If there’s one thing I learnt in my new capacity as literacy coach, it is that it’s more pedagogically sound to impart kids the letter sounds instead of teaching them the alphabet song since we can encode words by blending letter sounds. Since I know that my fine colleagues at the primary school utilise Jolly Phonics to help low progress students level up in the Learning Support Program, I was motivated enough to download the Jolly Phonics app and use it with my toddler.
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I am using the free version but I certainly like what I see. There are 42 letter sounds in the Jolly Phonics programme. These sounds are divided into 7 groups - and I can only gain access to the first group. Nevertheless, I see how it employs a multi-sensory approach, which is not surprising when I consider that it is rooted in the Orton Gillingham approach. Each lesson begins with a story introducing the letter sound and involves the child tracing the letter as well as recognising certain words that have that particular letter sound. My boy readily traced the letter ‘S’. Through this, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he already knew the word ‘spider’. Thank you, Sparkletots teachers, for teaching him better than me! What I really liked was how each letter sound came with a catchy and infectious song, which made it easy for children to internalise it.
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The best part of it all? I completed the first lesson within 5 minutes - just before his bedtime. This fuss-free method won’t take too much energy out of my exhausted soul. And I won’t have to assuage any guilt about subjecting him to yet another source of screen time. I guess the only thing left to do is to periodically review the sounds with him so as to ensure that they stay entrenched and salient in his long-term memory.
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In all, I’m certainly impressed enough to be tempted to fork out the $15 to gain access to the paid version (aka all 42 letter sound lessons). This fired me up to want to shill my referral code for FaucetGamers: https://faucetgamers.com/?mref=741

How cool the narrative would be if I can claim that I buy something educational for my offspring out of my paltry crypto earnings, haha. #jollyphonics #jollyphonicsfun