What can I do at home to help?

When children listen to nursery rhymes or other poetry they learn to recognise both individual sounds and sound patterns.

Once they are able to clap to a beat they can begin to develop their awareness of the parts of words by clapping out syllables. As they listen to rhymes in songs and picture books stories they will become familiar with pairs of words such as hill/bill or take/lake which are similar in sound, but which have different meanings because of a slight sound difference.

• Rhyming words - When you are reading with your child, emphasise and recap the words in the sentence that rhyme/sound the same. Ask your child if they can listen carefully to hear the rhyming words. For example 'Im stick man, thats me and I want to get back to my family tree'. What word rhymed with me? You're right - me and tree. Practise then saying the 2 words together. 'Me and tree'.
• Play Rhyming 'cake-bake'. We have played this at school so the children will know how it works :) https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources/phase/1/cake-bake
• Sing action songs together whilst moving to the beat e.g. Head shoulders knees and Toes, Grand old Duke of York, Hop Little Bunnies etc.
• Alliteration games such as matching objects to a superhero. E.g. Terrific Tim likes objects starting with 't' - hunt for objects in the house starting with 't'. Or, explore tongue twisters together.