Please tell me about Jolly Phonics etc, etc

[Rainydaze]

DD (2.5) loves books and loves letters.

She's just started to read a few three-letter words and recognise them. Very basic stuff, obviously!

I've heard people talking about Jolly Phonics, but I'm not sure whether anyone would recommend them? Money's always on the tight side, so I don't have plenty to spend on something that she wouldn't like and wouldn't help her learn to read.

Does anyone have any recommendations, please?

Thank you very much. :)

The Jolly Phonics materials are suitable for really young children.

I recommend you get a set of the Jolly Finger Phonics board books and a pack of sound/letter cards and take it from there....

www.jollylearning.co.uk

Free resources:
Jolly Phonics Songs on YouTube:

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/watch/alphablocksclips/
BBC TV Alphablocks programme clips for children

HTH

Jolly Phonics are an excellent way of teaching your child to read. It is one of the most widely used methods used in schools so it's doubtful you'd be teaching her in a different method.
I bought a good series of books for my daughter from amazon, they start with really basic words and then progress to the end of KS1, with hand-writing practice for cursive writing etc. It's worked wonders for my daughter and the little girl I mind is really getting to grips with it too.

otherwise lots of their recourses are on communicationsforall website

I would tend to read up on how it works but avoid directly using any scheme they will be using at school. Ds's school used jolly phonics in infants and he would have been sick of the sight and sound of it if I'd started at 3 years old! Personally I'm not sure about jolly phonics, it doesn't cover the many exceptions to the rules and at ds's school took too long to cover so the kids were reading before they finished all the sounds.

If you want something that's free, you could try these phonics games. They are all about recognising sounds in words, blending sounds to make words and having fun with rhyming words. If you follow that link you will also find further links to fun phonics games on the internet. All these games will help to increase your daughter's awareness of sounds in words which will eventually help her to read and spell. Have fun watching her learn!

My DD loves the jolly songs cd (available on amazon) - it's got a book with all the actions for the sounds.

Also I'd recommend getting loads of magnetic small case letters to play with as having a physical representation of the letter is useful for children.

If you run a search for Fun with phonics you get a whole bunch of free downloadable lessons the complete learning to read set

This might help?

Help Your Child to Read - A Guide to Understanding & Reinforcing School Teaching Methods at Home

This guide has been written by a parent, it includes an introduction to helping your child to read, an outline of methods of teaching reading in primary schools and suggestions of ways to reinforce these methods at home.Find it on hernhillforum.wordpress?com
Cbeebies Alphablocks are useful too.