Aughton Early Years
Centre
Letters and Sounds
Information for parents/carers
Letters and Sounds
To support the development of
Communication, Language and Literacy
in the Centre, we use a 6
phase phonics teaching programme
called Letters and Sounds
• The purpose of high quality phonics is to
read and spell words
• In order to make a good start in reading
and writing, children need an adult to
talk to and listen to them
• Speaking and listening are the
foundations for reading and writing
How do I know what I mean until I hear
what I say?
Support your child at home
with speaking and listening
• Make time to talk and listen to your child
– as you walk, or travel by car, in the
supermarket as you shop, at meal times,
bath time, bedtime – anytime!
A good listener…….
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Tries to keep still
Tries to stay quiet
Tries to look at the speaker
Tries to remember what the speaker has
said
In phase 1 of Letters and Sounds,
your child will learn to:
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have fun with sounds
listen carefully
develop their vocabulary
speak confidently to you, other adults and
other children
• listen, remember and talk about sounds
• understand that spoken words are made up of
different sounds
Phase 1 consists of seven
interlinking parts
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Environmental sounds
Instrumental sounds
Body percussion
Rhythm and rhyme
Alliteration (words that begin with the
same sound)
• Voice sounds
• Oral blending and segmenting
Environmental sounds
• Switch off the television and have a “listening moment”
- listen to sounds inside the home. Can your child tell
you what they heard, in the order in which they heard
it?
• Go on a listening walk and listen to different sounds:
cars revving, people talking, birds singing, dogs barking
• Make different sounds using a range of props:
saucepan, wooden spoon, bunch of keys
Instrumental sounds
• Make your own musical instruments using cardboard
rolls, tins, dried peas, beans and stones. Shake them
loudly/softly, as you are marching, skipping or
stomping. Play ‘guess what’s inside the instrument’
• Add instrument sounds to songs and stories e.g.
Goodnight Owl
• Listen to sounds and identify the hidden instrument
• Listen to a range of music with your child from rap to
classical
Khaliyl Lloyi – 2yr old rapping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJswyGWb878
Body percussion
• Listen to the sounds your feet make when
walking/running/skipping: slowly, softly, fast,
stomping hard, in flip flops, boots, high heels
• Add body sounds to songs and stories e.g. I Hear
Thunder, Walking Through The Jungle
• Pass the sound around the circle
Rhythm and rhyme
• Help your child move to the rhythm of a song or rhyme
e.g. by clapping
• Try out some rhythmic chanting such as ‘two, four, six,
eight, hurry up or we’ll be late’
• Play rhyming I Spy, rhyming bingo, rhyming pairs, Silly
Soup and odd one out
• Say/sing traditional nursery rhymes with your child and
make up new rhymes, including nonsense rhymes e.g.
Hickory, dickory, dasket, the mouse hid in the basket
Alliteration
(words that begin with the same sound)
• Alliteration is fun to play around with
e.g. ‘Nancy’s nose’, ‘Carl caught a cat’, ‘Jolly Jessie jumped’,
Mummy munches muffins’, ‘Daddy is doing the dishes’
• When shopping, think about the items you are buying and
say ‘A tall tin of tomatoes’, ‘A lovely little lemon’
• Collect items from the park, the garden and around the house
that start with the same sound and play Silly Soup and
identify the odd one out e.g. cat, cup, boy, car
Voice sounds
• Repeat your child’s vocalisations eg. ooo, aah and make
fun noises or nonsense words
• Say words in different ways (fast, slowly, high, low,
using a funny voice)
• ‘Sing’ songs using only sounds, e.g. ‘la, la, la’, and ask
your child to guess the song
• Make voices for characters when reading stories and use
appropriate sound effects eg. Peace At Last, We’re Going
On A Bear Hunt
• Guess The Object? Describe a clock and include the
sound
Michael Rosen – Going on a Bear Hunt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player
_detailpage&v=ytc0U2WAz4s
The Importance of Speech
Sounds
• Playing with sounds and tuning children’s ears into
sounds develops phonological awareness - the ability to
discriminate between different sounds
• Children develop an understanding that words are made
up of different sounds and they will begin to hear the
different sounds in a word. Gradually they will learn to
match these sounds to letters which is essential for
reading and writing
Oral Blending
• Blending is a vital skill for reading
• The separate sounds (phonemes) of the word are
spoken aloud, in order, all through the word followed
by the whole word as the purpose is to model not to
pressure child to guess
• For example, the adult would say e.g. “It’s time for
b-e-d (bed)”
• Introduce a toy that can only speak in sound talk
and ask him questions e.g. What do you like to eat?
ChCh-eeee-se (cheese)
• Play I Spy with my little eye, a z-i-p
Articulation of Sounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_vhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v-1s
Oral Segmenting
• Segmenting is a vital skill for spelling
• The whole word is spoken aloud, then
broken up into separate sounds
(phonemes) in order, all through the
word.
e.g. hat = h-a-t , duck = d-u-ck
Letters and Sounds - Phase 2
• In this phase children learn 19 letters of the
alphabet and one sound and action for each
• Letters are taught in a specific order
s-a-t-p-i-n-m-d-g-o-c-k-ckck-e-u-r-h-b-f,fff,ff-l,lll,ll-ss
• Tricky words are also introduced
e.g. and/to/the/go/no
• Children will learn letter names in Phase 3
• During Phase 2, children will attempt
to write the letters on whiteboards or
on paper if they have the necessary
physical coordination or they can use
magnetic letters
Thank you for
listening
Any questions?