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/

Montessori tools: alphabet cards and the senses

Montessori classrooms have sandpaper letters which help children learn the alphabet. The individual letters are made from sandpaper and each pasted onto a square board. Not only can children see and arrange the letters freely, but they can learn the alphabet through touch.The added sensation  further enhances the learning experience, according to Maria Montessori.

Today I made not sandpaper letters but tinfoil ones stuck onto pink cardboard squares (recycled from packaging) I made my daughter's name in English and Japanese. She was quite enamored with them and lined them up on the dining table, then the coffee table. She is quite into seeing her name now. Friends have given her pictures for her birthday with her name written on it, and I've also been sewing her name into her clothes for starting at nursery.

Now could be the start of her sensitive period for letters...I'll keep an eye on how things go.

本棚を赤ちゃんの手届く場所に・ A bookcase for your little one

モンッテソーリのアイデアの一つ。自分の家をちょっとだけでもモンッテソーリ環境を作ってみませんか？ 子供の絵本を大人と同じ本棚に入れる事。子供の手が届く位置に置いて、そしていつでも、自分のしたい時に、本を出したり、読んだり出来ます。
同じように、冷蔵庫に磁石アルファベットを置いたら、子供の気が向いた時にすぐ使えます。最初は顔を作ったり遊んだり、そして文字の音を教えたり、子供と家族の名前を書いたり出来ます。

A bookcase for the little ones: One of Montessori's ideas. This is an easy way to make a part of your house a prepared environment in the Montessori Way. Designate a space on your bookshelf for your baby's books, and make it within his or her reach. Then your baby can take a book and read whenever he or she fancies.

In the same way, you can put magnetic letters on your fridge for your older child to play with whenever she or he desires. You can start out making faces and playing with them. Then you can progress to talking about the letter sounds and perhaps spelling out your child's name or those of family members.

アルファベットを楽しく習う / Fun with the alphabet

二歳半の娘は最近アルファベットに興味を持っています。実際に、最初はひらがなに興味を表していました。ある家族のメンバーの名前の始まりをひらがなの本で探していました。アルファベットを同じようにしようと思いました。Mmmm Millie, Mmmmm mummy、Dddd daddy とOoo Ollieを教えてあげました。
そして、小さな素晴らしい絵本を持っています。Wee Sing and Learn ABC, と言います。可愛い動物さんが楽器を弾いています。たまたま "O" には、弟と同じ名前、オリバーになっています：Ollie the owl plays the oboe.
このページを見つけるのは大好きです。ひらがなの本と一緒にベッドルームに置いて、そして夜は必ずどちかを読みたいと言い出す。
同じょように、冷蔵庫に貼ってあるのABCの絵を自分から行って言います。モンッテソーリが言った通りの管理された環境は本当に効くと思いました。
娘は今日本語を上手に話します。ちょうど今お祖父ちゃんお祖母さんの家に居ます。今の環境はほとんど日本語しか聴かないから、彼女の日本語は上達しています。小さな会話したりする。来月からイギリスに引越すから、英語のレベルをあまり心配していません。この大きな環境の変わりは彼女にとって面白いの変わりと受ける事を願っています。

Learning the alphabet

Recently our daughter is interested in the alphabet. Actually she was first interested in the basic Japanese writing form, Hiragana. She could recognize some letter forms by matching them with names of family members. So I tried the same thing with the alphabet and taught her Mmm Millie, Mmm mummy, Dddd daddy along with other family members names.
We also have a super little book called, Wee Sing and Learn ABC, and it has lovely pictures of animals playing various instruments for each letter of the alphabet. Luckily enough, O is for Ollie the owl who plays the oboe!! Ollie is her brother's name so she just loves finding Ollie in the book. I keep this book, along with her hiragana book, in her bedroom, so that at night she reaches for one or the other.
She has also started to point to and name the ABC pictures on our fridge by herself. It really goes to show that Montessori's "prepared environment" really works.
At the moment our daughter speaks Japanese very well. Right now we are at grandma's and grandad's, so she hears and uses Japanese a lot. It's really coming on. We can have little conversations about things. I'm not too worried about not using English so much as from next month everything around her will all be in English. I hope the big change will be an interesting one for her.

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/