Guest Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 Hi! Over the last few years I have taught a wide range of different phonics structures! letterland, pips, the new playing with sounds, code-breakers etc! All good and all have strengths! However the one thing I have real problems with is the actual pace of teaching my reception children. None of the above give a timetable of events..i.e where I should be by Christmas! I know I should use my teaching "wit" but I really fidn it difficult to plan (yes this is part of the problem!) long term with phonics! Any ideas much appreicated! Hope it makes sense, just got up and someone has nicked a hour of my life!!! Well back to planning........
Steve Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 Hi Weallloveleeds, and thanks for your first post. Welcome to the forum, although I see you've been around for a while! Can't answer the main question - I'll leave that to others. But surely, someone's actually given you an extra hour...
AnonyMouse_2157 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 hi there we use a combination of Jolly Phonics and PIPs. We have structured our Jolly Phonics differrently form that in their handbook (which gives a letter a day and in a particular order, so it's quite a fast pace). Due to the nature of our timetable we teach 3 a week and by Christmas we have completed the alphabet. This works for use and the children. Getting through all initial sounds by Christmas is a good guide for us. After Christmas we move onto CVC and then the long vowel sounds( ai, ee, or, ie, ou... etc) Hope this helps
AnonyMouse_64 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 Hope you don't mind me slipping in a quick welcome..........
AnonyMouse_1208 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 We have started using Jolly Phonics this term and introduce 4 sounds per week, with a short break before vowel diagraphs to consolidate. I've attached a plan devised by Jaz Ampaw-Farr (jaz@jollyconferencing.co.uk), who is a Jolly conferencing trainer - I'm sure she won't mind, as she's posted lots of her ideas on TES staffroom!! Introducing_Jolly_Phonics.doc
AnonyMouse_379 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 We also do 3 sounds a week... but do word building/spelling and reading of cv, vc and cvc as we go along. After christmas we go through the letter names as well as sounds again concentrating on spelling cv, vc and cvc words. As appropriate bringing in the double blends such as fr.... so the children can then spell ccvc words. In the summer term we do sh, th, ch, ng, oo, ee etc and building up to cvccvc words. L
AnonyMouse_79 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 Hi weallloveleeds & welcome aboard, you've been hiding for a very long time! As I understand it, PIPs is a phonics programme(?) to support NLS and presumably would be expected to be used in FS & KS1, unless otherwise indicated and "Playing with sounds" is supplementary material for FS. Certainly when PIPs was introduced in my ex- LEA we were told it should be our bible! I also have approached Phonics in different ways over the years. I am absolutely convinced that the "sound of the week" needs to be abandoned, it is far too slow, I could never maintain my interest so how could I be maintaining and motivating the children!! However, I have found 4 new sounds per week successful, continually revising the ones that have gone before with consolidation on a Friday-using the sounds for writing etc and playing differentiation games has worked well. Initially, we followed NLS for Reception-initial sounds and th,sh, ch over the year. I introduced them in alphabetical order because I had not discovered Jolly Phonics and didnt know what else to do. Later we adopted the Jolly Phonics progression but introduced the sounds outside the literacy strategy requirements in the summer term if we felt the children would cope and for the most part they struggled. Most recently we followed the Jolly Phonics sequence in its entirety and found this is to be far the most successful method, even at 4 sounds a week you can cover all phonemes by Christmas and the childrens understanding and skills were far superior! They were all far more competent at looking at double letter phonemes and recognising that these 2 letters made 1 sound, previously this had been a real hurdle! We were complemented on our fast and successful phonics programme in Reception by HMI but critisced because it was not reflected in whole school phonics planning. This was in fact a little unfair as the children in yrs 1 & 2 had not had quite the same Reception approach but it a consideration that you ought perhaps to be aware of. By all means adapt and perfect your provision in Reception but do not let it stand alone.
AnonyMouse_468 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 In my LEA children start reception the term of their fifth birthday so our Reception teachers have a new intake each term. Of course this means that the summer-borns only have one term in Reception. I teach a Nursery Class within a primary school and so it is my responsibility to make sure that our reception-age children progress well with phonics skills (and of course in all other areas). Within my Nursery Class I have children from 3 years to nearly 5, a high proportion of children with a second language and greatly varying language skills. We do use Jolly Phonics but cannot follow a class teaching program because of such varying levels of ability, concentration, language skills, etc. The way that works for us (and gets fantastic results) is to have phonics groups. These are 10 - 15 minute sessions - usually two a week where we divide the children into groups to work on practical, fun phonics activities at their level. We have three members of staff - so one works with each group. Group 1 are the children (often the youngest ones) who are not ready for learning letter sounds, but instead play listening games, sound discrimination, sound tapes, sound patterns, etc. Group 2 are the children who are ready to start learning initial sounds and do this through games (adapted PIPS stage 2 games), use of puppet, collections of real objects,etc. Group 3 are the children who have learnt all their letter sounds and move on to end sounds, middle sounds and blending and spelling CVC words, again through games and practical activities. The children are not put into groups according to age but abilty. We have a couple of just three year olds who are in group 3 because they're ready for it and we allow them to progess at their level. So when the children do move into reception (most go to our own school but others move on to other local primary schools), I would hope that they wouldn't have to start all over again learning initial sounds, but would continue to move on from where they are. I wondered if there were other Reception teachers who have new children on a termly basis who could share how they organise their phonics by the summer term. Of course there are problems in all curriculum areas when you have a new intake each term, but phonics especially needs a program that shows progression. I have had children who went on to other primary schools from our Nursery whose parents have come back to tell us that their child has gone back to learning a letter a week in Reception when they left our Nursery being able to read/spell CVC words and letter blends. It's very frustrating when we work so hard to help the children progress. Our own reception teacher uses our carefully kept records on the children to continue grouping the children for phonics - although she is only able to have 2 groups - one group work with her, the second with the TA (teaching a combination of Jolly Phonics and PIPS) She is able to do the groups more frequently as the children are full-time once they are in Reception but only part-time in Nursery. Having been a Reception teacher previously with termly intake, I know what a nightmare the planning is! What do others of you do?
AnonyMouse_79 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 Jackie, you are not a million miles from me and I have to admit that one of the advantages of having the children in a one point admission was/is the continuity of phonics provision within the reception classroom. I found it very difficult when the children came in termly to deliver the sort of phonics that I have just described as the childrens knowledge varied so, I was also training support staff within my classroom who were not confident to take groups on their own. I was also trying to work with the feeder nursery at this time, to ensure equality of provision in which ever setting the child found itself for the final year of FS but they insisted on a sound a week progamme and indeed the disparity of time made this very difficult all round! Your reception teacher is lucky to have such provision in the nursery classroom and while I am not suggesting it can not or does not happen, I have not had this experience!
AnonyMouse_379 Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 The difficulty we have is that the children we have coming in from reception come from quite a few different pre-school provisions and we only get information on the stepping stones covered and if they have been achieved. We are on the boder of 2 LEAs and one is using a comprehenive list of the stepping stones but that are marling off the ELGs as completed when the children clearly don't have those skills yet and the other LEA which is only just introducing a record of achievement to show what the children have achieved. I will have to look at having a meeting with our feeder pre-schools to discuss this.... so we have more of an idea about what they have done. L
Guest Posted October 31, 2004 Posted October 31, 2004 Cheers guys good advice!! Well...things to do.. christmas.....banned until december...we dont do ch..in my class!!!! bonfire night.....nope!!! fun....no no no !!!! Only joking..wonder what the little buggers have been upto!!! Just they wait...pens at the ready!
Recommended Posts