Teaching children to read is no easy thing, there’s such a lot to it! They’ve got to be able to remember the letter shapes, match the letter shapes to the corresponding spoken sounds, then blend them together to read whole words. At the same time, children as young as four need to understand that words are read from left to right, that some words can’t be blended, and try to make sense of what these words mean. Phew!

It’s so easy to forget how hard learning to read is. How frustrating, overwhelming, and difficult it can feel, doing all of these at the same time. So, how can we make this process easier for children starting out with so much to learn?  How can we reduce the feelings of frustration, overwhelm and general feeling of learning to read being ‘too hard?

Much has been said during the last twenty years about the role of Phonics in supporting this process. Both the DfE in the Reading Framework (2021), and Ofsted’s current inspection framework, focus heavily on the implementation of systematic synthetic phonics programmes as being the answer.

Foundations in Phonics

But here’s the thing. Starting Phonics in school is the end of a long developmental journey, not the beginning. For children to be able to embark on this critical process of recognising the letters on the page, matching the letters to the spoken sounds and blending, there are fundamental building blocks which impact significantly on success.

After all, if we decide to run a marathon, we don’t set out one day and run twenty-six miles! We would build up to running the distance. We’d master diet, mindset, and health. We would need to start by walking, then jogging small distances, building confidence and stamina. Maybe we’d watch, listen to, and read about other successful runners. Preparing children for the end goal of reading is the same!

Our task is to prepare preschoolers and nursery children exceptionally well. To put the hours in, to train them step-by step from the beginning. We need to know where they’re starting from, with high expectations of the end goal, building confidence at each stage of the pre-reading journey. A deep mastery of what comes before Phonics is critical for our children to become capable, confident readers.

Letters and Sounds Phase 1

For years, EYFS practitioners have been using Letters and Sounds Phase 1 with some success. This series of games and activities provided a broad prephonic EYFS curriculum, but there were some fundamental flaws.

There was no clear progression, no developmental order, or even a way of assessing to build on what the children could already do. These Phase 1 Phonics games did support prephonic development, but the approach was haphazard, with outcomes achieved more slowly and randomly as a result.

Remember, preparing children to read is like training for a marathon. Success is achieved through consistency, repetition, and a step-by-step approach. Much of the success achieved by Phonics schemes used in schools is that they are systematic, chunking down learning through a clear and coherent progression.

Progression in Prephonic skills

Simply put, before we can expect children to recognise, say and remember letter-sound correspondences and blend these together, they need to be able to look closely, remembering what they see, hear and say. Children also need to be able to make sounds, matching them with objects, people, or patterns. If you’ve ever encountered a child struggling with Phonics, it’s likely that there are some developmental gaps in these areas to explore.

Opening their eyes, switching on their brains

Spotting the similarities and differences in letter shapes is a key part of prephonic development. We all know children who seem to consistently get muddled between the letters b and d, or struggle to differentiate between the letter s and number 5.

This undervalued skill, known as visual discrimination, begins when children are very young, through toys like shape sorters, stacking cups and simple shape-based puzzles.

This links with visual memory, a critical prephonic skill which helps us to remember visual similarities and differences. What’s the point in being able to distinguish the difference and similarities between m and n, only to forget these later?  

Training preschool brains to distinguish and remember visual content is central to our role as practitioners, especially in a world where technology does a lot of the remembering for us. 

Great ideas to develop Visual Discrimination and Visual memory

·         Pairs and snap games

·         Jigsaw puzzles

·         Loose parts collections

·         Observational drawing and painting

·         Spot the difference or ‘look and find’ books

Tuning in ears with the brain

Phonics is a sounds-based system, so hearing the differences and similarities between spoken sounds is vital. This is especially challenging as sounds like f and th can be difficult to distinguish between. This process is known as auditory discrimination and begins in everyday situations. Children develop auditory discrimination by spotting the difference between the ring tones matched to family members, or by experimenting with sounds as a spoon is ‘bashed’ on different surfaces!

Matching sounds to objects and people is an essential prephonic step to master before the introduction of abstract letters. If little ears aren’t well tuned in at an everyday level, matching the letters with their spoken sounds is going to be much harder.  

Children need to have had hours of exploring how to make and change sounds with their voices, bodies and with objects or instruments, copying more complex sound patterns as experience and vocabulary grow.

Auditory Memory

The most challenging aspect of learning Phonics is auditory memory and it’s a major element of successfully learning to blend sounds later. You’ll recognise this in children who begin by reading each of the separate sounds in a word like c-a-t, but then struggle to remember them to blend. You might hear these children say, “ca”,  or “at”,  or “ta”, or make up their own word entirely.  

The heart of this difficulty lies in auditory memory. For children who struggle to remember songs from memory, copy a complex clapping pattern or follow a two-part instruction, remembering a string of abstract letters in the right order is going to be way too difficult.

Great ideas to develop Auditory Discrimination and Auditory Memory

·         Sing songs everyday without You Tube, too much visual stimulation reduces the auditory memory process.

·         Read the same stories and rhymes repeatedly; this builds strong neural pathways in the brain in the area which associates processing with storing what children hear.

·         Organise your stories and songs into a progression, starting with easy rhymes like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, building to complex songs like One Man Went to Mow. Think less about topics and themes, and more about where children are along the prephonic progression.

·         Play games like Simon Says, I Went To The Shops and I Bought… or whispering 'pass it on' word games to help the children hear, store and repeat what they’ve just heard.

Warming up their mouths!

Children are saying spoken sounds constantly as they learn to talk. This begins when babies babble, coo and blow raspberries, later becoming abstract in nature like “oo”, “s” and “ch”.

From babbling onwards, children are developing strength and control in their mouth muscles to form the spoken sounds they’ll need to articulate whole words.

To develop super strong mouths and to control the speed of air that leaves the mouth we need to give our preschoolers the equivalent of a gym workout for the mouth!

Making noises in stories, blowing bubbles, pulling faces, and singing songs help develop the physical control they’ll need to say letter-sound correspondences correctly.

Ongoing challenges

It’s very easy to feel pressured, to rush to the end goal of recognising letters and sounds during the nursery or preschool year. We can be forgiven for thinking that getting the children to recognise these earlier and earlier propels children into reading more speedily. From the outside this looks like our children are ahead of the game, and it’s common for families to expect this too.

However, rushing ahead like this creates a very serious situation which becomes apparent later. When these foundational elements of phonics aren’t mastered at a deep level in Nursery and Preschool, Phonics can become harder than it needs to be for many children. Prephonics is so much more important than simply reading a range of lovely stories and singing a few favourite songs. The concepts underpinning converting our spoken language system to print are complex, requiring a consistent, systematic and fun approach.

To prepare our children well for Phonics we need to know that their ears, eyes, mouths, and brains are in peek condition! Like running a marathon, they need to have the core elements in place to be primed for success.

Useful Resources

Prephonic Progression FREE ebook for Nursery and Preschool

Become a master in Prephonics to prepare you preschoolers to be Ready for Reading

https://learninglady.co.uk/ready-for-reading-training/ 

Super Sounds- a Nursery and Preschool Prephonic programme to use before ANY Phonics Programme

https://learninglady.co.uk/phase-1-phonics