Using phonics with early readers

This is a Book Week guest post by Sara Wernham, author of Jolly Phonics.

When my son was small I was often asked by friends, who had young children, what they should use to help teach their children to learn to read. Being a teacher and the author of Jolly Phonics I was supposed to know the answer. I was amazed at the number of comics and workbooks, etc. that we all bought, and how dedicated some parents were in working through them, doing all the activities. While fun and (sometimes) educational, the comics and things did not really provide a structure for helping to teach children to read and write, as they tended to be random activities, more often linked to a theme e.g. summer, that ran through the whole comic.

I looked around for suitable material.

The Jolly Phonics Finger Phonics books were good for looking at and pointing things out. I found they were great vocabulary builders, and my son loved looking for the hidden ‘eyes’ and assorted creepy crawlies. It was also how he learnt his letters and sounds. We’d sit and I’d ask him to point to the snake, or the cat, or the /ssss/. We then moved on to play find the ‘s-u-n’, and other words I’d sound out for him. To begin with I had to almost say the word but with practise he was soon able to hear (blend) the words for himself. The Jolly Stories book, published subsequently, is better for parents as it gives ideas of how to use the book, what to look out for and what to do on each page.

My daughter loved the Jolly Phonics Song Book and drove everyone mad singing the songs repeatedly. On a long drive to Devon to see relatives, my husband declared that he didn’t care how happy she was singing along to the CD, he needed a break from it or he’d have to leave the car!

Jolly Phonics had a set of workbooks already but they weren’t really suitable for pre-school children. I felt they needed more colour, more fun and more activities not just pencil and paper stuff.

There was only one thing for it, I decided that I would have to write something better (I have these wild ideas which seem quite reasonable at the time). So when my son was about three years old I mapped out a few ideas, then got overtaken by other projects. My son started school and the idea was relegated to the ‘waiting to be finished’ box.

Then a few years later, my daughter came along and again I found that there really was very little of quality available for parents to use with their pre-schoolchildren, and a great desire from parents for something to show them what to do. Many parents I spoke to didn’t know how to start teaching reading and some admitted to being scared of ‘doing the wrong thing’. So I scrabbled around in the unfinished projects and good ideas box and fished out the pages I started before.

This time I finished them, and at my daughters insistence stickers were included. So finally, about 10 years after I had first started toying with the idea, our Jolly Phonics Activity Book 1-7′ target=_blank>Activity Sticker Books were published.

I hope you have as much fun using them as we had creating them, and that it takes you somewhat less time to complete them!

Jolly Learning can be found on Twitter and Facebook and they also have a website.