Recommended Age: 4 years and onwards
Level of Parent Involvement: Medium, the adult must facilitate the initial exercise, once the child has been shown they may repeat the activity independently with low supervision and guidance
Prerequisites
- The child must have had many experiences with sound games such as I SPY
- The child must be able to identify the beginning sound in words
- The child must have a repertoire of sounds they have memorized through work with the sandpaper letters (at least 6)
Materials
- Post it notes
- A writing pencil
Preparation
- None
Steps
- Invite the child, letting them know that you are going to be playing a game with them
- Bring the post it notes and the writing pencil to the child’s table
- Invite the child to sit down, sit to the right of the child
- Take the writing pencil and write a letter on one of the post it notes, for example ‘c’
- Ask the child “do you remember this sound?” (write only letters which have been presented to the child in the form of 3 period lessons with the sand paper letters)
- The child should identify the sound (not the name of the letter)
- Let the child know that they are going to go searching around their environment for objects which begin with ‘c’
- Go for a walk with the child, place the post it note with the ‘c’ written on it on the couch, then say to the child, “does couch start with c?”
- Now say to the child “lets see what else we can find that starts with c”
- Go back to the table and write another ‘c’ on a post it note, or invite the child to write
- Again, walk with the child and find something else in the environment which starts with ‘c’ for example a cupboard, a cup, a coaster etc
- Continue making post it notes with ‘c’ and labelling items in the home environment which start with ‘c’
- When all objects have been labelled or the child loses interest in ‘c’, say to the child “lets choose another sound”
- Write on a post it note another sound which the child knows, leave the child to work independently labelling and writing post it notes with that sound
- Leave the child to work independently telling them to come and let you know when they have finished labelling and are ready for another sound
- Repeat as many times as the child’s interest is maintained or until the child has exhausted all sounds they know
- When finished, have the child collect all post it notes, grouping together the ones which are the same
- Let the child know where they may keep them for future work
Variations
- The child may write the sound on a piece of paper then draw the objects
- If the child can write they may write the names of the objects beginning with the sounds (write labels for the child to copy if needed)
