Hi All

wondered if anyone could share with me how they organise Linking Sounds and Letters work!

we are trying to re-organise the way we do everything for September and Linking Sounds and Letters as organised/led activities were a bit of a hit and miss thing last term. We are also having staff cuts for at least the Autumn term so although we are still within ratio I have less adults to go around everything, especially if an emergancy e.g. child needing changing etc.. comes up.

We do a lot of speaking and listening as part of our pracitice in individual, small and large groups, we do all the usual singing and stories and mark making etc... but wondered how other people organise their sessions to make sure LSL gets 'done'. We find there is only so much that seems to happen as part of the session and some areas lend themselves to this more than others. We are a free-flow setting working out of a large hall (so nowhere really separate to take groups of children) and especially next term we have different children in on different days (we do have a core group that does 4/5 sessions but there are many that do 1/2) so I am worried if I do things on certain days children miss out. Although LSL is only one part of CLL its almost a learning area of its own.

Does anybody use the LSL booklet? and do you have set times each day or do you pull groups out across the session? do you delve in and out of phases depending on what else is happening/needed or do you work through phase 1-7 chronologically? If this is the case how do you manage the unique child angle?

I hope this doesn't seem a strange post but we are finding it hard to get everything in on just a morning session and I wondered if anyone would share how they do this. Maybe we just worry too much!

thanks everyone

It's not really appropriate to dip in and out of the phases since they get progressively harder and phase 5 is supposed to be year one level work! In a pre school you would probably be concentrating mostly on phase one work. I'm not sure about starting phase 2 in pre school as this is where you start learning the letter sounds and letter shapes and I would think it's more reception where that would start, but perhaps someone with more experience of this age group will be able to tell you what's appropriate. Phase one is mostly working on discriminating and recognising sounds through games etc.

Just to clarify, Johanna, are you referring to the aspects within phase one, rather than the phases? (which is what I thought you might mean)
In which case, these are not progressive (except I would leave aspect 7 to later in the year), as they cover different skills. You cold focus on a different one each week, for example.

Yes I did mean aspect you can tell holiday head still on.

I thought they weren't progressive too but someone mentioned to me they woork through the book but I found this a bit limiting so wondered what everone else does.

Hi, I do a lovely parents forum in autumn term to introduce parents to importance and aspects within phase one and really stress the importance of phase one. Last year I had a fabulous response from parents who were genuinely pleased I had shared this with them as they didnt know all of the work that goes before phase two and letter sounds!! I then enhanced my areas of learning with games/activities/resources from the aspects dependant upon where ch were working it, so for example in the summer term, we concentrated on rhyme and alliteration and I had stole a large mixing bowl from our school kitchen ( i did ask) and collected objects that rhymed for the game 'silly soup!' The kids absolutely loved it, got lots of observations of ch doing it very independently. In addition to this I put a basket of mirrors out and some objects to practice voice sounds, alliteration baskets etc etc. Alot of the games we did during key worker/adult directed time and then put the resources into the setting. By the way, we also attached a large mirror to our railings outside to encourage the boys to create some loud voice sounds!!! Phase one comes with a CD rom and has some really good examples for using the games. I would suggest having a watch, and think about activities you could do with your kids in September! Lots of body percussion sounds outside, listening walks ( going to make those fab large ears on headbands) and singing songs!! I also invited my staff to training session so they were familiar with teaching phase one activities, they said watching the dvd really helped to get an idea of how to teach the different games, but silly soup was my favourite, even the younger children who were perhaps working at an earlier phase enjoying mixing a frog and a log. a leg ( broken from an old doll!!!!) and a peg!!
Hope this helps!!!

Thanks Lotte I think my parents would like that actually.

We did do some initial sound boxes and sent them home with the leavers last term and parents and children lovec that. think I might extend this.

thank you

lotte where did you get the dvd from?

DVD comes with sounds and letters pack

We focus on one game each weeks which is usually done during circle time.

Buttercup