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Sounds & Words

V excited as I have a book coming out in April, with Lynn Erler. Lynn is the researcher at Oxford Uni who started the whole 'Phonics Revolution' in primary languages, with the research she did, especially into beginning learners' reading skills in French.

I joined forces with Lynn years ago when I read her research and developed some classroom activities for teaching phonics. The first was the Phoneme-Grapheme Running Game (devised back in 2004), closely followed by my 'Little Pots of Phonics", 'Phoneme Islands' and the 'Physical Venn Diagram'. Many of you will have seen these or even played them at the CILT Primary Languages Show in the past. They have been much copied over the years and have appeared in other people's talks but they are finally being published, thanks to the CfBT (and CILT). The book has lots of new ideas for classroom activities (such as 'Grapheme Hop', shown at this year's PLS) but the most important element is that it is a systematic approach to developing phonics skills, not just a collection of activities.

There's a CD with dozens and dozens of resources for teachers in 3 languages - French, German and Spanish.

Look out for it in the second half of April but I'll post again when it's out.

Tags: phonics

Comment by Mark Purves on April 1, 2012 at 22:40: Sounds v interesting Julie! Well done.

Comment by Julie Prince on April 2, 2012 at 9:07: Thanks, Mark. I'll post on my blog when it is published.

Comment by Helen on April 17, 2012 at 20:45: Sounds perfect! Will keep an eye out for it!

Well done Julie

Comment by Julie Prince on April 18, 2012 at 12:57: Hi Helen

Good to hear from you. I think it will be worth your while havign a look at this because, unlike most phonics books, it's not just French, but includes Spanish and German too and, if I remember correctly from when we met. I think you're a Spanish specialist.

Many people assume that, because Spanish is a transparent language, phonics teaching isn't necessary but, from my experience, it is very much needed. All those letter-sound correspondences that are different from English!

I hope it will be useful.

Comment by Helen on April 18, 2012 at 13:43: I am sure it will be. Please keep me posted! Yes I am a Spanish specialist- what a memory!

Comment by Jan Lewandowski on April 19, 2012 at 21:00: Hi Julie

How are you doing now back in Blighty? Hope the publication is on schedule- things aren't what they were at CILT! What are you up to nowadays?

Catch up soon I hope.

Jan