Does anyone out there know anything about Cued Articulation?

[ellesabe]

DH and I just went to visit a potential school for dd1 and absolutely LOVED it!

However I was a bit disappointed that they don't use Jolly Phonics, but instead use some system called Cued Articulation which I have never heard of.

The concept sounds similar to Jolly Phonics in that each phoneme has a sign/action, but the signs relate to the way your mouth produces each sound rather than to a story/song which is the case with JP.

Has anyone had any experience with Cues Articulation? I am very happy for dd to learn phonics in this way but am concerned that the scheme may not be as well-resourced as something like JP and that it doesn't sound as fun!

I have done some work with cued articulation. As you say, it has a sign based on how and where in the mouth the sound is produced.
Jolly phonics have a kinesthetic sign too (I think) but it isn't related to how the sound is actually produced.

I'm sure the teachers will still make it fun! It may be that they use some aspects of jolly phonics and just supplement it with cued articulation (schools I have worked in have done this) - it's true that Jolly Phonics have lots of glossy resources. But really, fun is what the teachers make it, imo.

There's some evidence that cued articulation can particularly help children who have poorer phonological awareness or speech difficulties to learn to read, because it helps them to make the connection with how and where the sound is produced.

I think Cued Articulation is a great tool to learning phonics. We use Jolly phonics where I teach and I feel it is just not enough. We are thinking about introducing it alongside all the JP resources that we already use. I think it will also be useful when starting to introduce blends and even for learning spellings. Just look on it as another multi sensory tool to learning.

I may be wrong but isn't Cued Articulation meant for speech? (the clue is in the "articulation") it's used with THRASS

We used cued articulation with DD for a while from the age of 3 in conjunction with speech therapy. It was simple hand/finger movements to try and act as a reminder as to how to make the particular speech sound (ie phonic). When she went to school she did Jolly Phonics and their signs and had no problem learning these additional (for her) signs. I am not that sure that the signs made much difference to her in the long run anyway, and DD#2 who only did the JP signs when she started in school likewise really didn't seem to use them much if at all. It just gave them something a bit interactive to do during the lesson time as far as I can see to make things a bit interesting.

Yes mrz it is primarily used by Speech Therapists but we are now seeing so many children with speech difficulties and EAL that we feel it might help as well as just giving gentle cues to all children regarding the subtle differences in our language.

I can see advantages of using it for speech sounds but not for teaching reading and writing