“Letters and sounds” are often listed together because as well as learning the letters, students also need to develop the alphabetic principle. Letter knowledge is often one of the earliest skills that students use in recognising and writing unfamiliar words. If they are learning to read the days of the week, one of the things that they can use to differentiate Monday from the other words, is the beginning letter – “it’s the one that starts with M”. Letters and sounds are both mentioned because students need to develop their letter knowledge so that when they move onto words, they already have the letters under their belt (Adams, 1990).
Hall and Williams (2000) list “letters and sounds” as one of the primary blocks that needs to be focused on in an emergent literacy program. It is essential that each student develops their knowledge of letters and sounds along the way to becoming conventionally literate. I do have to warn you in advance that this is going to be a long blog post – but I wanted to share lots of examples! Several of these emails have been about alphabet activities and resources – so I thought I’d do a post about my ideas as a starting point – and I hope lots more ideas get shared in the comments below. It is currently the summer break in Australia and I’ve had a few emails and messages from teachers who are spending time over the break getting ready for the next school year.