Letters and Sounds: resources for phonics

The Letters and Sounds webpage

This site is used by the teachers in the Reception classes at my school (and undoubtedly many other British schools) and provides resources to help with the introduction of phonics to 4-5 year old children and onwards. In general, nursery classes (3-4 year old children) follow Phase 1 and reception (4-5 year old children) classes follow Phase 2 & Phase 3. Phase 1 is the listening and communicating stage and Phase 2 onwards starts to introduce letters and their sounds.

Jolly Phonics sound and actions

I'm really enjoying teaching phonics to my nursery class. They follow the Jolly Phonics programme, which links an action to the letter sound. All the kids like doing them, and many spontaneously produce them when they hear the sounds alone. I think its a really good way for kids to remember English sounds.
http://jollylearning.co.uk/2010/11/03/jolly-phonics-actions/

Help your kids with school work: Sparklebox 家で英語を教える

イギリスの小学校の先生がこのウエブ・ページをよく使っています。
フォニクス、数字、理科などいろいろプリント・アウトでいるの。
使ってみて！
今娘が宇宙について勉強しているなので、Sparkleboxで宇宙を検索して、宇宙のポスター、宇宙飛行士のマスク、宇宙人の粘土マットとか印刷した。娘かなり気に入った。

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/

Absolutely super website used by primary school teachers for ideas in Maths, English, Science...everything!!
Reinforce what your kids study at school by helping them at home too.
All kinds of resources can be printed out and they all look so good.

Right now my daughter's doing space at school, so we've printed out a space banner, astronauts for a rocket and space-themed playdough mats, just to name a few!!

Really, really check it out.

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/

Learning the alphabet 楽しいアルファベット

My daughter is only two and a half so I certainly don't want to force her to memorize letters at the moment.

Maria Montessori noted that children learn from a well prepared environment, so here's what I'm doing at home. My daughter loves to open the fridge. So on the fridge I've stuck an A4 sheet with the alphabet on and a corresponding picture for each letter. I also have a set of alphabet flash cards, and I select a couple of those to stick on the fridge and change them occasionally.

So everytime she goes to the fridge she sees the alphabet. We have a chat about what's up there, but I just keep it light.
We also have magnetic letters up there too. She makes great faces with them, and then a great mess with them on the floor.

Don't sing the ABC song!!

We all know it. A,B,C,D,E,F,G.....But have you really ever thought about how useful this song is? Of course it is naming the letters of the alphabet. We use them when spelling out words. However, when we try to read in English, the names of the letters are not important, but the sound. And the ABC song becomes quite confusing for children when it comes to teaching about the sounds of the alphabet: phonics.
Phonics is a tool for reading the letters of the alphabet. When a child sees the word 'cat', he can sound out each letter to read the word: 'cuh' 'ah' 'tuh'. Running the sounds together he can read cat. The names of the letters of the alphabet would have the child read 'cee' 'ay' 'tee' bringing little understanding to the written word itself.
At a school I used to teach at in Tokyo, the teachers never sang the traditional ABC song. Instead we sang a phonetic version of the alphabet to the tune of, 'This Old Man...' It goes, Ah, buh, cuh, duh, eh, fuh,...etc. Try it and see! It takes a while to get used to, but it is so much more helpful for kids learning English.

Here is a link to the phonetic sounds of the English alphabet.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities/phonemic-chart

What does this say, darling?

I think kids learning English should be able to read their text books. I'm talking from my experience in teaching English as a second language, but the same must be true for native language learners too. If they can understand the contents of their books then they can read them aloud by themselves. If they cannot, then children lose their confidence and start to dislike their English class.
When parents look at their child's book together and ask, "how do you say this?" then children who cannot read their books again lose their confidence and desire for learning English. This is where a sound knowledge of phonics is important.
During the years that I've been teaching English in Japan, I've found that the Finding Out series of text books resolve this problem. They start off simply, introducing phonics from the beginning. The letter sounds are all introduced, followed by 2 then 3 letter combinations then simple sentences. The format is also a very cute, cartoon style with lots of colour. Used with the Finding Out flashcards a teacher can give his students the tools they need for successful reading.
For a look inside these text books, please click on this link:
http://mlh.co.jp/catalog/category/1901/