I am always jolted back into reality at the start of each new school year and this has got me thinking about the need to teach phonological awareness from stage one instead of beginning at stage two. I was lucky enough to attend a Phonics course this year run by the (always inspiring) phonics guru - Yolanda Sorryl. When I came away- I was inspired to try "integrating" stage one phonics into every possible spare minute of the school day and see how much that will help the struggling readers and writers in our hub.
Because I have always jumped straight into stage two phonics, I had to really go back and explore what stage one actually is. Stage one is about discriminating sounds, hearing rhyme and rhythm, alliteration and sound breaks! Should we as junior teachers assume that all children know these skills? Probably not!
I have learnt that the brain is not wired for reading naturally and it needs to have lots of repetition to get the left side of the brain going. This is important because good readers use the left side of their brain. It turns out that struggling readers use both sides. The early stages of phonics gets the left side of the brain working.
It appears there are two simple reasons as to why some children cannot discriminate between sounds: They have been exposed to too much noise and they "shut down" or it is because they have missed out on key conversations such as talking about the airplane that makes a lot of noise etc.
By the time I left the course and had time to mull this over- I have decided on some very quick and simple ways to help these children. These include
Giving children time to practice differentiating sounds e a car and a bird, a train and a car etc. By giving the children 2 choices this will help them to hear the differences ( something that they may never have been exposed to before or had the chance to practice).
If children have never been given the opportunity to hear the difference between two common sounds, how on earth can we expect them to tell the difference between te sounds t and k make for example? , Clapping the patterns of their names., hearing alliteration and learning nursery rhymes.
I will be interested in seeing how much this will help our new learners. Watch this space.
"Phonemic awareness is fundamental to early success in reading and writing … An understanding of phonics also underpins children's literacy learning. Children need to learn, through deliberate, focused instruction, which letters represent which sounds."