Phonics

[WishUponAStar88]

My dd is in preschool (not at school until next year). She knows most of the alphabet and likes trying to spell things out but is miles away from being able to work out the words from the letters. I didn’t realise quite how much ‘phonics’ involved though - her pre school do Jolly Phonics which have all sorts of phrases for each letter.

If you have/ had a preschooler do you use the proper phonics schemes at home too? It seems so much more complicated than just a-z

Not really, we just go over the letter sounds. DS2's still doing phonics in yr2.

We've been given words printed out on paper, every morning, because he wakes up crazily early to go to the loo then can't get back to sleep, he cuts out one word, reads it, I hide it and he spells it, then I stick it on his wall. He has to write a password on the whiteboard to leave the classroom, his password is his word for that day, then I ask him again when I pick him up.

Thank you both. I’ve just been doing letter sounds too but not sure if that’ll be confusing when preschool and presumably then school do it slightly differently with the actions etc

I wouldn’t worry too much at this stage and would just follow her lead.

The only things I would watch for are:
making sure you are using the ‘pure’ sound rather than a one with a schwa at the end - sssss rather than suh
avoiding the potential confusion of introducing letter names too early.

Other than that games that require listening and distinguishing sounds and perhaps modelling sounding out simple words if she’s asking you what things say.

Phonics is soooo much more than letter sounds. I teach nursery and we don't even begin to look at letters (other than what they meet naturally in their environment).

Most preschools should teach phase 1 phonics. This includes things like tuning into sounds and instruments, sound lotto, rhyming books and nursery / finger rhymes, making up their own rhymes - rhyming games with their names, orally blending and segmenting words such as you saying m-a-t and them guessing then hearing the word is mat, then they can try and sound out the words. Try to use pure sounds, there's some good videos on YouTube to show you how to pronounce the sounds correctly.

I love phonics - and I love teaching it to nursery age children. If they have a good understanding of all of the above, reading usually comes really easy. Have fun!

We use phonics at home loosely to support pre school. My dd's pre school do Jolly Phonics too. We bought a lovely alphabet frieze that runs along the length of her bed and includes A-Z and phonics ( this is the type of thing: alphabetfrieze.co.uk ). The pictures are a big hit but it is just a start. There is so much to phonics and it is new to us so we are learning too!

We’ve got another year of pre-school and my DD’s nursery send Home the sound of the week on a flash card so we can go over them if we like. She hasn’t got through them all yet but can read some three and four letter words. Ask them what they use so you can do the same at home.