Phonics
In Nursery, we focus on the pre-phonic stage (Phase 1) where children are exposed to sound patterns through activities like songs, rhymes and listening activities. Quality interactions, a language rich environment and lots of listening to and taking part in stories also helps children to listen to the spoken word and discriminate sounds which prepares them for the more formal and structured stages of phonics as they get older.
Why Phonics is important:
Improves reading fluency:
- Phonics equips children with tools to decode unfamiliar words independently, improving reading fluency.
Boosts spelling:
- Phonics helps children break down words into sounds, which is essential for accurate spelling.
Enhances comprehension:
- As children become more fluent readers through phonics, they can focus more on understanding the meaning of texts.
Early writing skills:
- Phonics supports writing development by helping children sound out words as they write.
Here are some of the activities we do to support children in this area:
Sound awareness - inside and outside we listen to the different sounds such as birds chirping, leaves rustling, cars driving, people talking, musical instruments, the rain, the wind and different animals, we make body sounds such as clapping, stamping and clicking, we listen to and join in with nursery rhymes, songs, chants and stories.
We involve our parents with stay and play sessions, sharing information and supporting learning at home.
The most important starting point is to read to children. Reading is the best way of encouraging children to develop a love of books. At Hoyle we have developed a long term plan and selected some key books that we teach throughout the year. These books are traditional tales and stories that have a repetitive theme and we call them our 'wow' stories. We also do Tales Toolkit which lays strong foundations for the skills and characteristics of effective learning. It's proven to develop language, literacy, social skills, creativity, confidence, empathy, writing, problems solving, maths and lots more...
PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR SOME PHONICS ACTIVITIES TO PLAY WITH YOUR CHILD AT HOME.
Below are some pictures of our children enjoying different activities related to the stories that they read and showing their growing interest in books.
