Letters and Sounds and Phonics
Letters and Sounds
In the Starbeams room we follow and work towards the Department for Education and Skills Letters and Sounds: Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics programme. To meet the age and development of children attending we focus on Phase 1 which consists of 7 aspects. These are:
Aspect 1: General Sound Discrimination – Environmental Sounds
Aspect 2: General Sound Discrimination – Instrumental Sounds
Aspect 3: General Sound Discrimination – Body Percussion
Aspect 4: Rhythm and Rhyme
Aspect 5: Alliteration
Aspect 6: Voice Sounds
Aspect 7: Oral Blending and Segmenting
Each aspect is made up of 3 areas which gradually develop your child’s knowledge and understanding further. These are ‘Tuning into Sounds,’ ‘Listening and Remembering Sounds,’ and ‘Talking about Sounds’.
Phase 1 falls largely within the ‘Communication and Language’ and ‘Literacy’ sections of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). It also draws on and promotes other areas of learning described in the EYFS, particularly ‘Personal, Social and Emotional Development’ and ‘Expressive Arts and Design’, where, for example, music plays a key part in developing children’s language.
The activities in Phase 1 are mainly adult-led with the intention of assisting children with gaining the basic elements of the Letters and Sounds programme which they are then free to use and explore within their play.
We provide daily speaking and listening activities as part of Phase 1 which are well matched to children’s developing abilities and interests. We also offer an extension to each activity for those children who require a challenge throughout the programme. Each activity is evaluated with any next steps noted and practitioners carry out on-going assessment within the child’s learning journey.
Some of the adult-led activities that the children experience from the letters and sounds programme include:
‘Teddy is lost in the jungle’
A teddy bear is hidden in the room. One child has to find the teddy bear (the rescuer). The other children guide the rescuer by singing louder as the rescuer gets closer to the bear and quieter as the rescuer moves further away from the bear.
‘Follow the sound’
A group of children sit in a circle. The adult starts by producing a sound such as ‘clap clap clap’. This sound has to move around the circle. The group then discusses if the sound remained the same.
‘Silly Soup’
The children sing the ‘Silly Soup’ song. A number of objects are available. The children have to select objects that rhyme to go in to the silly soup bowl.