Ways to help your Child at home
Ideas for how to help your child with phonics
Phase 2 single letter sounds order:
Set 1: s, a, t, p
Set 2: i, n, m, d
Set 3: g, o, c, k
Set 4: ck, e, u, r
Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
Phase 3 remaining single sounds and the double sounds (digraphs) order:
Set 6: j, v, w, x
Set 7: y, z, zz, qu
Consonant digraphs: ch, sh, th, ng
Vowel digraphs: ai, ee, or, oa, oo, ar, ou, oi, er, ue, ie
To practise these sounds at home, please click here for phase 2 and click here for phase 3.
(The Jolly Phonics approach offers a multi-sensory way of learning letter sounds.
There are actions and songs linked for each of the letter sounds).
Playing games at home
To practise phonics at home, please click on the links below:
This video supports parents with the correct pronunciation of phonics.
- Count anything – the number of apples in a bowl, stairs up to bed, penny coins in a purse, cuddly toys in the bedroom, the bottles of milk we had this week.
- Count on and count back, first in ones and then in tens, starting first from zero and then from any small number.
- Spot bus numbers or car numbers and find the smallest and largest of them.
- Estimate first then count how many pasta shapes there are in a jar, or biscuits in a box, or tea-bags left in the packet.
- Play versions of Snap or Pelmanism, where the two cards to be matched must have a total of 10, or a difference of 2, or any other small number.
- Make domino lines: for example, touching dots must have a total of 7.
- Play board games that involve counting, such as Ludo, but before you move take the dice number you roll from 10 (or 9 or 8).
- Count in twos starting from zero, then starting from one.
- Look out for odd and even numbers on the doors of houses.
- Learn by heart the two and the ten-times tables.
- Count on in tens, then hundreds, starting from any two-digit number, then back again.
- Spot bus numbers or car numbers, then add 10 or 100 to them (or subtract).
- Play Snakes and Ladders, using two dice instead of one, and predicting where you will land before you move – then play by starting at 100 and going backwards.
- Count to at least 50 in twos, threes, fours or fives, then back again.
- Spot odd number plates, or multiples of 5 or 10, or number plates with three digits with a total of 12.
- Play computer games that involve using numbers.
- Learn by heart the three, four and five times-tables.
- Play darts, or games of cards.
- Count to 10 in quarters, or to at least 100 in sixes, sevens, eights or nines, and back again.
- Learn by heart the six, seven, eight and nine times-tables.
- Spot car numbers that divide exactly by 6, 7, 8 or 9.
- Design and make your own board game involving numbers or money, then play it.
- Tip out a purse and count up what is in it.
- Choose the coins to pay with when out shopping.
- Look at sizes when buying shoes or clothes.
- Measure and compare lengths in centimetres using a tape measure or ruler: for example, books and magazines, furniture, shoes, packets, people…., first asking: ‘Which is the longest (or shortest)? then ‘How long is it?’ and then ‘How much longer (or shorter) is this than that?’
- Count out and weigh things ready for cooking.
- Read the time to the house, then the half hour, then the quarter hour on different clocks and watches – perhaps set an alarm clock to ring on the hour.
- Weigh objects in grams or kilograms on kitchen scales or bathroom scales, and compare weights.
- Work out how much milk your family drinks in a week, or how many slices of bread or pieces of fruit you eat.
- Reckon up the cost of a few items when at the supermarket: for example, the cost of three tins of beans at 39p each, or 2 packets of soap powder at £1:49.
- Work out how much money you and your friend need for bus fares, train tickets, to swim at the sports centre, for ice creams.
- Work out how long the television is on in the course of the week, and find out who in your family watches most television.
- Make a timetable for a family outing.
- Set a video recorder to record a programme, or the microwave to cook for a number of minutes.
- Plan what you would do if your family won £1,000,000 in the lottery.
- Play Monopoly.
- See what a short shopping bill would come to if you rounded each item to the nearest 10p – how close is it to the actual amount?
- Compare the prices of petrol at different garages or petrol stations.
- Work out catalogue prices if everything were half-price, or had 25% off.
- Plan the food and things to do for a birthday party, working to a budget.
- Compare the capacities of different cups and glasses, or saucepans and casserole dishes, estimating first then measuring in millilitres using a kitchen measuring jug.
- Cook something using a recipe in a recipe book.
- Research facts and figures such as the height of the tallest mountain or the tallest tree, the length of the longest river, how far a flea can jump, the weight of an elephant, the world record times for running the 100 metres and swimming 100 metres, the speed of the fastest train.
- Work out how many miles the car goes to a litre of petrol, or how much petrol the car uses in a week or month or year.
- On journeys, work out distances from home and distances still to be travelled then, when you arrive, your average speed for the whole journey.
- Do jigsaws and talk about which shapes fit together.
- Make patterns with ‘ink blots’ and talk about interesting features.
- Look out for examples of symmetry in your home and outdoors: for example, in buildings, in road signs, in gates of houses, in ornaments.
- Make shapes or patterns by folding and cutting paper, then talk about special features.
- Talk about shapes and patterns you can see around you in the house or outside: for example, different patterns of tiles on walls or floors.
- Look at graphs and charts in newspapers and talk about what they mean.
- If you have a home computer and a spreadsheet, learn how to add up a column of numbers.