Jolly Phonics!
As part of a Teacher’s Workshop we participated in the training for the Jolly Phonics Program. Guiding Light Academy welcomed Susan Whittaker from Jolly Reading to train the entire staff on the Jolly Phonics methodology. Susan discussed the benefits of Jolly Phonics over a traditional phonics program and taught us how to incorporate it into our classrooms.
During the past few weeks, the JK/SK students have been learning their letter sounds through the Jolly Phonics Program. They are learning a new song for each letter of the alphabet. With each song they learn an action that corresponds with each letter-sound. This is helpful in remembering the phonetic sound for each letter. For example:
Letter a sound
(sung to the tune of “skip to my lou”)
a, a ants on my arm,
a, a ants on my arm,
a, a ants on my arm
they’re causing me alarm, “aaah”
Practicing each action, students begin to remember each letter-sound. Students practice the letter-sounds through various activities such as letter-sound colouring sheets with sound characters, play dough alphabet card activities, sand writing, writing letters in the air and blending sounds to begin simple words. Students have fun singing these songs and are always eager to learn what the next sound will be.
-Miss Nunez