A supplement to progression in phonics (cards) 1-3 - PGCE

Card 3
Progression in phonics: Step 1
Distinguish one sound from another
Suggested activities
Listening lists/walks
This is a listening activity that can take place in lots of different areas
inside and outside the setting – in the kitchen, on visits, in the
garden, etc.
Invite the children to show you how good they are at listening and
talk about why listening is important.
When you listen it helps you to hear birds sing, what your friends
are saying and to remember things for next time. It helps you to
enjoy music and to know who is talking when you answer the phone.
It helps you to understand friends who are just learning English.
Remind the children about the things that good listeners do (e.g.
keep quite still, keep quiet, have eyes and ears ready). Then
encourage them to listen to the sounds around them. Talk about the
different sounds they can hear. Make a list of things heard as words,
simple pictures or tape recordings. Talk about why lists are useful
to help us remember things.
‘After we had been on our walk, we had fun trying to
recreate the sounds with our voices. Gary made a really good
motorbike sound.’
Guess who
Remind children about being good listeners, then play a hiding game
where children use their voices to say an agreed sound or phrase,
e.g. ‘Good morning everyone.’
Can they guess whose voice it is?
Talk together about what clues they used to help them guess.
‘We found this activity was best played in a small group so that
everyone had a go, they didn’t have to wait too long for their turn
and they didn’t have too many possibilities to choose from.’
Guess the sound
Remind the children about being good listeners. Organise several
different sound sources behind a screen, e.g. water being poured,
splashed or shaken in a bottle.
Ask the children to guess what they think is making the sound. Talk
about the sounds, e.g. loud, quiet, long or short.
You could use musical instruments instead of found sound sources.
‘We used recordings we had made on one of our listening walks
(see listening lists) to see if children could remember and
recognise the different sounds.’
Let me hear
your …voice
Encourage the children to experiment with
their voices by singing:
‘Let me hear your singing voice – hello hello’
The children repeat ‘hello hello’ with the voice that has
been requested.
Then try:
Let me hear your inside/outside/whispering/shouting/
growling voice, etc.
‘We talked about how useful and important it was to use different
voices at different times and how we can sometimes tell what
sort of mood people are in by listening to their voices and
looking at their faces. We had fun trying out a few together –
angry sad, shy, etc.’
Give me a sound
Encourage the children to experiment with different sounds that they
can make with their voices.
Can they make their voice …?
• go down a slide whee
• buzz like a bee
zzzzz
• hiss like a snake ssssss
• relax into a chair aaah
• sound surprised ooo
Encourage children to come up with other ideas.
Show them how they can use their voices to put sound effects to a
story. Most children’s stories lend themselves to sound effects, e.g.
Mr Gumpy’s outing – animal noises, doors creaking and banging, etc.
‘Children enjoyed putting the sound effects to the story “A Dark
Dark Tale”, especially the creaking sounds going up the stairs.’
Me then you
In small group time, practise clapping loudly, softly, quickly, and slowly.
Introduce the idea of clapping/tapping patterns, e.g. three short
sounds followed by two short sounds. Talk about the pattern as you
are clapping/ tapping it. Encourage the children to repeat or echo
the pattern.
‘I often use instruments for this activity. I use a tambourine and
another tambourine is passed around the circle for each child in turn
to try to echo my pattern. We talk about the patterns to reinforce
the language.’