ANY EY TEACHERS AROUND?? Struggling with "inital sounds"

[LoopyLoo92]

My dc is in reception, shes an August baby. She is currently "failing" and not due to meet her phonics early learning goals by the end of the year.

She knows all the letters, knows the phonics sounds and can sound out the letters in words in her reading book. With help she can blend the sounds into a word.

The teacher says she needs to be able to hear the sounds in the words (beginning sound, middle sound and end sound) and then hopefully she will step up to being able to write words as she hears them (i think this is one of the learning goals). But first we need to hear the sounds. Like if I say what does "cat" start with, she cannot hear and say the sound "c"

So how can I help? We read her reading book regularly, and read other books....but shes still not meeting her goals, and I worry that she has 1 term left and then she's going into year 1.

Thanks x

Personally I'd forget about books and concentrate on aurally blending and segmenting words. I'd start with compound words like butter. Fly can she hear butterfly? Lady. Bird ...foot ball etc and can she split the words carpet car...pet, goldfish gold...fish etc before moving onto single sounds. It's easier if the word starts with a sound you can "hold on to" so sat and mat are easier than cat because you can say what sound can you hear when I say ssssssat? What sound can you hear when I say mmmmmmmat?

https://www.udemy.com/help-your-child-to-read-and-write/ is a free online course for parents which shows you how.

My class likes alphablocks (CBeebies program, also on Youtube). Sign up to Phonicsplay.co.uk. They have some good games in the Phase 1 and 2 section.

Hello. I wouldn't worry unduly. It's not unusual and she is very young. I think playing with words is great, doing lots of alliteration eg crazy cat, lazy lion etc and having fun making up silly words using the sounds she is familiar with. My class love it when I pretend to be a robot and ask them to do what I say eg stamp your f-ee-t. They also love the magic river eg you can only cross if you gave something with a c sound. Child has a cat and crosses the river if they can say c-a-t. Also tapping syllables is useful. We often do this as a class to get the children tuned in to listening.

Have you had her hearing checked?

Thanks everyone.

I will try a few "games" making up silly words/using alliteration. And the syllables thing. I may start with the syllables to try and break the word up into the different syllables and then work up to individual phonics sounds.

I would definitely start with a hearing check just to rule out any physical reason that she cannot distinguish between the sounds.

Then I would go right back to phase 1 with singing songs and playing alliteration games. When children can't hear initial sounds it can stem from a lack of phase 1 understanding.

A fun game is to make silly soup - get a pan and lots of objects beginning with the same sound and take turns choosing what goes in.

Alphablocks is just great for this.

Like others have said. Focus on oral blending and segmenting. Talk like a robot....
Dd get your b-a-g
Put on a s-o-ck
Pat the d-o-g
Do you want some ch-ee-se?