Primary Times - the definitive what’s on and where to go family guide of activities and events for children of primary school age. Things to do with your kids during the school holidays including arts and craft activities, music and theatre for children, parties, competitions, days out, and family attractions along with term time drama schools, dance classes, after school clubs and sports activities. Things to do at a place near you!
Building phonics and vocabulary games into home life to support school learning
Trying to spend quality family time together with the pressures of work and other commitments will always be a challenge for parents. It can often be the reason why they aren’t able to find enough time to fit in home learning with children to support work being done in school. However, with pressures mounting on the education system, parents are increasingly keener to help their children at home, but are sometimes unclear on the best methods to engage their children.
Phonics and vocabulary are significant areas of learning for children, providing them with vital skills that underpin their entire education. Whilst there are many apps available to help parents with supporting their children in this area, some may prefer to limit tech and device time. For those who don’t want to use apps, there are plenty of other games and methods that can be used to reinforce school learning.
Game on
Orchard Toys Match and Spell Game is a lovely way of using sound and letter tiles to form three and four letter words. The Learning Resources Sight Word Swat is also effective in helping to work on words that aren’t decodable using phonics.
It’s never too young to promote a love of reading and encouraging speech sound development. The Clickety Books range, from author and speech and language therapist Anne Ayre, is great for promoting early sound awareness. We have the Chatty Bat book and the matching puppet, which is a lot of fun. Another speech and language therapist, Nicola Lathey, recently published the Small Talk range of books which Max (my 11-month-old) loves to read with his big brother (Theo, 4).
Don’t forget to ask your child’s teacher what system they are using in class so that you can both work in the same manner at home and focus on the same sounds, to reinforce the learning in the classroom.
Timing is everything
Recognising when your child is in the mood for learning, or fitting learning in, can sometimes be a barrier to doing any activity at all. In general, the best times to work on phonics or literacy is in short bursts. It’s important that the time be quiet and focused, but it can also be ten minutes before dinner or five minutes after school. Keeping the learning fun and brief will keep the activity enjoyable for your child. Just this week, my son has been asking to play the phonics treasure hunt game we devised, so to get to the stage where they are requesting the learning activities is ideal.
When armed with the right tactics, there’s no reason why learning phonics and vocabulary at home can’t be fun and enjoyable for parents and children alike.
Rebecca Bright MBE is a language and speech therapist and founder of Therapy Box, an award-winning creator of innovative apps across education and healthcare.