet) This is based on how you spell each sound ie. Cat, Kitten, School, Duck & Queen all sound the 'k' sound but are spelt differently - my six year old (YR1)is learning to spell really well and has learnt to read all her words for YR1 & YR2
Makes a lot more sense that C/K for cat/kitten or C (see)

kmg1 · 28/11/2003 20:57

Eowyn - Sorry, I think the series has just finished. on Tuesday at 13.15 was an excellent programme CVC words are consonant-vowel-consonant. If you can get her to hear sounds (letters) at the beginning, middle, and ends of words, and blend them together into a whole word ... then she will be away and reading.

Eowyn · 28/11/2003 21:05

I will look out for that, thanks. she seems to be beginning to work out what words begin with, but hard to tell if she's just remembering everything. she's very keen on I Spy which can be interesting, if not impossible.
I was very proud of her recently when, having completely failed to identify rhyming words in a comic a while before, she was helping hang out washing & holding 2 odd socks announced to herself "they don't rhyme". very logical. sorry to waffle on.

cazzybabs · 29/11/2003 10:51

Jolly phonics - because it uses all the learning styles - i.e. all the sounds have an action. Also it moves away from people saying for c - cuh to c (it should be a very short sound). It also goes through all the phonic sounds quickly and then its revison revison revison. It is an excellent programme and one that a lot of primary school follows. I also really like their finger phonic books!

Are you home educating your child? Else find out what they do at the school your child will/does go to.

LHP · 29/11/2003 11:21

Jolly phonics is fantastic! Schools that use it give it a really high profile and visibility, so the chn are totally immersed in it, and can't help but be drawn in. It linkks kinesthetic learning to auditory and visual skills,(so good for sn chn as well), and its fun! Personally i think letterland is not so good, ime chn get caught up in annotating their letters with whiskers and things, so it impedes their writing. JF has an extension unit called jolly grammar as well, so can be used up to end of y2.

Zoe · 29/11/2003 16:12

Another vote for Jolly Phonics here - I saw an example of Letterland spelling the word "what" that went something like "Wicked water witch scares hairy hat man so much that he loses his voice, (insert name for a here - apple something I think) makes an "O" with his mouth because he is so scared, but "t" stands brave and tall." A bit complicated to me

Slinky · 29/11/2003 17:25

Our school uses Jolly Phonics.

The nursery I work at was up until last year using Letterland - but all the schools in the area use Jolly Phonics so made sense to swap over to JP.

Personally I prefer JP

littlerach · 29/11/2003 18:41

We use Jolly Phonics at nursery, as it helps children to form a word. Letterland seems to confuse some children as they associate the letter with something, not with a sound. If that makes sense!!

codswallop · 29/11/2003 18:58

JP supposedly designed for boys as it is kinesthetic/Multisensory

jammamia · 29/11/2003 23:26

We have been doing jolly phonics for just over a year - my ds age 5 loves it and really has come a long way with it - he's now progessing from naming to the sound to naming the letter and I get told off if I do it wrong "say it in the big boy way mummy"
his school also uses the oxfored learing tree/magic key - will attempt to post the link - as it really is fab!
\linkwww.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/{}

jammamia · 29/11/2003 23:30

...

jammamia · 29/11/2003 23:32

blinking thing - wouldn't believe I had a degrre in "IT" would you!!!!!!

jammamia · 29/11/2003 23:34

even a degree - the soave has hit in big time - talking of which anytime we go near waitrose he always says - mummy are we going to get soave ---- ahhhh

katierocket · 30/11/2003 09:40

thanks for all this
kmg1 - DS is 2 yrs - is that too young? next week we'll be starting french and maths lessons

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katierocket · 30/11/2003 09:44

sorry should also have asked - sounds like letterland is better for younger children and jp for older? isn't confusing to start one and then switch to the other?

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tamum · 30/11/2003 10:07

Hi kateirocket. I would say Letterland was not as good as Jolly Phonics whatever age, and I would have thought that most 2 year olds would find it very confusing (the pictures are just so cluttered to my mind). My ds knew all his letters when he was 2, but not because I had taught him, he just loved "Lucy and Tom's ABC". I just gave him a chance to say the letter sound when we turned the page and he soon knew them both in and out of that context. When he encountered Letterland at nursery he already knew the letters, so I can't really tell how easy he would have found it, but I know a lot of the children were intrigued by it but didn't really learn much. I think JP has plenty of material suitable for younger children, but as you know you just have to be guided by what the child really wants to do. Good luck!

kmg1 · 30/11/2003 10:28

katierocket - 2 isn't necessarily too young, depends on the child though. Is he good at jigsaws, recognising shapes, spot-the-difference, etc?

Personally - having used both - I would recommend Letterland for a child this age, but am obviously in a minority here. My boys both started reading at 3, and were pretty fluent by the time they started doing any sort of letter formation (about 4.5), so they didn't start drawing faces in their letters, as some describe here. I think 2 and 3 yr-olds relate well to the letterland characters. Also the names really help you to get to the real sound of the letter. JP is excellent if taught well, but many parents still come out with 'cuh cuh cuh' rather than 'c c c' ... it is VERY DIFFICULT to get a pure consonant sound - which is why letterland doesn't try.

If you want to start with letters, do one or two at a time. If ds has a short name, then start with some letters from his name. To move on good letters are s a t i p n, as these are some of the most frequently occurring in CVC words, so with those six you can make lots of words.

Play loads of matching games, colour big pictures of the letters, I spy is great, make a sound scrapbook together - one page per letter with lots of pictures to match. but make sure you stay phonetic - don't put chair on the c page, or shoes on the s page. If you have any of those simple letter pair jigsaw things, then just pull out the half a dozen you're currently working on, and practice matching them, etc., etc. Letter learning can be fun, and if they are ready for it, 2 is definitely not too early, and you will be giving him a real advantage.

SoupDragon · 30/11/2003 16:09

The letterland story books are very good even if you don't push the Annie Apple aspect or go in to the "hairy hat man makes clever cat sneeze" (ch sound) stuff. The stories seem to have lots of sound repetition to reinforce letter sounds.

katierocket · 30/11/2003 17:45

kmg1 - so are you supposed to teach the adult alphabet rather than the 'baby' one? just wondered from your comment about 'cuh cuh cuh' rather than 'c c c'?

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kmg1 · 30/11/2003 19:03

Sorry - that wasn't very clear was it? No, definitely don't teach the adult alphabet. But try and say 'cuh' but without the 'uh' bit.

It's easy with sounds like 'fffff' and 'sssss', but more difficult with others.

The aim is you just run the sounds smoothly together, and 'bingo', you've got a word.

So 'sam' = 'sssss-aaaaaa-mmmmm' = sam!

If you 'do it wrong' you end up with:
'cot' = cuh-o-tuh = cu-otter?!

Does that make sense?

katierocket · 30/11/2003 19:10

ah yes - perfect sense , thanks.

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