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Original poster

Introducing Letter Sounds

24 replies

CDMforever · 15/02/2009 20:12

My 2 years and 4 months old seems to love learning new things and already knows his numbers to 10. I'm now wondering what is the best age to start teaching letter sounds? And which approaches have mums found the best? I used Letterland with my now 11 year old but I know very few schools use this now.

OP posts:

Sam100 · 15/02/2009 20:19

Lots of schools seem to use Jolly Phonics - the cd has some good songs which they do at ds's playgroup he is 2.5.

Original poster

CDMforever · 15/02/2009 20:28

Thanks sam. I have heard of jolly phonics. Suppose I really need to find out which scheme they use at the infant school ds will be going to. Don't want to confuse the poor wee lad!

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RumMum · 15/02/2009 20:35

does he go to nursery or playschool yet? maybe find out what scheme they use there...

MollieO · 15/02/2009 20:40

My ds's nursery started them on Letterland (there is a lovely interactive computer game you can buy) and then moved on to Jolly Phonics. His school use JP. He likes it but I find the actions really annoying and have battles with him to stop him doing every action as he is reading.

RumMum · 15/02/2009 20:44

I snigger at the 'u' action...

Original poster

CDMforever · 15/02/2009 20:50

He does go to a nursery, will ask on Tuesday. MollieO did your ds find switching schemes tricky. As would love to get my teeth into teaching him Letterland.

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MollieO · 15/02/2009 20:52

No not at all. They are quite different with different characters. He still does both at home without any problem (I think mainly because I can remember the Letterland character names but have never really grasped the JP actions!).

memoo · 15/02/2009 20:56

ELC stuff is based on jolly phonics

MollieO, don't try and stop your DS from doing the actions when he is reading, doing them will help him learn, and he'll be encourage to do it at school. If school are telling him one thing and you another you might confuse him

amidaiwish · 15/02/2009 20:57

DD1 was taught jolly phonics at nursery and at school they use read-write inc. The letter sounds are quite different - e.g. in jolly phonics "s" is "suh" "t" is "tuh" whereas in read-write inc it is much more about phonetic sounds "s" is "ssssss" etc.

DD1 took the change in her stride so i wouldn't worry too much. the big thing is for them to start realising that all these random shapes mean something and they start to de-code them.

Original poster

CDMforever · 15/02/2009 21:04

OK then, amazon here I come! They do some great stuff and the Letterland website has loads. Another one is the cbeebies "Fun with Phonics" but theres only one book and a DVD.

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MollieO · 15/02/2009 21:21

memoo I've been told by his teacher to make him put a stop to them as they are trying to do at school. He is beyond that stage and his insisting on doing the actions with every letter is holding back his reading. Personally I've gone with what the school have taught him but found that he has gone backwards compared to what he knew at nursery. I'm waiting for the stage when he makes a 'massive leap forward' as his teacher has promised. I'd just be happy to have him do what he could do a year ago but that's another story.

CDM if you go for the Letterland computer game get the one that is about £14.95 rather than the other one which is for schools and is £50 or so.

amidaiwish · 15/02/2009 23:31

would be interested to hear about the letterland - can you do a link? DD2 is 3.2 and knows some of her letters so would like to build on them with her before she goes to school.

MollieO · 15/02/2009 23:46

here

thecloudhopper · 16/02/2009 14:38

Can I jsut say I am not the biggest fan of letterland. I find there is too much emphasis on the caractor names ie Annie Apple so the children dont learn the actual sound that the letter makes. I would just build them up maybe looking at the letters in your childs name. Just point letters out when you see them. Just have fun with them, use your imagination.

mamaolivia · 16/02/2009 15:24

I second what cloudhopper says. I used to teach at a school where we had to use letterland and the children couldn't say the letter sound, only the character name. Have found jolly phonics way better and there is a lot of stuff available to help them consolidate it - try the finger phonics stuff, CD etc. The books are only £1.50 each in ELC (about 7 books in all) and can get the Jolly Phonic handbook for about £20 which has loads of other activities and games to go with it.

DevilsAdvocaat · 16/02/2009 15:37

just wanted to say i think they are both great.

personally prefer jolly phonics as it easier to teach and you can get resources in elc.

also if someone's nursery is teaching s as 'suh' and t as 'tuh' they are teaching incorrectly. s in jolly phonics is sssss like the snake. watch out for L which is also always taught as 'luh' when it should be 'ull'

amidaiwish · 16/02/2009 17:52

interesting devils - i doubt they are teaching incorrectly, more like my DD telling me it incorrectly from nursery!

DevilsAdvocaat · 16/02/2009 19:33

haha. bless
actually i have heard plenty of great teachers making phonics mistakes. the kids get it anyway.

JLo2 · 17/02/2009 14:02

Just an idea for something completely different that I used with mine.

I introduced all the letter sounds by using pictures of either people/animals or objects that they knew well. So I printed out a photo of me and wrote 'm' underneath etc. Started with important people in their lives and then moved onto animals/objects to cover any letters we didn't have. We talked about the pictures a lot and the sounds that went with them. We then made up stories with these photos in them and then 'read' them together. Didn't cost much, only printer ink and a bit of time! Was lots of fun especially making up very silly stories together. When we were making up stories we often found that we needed a new picture so would take a photo/print one off the internet. This would reinforce the letter sound with a new picture. Mummy and monkey came inextricably linked for ages afterwards

Original poster

CDMforever · 18/02/2009 23:16

JLo2, that sounds wonderful. What age were your chn when you did this? My DS is 2years and 4 months and I think it may be a bit early. He's learnt numbers really quickly but I may be getting a bit carried away.....

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cat64 · 18/02/2009 23:40

This reply has been deleted

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ladyr · 19/02/2009 00:39

I agree mine leant the names and sounds of all their letters before they started school playing the game I spy. My version is slightly different, for example I say...
"I spy something beginning with s and the sound is sss" I think this way they learn the "names" and sounds the letters make at the same time which reduces confusion between the two later on.

JLo2 · 19/02/2009 10:14

Mine were probably about 3 when we started, but it really wasn't done as a big thing. It was just something that was around that we referred to/talked about when they were interested. I agree with cat64, your DS doesn't need a 'scheme' just lots of talking about the world around them and whatever interests them at the time.

blueshoes · 19/02/2009 10:33

Jolly Phonics.

You don't have to make your ds do the Jolly Phonics workbooks (which are more appropriate for reception age children and above), but you can use it to teach yourself to teach him IYKWIM.

You know what the regular sounds for that letter are, and (might be a bit advanced for a toddler) sounds for vowel combinations, the concept of tricky words that cannot be sounded out and have to be recognised by sight...

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