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Letter Formation - Which Order?


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Hello all

I am new to forum and wondering if anyone can help me? xD I am a reception teacher and have always used a mix of JP and Playing with sounds. I will now be using JP (for multi-sensory) and Letters and Sounds for order. Letters and Sounds suggest writing each letter (i think) as the children learn them - so they will be writing s a t p in the first week? this is only possible with a large class for them all to write at the same time (thus more mistakes occuring) - how is anyone else approaching this? also, I used to teach the letters with same direction first e.g. c a o d etc. Not sure what do do!!!! :o Hoping anyone can enlighten me???

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I've taught both ways and haven't really seen much difference in how the children pick up the formation. To teach using the Jolly Phonics or Letters and Sounds order I introduce the formation when teaching the sound to the whole class and we practice "air writing" then work with small groups "rainbow letters" once a set of letters have been introduced I would use individual white boards to check formation (whole class).

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Thanks Marion

Yes I use air writing and rainbow letters too - so, I think will just teach the formation in the order of Letters and Sounds. Sparkle Box have some really large letter sheets which could be used with paint or whatever :o

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yes, will probably do A3 myself. You say you do the ''rainbow letters'' after the first set has been introduced. I don't know how big your class is but there are 30 in mine and it has taken all morning in the past for each group to do it. Excluding work on whiteboards during the 20 minute phonic session, would you aim to ''properly'' teach the formation at the rate of 1 or 2 letters per week??? :o

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There are 30 reception children and 26 nursery children although not all the nursery children will access the activity.

I do rainbow letters immediately the sound has been taught so will do 5 letters per week. For the first few weeks this will be the focus of my literacy "teaching". After the first week I will begin to quickly revise the formation during the phonics session using individual whiteboards.

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hi susan and thanks for welcome

i teach letter formation separately to, for example, guided writing activities - and i know the difference according to the EYFS - could you just please expand on what you mean???? sorry to be dumb but it's late and everything...

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hi susan and thanks for welcome

i teach letter formation separately to, for example, guided writing activities - and i know the difference according to the EYFS - could you just please expand on what you mean???? sorry to be dumb but it's late and everything...

 

 

Not dumb at all Chrystal. Sorry I left you feeling confused.

 

handwriting---correct letter formation where this is the focus of the activity.

writing--- children maybe just mark making or working at own level to make letter/word representations on paper.

 

I think "letters and sounds" emphasises this when it states that children should write phoneme/grapheme representation and need not be correctly formed to show understanding.

 

So I will teach letter form as I teach each phoneme, within satpin etc and at a later stage will teach handwriting within letter families.

 

Hope that helps.

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AH, Susan! I didn' think about that. I was teaching the handwriting at the same time I introduced the phoneme/grapheme. So, I could do the whiteboards while introducing these in the 1st term and then do formal handwriting in the 2nd term, no matter if I don't follow the order of the JP handwriting booklets. Right?

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Thanks Chrystal,

 

The sheet that you have uploaded and other useful resources can be found here. xD

 

Thanks Carol - didn't see all this - some good stuff. thanks for sharing :o

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