Welcome to this new post about Letterland Phonics!
In this post, I am going to introduce the reasons why Letterland Phonics is the preferred phonics programme for preschoolers. I’m not saying this because I am a trainer for Letterland, but rather, because I believe in the methods that help our children to learn in such a fun-filled way.
Letterland Phonics is a wonderful way to engage young children because it is so colourful, and the characters are friendly and fun! Teaching the Letterland way is not only about the characters, even though they play a huge role in the programme. Instead, it is about how we can incorporate all aspects of early development into the learning.
Cognitive Development – Children need to understand and process the information that is given to them, and associating the sound that they hear to the print that they see; they also need to reason out why Clever Cat likes to eat cake and not fish (because she likes things beginning with her /c/ sound – Alliteration); and the children need to imagine this wonderful world of Letterland!
Listening & Speaking – Children listen to the stories told to them, and can repeat the songs that they sing along to – all these develop their listening skills and help them to voice out the letter sounds too. When we talk about rhymes and alliteration, children are also given the opportunities to pick up the similarities in words.
Motor Skills – The Letterland stories are a fun way to do dramatic play in the classroom. Everyone loves the chance to be able to be Harry Hat Man and put on his hairy hat while hopping along in Letterland!
Socio-Emotional Development – Children talk about their favourite characters all the time! They can also talk about the personalities of these characters, and what he/she dislikes and why (linking it to Cognitive Development).
Observational Skills – Adults have no worry about b, d, p and q in print, but this can be an extremely daunting task for children! With the pictograms as prompts for the children, they will be realising the differences between the letter shapes in no time! And if your children are still facing difficulties, sing along to the Handwriting songs for extra support (linking in to Listening Skills and Cognitive Development). Children can also differentiate the colours of the characters!
Fine Motor Skills – Children can do so much more with their fingers that just sticking and pasting! Think of the multitude of Arts & Crafts activities that you can do together! We have a Letterland Cookbook for cooking & baking sort of activities, Things to Make and Do for crafting fun, colouring sheets, handwriting sheets and many more for school and home use!
If you are still uncertain about whether Letterland Phonics is for your child, we invite you to join in our Letterland Parent’s Workshops and Teacher’s Trainings so that you can develop a love for Letterland, just as I did!
Would you like to have more ideas about what you can do with your children at home at various age groups? If you would like us to post more often, do let us know!
I hope to see you all in Letterland,
Julienne (Approved Letterland Trainer)
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