Jolly phonics?

Does/has anyone used Jolly phonics with their daycare children? Particularly 2.5yr olds? My newest challenge for my daughter is to work on Jolly Phonics. I have to modify it since she can't do the worksheets yet but we printed out the phonic pictures (s and a today) and then watched the song videos.

We spent about 5 minutes on it today and my daughter has memorized the songs and the phonic sounds for these 2 letters and a list of words that start with each letter.

I am wondering if anyone has done this already and has some tips on how to proceed. I'll do the letter a day they suggest. I am just debating whether I should just do all the sounds for now. Or if I should follow the standard first set of phonics (SATIPN) and try to get her blending the sounds to read words.

I am a bit at a loss. My daughter seems to like this method for the sounds but she also memorizes sight words quickly (Dad, mom, cat, dog, car, plane, bear etc).

I would love any suggestions. I am having trouble knowing which way to go as a lot of the material depends on the children being a few years older and able to trace letters and complete worksheets which I am not really looking for right now.

I've never tried Jolly phonics, but have enjoyed using Heidi songs and leapfrog DVD's.

Heidi songs: http://www.heidisongs.com/

a number of the Heidi songs are on youtube too.

I am a bit confused. Are you trying to get her to read before she's 3? That seems a bit ambitious. My advice is to let her watch Sesame Street. It's as good or better than preschool for learning phonics and numbers. I've also never heard of this phonics program.

edit; I read this post first. So you believe she may be gifted?

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Originally Posted by kindertime

I am a bit confused. Are you trying to get her to read before she's 3? That seems a bit ambitious. My advice is to let her watch Sesame Street. It's as good or better than preschool for learning phonics and numbers. I've also never heard of this phonics program.

edit; I read this post first. So you believe she may be gifted?

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Highly suspect it will turn out that way. She demands more letter sounds right now because I made the mistake of saying 's' says sssssssss the other day.

She demanded all the letter names months ago and learned them all from my putting the magnets on the fridge and naming them a few times (upper and lower case). Now she wants more. I am at a loss as to what to do with her. I really have little interest in her being overly gifted, as a school teacher I've seen the pros and cons of this and often the cons far out weigh the pros. But...she seriously demands and needs more. So I need to figure out how to meet that need for more knowledge with something that is useful and related to her current interests. This seemed like a good way to do it. Cute little graphics and songs and actions with the sounds.

I know it sounds wrong and I have my ECE it goes against everything I have every believed in raising young children. I only spend a few minutes here and there throughout the day with any type of learning lessons. My goals for her are free play and her being able to self entertain. She has an amazing ability to play make believe and go off for long periods playing with good old blocks and trains etc.

another fun one:

http://www.starfall.com/

Not sure what was wrong with me this morning. I apologise for being snarky.

You write in another thread that you bring the girls to the grocery store from time to time. That's great. Can you make that a learning opportunity? There are a million letters and words and numbers in a store.

If you make a list, include her in the planning. Also, collect labels and carton pictures of the foods you intend to buy. Bring them to the store and when you are in the specific aisle where the food is, give her the label. So, for example, in the soup aisle, give her the label from the can of tomato soup. She has to find the exact one to match the label. Or, for the cereal, cut out just the word Cheerios from an old box, and have her find that exact kind. Depending on her interest and your trust that she won't pull everything off the shelf, of course! I have always wanted to do this but can't bring 6 dck to the store to try it.

I think what you are doing for her is great!! I know exactly how you feel. My son had always been obsessed with letters and numbers and could read Gr 3 readers by the time he started jk at age 4yrs. We have video of him at his 3rd birthday party reading his cards word for word and not caring much for the gift itself. When he started jk it seemed to be more of a deterrent as he went to French Immersion and the teachers didn't know what to do with him. I don't think it's at all a bad thing to encourage what interests your child and I feel for you knowing you must be alone a lot of the time in this common ability your daughter has amongst her peers. My son is otherwise socialized just fine and seems to be fitting in more as school progressed.
Never heard of that phonics program but it sounds great. The letter sounds are key to cracking the language. My son still loves all the letter/number/counting videos for kids on YouTube.

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Originally Posted by kindertime

Not sure what was wrong with me this morning. I apologise for being snarky.

You write in another thread that you bring the girls to the grocery store from time to time. That's great. Can you make that a learning opportunity? There are a million letters and words and numbers in a store.

If you make a list, include her in the planning. Also, collect labels and carton pictures of the foods you intend to buy. Bring them to the store and when you are in the specific aisle where the food is, give her the label. So, for example, in the soup aisle, give her the label from the can of tomato soup. She has to find the exact one to match the label. Or, for the cereal, cut out just the word Cheerios from an old box, and have her find that exact kind. Depending on her interest and your trust that she won't pull everything off the shelf, of course! I have always wanted to do this but can't bring 6 dck to the store to try it.

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Oh wow! that sounds like a great outing! I will try that with just my daughter on Fridays when I have just her. She would love looking for specific labels. I don`t have much trust in her (hence why trying with just her). As of now I have a pretty strict she goes in cart and gets buckled in policy as she abuses the ability to be out of the cart and makes the trip sooooo much longer. She is also prone to removing cans (not to remove them) but to count them, line them up and replace them in precise order (soooo time consuming). When my husband comes shopping with us (not that often) we allow her out and he lets her do her thing while I shop. When it is just her and I she knows not to expect such fun. BUT, she is older now and she would LOVE being in charge of finding items and adding a certain number from her list etc. Would a good, meaningful challenge for her.

Thanks for the idea.

As for your comment this morning, no worries. It was pretty much precisely what I would be thinking and saying myself. This child has flipped my way of thinking about young children completely upside down. She just NEEDS to be doing things that kids this age should not usually be subjected to (learning letter sounds etc). I do my best to keep it all fun and games and very short mini lessons. She gets bored so easily though so I constantly need to find new content and new delivery styles. She got bored with calendar time (which I had to start because she was obsessed with days of the week). She got bored with adding a number a day so now I do it once a week. I mix up all 7 numbers and leave her to put them in order in the correct squares.

After mastering the upper case letters I decided to buy the lowercase magnets. She knew 3/4 of them before I had told her the names of them. She saw them on the leap frog show (we assume that is where she learned them). She knows the letters out of order, upside down and in different fonts. She LOVES the fact that she can turn and "H" to make an "I" or the W to a M and n to u. She is obsessed with time. So we had to get her a digital clock now everything is at 7:45 it is lights out, at 7:48 dad leaves the room etc. But she is now fascinated that the digital clocks makes numbers look a bit different so the 7 looks like an upside L and the 3 looks like a backwards E and the 4 is an upside down h.

Anyways. As smart as she is seemingly becoming and as fast as she learns. She struggles with 'life' not bowing down to her. She has emotions bigger than anyone can handle (let alone a 2yr old) and she is fiercely determined, strong willed and loud. So...I spend all my energy and time trying to not only keep her engaged and feeding her need for knowledge but to try and prevent melt downs, lesson frustrations and trying to teach her the essential survival skills she will need for school. I don't want to ignore her need/want to learn but I desperately need to figure out how to keep her social, happy with others and functional in group settings. I worry about her become socially isolated because she is just so different.

Sorry for the ramble! I am feeling a little bit more lost each day as she advances faster than I am ready for.

Wow. After reading about her love of the days of the week and time, I am starting to think my kid is related to her. Lmao!! I don't know if you are planning a French route for her but once NY kid could master the English language we taught him counting and ABC's in French. As well as the planets and their order and addition. Around age 4 he was skip counting. Counting by 2s, 3s, anything up to skip counting by 19s. Totally memorized. It was always because he would master something and then more on to the next 'challenge'.
The grocery store activity sounds great and I applaud you for wanting to keep on top of her giftedness!

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Originally Posted by 3rdtimesacharm

Wow. After reading about her love of the days of the week and time, I am starting to think my kid is related to her. Lmao!! I don't know if you are planning a French route for her but once NY kid could master the English language we taught him counting and ABC's in French. As well as the planets and their order and addition. Around age 4 he was skip counting. Counting by 2s, 3s, anything up to skip counting by 19s. Totally memorized. It was always because he would master something and then more on to the next 'challenge'.
The grocery store activity sounds great and I applaud you for wanting to keep on top of her giftedness!

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I would assume the French route since we are in Ottawa and it just makes sense. I am not too keen on the French system as I can't help but feel they get less in depth content because of the language difference. But, having taught in the system I am weary of keeping her in English as they have more special needs and behavior kids (which make it hard for teachers to meet everyone's needs).

I am home with her until she starts school. We are thinking that when she starts I will return to work (supply teaching for who knows how long before full time) but that my income will go to putting her in private school for JK and SK so she can have a much smaller class where they can hopefully 'manage' her in a positive manner.

I hadn't thought of moving on to the French letters and numbers etc. Will keep that in mind as a new challenge. Your son sounds very similar...how was he behavior/personality wise? I think we have a double whammy with being smart and being so...'spirited'. My husband travels every other week for work. He is gone this week (just 4 days) but on weeks like this I count the minutes until bed time because it is soooooo exhausting to stay on top of everything. She is an amazing, lovable kid and she self entertains but it is so much time and effort to keep her stimulated while preventing melt downs and navigating her world. I have chips and dip waiting for me once she is in bed :-)

We have god friends from church that babysit her on occasion. They are a retired principal and teacher. Last they had her they handed her back saying "we'd hate to be her kindergarten teacher". She would watch them do something, master it and refuse any help with it as she repeated over and over. They sat me down and said that we need to meet with her teacher before she starts and fill them in about her or she will be mistaken for a 'problem' child because she is bored and has no interest in repeating the daily lessons. I am a tad worried to say the least.

Haven't used the Jolly Phonics but somewhat familiar with it. Yes I would say it expects the child to have more skills than your child probably has now for doing all the parts - ie printing, cutting, etc.

The old way of teaching reading through phonics involved looking at word groups. If she picks up sight words quickly and knows the letter sounds she might enjoy that. You can then make games with sorting the words etc. There are sites on the computer with ideas for teaching word families - ie at - bat, cat, mat, rat, etc.