JOLLY/FINGER PHONICS - Can anyone help me to understand them

[GarfieldsGirl]

Hi, ds1 has just started reception, and they are doing Jolly Phonics. He has also been doing Jolly Phonics at nursery for the last 2 years. Before he began nursery he knew the names of letters, the sounds they make, his alphabet, he could recognise all the letters, and can write them, but he has never been able to put them together.

I learnt to read at nursery before the age of 4 using flash cards and the old Peter & Jane or Mary books or whatever their names were! I expect that most of the users of this site learnt that way too.

I don't understand how ants running up your arm will help you to read. I know it is not just simple ABC, and there are 'th' and 'wh' sounds etc in there too, but I'm very miffed.

He is also confused by it. He comes home with his sound book and says its silly that its not in alphabetical order. I know it's in the order that it's in because of the frequency of the sounds or something like that, but he's questioning it.

What's wrong with 'the cat sat on the mat' etc?

Please help (from a parents point of view), I'm totally lost with this, and I want to help him at home, but if I don't understand it myself how can I do that?

they sell the books and dvd in smiths

I tend to agree with you about jolly phonics but the best thing you can do is support the teachers line on it tbh

lol at ants running up the arm

I'm not a teacher but have 2 kids in primary school.

Basically, they learn the sounds of the letters and then learn to put the sounds together to 'sound out' simple words - so if you put the sound for c a and t together, you get the word cat. Quite a lot of simple words can be made this way.

Later on they do blending sounds (like 'ee' and 'oo' and 'cl' etc.) so they can make more words.

Someone else will explain it better but that's the way I understood it!

You can get a Parents Guide to the system from Jolly Learning . It is a multi sensory approach -visual, tactile, sound, creative, games etc - to phonic sounds so that it offers something to most children to help them learn. The order is to enable the children to start blending the sounds to form real words from very early on , so they can see the point.

Ask your teacher if the school do a session on how reading develops and how parents can support their children. There are word cards and games you can buy from Amazon and ELC which they may already have in class.

Thanks for the link LIZS. The case studies are very interesting, especially as I didn't realise that there was anything 'wrong' in the way I was taught to read. I'm definately going to have to ask if there's going to be a session for parents about it and have a look at the workbooks. It looks so complicated to me. Maybe thats just because I can read and don't really think about how a word is made up.

Also, another question someone could answer perhaps. Will that fact that I am southern (as is ds) and DP is northern have an effect on his reading? Things like ca(r)stle & gra(r)ss(me) & ca(s)stle & grass(s)(DP) etc. DS changes the way he says things depending on who he is talking to. Thats not going to help surely? I know there's lots of people who are married from different parts of the country/world, but it must be confusing when daddy teaches you one way and mummy another way, and there's nothing either can do because that's their accent.

As far as accents are concerend I would not be worried - kids are very flexible, and i know several bilingual kids who think nothing of speaking to Mum in Welsh and Dad in English!

I hope you got Jolly Phonics sorted - I found it a revelation for my kids. The blending and segmenting is the key, once they crack this they go on to read most words very quickly and effectively. We managed it with dd by using what i called 'phonic speak' i.e i would say' Oh look, there is a d-o-g' - they could see the dog and soon learnt to put the sounds together to make a word.

She is now reading Enid Blyton and Dick King Smith at 5, so it certainly works! The key is to do it faithfully, and not mix in words that cannot be 'decoded' as this confuses them.

If your son wants to learn the sounds in alphabetical order that is great - most kids do not know the alphabet order until year 1 so JP uses the order that means they can make the most words from only a few sounds. Sounds to me like your son needs to move onto the next stage and learn the digraphs eg 'oa' for 'o' as in goat and then he may worry less about the single letters and the order, and hopefully move onto reading books not just have his sound books.

Good luck

Ds has learnt to read amazingly quickly using Jolly PHonics. I think the theory is that it uses visual, audio and kinesthetic learning (sight, sound, touch) which are the three learning mechanisms children use. It certainly seems to work, and ds can work out most words now.

For what it's worth, I think Jolly Phonics is fab!

GarfieldsGirl I had a similar shock when ds1 brought worksheets home last week and posted a thread on it and got some very helpful answers. TBH I can't see anything wrong with the way I was taught but will obviously work on this approach with ds. The mothers with older kids at ds's school say it's really good.

GarfieldsGirl - I am in the same situation. DS1 has known all the alphabet and their sounds (altho not the oo, th, wh etc) for a v long time. And tonight he comes home practising growling like a dog with a rag for 'r'.

We have the Jolly Phonics DVD so I must sit down evening and watch it so I can familiarise myself with it. It is so very different from how I learnt to read. But I appreciate that this is how they do it now.

NB I didnt read particularly early, but I think I was pretty quick when I got going (learnt c a t spells cat etc). I remember I had a reading age of 16 when I left primary school - altho how they worked that out I dont know - and I'm sure I'm no better than reading than anyone else now!)