Segmenting – breaking up words into their individual sounds so that we can spell a word
Blending - putting individual sounds together so that we can read a word
A phoneme - the smallest unit of sound in a word
A grapheme - the letter or letters that represent the phoneme.
Digraph - A pair of letters representing one speech sound e.g. sh as in shop
Trigraph - Three letters representing one speech sound e.g. igh as in night
Compound words - Two or more words that are put together to make a new word e.g. sun and flower make the word sunflower; car and park make the word carpark
Little Wandle Letters and sounds
We have also been focusing on letter formation. We teach the formation of letters using the following rhymes click here to access them and download the Autumn 1 and Autumn 2 sounds sheets that are pictured on the right. These are also available on The Little Wandle website in the parent section.
Sound sorting - Gather a selection of objects from around the house and sort them in to tubs labelled with the letter sound that the object begins with.
Alphabet fishing - Write some letters on ping pong balls and put them in a tub. Which letter have you caught? Can you think of a word beginning with that sound?
Run to the word/letter -Write 4 words or letters on separate pieces of paper, or write them in chalk outside. You ‘sound talk’ a word and your child runs to the word and reads the word by blending the sounds together
Quick write - Say a letter sound and your child has a go at writing the letters that make the sound. They could do this is glitter, gel, flour or shaving foam that has been placed into a tray. They can use their fingers, paintbrushes or a stick to write
Magnetic letters - Children can use magnetic letters to create tricky words or decodable words
Splat the letter! Write graphemes on individual pieces of paper/post its, you say a letter sound and your child splats the correct grapheme with a fly swat.
Box of sounds - Place cards with letters on into a box. Children choose a letter and say the sound it makes. They could then match the letter to an object or picture of something beginning with that sound.
Bucket of sounds – Label 3 or 4 buckets or ice cream tubs with a grapheme on each, say a sound and your child throws a ball into the matching bucket and says the sound.
What’s in the box? Place ‘post its’ with simple words on a box or bag. Children choose a word, sound talk it and blend the sounds to read the word. They could then match this to a picture or an object. This game can be adapted to use segmenting. Children choose a picture from the box, sound talk it, they could match it to a word, or have a go at writing the word.
Tricky word bingo - Write 4 tricky words on a piece of paper, then write them and a few more on to ‘post its’, place into a bag. The bingo caller says a word then your child crosses it off, if they have a matching one, on their bingo