This week’s activity

As some of you will be thinking about the transition to primary school, we wanted to share some of the ways we support the children with their early literacy skills.  As well as all of the lovely opportunities to share stories and access books, mark-making in every area and in a variety of materials; one of the fundamental things relating to literacy is being able to listen carefully to sounds.  To be able to hear the sounds in words, you need to be able to tune in to the sounds that you hear in the environment and identify them.  The children have been playing listening games using ‘Old Macdonald’ as the theme.  The children listen to an animal sound and behind a screen an animal is hidden.  They listen carefully and identify the animal from the sound they hear.  This is a good way of engaging children, as it is fun and they can make the connection between a familiar song and familiar animals, but they need to concentrate and listen carefully.

Building on from this kind of activity, some of the older children are listening to the initial sounds in words as they hear them. For example, when we talk about the day of the week, we help them to hear the initial sound, eg ‘m’ for Monday. They go on to think about other words that start with the same sound, such as ‘mud’ or ‘Mandie’.  We do not use the names of letters, as these are not sounds (only in a few exceptions). If you want to do something similar at home, make it fun and interactive and remember you are listening to the sound the letter makes, not the name of the letter.

Please don’t worry too much about this. Children learn at their own pace. Don’t compare your child to someone else’s. Make learning fun and playful and be led by your child.  They will have a whole lifetime of academic study, remember to let them be children, play and learn through their play.  They are amazing!

The Pre-school Team