Phonics help - Recommendations please!

[wintera]

My little girl starts school in Sep (Although, she only turns 4 in August so will be one of the youngest I would imagine). Anyway, at the moment she goes to nursery and is doing brilliantly. She has come on leaps and bounds with her letters and numbers. When she does her letters she says A - Ay , B - bee etc. But now one of the nursery teachers has told me that although she knows all her letters in that way, she doesn't sound them out in a phonic way like say A - ah. She has suggested I start doing phonics at home to prepare her for school. To cut a long story short - anyone got any advice on any books, dvds, websites etc . . . I can use?

there are loads around - jolly phonics is popular, take a look at "fun with phonics" on cbeebies, and also educational websites, I'll go and get you some links
Also worth looking into the leapfrog stuff - leap pad and so on, my dc have done really well on this and it encourages both recognition of whole words and phonics.

Oh now Gigglewitch, you have hit upon something there with leapfrog. We have one of those leap pad things, and my sister recently gave us an old leapfrog thing too. Will go and dig it out and see what I can buy for it! Many thanks!

Jolly Phonics is great and there is a whole range available from cds to books. DS's school used this scheme and I bought the set to work on at home too. I only bought them as he picked up a lot of bugs in reception and I didnt want him falling behind, may not have bothered if he hadnt as they pick it up very quick at school anyway.

We have one of the leap pads too but its rarely used. The laptop style toy was a better success.

I'd wait and see what they do at school, as you don't want to confuse her. In our YR, Y1 AND Y2, we do phonics EVERY DAY for 20 mins, and I think this is done in many schools throughout the country.

I would email the headteacher and ask what phnics books they use so that you can get the same. My dd's school use the oxford reading tree books and they are really good too.

Agree. The first term in Reception they start on the assumption that the children know no sounds. I think they learn one a day.

wintera, have a look at the various prgrammes and resources listed on this page -the ones marked with a green cross would be most suitable for a parent to use at home:

www.aowm73.dsl.pipex.com/dyslexics/resources_and_further_10.htm

Many thanks indeed for all your suggestions. They are all very much appreciated. My daughter is actually going to her new school on Thursday afternoon for a visit and to meet the teachers so I will mention it to one of them and ask what they use. Thanks again!

Try this one - it follows the Letters and Sounds programme which is followed daily in most schools at Key Stage 1, and has a parents' section.

ELC does a great set of flashcards that include all the double letter sounds as well (ch, sh etc).

I can't remember where I heard the idea, but I have taught my DD (also starting school in Sept but has her birthday 4 days later so will be one of the oldest) that letters are like animals - they have have a name ie A/cat and they make a sound - ah/meow. I can spell words out to her using either method and she'll know what I mean. Not sure if it might be frowned upon by teachers though but it's worked for us !

Fun with phonics on cbeebies. Don't know if it's on at the moment, but the dvd is quite cheap. My little one used to say excitedly, "mummy, mummy, what sound do you think it will be today?" and sit with the remote control pausing it to copy out words, despite having never shown any interest before. Lazy parent's way of doing it...

Out of interest, we were specifically requested not to buy any of the reading tree/phonics series books so that they can have them in school but keep other books at home. Possibly something worth asking the teacher on Thurs?

Thanks again for all the replies.

Mistlethrush - Interesting that. I will definitely mention it to someone on Thurs and get the best advice. To be honest I wouldn't have bothered with buying special phonic materials if her nursery teacher hadn't mentioned it to me. She knows all her alphabet and writes certain words like her name really well so I am happy with her progress. I think her nursery teacher is thinking about preparing her for reading.

I'm a Teaching Assistant and have been using the Read Write Inc series by Ruth Miskin with one of my pupils. I'm very impressed with the books and his progress has been very encouraging.

I got a set from School Link for use at home for my 5 year old, so far he loves it! - here.

The school predominately uses Letters and Sounds which is very effective.