Letters and Sounds
As with Phonics Play, a
perhaps equally popular online phonic revision resource is Letters and Sounds. Published
by the Department for Education and Skills in 2007, Letters and Sounds’ target
is to build children's speaking and listening skills which, in turn, should
develop their phonic knowledge when it comes to reading and writing. The
programme is very systematic and fairly well laid out. It’s main target
audience are children who are starting to learn to read and write at age 5 with
their intention that they will become fluent readers by age 7.
By all
accounts, children are learning to read more easily than they did before thanks
to such programme as Letters and Sounds. The synthetic phonics standards are
well employed in Letters and
Sounds as it aids in providing a structure for
progression. The division into phases is rigid and provides a solid structure
for some teachers to plan lessons.
However, although similarly structured as Phonics Play, Letters and Sounds has a few flaws. Some teachers agree that the simplicity of synthetic phonics is in its simplicity and yet this becomes complicated and muddled somewhat in Letters and Sounds. A few teachers writing about/reviewing Letters and Sounds online in blogs complain that, for teachers, there is too much for them to read and therefore some potential important points are overlooked. However, some teachers find the organisation of phases as too rigid. They state that it becomes difficult to plan lessons when they have children who are at mixed ability groups in phonics.
As said before, Letters and Sounds is a government endorsed programme of study for phonics. From further reading, there appears to be a divide opinion between those who are content with such programmes as Letters and Sounds, and those who believe it may have been more beneficial if schools had been able to choose their own resources for teaching phonics and provided with funds to buy into synthetic phonics training. Overall, there are numerous good programmes for teaching phonics, including Letters and Sounds, each with their flaws and each with their strengths.
However, although similarly structured as Phonics Play, Letters and Sounds has a few flaws. Some teachers agree that the simplicity of synthetic phonics is in its simplicity and yet this becomes complicated and muddled somewhat in Letters and Sounds. A few teachers writing about/reviewing Letters and Sounds online in blogs complain that, for teachers, there is too much for them to read and therefore some potential important points are overlooked. However, some teachers find the organisation of phases as too rigid. They state that it becomes difficult to plan lessons when they have children who are at mixed ability groups in phonics.
As said before, Letters and Sounds is a government endorsed programme of study for phonics. From further reading, there appears to be a divide opinion between those who are content with such programmes as Letters and Sounds, and those who believe it may have been more beneficial if schools had been able to choose their own resources for teaching phonics and provided with funds to buy into synthetic phonics training. Overall, there are numerous good programmes for teaching phonics, including Letters and Sounds, each with their flaws and each with their strengths.