News: Early Years Starter Package & Teeny Reading Seeds

News about new material, amended material and future planned material
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debbie
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Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:28 pm
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News: Early Years Starter Package & Teeny Reading Seeds

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We have great new developments regarding the content and presentation of the Early Years Starter Package (which is, in effect, a programme within the bigger Phonics International programme) and the Teeny Reading Seeds resources.

Early Years Starter Package:

We have added some key resources to the Early Years Starter Package which include the 'HEAR THE SOUNDS' resource (an audio-visual resource in every unit for Units 1 to 6), the 'PICTURE POSTERS' (which correspond with the 'HEAR THE SOUNDS' resource) and 'EXTRA SOUNDS BOOK ACTIVITY SHEETS WITH TEXTS' at the end of Unit 6 for teaching some alphabetic code ahead of time to address the statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check in England. The Early Years Starter Package is really a comprehensive programme in its own right, but it does not introduce as many spelling alternatives as the full Phonics International programme.

Teeny Reading Seeds:

We have designed and uploaded new teaching and learning resources and edited the original Teeny Reading Seeds resources to the extent that Teeny Reading Seeds is now a pre-systematic phonics programme in its own right.

Teeny Reading Seeds focuses on the Alphabet letter shapes (capital and lower case letters) and the first and main sounds that the letters are code for. These can be introduced in any order to link with topical themes such as 'Keeping Healthy' and 'People who help us' and also children's rhymes, songs, poetry and literature. Simple planning is provided to offer suggestions.

The thee core phonics skills and their sub-skills are modelled by supporting adults with no expectation of what littlies will learn or not. In other words, the knowledge and understanding about links between letter shapes and their sounds - and the phonics skills - are simply 'seeds being sown'.

We have made it clear that the approach taken within Teeny Reading Seeds is NOT a PRE-REQUISITE to starting a full, systematic synthetic phonics programme.

The Teeny Reading Seeds resources may be very helpful when used in a complementary way with a full systematic, synthetic phonics approach as there are so many resources illustrating the letter shapes and their formation.

This aspect of early learning is sometimes provided for weakly or inappropriately in early years settings (for example, visual teaching and learning aids are not plain enough, or explicit enough - and they may be presented as letters on butterflies dangling from ceilings rather than plain shapes presented in an orderly fashion on main display walls).

The new information booklets accompanying the Early Years Starter Package and the Teeny Reading Seeds programmes explain about the systematic synthetic phonics teaching principles.

They include reference to the Simple View of Reading diagram which is helpful for parents of littlies and early years teachers and providers alike.

The information booklets are provided online and as free pdf downloadables. Even if people do not go on to purchase the licence for the actual resources, the information within the booklets may be helpful to parents and early years providers.

The booklets also give a clear description of the resources within both the Early Years Starter Package and the Teeny Reading Seeds programme:

http://www.phonicsinternationalpreschoo ... et_TRS.pdf

http://www.phonicsinternationalpreschoo ... t_2013.pdf

We have now introduced an 'online licence system' of a modest payment for these programmes:

The 'licence' is 'yearly' and is currently £11 for either programme.

Please note that we are re-pricing our programmes moving forwards from November 2013.

We shall continue to have a different pricing system for 'individuals' who purchase the licences (such as parents, tutors and student-teachers) compared to 'institutions' (such as nurseries, schools, universities) in recognition of the different needs and circumstances.

We have now created a specific website aimed at the early years and pre-school age-range:

www.phonicsinternationalpreschool.com

The main Phonics International website has always provided so much information that it is often overwhelming to people. By creating separate websites for the Alphabetic Code Charts and the Debbie's handwriting resources - and now the early years resources - we have attempted to make the route to the various aspects of phonics and basic skills teaching easier to understand and locate.

We claimed from the outset of the launch of the Phonics International programme in 2007 that our work would continue to be a 'work in progress' and this is indeed the case.

We have really appreciated feedback from individuals (teachers, parents, tutors, students), and people representing their institutions, which has contributed to our own development. Please do continue to work with us by providing us with your feedback and suggestions.

Further progress includes the way that we have presented the 'webpages' for the Early Years Starter Package and the Teeny Reading Seeds programme. When you look at the information booklets, note the sections describing the resources and suggestions for using them. We have now included 'screenshots' to show examples of the resources themselves and indicated how many A4 sheets are provided for each resource.

We have presented the actual webpages of these early years bodies of work in the exact same format - that is, including the screenshots examples. Thus, we have provided greater clarity regarding what resources we provide and their potential use.

We hope that you find these online developments helpful. Thank you for your patience whilst we have been developing the various new websites. :D
Debbie Hepplewhite
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