Possum started her first year of school this year, known as prep in Victoria. I always find it amazing just how much they learn in their first year of school. The school that she attends uses a combination of phonics and whole of language approach to literacy. If you are not familiar with these terms Succeed To Read gives a succinct explanation of both.
I will avoid entering the phonics vs whole of language debate though. Possum is at a school where they do both and I have supported her learning by incorporating both styles of activities into our play.
To support the phonic component of her learning, I came up with a couple of activities which we have played in Terms 1 and 2.
Phonic Scavenger Hunt
Learning Aim: To practice phonic sound recognition of letters of the alphabet.
Preparation Task: Together we drew up on the computer and then printed out a table of the alphabet. We stuck this to some cardboard, waited for it to dry and then Possum cut out all the letters into cards. I have included ours below as an example.
Phonics Activity – Alphabet Table
Activity: Go through each letter of the alphabet, discuss the phonic sound it makes, then the child finds an object in the house that starts with that sound.
How many letters you do at a time would depend on the stage of the child. In the photos we did the entire alphabet, as this was the stage that she was at. I would recommend beginning with three or four at a time, so that they can master them and feel success.
After a couple of goes with assistance completing the whole alphabet, Possum then requested that she wanted to do it all by herself and that she would show me at the end. It was very cute to watch her run around the house scavenging for the items that she was after.
Phonic I Spy
Learning Aim: To identify the letter of the alphabet with its phonic sound.
Preparation Task: Cardboard cut out alphabet as with the task above. A collection of items to play the game with.
Activity: From a collection of items, play I spy with the phonic starting sound of the items.
For example in the photo above we had a cat, a ball and an apple (yes it was half eaten!). I would choose a letter, in this case “c” and say “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with “c”.” (phonic sound) and place the letter card in front of me. Possum would then pick up the letter card and place it next to the item that started with that sound. It would then be her turn to choose an item to spy.
Again how many items you would play with would depend on the stage of the child. We started with three items and built up to six.
Do you have any phonic activities that are suitable for beginners? If so share them in the comments. I am going to be doing a few posts on the literacy activities we have been doing home and will build up a resource list on early literacy to post at the end.
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When the twins were learning the sounds of the alphabet I would make up games. We would play what words make this sound? Buh boy, baby, ball. I would just go down the alphabet. They picked that up really quick. We also played a search game. I would say find something around the house that makes this sound. Those are just a couple that I could think of right now. I’m looking forward to the upcoming posts.
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With my background in primary school teaching, several years in a grade one classroom and a passion for early literacy – this is kind of a pet topic for me! I won’t bombard you with activities, but I will say that I think you’ve done a great job with the phonics games you are playing at home. The more fun you have with them the better!
SquiggleMums last blog post..Real Aussie Mum – July
Hello,
Wow! They are a great resource. I’m currently studying my Bachelor of Education [Early Childhood Education] and I write a blog on resources for children from birth to eight years. Mainly for my reference in years to come; but also as I have majority of parents reading my other blog and figured why not.
One resource I put up a couple of weeks ago now was the website teachthis.com.au and they have a tonne of printable resources that are available for a joining fee [though I gave two people the chance to choose 10 and I would print and laminate them for them]. You should definitely have a look at their site!
carly_graces last blog post..Resource for Toddlers, Preschoolers and School Age
We always played ‘I spy” when the kids were really little it was something that was a colour, then something with the phonetic sound, it’s only been the letter for a couple of years now.
Another great thing to do is to ask them at different times what sound they think words start or finish with to get them listening for beginnings and endings. Like at the supermarket – I’d get TJ to help me find things from our list, as ask him about the object – colour, size, shape, then later letters, sounds etc.
Something we did with our kid’s sight words was to put them onto flash cards to practice at home, As part of that practice we’d make sentences with them.
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