As I was concerned that 4 year old son was not learning phonics at school, I tried to teach him the concept at home. After trying hard for two consecutive days, I sat back and gave the whole exercise a concentrated thought. With his lack of interest in anything that involves sitting and listening, I knew I had to make the exercise more interesting for him.
With inputs from my husband, I came up with the ‘Things to Phonics’ activity. I chose the big size letters from his play mat like L, H, E, F, T, A, I, P , which he has been taught in his school and laid them on the floor. I then collected a set of household objects that start from these letters like ladder, hat, hanger, egg, flower, tomato, apple, ink pad, pen, pencil and heaped them on the side. I asked my son to pick up one thing at a time, say its name aloud, identify the first sound of the name and then match it to the corresponding letter while I count from 1 to 10.
It of course took him a while to understand the sound of the letters and he still gets confused whether the first sound of ‘HANGER” is H or A…. but he sure enjoys playing this game. To make it more competitive for my boy, I might actually turn this into a Points game where he will score a point if he gets it right within the count of 10, else I score a point!
– Mother of a 4 year old boy