There is probably no trickier part of early phonics than teaching children how to rhyme! Some children just get it straight away, and others take literally years, and can often read fluently before they are able to rhyme successfully. It is the one area I am asked about the most in early phonics, and so …
‘Tricky’ words are not tricky because they are hard! That’s the most important thing to understand. Many children have put them off because they think they are difficult, as well as there are some parents who don’t want to practice them with their children because they sound intimidating. ‘Tricky’ words are called that because you …
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 …
Puppets act like magic on young children! They can be the difference between children rolling around on the floor during a carpet time, or sitting in captivated awe! Children are usually far more excited by puppets than they are by humans, and the research suggests this also. But how can you use puppets in teaching? …
Balloon games are fantastic for getting children to cooperate, get active and have fun. I have taught children between the ages of 3-5 for the last ten years, and I have used balloon games regularly to get children working as a team and communicating in an exciting context. The whole curriculum can be linked to …
Nonsense or silly words are a big thing in early education these days, and practitioners are looking for more ways to teach them successfully. If this sounds like you, then you have come to the right place. I have been attempting to teach nonsense words for ten years, and in this post I condense all …
Before children learn to write words, they need to orally segment. Segmenting is simply the skill of separating words up into their component sounds. For example, ‘pig’ becomes ‘p-i-g’. ‘Dog’ becomes ‘d-o-g’. It does not matter how the word is written. You are splitting up the sounds not the letters. So ‘chain’ would be split …
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 …
Many of us often find that we have lots of exciting strategies to teach other skills in phonics, but when it comes to teaching tricky words it’s just a case of getting out the flashcards again, and hope the children remember them. How else can you teach tricky words more excitingly? Using flashcards indeed is …