Phonics - How Many Sounds Per Week?

[Guest]

Hi Everyone,

 

My first posting so am a little nervous!

 

How many sounds are people teaching in Reception per week? I downloaded Kats phonic plans and was going to use them but I'm worried that my head will expect me to be teaching more than two sounds per week. Last September my class (I didn't start until Jan) did 5 sounds a week (as suggested by Jolly phonics) however only the higher attainers managed to keep up with this and in Jan I had to start the sounds more or less from scratch with the majority of the class. I went to a training with Sue Lloyd earlier this year who said the phonics should begin on a child's first day at school which is what the previous teacher in my class had done. However, this resulted in many children not being able to do simple things like complete a rhyming string, alliteration in the Summer term.

 

Kat's plans included a range of Playing with Sounds and Pips activities and taught 2 sounds a week. I thought these were absolutely fantastic but I suppose I am worried that my head and parents will think 2 sounds per week is too slow. How many sounds are you teaching each week? Is anyone following the plans?

[Susan]

Hi Mookie and welcome.

 

I always taught 4 sounds a week. The children coped well, yes there were children who were overwelmed but I am not convinced that a slower rate would have helped them. I do think you need to move quite quickly, I know I have become very bored, as the teacher, when moving at a slower pace.

[leapfrog]

Hi Mookie

 

Last year with my first Reception class I taught 2 sounds per week - starting from day one of the term but this year wanted to complete all the sounds (jolly phonics) by the end of the Autumn Term so am trying 3 weekly.

 

We dont teach handwriting until January - just do patterning and Write Dance - so I plan to go over each sound as the corresponding letter formation is taught in the Spring Term

 

Last year in January my TA ran a phonics group for those who didnt catch them the first time and by the end of that group all but one was confident in the sounds a-z.

 

Hope this helps.

 

[Guest]

Hi

 

I currently teach 3 sounds a week through Jolly Phonics and as the children become more settled and eager to learn I will increase this to four or five. I found doing this last year worked really well and it improved the class' overall reading ability, confidence and scores which is always a bonus! Quick and pacy is always the way to go - the slower ones will catch up as this drip feeds through.

[Guest]

Hi Mookie and welcome from me too!

[Guest]

I have found 5 too many (you never get anything else literacy wise done) and 2 too few (it drags on too long), so I aim for 3/4 a week. That way the majority are done by Christmas with perhaps 1-2 weeks in January to comlplete.

[Marion]

We do 5 a week plus loads of other literacy activities (Foundations of Literacy) 5 a day stories lots of rhymes emergent writing usually linked to role play write dance fine motor activities and daily speaking and listening but we only spend 10-15 minutes max on the sounds. We mix Pips with JP resources and revisit the sounds frequently.

[Guest]

We aim for 3 a week to get them done before Christmas if possible, then revisit them after christmas if necessary. We mix and match JP and Playing with Sounds resources

[Guest]

We do 5 a week but don't do the handwriting sheets at that pace (only one a week of those and we don't expect the children to colour in the pics, either - unless they want to). I have found that the children pick up the single letter sounds really easily but find the digraphs much harder. Once we have introduced a letter sound we practise it every day for the first couple of terms in a rapid flash-card routine.

[Guest]

We do 3/4 a week until Christmas. About a 3rd of the children pick them all up by then, and for these we move on to diagraphs (ie, ue, oi etc)... for the others, we go back over the sounds that the majority of them don't know. For the ones that only know say 8 sounds, we ran a phonics booster group, which worked really well.

 

I'm intrigued... what's Dance Writing, or Write Dance ?

[Marion]

Its a movement program which can be used with children from 3-11 We use 'Write Dance in the nursery' which is for 3-5 year olds

http://www.luckyduck.co.uk/shop/products/1...4_5/viewProduct

[Guest tinkerbell]

I aim to do 5 a week using jolly phonics and playing with sounds activities.Write dance does look intriguing and would perhaps fit well into my routine I shall show it to my hesad and hopefully she will let me have it...if not I will buy it myself!

Thanks Marion for the link

Tinkerbellx

[Marion]

I bought it myself and have also bought Penpals for Writing as I see this as an area in need of support.

 

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/education/prim...als/reviews.htm

[Guest]

We have Penpals too. The children love it when we all do it looking at the interactive whiteboard.

[Guest]

We do 4 a week using Jolly P and playing with sounds. I find that I usually only have a few who need to repeat the sounds with the february intake and the rest are happy to go on to cvc words etc and the next steps.

Liz x

[SmileyPR]

How does it go with children who don't know English?

[catma]

It's important to have pace in the programme - the days of "sound of the week" are thankfully disappearing, but also to build into your daily session a review element of what has been previously learnt, then teach new stuff - say 2 sounds, then practise and apply. By Christmas I would expect the body of initial phonemes/graphemes to be taught but there may be some children still consolidating. 5 or so phonemes a week is a reasonable pace i think.

 

CX

[Marion]

We start each session by going over the sounds already taught before introducing new sounds. Also in text work ask the children to find the letters in the text they have already been taught. In any day we probably have 3 very short sessions where we revisit the sounds for reinforcement.

We rarely get children who dont have english as their first language (this year have a chinese speaking child with little english other than yes and no) but havent found any problems in the past. In fact these children often pick up the sounds far quicker than some english speaking children

[Guest]

Hi

Just saw the thread, we are doing four a week, but much like Marion I follow activities from the book: Foundations of Literacy.

We follow the order of playing with sounds and split each group in half, is working well.

I have two Polish children who have EAL and they are responding and learning very quickly.

I think you have to make it as exciting as possble for the children, maximise use of outdoors etc which is of value. Making up silly songs, etc which they will remember!

Hope this helps.