If you have a child who has begun school or you are a NQT charged with a Junior Infant class then this is for you! Nothing raises more questions and queries than phonics in Term 1!! Parents are, quite rightly, anxious/motivated to support phonics learning. The major stumbling block seems to be pronunciation. Many of you did not learn to read through a “phonics” method and feel a little lost. Have no fear, your new best friend is here…

I wanted to share a fabulous website with you for alphabet names and phonics. I used this site everyday when teaching Junior Infants. Starfall.com is simply an amazing and free phonics resource that should be part of your repertoire! If are a parent who is unsure of phonetic sounds then you can click and play too. Try and keep a sound grouping ahead of your child so that you can support him/her.

I love that Starfall.com puts you in control. You can decide what letter to practice from A-Z. This is particularly useful as many phonics schemes, including Jolly Phonics, introduce phonetic sounds in a non-alphabetical order. Jolly Phonics introduces, for example, s a t i p n as the first group of letter.

For those of you following Jolly Phonics the image below shows the order of introduction. Click here for a link the the Jolly Phonics website for further information.

Starfall.com is very kid friendly as it is super easy to navigate and use.You child needs to click on anything that “sparkles”. Your child will then hear the phonetic sound that the letter makes. Don’t forget to click on the image presented too. Starfall.com has games at the end of some of the letter segments. I really, really wish that they had games for each letter. Perhaps Starfall.com is  listening and will make my dreams come true

For those of you new to teaching Infants or parent’s of Junior Infants this website is sure to be invaluable as the year progresses! Click here to play and learn with Starfall.com

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh 🙂