Letterland

[buds]

Letterland was designed by Lyn Wendon to initially rescue the special

needs children who had failed to respond to all other conventional
methods. These children's successes led teachers to think of using
Letterland in the classrooms with their 6-7 year olds to preclude
failure of the reading process rather than to cure it.

Then, the 5 year olds wanted to be involved in Letterland too.
Clearly they had no difficulty in picking up on its lore in receptive
classes. Pre-schoolers soon joined in as well, at home and in nurseries,
and so now Letterland is widespread as a very special way into print for
all children.

With the complexities of written English, with its many rules and even
more exceptions, Letterland on one level... in a child-friendly way will
first be perceived as simply fun, but beneath the surface, there is actually
a very structured and systematic course for developing listening and
speaking skills, phonemic awareness, whole-word recognition, reading
for meaning and also encourage early creative writing.


http://www.postimage.org/


Letterland's learning vehicle is in the manner of telling of stories. There
is this discovery that all the letter sounds can be found simply by starting
to pronounce the character names and further strengthened by its letter
shape. Letterland introduces story-like instruction which provides children
with a special initiative at an early stage, where memorable analogies
allows children to readily understand.


http://www.postimage.org/


There are plenty of opportunities for cross-curricular curriculum with the
use of Letterland in the classroom, like in art and craft... plus Science
and Technology.

As soon as the child knows his alphabets, the letter sounds are easy to
learn, as they are called by their Letterland characters or names. ie.
annie apple, bouncy ben, clever cat, (etc)


http://www.postimage.org/


Since every letter has an unambiguous front and back, all words
describing letter positions and orientation are in a sequence from
the start.


http://www.postimage.org/


Technical phrases are also avoided where possible via more child-friendly
phrases like the 'vowel man'. By exploring illustrations together in search
of objects beginning with the feature Letterland's character sound,
children develop letter shape and its corresponding sound link in their
minds. The children may even have Letterland artwork and picture-coded
activities which children can relate to while learning the sounds.


The Letterland curriculum even includes videos and audio cds of
Handwriting Songs, Action Songs and Alphabet songs that my
kiddies thoroughly enjoyed!


http://www.postimage.org/


Letterland in my opinion is a fun way especially for young children
who are just about to begin their journey to exposure to phonemic
awareness... The stories further ahead tho, with digraphs and all
are a little draggy but offers reading practices and comprehension
skills.

[schellen]

:goodpost:


My DD learned phonics through Letterland. I actually still prefer this to other methods as back then (when she was still a baby), there weren't many to choose from and this was attractive as it has cards, stories, action songs and rhymes. I like it that each alphabet has a personality and a back story. Makes learning phonics so much more fun.

Compared to what we have flooding the market now, Letterland, IMO, is still affordable and value for money.

[buds]

You're right schellen.. Back then, Letterland was the one Phonics programme

that could easily capture a child's attention through the vast stories of each
character in Letterland. I personally love the songs and did them with my
girls almost every day. The handwriting songs are super handy in helping
children with proper letter tracing > top to bottom... left to right...

Though i was into Montessori throughout the years, i always believed in
new ideas and opening up to them. I adopt the lifelong learning concept
in life. The things we can still learn at whatever age, is endless! So, i
went for the course to equip myself with knowledge to teach Phonics
in another methodology and boy it was an eye opener.

I started this thread to help parents who are undecided in a Phonics
methodology to have an idea of how the teachings are done for
Letterland. I have recently responded in another thread that there
can be no comparison done between any two Phonics styles as each
and every style has its strengths and values.

I'm always with an open mind that as parents we can get positive inputs
from many sources and put it to good practice and use for our children...
based on our children's learning style, temperament and leaning interest.
There is NO one ultimate way to teaching reading to young children. I
used to catch on with the reading concept only by sight reading using
readers and fairy tale ladybird books that my mum bought and read to
me daily without fail and as many times as she could spare..

But as for teaching during working hours, i only do Montessori lah...

I'll put up another sharing on the Montessori Method of teaching as well
so parents can make comparisons between methods and gauge which
method will interest their children more..

[RRMummy]

Hi buds, thanks for the great overview. As you know, my gals are still exposed to Letterland in their CC.


I was not aware that they have Handwriting Songs. Very interesting... May I know where I could get the CD in your picture? And the $ if you still remember would also be helpful!

Thanks much! :celebrate:

[buds]

You’re welcome RRMummy!

Where got great overview…
Only a brief introduction oni…

Ooh! They have a lotta songs.
If your girls’ childcare adopts
Letterland Phonics then they
should carry Letterland products
or else they’re able to get all the
original Letterland merchandise,
from their usual supplier…

Letterland Phonics materials
aren’t exactly cheap, but if one
cares for materials as careful as
i do… materials live a long blessed
life. I think more than SGD $15.00
but less than SGD $20.00 thereabouts…

[Coco]

Hi Buds


Able to share where you took up the LetterLand course.
I have been looking around and am unable to know where I can pick up this.Thanks.

Btw, are you home-based? I mean do you teach letterland/montessori?

Rgds,
Coco

[RRMummy]

buds:

Ooh! They have a lotta songs.

If your girls' childcare adopts
Letterland Phonics then they
should carry Letterland products
or else they're able to get all the
original Letterland merchandise,
from their usual supplier..

Thanks buds I'll check with their CC hopefully they can let me listen to 1 or 2 songs before I decide..

[buds]

Trust me. The songs are gooood...

Hope you will be able to order thru the centre.

[buds]

Coco:

Hi Buds


Able to share where you took up the LetterLand course.
I have been looking around and am unable to know where I can pick up this.Thanks.

Btw, are you home-based? I mean do you teach letterland/montessori?

Rgds,
Coco

Heyya Coco,

I took it up at YWCA i think. Location is based on rental of premise lah.
Not a fixed place. I took it when i was still in the industry back then so
many years ago. If i'm not mistaken, it was offered via fax to pre-school
centres/teachers then... so i went to take it up.

Home based as in.... do you mean to inquire whether i teach parents and
whether i teach kiddies, is that right? Hehee..

[foreverj]

hi buds, ya, would also like to know if u are teaching in a school now or conducting your own classes? hehe, if u open montessori class sure a lot of parents sign up!! :lol:


my dd's cc also uses letterland too so she'll come back singing \"Annie Apple she says \"a\", she says \"a, she says \"a\",Annie Apple she says \"a\" she belongs to Mr A so cute :love: