Teaching phonics needs imagination, creativity, and…a bit of DIY thrown in! In my twenty-plus years of teaching phonics, I have tried all sorts of fun games. In this post, I’m going to share the very best. Traditionally, children have been taught letter sounds in quite a formal way, usually sitting at a table or a …
There is quite a lot of technical language surrounding phonics that sometimes can be a barrier to parents and even some teachers understanding how to teach it. The aim of this article is to completely demystify one of the most common words you may hear bandied around when you hear people talk about phonics – …
A phoneme frame is one of the best resources to use to get children beginning to read and write words. They are a simple idea, but an extremely effective one. What is a phoneme frame? A phoneme frame is a rectangular grid with several squares side by side. It is used for reading and writing …
Blending and segmenting are very closely linked skills, and yet they are also kind of opposites. Both are really important to early phonics, and are needed for children to start reading and writing simple words. But what’s the difference between blending and segmenting? Blending is a skill needed for reading. Segmenting is used for writing. …
On the phonics course that I run, one of the favourite activities has always been using washing lines to teach phonics. Many children love washing lines, and the practitioners like them too. They are easy to create and inspire lots of valuable learning. Using washing lines in general is great for children. It develops their …
For any of you that have taught early phonics to young children, the question may well have come up – ‘Do you teach blending or segmenting first?’ This is a common question, but one there seems no official answer to if you consult the usual authoritative channels. I have based my own personal answer to …
When I very first started teaching I had all sorts of problems with behavior! I remember the first lesson I ever took, and about half of the children lay down on the floor and refused to sit back up again. Dark days! Shortly after this, one of my first discoveries to counter interesting behaviors such …