Reception phonics help

[HeadDreamer]

We just got our first phonics envelope from DDs reception teacher. Inside there are three cards - a, as, an.

I am supposed to drill DD with it. I know what a is supposed to be from googling and the jolly phonics website. But what are 'as' and 'an' supposed to be? Just as you say it in real English? It is so confusing when we get no clue what they are!

They are high frequency words so you are just getting her used to seeing and reading them as they will come up a lot in her early reading books.

I see. So they are real English words then? Not phonics sound?

So I should tell DD the 'a' is a dog, a cat. 'an' is an envelope, and 'as' is as soon as. That kind of thing?

I don't understand the 'real english' part of your posts? As opposed to what?

You can read stories and point out those words as you come across them.

I think she means the actual words as opposed to graphemes (thats probably wrong but I know what I mean!) such as er, ie, ou, etc

Yes, what iheart says. i thought they might be phonics sounds. Then wouldn't as be ahh - es, which sounds like arse. Or at least to me. Can't possibly tell DD that as is arse!

Hopefully your child has been taught a/s/n this week as their phonics sounds. If they haven't, then unfortunately you haven't received your first phonics envelope you have received your first memory envelope! If they have, you can remind them of the three sounds and practice blending the a with the s and the n to make as and an

Ah ok! Yes they are actual words. They are made up of two separate sounds.

The ahhh sound that you describe above is made from 'a' and 'r' together. 'ar' (as in arse!!). The 'a' on its own is short like apple.

I think you might be confusing sounds with letter names "es" is a name the sound is simply /s/

www.st-thomasaquinas.co.uk/sounds-write/

The problem with the words you've been given is that the sounds in "as" are /a/ /z/ not /a/ /s/ suggests that school may be teaching words by sight or the teacher is looking at spellings not sounds.

Problem being, of course, that the 's' in 'as' isn't actually pronounced as /s/ in the way that she should have been initially taught; it's pronounced as /z/. Confusion right from the start.

'a' would be fine if she's just meant to associate the /a/ (as in cat) sound with it, but I fear that it is indeed meant to be the word 'a' which is more often pronuonced as a schwa sound (/uh/). 'an' is strightforward to sound and blend as a word, so long as' she's been taught 'n' (which she may have done as the first group usually taught is s,a,t,p,i,n). If not, I'm afraid that spanieleyes* is probably right.

If they were teaching phonics properly I don't think you would be getting these 'words', you would just be getting individual letters to practice the letter/sound correspondences with, or words with correspondences she has learned.

Sorry, 'pronounced' and formatting all to pot...

Thanks everyone. As usual MN to the rescue. It's making a lot more sense now.

And you are all correct why I was so confused with the three cards given. That's how I ended up with arse because I just added an /s/ sound to 'ar' (how I would say a cat, not Apple).

I didn't even realise as is /z/ but now you said it, it's so true.

It's already very poor they given this to the parents with only a newsletter saying, practice them with your 4yo. Maybe mine is immature, but she can barely tell me what she's been taught. I get 'I don't know' most of the time.

Easiest way to work it out is to say the word and think about the sounds you can hear. This accounts for differences in accent.