A useful guide to help parents or carers learn letter sounds with their child at home.

INTRODUCTION

This webpage has been produced to make parents and carers more aware of the idea behind the learning method ‘Phonics’.

A Phoneme is the sound that a letter or a group of letters makes, when pronounced aloud. The idea behind the learning method of phonics is that children learn to read aloud, sounding out these ‘speech’ sounds. Teaching your child this method of learning to read can be extremely effective.

Learning phonics is the building block of language and reading. If you can teach your child how to use phonics by looking at a word, then breaking it apart sound by sound and then saying it aloud, you will teach him or her to become a strong reader.

Essentially, teaching phonics ties together the sounds of the alphabet and their spellings. Knowledge of the alphabet itself, recognising the letter symbols and the phonetic sounds the letter makes, form the basis for your child’s future skills in reading and writing.

Once children know the alphabet letter sounds, they then learn how to combine these sounds to pronounce words and they learn how to hear the different sounds within words. Children that are confident in blending sounds together, become fluent in their reading.

We hope that you will take the time to look through this leaflet and use the ideas and information we have provided to help your child with their reading and writing. We would also like you to help us to develop and improve your child’s listening skills by making this an enjoyable and interesting experience too. 

TEACHING PHONICS

Our alphabet consists of 26 letters, but there are more than 40 speech sounds. Introduce alphabet letters by giving them their most common sound values, for example a is for apple, b is for boy, c is for cat and so on. When you teach your child these simple sounds, use examples of words that they are familiar with, and use the sounds of the letters rather than the letter names.

Always concentrate on lower case letters first as these are important in developing reading skills. Capital letters can be taught later, perhaps starting with the capitals in their own name,  sounds such as ‘ee’ as in feet or ‘sh’ as in ship will also come later.

Not all children find it easy to learn their letters and to blend them together to make words. Practise at home will only reinforce your child’s learning at school. Always try to choose a quiet time to sit together when your child is not too tired. Their attention span will be limited, so try activities for short periods only and stop as soon as they loose concentration.

Varying some of the activities and games discussed later in this booklet  will also help. Little and often works best. Children will need time to practise, and your praise and encouragement will help them to succeed.

Once a number of letter sounds are known well, children can learn to blend them into words. For example, s, m, c, t, g, p, a, and o. These letters can be used to blend into a number of simple words such as sat, mat, tap, pot etc.

There are of course some words in the English language such as here, does, was and one which cannot be spelt accurately by listening for the sounds. These have to be learnt seperately when the child is ready. But, even with these words, an understanding of letter sounds helps.

You don’t need to be an expert to help your child learn phonics, but you do need to be enthusiastic. With your help, your child will be stimulated and encouraged to learn. Above all, make it fun!

HOW TO HELP YOUR CHILD AT HOME.

Below are some ideas of Alphabet Games you can play with your child:

	Play I-Spy around the house or when you are out and about in the car or on the bus or train. Look around and say ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with t’, remembering to use the letter sound rather than its name. Let your child  guess the answer and then ask them to choose an object.
	Ask your child to choose objects in the room that begin with the same letter sound.
	Try another guessing game. ‘I am an animal that lives in the desert and my name starts with c. What am I?’ Give other clues if necessary.

	Make a scrapbook with a letter on each page and ask your child to find pictures of objects from catalogues or magazines that begin with that letter. Or they could draw their own pictures.
	Make letter shapes with play dough or plasticine. Or let them draw the shape in sand or in foam.
	Use alphabet charts/posters on your child’s bedroom wall as a visual aid.
	Use magnetic letters and ask them to make words for you on the fridge, such as bat, cat, sat, fat, rat.

	Ask your child to come up with a word that begins with the letter sound you have chosen.
	Use books such as ‘My First Alphabet’ to reinforce their learning.

Other ideas for learning phonics with your child could include:

	Flash cards
	Internet websites such as www.bbc.co.uk/schools and www.Jollylearning.co.uk
	Board games from high street stores such as ELC or Boots. An example would be  Alphabet lotto.
	Books, CD’s and DVD’s that encourage the listening and learning of phonics.
	Nursery Rhymes – find a book of nursery rhymes or poems or a story with rhyming sentences. Read it together and encourage your child to listen out for rhyming words and letter sounds.

PC software available from most good high street stores such as WHSmith, ELC, Woolworths or Toys r Us.

As your child’s reading skills develop, continue to challenge him or her with more difficult games, books and reading materials. Sounds help children with their reading. With a little creativity, your child will have great fun learning phonics.

Just about any activity that involves matching a letter of the alphabet is good practice for your child. Be guided by the pace at which your child wants to go as any extra practise with you will lead to fluency
in reading and improve spelling.

Phonics should be taught in interesting and active ways to engage young children’s attention, and their relevance should build on their own interests and experiences.

Finally, just a quote to link this topic to one of the objectives set by the DfES: 

‘The National Literacy Strategy gives a clear priority to the teaching of phonemic awareness tied closely to knowledge of the sound-spelling relationships and to the teaching of correct letter formation. At Key Stage 1 there should be a srong emphasis on the systematic teaching of phonics’