Literacy and phonics, ideas and advice needed!

[LauraS]

I've a just about four year old who has a strong interest in reading, letters, rhyme, etc. We have been looking at individual letter sounds and have covered much of the alphabet, she probably knows 20 letter sounds very reliably, long and short vowels etc. She can identify initial sounds in words and is starting to sound out whole words but this isnt so reliable.

Most of the stuff weve done has been via her other interests or through phonics games.

I'm now a bit stuck though. I am not a teacher, I have just played by ear this far, but the natural progression seems to me to be to start reading and sounding out simple words like cat, dog, etc in simple books and via games. We haven't looked at any complex sounds like ai, ea etc because that seems too complex at present, I think that shoukd probably come later when she has started reading simple words but im not sure.

What would you do next? In terms of general direction and specific activities?

[blue bear]

Look up phonic readers, I not suggesting you buy a whole load of books but they will give you an idea of the way to go regarding which words to start on with building letter sounds.
We play with words rhyming them which the children enjoy such as bin.. B.i.n in, I.n, tin,t.i.n. that sort of thing.

[Wheelybug]

Have you tried the government's Letters and Sounds document. https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFES-00281-2007. This has activities to support reading and suggests a programme of introducing letters and sounds. I know its the document that the schools here follow. There are also specific programmes that the schools use - jolly phonics / read write inc etc. Maybe you could find out the programme used by the school that the child will eventually attend and use this. Saying that I started my daughter off with the jolly phonics programme as personally I think this is good, but the school used read, write inc, which I am less keen on. As she knew all the letters before she started school, using the two different programmes didn't cause her any problems.

Cathy
Pre-school Play (http://www.pre-schoolplay.blogspot.com)

[LauraS]

Thank you both, we have been using salley phonics as that is the system used by her prospective school but, to be honest, she has outgrown needing the actions etc because she is secure.with the.letter sounds etc and isnt using the actions any more.

I think getting some books might be necessary. Am also going to try and excercise my computer and laminator and make some simple word matching games etc... maybe once the coffee kicks in ;)

[LauraS]

Cathy, thanks.for that link, I'm firing up the computer to take a look at them :)

[dette]

i have a set of high frequency words which i have laminated
Reading Printables (http://www.familylearning.org.uk/reading_printables.html)
we start off with just a few of the easier ones ,in ,it ,is ,and ...etc and then build up from their ,i also make a few with their own names on and we make simple sentences.
we also use reading eggs on the computer,theres loads of free trial codes about for it,its a very simple program that the kids love