Letter/sound Of The Week

[Guest]

Hi ya everyone

 

I'm just wondering if anyone does a letter of the week in their reception class and how they organise it. Do you base all the areas of learning around that letter e.g h, hula hoops, height, hundred, hippos, Hungary,hats, handprints. Aswell as doing a letter of the week do you then do other topics.

I'm new to reception, so would appreciate your comments and thoughts on this.

 

Thank you Laura

[Guest]

Hi Laura

I don't do a letter of the week because it doesn't really fit into the Jolly Phonics scheme (a new sound each day), but the class do have one letter a week for handwriting.

Fox

[Guest]

I teach phonics discretely in short bursts everyday and then will often have some sort of phonic work as one of my independent activities e.g. forming the letters in different media (paint, sand, playdough etc), CVC word building, sorting objects by their initial sounds and so on. I often try and introduce more than 1 letter a week while also going back over the previous sounds we have learnt.

 

I'm sure loads of other people will come up with some fab ideas for you!

[Guest]

Hiya,

 

Thanks or replying. I do jolly phonics too, and we just focus on a letter each week. I suppose they get to learn the sounds fairly quickly when a new one is learnt each day. Do they remember the sounds?

 

Laura

[AnonyMouse_4544]

The recommendation with Jolly Phonics is 6 letters per week (find that really difficult to fit in personally). We do a sound a day and find most children learn them with very little difficulty because there is continuous revisiting of the sounds to reinforce learning.

[Guest]

I would love to hear what others do to

 

Laura

[Guest]

We do the same Marion, a sound a day, and even that's a fast pace for some Reception children. We do cursive handwriting so the formation come into the introducton of each sound. I also do some seperate handwriting sessions at different times of the day with the children.

[Guest]

Thanks Beckyann

 

Its nice to hear what you do. I have quite enjoyed doing a letter a week and do lots of creative things from it. We revisit all the letters we have learnt each week

 

Laura

[AnonyMouse_379]

We do three letters a week. But also do big book wor, spelling and reading.

 

We also do cursive handwriting- try to focus on groups of letters with the same actions- but struggle with this.

Our head says she wants daily handwriting practice, but I feel many children are not ready for this- lots of fine motor and gross motor work yes, but not actual handwriting.

 

what do others think?

 

L

[Guest]

Hi L

 

Do you follow Jolly Phonics? for handwriting and reading

[AnonyMouse_4544]

We follow Jolly Phonics for handwriting. teaching the cursive style with each sound taught but I have to admit I've stopped using the word boxes and devised my own cvc words mainly onset and rime type groups for the children to learn alongside reception sight words ( we are using action words 2 a week)

[Guest]

Hi ya everyone

 

I'm just wondering if anyone does a letter of the week in their reception class and how they organise it. Do you base all the areas of learning around that letter e.g h, hula hoops, height, hundred, hippos, Hungary,hats, handprints. Aswell as doing a letter of the week do you then do other topics.

I'm new to reception, so would appreciate your comments and thoughts on this.

 

Thank you  Laura

43633[/snapback]

 

We've had an early years adviser in and she's told us we should be doing the Literacy strategy 'phonics in progress' 'scheme' which has lots of diff games and gives groups of letters to teach over a period of time (it is targeted at reception and has ideas for nursery for pre-phonic skills). Have done jolly phonics previously and this seems to be making huge difference already (only done for 3 weeks)- much more effective for my chdn than Jolly phonics (whose videos are dire!!!!). You should have a red ring bound booklet in school already-couple of years old I think.

Hope this helps

[AnonyMouse_3307]

You could also look at playing with sounds which gives a better focus on the early PIPs skills and links them more closely to the stepping stones.

[Guest]

Hi there

 

I have started doing this weeks plan, and focussing on letter 'h'. Just wondering what people thought of it. Constructive comments wil be greatly appreciated.

 

Laura

 

P.S don't forget I'm completely new to this!!!!!

weekly_plan_28.11.05.doc

[Guest]

I haven't finished it yet!!

[Guest]

going back to the handwriting

 

I have been told that I shouldnt start formal handwriting until after xmas, this gives the children time to develop fine motor skills

 

 

what do others think?

[Guest]

Hi there

 

I think it depends on the child and whether they still need to do lots of activities such as finger painting, writing in sand. My children are doing formal handwriting but I combine it with lots fun handwriting activities

[AnonyMouse_4544]

Our handwriting might be on the interactive white boad (which they love doing even the 3 year olds in the unit) or outdoors on the white board or chalkboard, or in the painting area depending on the child's level of control. It is basically an introduction to correct formation and breaking them away from ball and stick or capitals many of the chidren will have been 'taught' at home.

PS I'm in a Foundation Stage Unit with both F1 and F2 children and find many nursery children eager to participate in handwriting activities of this kind.

[Guest]

Hi

The unit that I work in had tried 5 sounds a week on the advise of the early years advisor. This proved to be difficult to maintain as many of the children in recepetion were still at the early sounds (nursery type activities). Since then we have gone back to a focus sound a week for all, with focus activities for most children on the early sound discrimination skills and the very few more able blending sounds for cvc words and one child looking at sound blends. We have to tailor it to the needs of the children. We have covered all of the group 1 sounds and almost all of group 2 sounds (Playing with sounds groupings). We constantly revisit sounds at any given opportunity (shared/ group/ individual reading/ writing/ play opportunities). For most children its still heavy going as they enter nursery with very low base lines/ speaking/ listening/ communication/ thinking skills. Hope this makes sense.

 

In nursery we focus on listening skills activities/ modelling language/ rhymes/ stories/ all opportunities to talk/ listen and comunicate (Little books very useful as is Breakthough to Literacy).

 

Lisa

[Guest]

hi there, thought id contribute. as in our reception class we do a letter week.. we follow the play with sounds publication which as someone has already said it lays out some quite nice games and activities that we do as whole class or smaller scale. one thing i do like is that for each letter we do a letter hunt in the outdoor area where the children have to find and are encouraged to record the objects that theyhave found. ( we select some familiar objects for them to find) this works very well and the more able children often attemp to use their sounds to sound out the words etc..

hope this may help?! we also have smaller focused pips groups which we try to group the children for so as to focus on perhaps basic sound and letter recognition with the lower groups and word making with the highers.

 

hope this makes sense!

[Guest]

Hi again

 

Emma that was very useful what you were saying thank you.

 

I have taught year one and year two and find reception a whole way of teaching.

 

I am thinking why do we have to rush the children in learning 5 sounds a week. When the children start in year one lots of them are still not secure in their initial sounds. The year one literacy curriculum requires teachers to continue revisiting the initial sounds. I will have covered two of the Jolly Phonics groups and we have used them in writing and reading cvc words. All the children know the sounds because we have done each letter in depth and have done fun activities around each letter so it sinks in.

[AnonyMouse_2776]

Hi laurarapley !

 

I like your plan. I have been using JP since Jan 2004 and the children react quite well to it, but sometimes I wonder if I am not working each letter enough. I will have to see how things keep on coming. Last years group is doing well in Grade 1, so let's see how it goes with this group since they started with it earlier. I don't do 5 letters per week, only 2. One of the mums was worried because in another school they did it 5/week and at the end her girls did not progress. I told her we would go slower and her son is doing great! I suppose one has to see the reality of each group and, specially, of each child. I love JP, but if other things can add to it to make it easier for the children... then I go for it .

 

Have a nice week!

[Guest]

Hi Smiley

 

Thank you! Great to hear from you. It is amazing how teaching varies so much up and down the country and there is actually no wrong way of teaching phonics.

[Guest]

I used to do a letter a week but found this too slow a pace. it also means you technically don't revisit it until 26 weeks later (even if it's reinforced along the way).

 

I know do 3 or 4 a week, and find my children cope with this well (quite low ability generally in a inner city school with very high EMAG numbers).

 

They don't all pick them up the first time, but the constant explicit revisiting gives them plenty of time and opportunity to over the year.

 

I use the JP actions and some ideas from it, but also use a lot of the games from the red PIPs book. I also do it in a different order to the one JP suggests because I like to link the phonics with the handwriting (curly caterpillar letters / long ladder letters / one-armed robot letters etc).

 

I just think you've got to go with what works for your children. It would be a very boring world if we all stick too rigidly to one scheme.

[Guest]

Hi Laura,

 

I've been doing Jolly Phonics since I started in Reception six years ago and have taught a 5 a week. Before that, I was in Y1 and the Reception teachers taught only 1 sound a week. I used to receive classes where only a few children knew the whole alphabet.

The thing with JP is that once they know all the sounds you can start word building ...in fact Sue Lloyd recommends you start word building once they know s a t i p.

I finished teaching the 42 sounds on Friday and am now delving into the excellent 'Playing with Sounds' so that the children can learn how to use their knowledge.

The most important thing with JP is to go back over the sounds very briefly every day all year so they don't forget them. I've found that the handwriting has suffered a little since we started this as the children don't get the five day practice on one letter like they used to. However the children's storywriting has improved immeasurably.

 

To counteract the poorer handwriting I intend to include, this year...as of Monday, a short handwriting session practising maybe 3 different letters a day.

 

Hope this helps!

Jess

[Guest]

Laura, I don't know if it will fit into your plans but someone posted a ref a while ago to a song called Henry's Happy Hairshop. You can find ithere

 

Regards,

Fox

[Guest]

I am doing JP with my children, introducing three sounds a week. I was doing codebreakers but this was so slow I stopped and changed to JP.

I check their sound books on a daily basis and all, except one, are doing really well. I teach in a very mulicultural area and even my EAL chn who have very little English are progressing very well.

However, most are not getting the hang of blending. I can say three sounds and they can tell me which was first, which was second/middle and the final sound but they cannot put the sounds together to 'hear' the word. I would love to know what others who are doing JP do to help this skill. Am I expecting too much at this stage?

[Guest]

Hi

 

I was new to Reception last year and decided to start JP. We were a little wary and did not start straight away and we didn't cover all sounds 'til the spring term. The children loved it and the feedback from Y1 is very positive. They are confident to write using the sounds to help and to 'have a go'.

 

This year we made an early start and are doing 4 sounds a week. many have started to read decodable words with confidence, they are keen to write cvc words; the less able children have learned most single letter sounds and a few digraphs, feed back from children and parents is good and we enjoy it too!

 

RH