Phonological Awareness

Pre-phonics – Phonological Awareness Stage 2 – (1 year – 2+ years)

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Your child will start to isolate individual words in a speech flow, engage in sound play and recognise that sentences are made up of individual words.

By about 18 months old your toddler’s receptive language* skills have grown to understanding anything from 200-500 words, with their understanding based on the simple phrases and words they hear a lot. So, the more you talk, repeat, show, model and explain to your child the greater the opportunities they have for extending and developing their receptive language skills.

As your child’s receptive language (ability to hear and understand words) develops so will their ability to isolate key words in a sentence. For instance, they will initially pick up on the word ‘biscuit’ when asked “Do you want a biscuit?” Word awareness allows them to focus on just the relevant information they are interested in.

Continue talking to your child as much as possible, but once they are about 10-12 months old reduce the use of ‘Parentese’ and instead use clearly pronounced, more simplified language patterns.

During this stage they are starting to respond to familiar requests such as “Come here!”; understand simple questions “Where is Daddy?”; follow simple instructions “Give the ball to Mummy!” and recognize and point to familiar objects when you ask them to.

For your child to reach these milestones in their speech, language and communication abilities they need to learn and develop their listening skills. Your child needs to learn how to pay attention – being able to focus on a particular sound/voice (filtering out other noises); they need to develop their stamina – concentrating on the sound/voice to take in the information; and they need to develop their comprehension – interpreting the sound/voice to extract meaning.

Although your child’s receptive language is developing well, their expressive language is far more limited, with them only being able to say around 20 words. The frustration of understanding but not being able to communicate leads to what is commonly known as ‘The Terrible Twos’. Sign language can be a very powerful tool to help you and your child to manage and lessen these communication frustrations.

Around the age of 2 years old many children use more than 50 single words and are beginning to put 2 or 3 words together to form short phrases and to ask simple questions “what that?” or “who that?”.  They are beginning to recognize that sentences are made up of individual words and are able to pick out more than one key word in a simple sentence such as “Put your shoes and coat on!”.

Helping your child to build their vocabulary (word awareness) and the meaning of these words is vital if your child is to continue to develop good communication skills. Talking, explaining, sharing and playing are all important as well as making sure that you pronounce words clearly and correctly for your child to hear. Your child will not have developed all the skills needed yet, to copy you accurately, but they will store the sound pattern information for later use.

Playing sound detection games is a fun way of helping your child to build their sensitivity to sounds as well as helping them to develop their listening and attention abilities.

Toddlers continue to engage in sound play as they keep on building their sound knowledge and ability to distinguish between environmental sounds and those of language. They will play with words to make up rhymes and nonsense words as a way of learning how to generate new sounds, rather than for expressing their thoughts and understanding.  It is a good gauge of your child’s sensitivity to sounds in words.

* Receptive language is how we take in and understand language; it is what we hear, see and read. This also includes body language and environmental clues. All these elements help us to interpret the situation and give meaning, so that we can understand what is needed or required of us. We do not need to be able to produce language to receive and understand it, so infants and toddlers understand far more than they can express (expressive language**).

Our understanding through receptive language enables us to communicate, socialize and comprehend instructions, different situations and scenarios.

** Expressive language is our ability to put our thoughts, needs and wants into words and sentences in a way that makes sense and is grammatically correct. A baby’s expressive language to begin with is based on cries and gestures moving to sound making, combined with gestures and their body language.

We use this expressive language when we speak and write. Even when babies and toddlers move to speaking words, they have a limited vocabulary which is why they can get frustrated when we do not understand them.

Pre-phonics Skills – Phonological awareness: Stage 1

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Phonological awareness relates to our sensitivity and understanding of the sound structures of our oral language. It enables us to progress from our awareness of large sound units (words in sentences) to smaller sound units (phonemes in words). It also incorporates the ways in which we communicate through speech, body language and written forms.

Stage 1 – (Unborn – 1 year)

Your child will learn to recognize, differentiate and respond to both speech and non-speech sounds, start to recognize words and interpret facial expressions and body gestures. They will begin making sounds, mimic speech patterns and start to use body language to express their needs, wants and thoughts.

Research suggests that our phonological awareness begins in the womb at about 24 weeks. New born babies have a preference for their mother’s voice, as they have had an extended period of time hearing the voice before they are born, and so find it comforting. They do not understand the words, just the sound rhythm and intonation of her speech pattern; more like music.

It is suggested that reading, talking and singing to your unborn child in the same manner you would to a baby or toddler could help to begin the sound storage/recognition process. Like many parents who have their children close together (14 months in our case) the second child’s language skills seemed to develop earlier than the firsts. This may have been because the book sharing time with our first (who was about 5 months old when I fell pregnant again) and the type of language we were using stimulated our unborn second child.

So, talk to your baby even before they are born, they will not understand what you are saying but their brain is busy; starting to store sound information that will later help them to understand language and learning to speak.

Babies initially have no language preference; they respond only to the sounds and facial gestures and mouth shapes that accompany them.

Try to expose them to a greater range of sound experiences as they develop their awareness of sounds around them. The more they hear and the associations they make to those sounds (what they see, feel, experience) the greater their ability to distinguish between them. This skill becomes important later on as they begin to isolate individual words in sentences, being able to distinguish between words that sound similar such as dog and hog.

By 6 months old linguists can tell, by the cooing and babbling that your child is producing, what range of language you have shared with them through ‘Direct Talk’.  The cooing and babbling sound your baby or toddler make are their first steps towards expressive language, producing the sounds that eventually form words.

A baby who can talk through cooing and babbling is more likely to initiate and continue verbal interaction and play with you and others. The first cooing sounds represent more vowel sounds such as ah, ooh, eee, uh, ah-ee, while the later babbling stage is more consonant sounds repeated such as ba, ba, ba, da, da, da, ma, ma, ma, ga, ga, ga.

At about 7 months old your child is now recognizing words and developing an understanding of what these words mean (receptive language).

Talk to your baby, talk all the time, about what you are doing, what is going on and just about how wonderful and beautiful they are.

How you talk to your baby has an impact. Research has shown that babies prefer you to talk to them using regular words (normal adult vocabulary) in a slightly higher pitched and more sing-song way. Although many adults do this naturally when talking to babies it has become known as ‘Parentese’ and is very different from ‘Baby Talk’.

Parentese is:

● Slower speech pace

● Articulate clearly, well-formed, elongated vowel sounds and clearly voiced consonants, so ‘hello’ becomes ‘heellooo’

● Use shorter sentences that are grammatically correct

● Vary and raise pitch of voice (as much as an octave)

● Stress words by pitch, intensity and length so ‘sweet baby’ becomes ‘sweeet baybeee’

● Use exaggerated facial expressions (eye contact, raised eyebrows, big smiles)

● Frequently use repetition

● Leave a gap/pause between sentences so that your child can coo and babble back (developing the turn taking structure of conversation)

● Talk face to face so that they can clearly see how your lips move and other facial expressions (this about 20 cm or 8 inches for a new born)

● Try using your child’s name first then the important word in the sentence and follow with the complete sentence; for example, “Jo, bottle, here is your bottle!”  Research suggests that at about 3- 4 months old a baby will turn their head when their name is called and that they will then focus on the next word that follows their name.

Baby Talk

Is where we replace regular words with nonsense or over simplified words; so “who is the cutest baby in the world!” becomes “oo es da  cutsie wootsiest beebee in da wold!”.  This does not help a child to develop the language skills they need to communicate effectively with others and can delay some children’s speech and language development.  What you may think sounds cute and adorable may actually hold your child back because others just cannot understand them, which can be very frustrating for your child.

How the Body’s Sensory Systems affect Academic Success

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Sometime ago, I posted a blog with a link to an article which we felt highlighted, and backed, our own thoughts of why we need to look at the whole child and their physical and sensory development alongside their intellectual development.

It made very interesting reading then but having talked with different therapists, SENCos and teachers over the past year it seems that it has become very relevant. This is because it appears that more and more children are struggling in school and displaying learning difficulty traits that relate to sensory system difficulties.

This article explains how sensory systems impact on and affect a child’s ability to learn and are essential developmental building blocks to a child’s academic future. It also provides some practical advise.

The article ‘Sensory Systems that Make up the Learning Hierarchy of a Strong Academic Foundation’ was written and released by Integrated Learning Strategies Learning Corner on 24/02/16 http://ilslearningcorner.com/2016-02-sensory-systems-that-make-up-the-learning-hierarchy-of-a-strong-academic-foundation/

The Pre-phonics section of our website (http://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development.html ) explains how to support and develop all the visual and auditory sensory systems highlighted in the article for a strong foundation for learning.

The activity ideas work on providing a range of stimulus for a child to experience, supporting their visual and auditory development. These activity ideas can be played at home and easily built into or adapted in a school as cross curricular activity experiences.

Are your child’s #phonics skills good for their age?

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

With more and more expected of our pre-school and 4 to 7 year old children it can be difficult to know what the realistic age appropriate skills are in relation to phonics.

In fact, phonics is only part of the story starting at stage 8 of a child’s phonological awareness development.

Stages 1 to 7 of a child’s phonological awareness, what we refer to as pre-phonics skills, are the continual development of their understanding and knowledge of our spoken language as well as other communication forms, such as gestures, facial expressions, body language and social conventions.

Stages 8 to 10 of a child’s phonological awareness, the phonics reading and writing stages are the continual development of their understanding and knowledge for learning to reading and write.

As a child’s phonological awareness skills build on each stage, the age at which a child reaches them varies making it difficult to know how your child is doing.

We recognise this variation and use age ranges as a rough guide to help you understand where your child is in their phonological awareness skills.

By clicking on the various stages of phonological awareness you will find appropriate age range information, advice and activities to support your child. Try not to jump a stage as each one is important in unlocking the knowledge and skills for the stage above.

Stages 1 to 7 (Pre-phonics skills): https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development.html

Stages 8 to 10 (Phonics): https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonological-development-phonics.html

#Christmas Finger Printing a Fun Way to Support Language Development

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Hand and finger printing can be a fun way of getting your child used to touching, using different textured mediums and descriptive language associated with it. Such as: slimy, smooth, slippery, squidgy, wet, dry, squelch, ooze, press, push down, harder, softer, gentle, lift, light and dark.

Printing activities also help your child to start to become aware of how to control the amount of pressure they use and to develop a vocabulary to describe the different range of pressures required. Learning to control the amount of pressure exerted and how it feels can be very difficult for some children and it takes time and a range of experiences to develop these skills.

There are some fabulous printing ideas out on the internet; one of my favourite art resources is The Usborne Art Idea Books. Hand and finger printing can create some amazing artwork which can be used to make wonderful personalised Christmas cards, tags and paper.

Who could not be charmed by these fun thumb and fingertip snowmen or robins or delighted by a hand print angel or Father Christmas?

For other useful tips on printing and setting up a printing work station (https://teachhandwriting.co.uk/assets/pdfs/Setting%20up%20a%20Printing%20Workstation.pdf ), check out our ‘More fun handwriting activities, where you can talk about the effects of using different pressure, in our Resources section: https://teachhandwriting.co.uk/more-activities.html

Letter & Sound Relationships That Break the #Phonics Rules

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Back in September we explained that Phonics is very useful as a decoding tool used for developing reading skills and an encoding tool for spelling. It is the simple process of linking sounds to letters, its complexity comes from how many sounds (phonemes) to letter combinations (graphemes) there are.

Some letter and sound associations just don’t follow the normal phonics rule of a single sound being associated to a letter or letter combination. A few letters represent two sounds, such as the letter ‘u’ which in the word ‘cupid’ represents the two sounds /y,(j)/ and /oo,(uː)/.

A more common one letter two sound relation is that of the letter ‘x’ representing the two sounds /k,(k)/ and /s,(s)/ as in thewords: six and box.

Here are some other examples of single letters and split digraphs making two sounds instead of the usual phonics rule of only making one sound:

The ‘Long’ Vowel Sounds

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

A couple of weeks ago we explained that there are 20 vowel sounds in the English (UK) sound system and last week we looked at the 7 ‘short’ vowel sounds. This week we are taking a look at the remaining 13 ‘long’ vowel sounds.

Here at Teach Phonics we split them in to two groups: 7 ‘long’ vowel sounds and 6 ‘long ‘R’ controlled’ vowel sounds.

The 7 ‘long’ vowel sounds areso calleddue to the length of their pronunciation; these can often be held without distorting their sound.

 The /ai,(eI)/ sound found in the words: train, tray, cake and break.

The /oa,(ǝƱ)/ sound found in the words: boat, hotel, toe and bone.

The /oi,(ɔI)/ sound found in the words: boy, coin and buoy.

The /ow,(aƱ)/ sound found in the words: owl, house, drought and hour.

The /ee,(іː)/ sound found in the words: tree, pea, me, and pony.

The /I,(aI)/ sound found in the words: iron, fly, pie and light.

The /oo,(uː)/ sound found in the words: spoon, blue, screw and you.

The 6 ‘long ‘R’ controlled’ vowel sounds are so called because of the slight /r,(r)/ sound quality that can be heard in them along with the length of their pronunciation; these can often be held without distorting their sound.

The /ar,(ɑː)/ sound found in the words: car, father (southern UK accent) and art.

The /or,(ɔː)/ sound found in the words: fork, door, walk and sauce.

The /ear,(Iǝ)/ sound found in the words: ear, here, deer and pier.

The /er,(ɜː)/ sound found in the words: bird, kerb, nurse and worm.

The /re,(Ʊǝ)/ sound found in the words: manure, tour and mature.

The /air,(eǝ)/ sound found in the words: chair, pear, square and where.

English (UK) Vowel Sounds

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Learning to hear and differentiate the vowel sounds from consonant sounds is an important skill in understanding how words are formed. Every word in the English Language has to have a vowel sound in it and every syllable in a word also has to have a vowel sound within it. This knowledge is an important element in developing our phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge as we start to learn how to read and spell words.

There are 20 vowel sounds in the English (UK) Language, usually (in the UK Education System) split into two main categories based on sound quality:

  • ‘Short’ vowel sounds, due to the short duration of the sound being made, the sound cannot be held onto without becoming distorted, such as the /e,(e)/ in me, pea and tree
  • ‘Long’ vowel sounds, due to the length of their pronunciation, these can often be held without distorting their sound, such as the /oi,(ɔI)/ sound found in the words:boy, coin and buoy

Here at Teach Phonics we split the ‘long’ vowel sounds category into ‘long’ vowel sounds and ‘long ‘R’ controlled’ vowel sounds. The ‘long ’R’ controlled’ vowel sounds are so called because of the slight /r,(r)/ sound quality that can be heard in them for example the /or,(ɔː)/ sound found in the words: fork, door, walk and sauce.

The English Phoneme Chart (https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonics-phomene-chart.html), which uses the unique symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), splits the 20 vowel sounds into two groups based on mouth position:

  • Monophthongs which have one mouth position throughout the sound for example /e,(e)/ in me.
  • Diphthongs, where the mouth position changes, giving a 2 sounds quality to the phoneme for example, /oi,(ɔI)/ inboy.

The Consonant Sounds with their Most Common Letter and Letter Combinations

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

There are 24 consonant sounds in the English language. A consonant sound is made (produced) when the air flow is being restricted in some way, which means that the mouth doesn’t open as wide and so the jaw doesn’t drop noticeably, which is different from vowel sounds.

Here is a list of just some of the most commonly seen letter and letter combinations used to represent the 24 consonant sounds. For a more comprehensive lists check out our English Phoneme Chart or Alphabet Keyboard which can be found on our ‘Phonemes’ page: https://www.teachphonics.co.uk/phonics.html            

  • /b,(b)/      bin, rabbit
  • /k,(k)/      cat, key, duck, queen, anchor, broccoli
  • /ch,(ʧ)/    church, watch
  • /d,(d)/      dog, ladder, towed
  • /f,(f)/        fish, puffin, phone, laugh
  • /g,(g)/     girl, digger, ghost
  • /h,(h)/     hen, who
  • /j,(ʤ)/      jigsaw, giant, bridge
  • /l,(l)/        lion, llama
  • /m,(m)/   man, hammer, lamb
  • /n,(n)/     nest, penny, knife, gnome
  • /ng,(ŋ)/   king, sink
  • /p,(p)/     panda, hippo
  • /r,(r)/      robin, lorry, wrist
  • /s,(s)/    sun, dress, city, geese, castle
  • /sh,(ʃ)/   ship, chef, delicious, initials, sugar
  • /t,(t)/      tent, butterfly, jumped
  • /th,(θ)/   thumb
  • /th,(ð)/  feather, breathe
  • /v,(v)/   van, sleeve, of
  • /w,(w)/  well, whale, penguin
  • /y,(j)/    yo-yo, euro
  • /z,(z)/    zero, puzzle, sneeze, cheese, is
  • /zh,(Ʒ)/  measure, television

What are vowels and consonants?

lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

The English Language is created through the different combinations of 44 sounds (phonemes), 20 vowels and 24 consonants. In our written language we refer to the 26 letters of the alphabet as being consonant or vowel letters depending on which type of sound they are representing.

Vowel sounds allow the air to flow freely, causing the chin to drop noticeably, whilst consonant sounds are produced by restricting the air flow.

Vowel sounds are usually (in the UK Education System) split into two main categories based on sound quality:

  • ‘Short’ vowel sounds, due to the short duration of the sound being made. The sound cannot be held onto without becoming distorted
  • ‘Long’ vowel sounds, due to the length of their pronunciation. These can often be held without distorting their sound.

The letters of the alphabet that we normally associate as being the vowel letters are: a, e, i, o and u. The letter ‘y’ is sometimes referred to as an honorary or semi vowel as it is used to replace one of the other vowel letters in words such as: fly, shy, why or my.

All words in the English language have at least one vowel sound in them so the written version must have at least one vowel letter in it.

Consonant sounds are made (produced) when the air flow is being restricted in some way, for example, changes in tongue position resulting in the mouth not opening as wide. This means that the jaw doesn’t drop noticeably, which is different to vowel sounds.

The letters of the alphabet that usually represent the consonant sounds are: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z.