Research on phonics has shown that "preschoolers who were given training in phonological awarness show significant accerleration in their later acquisition of reading" (Adams, 1990). "The best single predictor of future reading achievement, at school entry, is phonological awareness" (Gillon, 2004; Pressley, 2002; ehri et al, 2001; Goswami, 2001; and Blachman, 2000).
There are 7 stages to phonics, with the scope of the course focusing on stage 1: supporting children to listen to and discriminate sounds, hearing alliteration, rhythm, sound breaks and rhyme within words.
The course highlighted many activities to support children learning phonical awarness within stage 1. One such activity that I have introduced to the children is Mr Croaker, my word puppet. Mr Croaker helps children to hear phoneme letter breaks, starting on words with only three sounds such as cvc (consonant vowel consonant) words eg. cat, dog. Within this activity children chose a picture word out of the flax bag. I then sound out the word with the children before we teach Mr Croaker how to say the word. Then it is Mr Croaker's turn to say the word. Of course he muddles it up the first couple of times, to the delight of the children, with the children re-telling him how to say the word. On the third time Mr Croaker gets the word right and gets high-fives from all of the children.
There are many simple ways to help your chilren with phonical awareness at home such as reading books like Dr Seuss and Lynley Dodd to playing eye spy games of rhyme; "I spy with my little eye, something that rhymes with bat?".
Please feel free to come and talk to me or Mohanan for more information.
Ann
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