Jolly Phonics

Last year I started teaching Receptions (aka Kindergarten in USA). I was very interested in starting a phonics program in the school as I had taught children up to grade 4 in previous years with very little phonemic awareness and this worried me! They couldn't read a simple text and had no idea how to sound out words & blend to read! ahhh! Something needed to change!

I had been to a Jolly Phonics training in 2010, and found the program very interesting. I researched by talking to teacher friends, purchased a handbook, and last year started it in my classroom.

I couldn't believe the results, in the 9 weeks the program took to teach (one letter sound a day), every one of my class had learned pretty much all the sounds (some had forgotten some of the trickier diagraphs). They were blending to read and segmenting to spell. I was absolutely amazed at my clever kiddies! By the end of the year, most of the class were on reading levels (something that wasn't usually seen at our school!) and were spelling at an age appropriate level!

This has been so successful with our kids, and I know there are other synthetic phonics programs out there, I wonder what other teachers use....