Since the start of this school year the student of K1-C have been learning vital early literacy skills: Phonological/Phonemic Awareness, Letter Recognition, and Letter Formation. With each week came the opportunity for the class to apply these skills to a new letter.
Phonological/Phonemic Awareness
Each week the class is introduced to our “Letter of The Week”. We begin with listening to how it sounds, how it should be pronounced and then 3 words that begin with that letter. Students use their “Elephant Ears” to listen correctly and ask each other “Is it a A word or an S word?” (Depending on the letters they have already learned and are being introduced to).
Letter Recognition
During our time learning how to recognise different letters we used our bodies, fingers and eyes. The children were firstly introduced to the “Letter of The Week” and what it looks like when it is uppercase, “Big” and lowercase, “Small”. We then used our whole bodies to recreate copy its shape.
They were then asked to find either the “Big” or “Small” version of the letter from the class mystery box. Once each child found what they thought was the correct letter they had to show it to class and ask, “Is this big or small?” and “Is it the right letter”. Even if it was incorrect, we still had to place it on our mini-whiteboard in either the big or small column.
Once we were all familiar with what the “Letter of The Week” looked like the students had 30 seconds to find either 3 uppercase or lowercase letters hidden in a picture.
Letter Formation
Next, we looked closely at how the “Big” and “Small” “Letter of The Week” should be written. The students counted the correct number of lines and the direction we should go in. Our “pointy finger” was used to mimic writing it in front of ourselves.
Now that we all knew how to write our “Letter of The Week” it was time to practice on the class computer using the magic pen.
The students love to wait while “Teacher Pen” spins around and chooses who will be next to use him to write either the “Big” or “Small” “Letter of The Week” on the class mini-whiteboard.
Practice Makes Perfect
To help the students to consolidate all of these skills they are given special work sheets. This is great way to keep track of each student’s progress and identify which areas they are excelling and which they need more help with during our one-on-one skill time.
Each child also has their own electronic “Panda Pen” and book. This gives the students the opportunity to choose which areas of learning they want to focus on in their free time. It is also an important way to introduce them to the concept that when you put all of these letters, they create words and sentences.
These are all important skills that will help to provide the students in K1-C with stepping stones on their path towards becoming competent and, more importantly, eager readers and writers. We are all so excited to see what the next “Letter of The Week” is.