Learning 2 and 3 letter sounds in reception.

[yellowparrot]

Dd has happily mastered all her 1 letter phonic sounds (a,b,c etc.). They have now moved on to phase 3 and she is being taught 2 and 3 letter sounds. Apart from a few which she seems to know, most seem to be going in one ear and out the other. I know it is very early in her school life , and i am not at all concerned that she won't get there in the end, but just wondered what the best way would be to help her learn these sounds.

Repeat, repeat,repeat..........

Go over them every night, doing the actions as well with her. Reception (reading) is really hard work, but that 10 mins you put in every night is worth its weight in gold.

I found Yr 1 was a catch up year; they didn't stop doing phonics in the morning until Feb half-term, so don't worry.

She reads to me every night and i always point out the sounds to her. Do you think they will eventually stick by doing that or should i be doing more?

I found Yr 1 was a catch up year; they didn't stop doing phonics in the morning until Feb half-term, so don't worry.

They should be doing a daily phonics session till at least the end of Y2 - and some schools continue into KS2.

I think that is the best way.

For my son (year one now and a good reader), the two letter sounds never really "stuck" until reading as a whole clicked. I think it's very hard for them to remember them out of context. I concentrated more on getting them to sound out lots of words with the two letter sounds in them.

I have to admit that I didn't even know what the pronounciation of some of them were at first but I can definitely read!

Repeat, repeat, repeat. DD had "ea" and when I ask her how to pronounce them together it works but no on her own.

So we play a game and if she has "ea" in a word like "eat" we ask her for others and she normally comes up with words fairly good.

The "ou" troubles us though because I find it difficult to pronounce on its own. But I am not a native English speaker.

My son really likes the Alphablocks games on the Cbeebies websites, they cover some of the multi-letter sounds and he has picked some up that way. It might be something fun to try along side the straight reading and repetitions.

Agree with Feenie. All children in my DC's school have a daily phonics session right till the very end of year 2.

Is she, perhaps, being expected to learn too many new ones at once? It would be better to drip feed new ones slowly, with plenty of practice and consolidation reading them in real words, in real contexts, in between. She will get there in the end, she has only been in school just over a term.

How old is she? For some their brains aren't quite ready and there's not much point in stressing until they are- well that's IMO . When she's ready it should go in quite easily.

DD is struggling a bit with digraphs too. She can read and spell some of them, and others she just always reads them as two phonemes.

'scuse my poor grammar above I am knackered

Initially sounds are taught as one spelling representing one sound so ou as in ouch not ou as in soup noramum
The alternative ways of representing a sound and the alternative sounds that can be represented by a letter or combination of letters comes next