Teaching Phonics - Essential Letters and Sounds

At QPIA we have invested in ‘Essential Letters and Sounds’ as our Phonics programme.

Essential Letters and Sounds is a systematic and engaging programme designed to help children develop the knowledge and skills they need to become confident, fluent readers and writers. The programme uses a carefully structured progression for phonics teaching, with books closely matched to the phonics knowledge being taught at each stage. ELS ensures that every child is reading and taking home texts that best match their current phonics knowledge and reading ability. We will change the ELS linked book weekly, with the expectation that it will be read and re read several times at home during the week.

We also work to develop a love of reading in each child, and have a large selection of ‘Love to Read’ books available for children to borrow. These are intended to be shared as they are chosen purely for interest, and may contain vocabulary beyond that which your child currently knows. These books play an important role in developing vocabulary, comprehension and a love of reading.

ELS has a super helpful website and you can access it by clicking here

If you would like any more information about Essential Letters and Sounds, please contact the school office and they will forward your query on to the appropriate member of senior staff team for response.

Kinetic Letters

The Kinetic Letters program is commenced in EYFS and is used throughout the school.  Handwriting sessions are taught to the whole class, with differentiated targets where needed. Additional handwriting and fine and gross motor skills interventions may take place for some children. 

The underlying principles of Kinetic Letters

• Building physical strength underpins handwriting, as poor writing may be due to poor strength.
• Children are not expected to do anything before they are developmentally ready for it.
• The different components of writing are mastered individually before being used in combination.
• Letters are learnt as movements not as visual shapes and movement remains central to developing flow and accuracy.
• When handwriting is automatic, the brain can concentrate on content.
• Reading and writing are a reciprocal process and so strengthening handwriting skills will support reading and writing development as a whole.

As part of this we have been doing lots of activities that will make our bodies stronger for writing. You could try some of these activities at home as well!

• We do some of our writing lying on our tummies, resting on our elbows with our legs out straight; we call this our lying lizard position.
• You can do lots of climbing on apparatus to make children's shoulders strong. You could do this by going on the monkey bars at the park. We are also becoming experts at the ‘plank’ position and floor and chair push ups.
• To make our ‘three friends’ (thumb and first two fingers on our writing hand) strong we have been doing lots of Funky Finger activities; pinching and squeezing activities using rubber bands, pegs, play dough, beads, tweezers and threading activities.

Once the children learn to form the letters, they hear stories about Bounce (brave monkey) and Skip (scared monkey) who help them to know where to start their letters. We use special whiteboards to give the children a prompt to remember this.

Ask your child about Bounce and Skip to find out more!

What are the Kinetic Letter Families?

Each of the families are introduced to the children through stories. The children are also introduced to Bounce and Skip the monkeys when reading these stories. 

The Jumper Family Story

Bounce and Skip spend all day jumping down - bump  from the branches of their tree!

Bounce jumps from the high branch and makes the letter trail for h and b.

Skip jumps from the low branch and makes the letter trail for r, n, m and p.

But....when Skip jumps down to make p, he gets a surprise! Instead of going bump, he falls on down into a pit that has a spider!

He jumps back up, pushing the cobwebs off to make the p letter trail!

The Abracadabra Family Story

Scared monkey Skip finds a magician who waves his wand and shouts 'Abracadabra' and makes lots of different letters appear under the lower branch of the tree.

The magician teaches Skip the magic trick. He shows him that for each of the letters, he can pull around to write c, shout 'Abracadabra' and then magic it into o, a, d, g, q or s.

Skip makes all the letters start from his branch.

The Window Cleaner Family Story

The Monkeys find themselves in a city standing by a shop window!  They watch two window cleaners making marks as they dry the windows.  The pull the squeegees down the windows and flick the water off at the bottom!

The window cleaners let the Brave Monkey climb the ladder, pull the squeegee down the window, bump the ground and flick the water off!  This makes a l  and the t.

Scared Monkey is nervous about climbing the ladder so he stays on the ground and makes an i and u.

The Slider Family Story

One exciting day the magician waves his wand and takes Brave Monkey and Scared Monkey to see the snow!

Skip the Scared Monkey finds a snowy mountain slope and says 'I can slide down and slide up'. When he does this, he can make the letters v, w, x and z.

Bounce the Brave Monkey goes to help the baby penguins who have lost their beaks! The penguins stand in line whilst the monkey fixes them back on and this makes the k!

The Special Squirter Story

A big storm has flooded the pit under the monkeys' tree. The mole rats are upset, as this is where they live. 

First Skip rescues the fish that have been washed into the pit. Next he asks the elephant to help by sucking the water up into his trunk and squirting it back into the river.

Skip helps by holding the trunk and squirting it under his branch, leaving a letter trail of water behind in the air!

The Fisher Family Story

One day there is a huge storm in the jungle which makes the river flood the spider's pit. Bounce the Brave Monkey and Skip the Scared Monkey sit in their tree and watch the fish swim around in the pit. Skip discovers that if he sits on his branch and dangles his tail in the water, he can pull his tail around to catch the fish!

How Can I Find Out More About Kinetic Letters?

If you want to know more about Kinetic Letters, please CLICK HERE to access their website