Phonological Awareness

Synthetic Phonics

Posted on by Lyn

When children learn to read, they need to understand;

  1.  sounds are represented by written letters
  2.  how to blend the sounds to make words

This is called synthetic phonics and it has been proven to be the best way to help a child learn to read when entering full-time school.  Good synthetic phonic programmes teach children the essential skills of segmenting, blending and phoneme manipulation.

When children sound out words, they slowly say each sound in a word (h-o-t), and then squash the sounds quickly together to “read” the word (hot). This is called blending because sounds are being blended together. Blending (combining sounds) and segmenting (separating sounds) are skills that are necessary for learning to read.

What are Decodable Readers?

These are books that children can read (sound out) independently.  They usually include simple words like ‘hot’ ‘cat’ ‘fin’ and other words that contain 3 letters that can be blended together.  As children gradually learn more spelling rules such as ‘ch’ as in ‘chop’ or ‘ai’ as in ‘train’ the books incorporate this new knowledge.

There are lots of decodable readers to choose from including;

  • Sounds-Write Series
  • Songbirds by Oxford Reading Tree
  • Little Learners Love Literacy
  • Dandelion Readers
  • Pocket Rockets
  • Fitzroy Readers

Happy Reading!

 

OfficeWorks

Posted on by Lyn

I went into Officeworks this week and was surprised by how many new alphabet games you can now buy there!

There are posters, workbooks, games and letters to use in a variety of ways in speech therapy.  Lots of choice for stick on letters, playdough cutter letters and glitter letters too!!

1.  Orchard Toys Alphabet Lotto

A great game for practicing the alphabet sounds and learning initial sound identification.

orchard toys alphabet game

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Alphabet Charts

Stick them on your wall to create a way of talking about what sounds the letters make.

alphabet_and_my_first_sight_words_wall_chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. My Alphabet Workbook

Cut and paste pictures into this scrap book for words beginning with a special sound.

_my_alphabet_scrapbook_for_vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Melissa and Doug Alphabet Jigsaw and Magnetic Letters

This is a good quality brand you can use again and again.

melissadoug magnetic letters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Match & Spell

For children learning how to blend or sound out words in those early reading days.  Also great for learning sounds in speech work.

orchard toys match and spell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miniature Magic 2

Posted on by Lyn

Following on from last week’s post, we are introducing the next box in the series.

Miniature objects can be a great asset to any speech therapy program.   You can use them in a variety of ways such as object/picture matching, Reading or Eye Spy games.  They can also be used to meet different goals –articulation, phonological awareness, literacy and more.

Today we are introducing our next Miniatures Magic box.  It is made up of plastic figures, lego pieces and erasers and stored in transparent boxes for easy storage.  Best suited to ages 4 years and up and great for working on;

  • counting syllables in words 

  • producing multisyllabic words 

Box 2 : Multisyllabic Words – $48 (Free Delivery to Australia)

slide1

**Please note we can only post to Australian addresses.  Some items may differ slightly in colour.

 
$48.00 – Purchase

You must email us your postal address for delivery of items!

What is in your Miniature Magic Box 2?

Contains 20 miniature items with multisyllabic words. These objects contain 1-4 syllables.  You can use this for counting / clapping out syllables in words or for articulation of multisyllabic words.  A PDF Download is also included.

Items included in this box are;

1 – shoe, frog, bug, fish, 

2 syllables – lipstick, icecream, toothbrush, snowman, cupcake, teapot

3 syllables – elephant, banana, strawberry, ladybug, kangaroo, dinosaur, grasshopper

4 syllables – helicopter, caterpillar, rhinoceros, watermelon  (* 3 items included)

5 syllable – hippopotamus

Ways to Use your Box

1.  Making compound words

Use 2 pictures as a clue to finding the object (compound word).

eg lip + stick = lipstick.

screen-shot-2016-10-17-at-9-13-15-am

2.  Clap out the syllables and sort objects into groups of 1 -4 syllables.

count-syllables-template

The erasers are particularly attractive and can be used in a variety of ways! Swapping or prizes!

We suggest laminating all the pages to keep your boxed kit in perfect working order.

 
$48.00 – Purchase

Upon purchase, you will immediately receive your PDF Booklet.  You must email us your postal address for delivery of your items.  Some items may differ in colour.

**Please note we can only post to Australian addresses.

Stay tuned for the next box in the series!