Initial Phoneme Songs

New 2nd Edition for 2006 with SmartBoard Software

Click on the image on the left to download a sample Smart Notebook file. Save the file to your computer.

NB. The first screen of the Notebook file shows instructions for all pages, but only the Tracy and Thomas screen is shown as a sample

Take either a tennis ball or a droplet out of its bin and place it above a blue letter 't', and say the letter sound as it goes in place.
 
Click the button to listen to the audio track for Tracy and Thomas. Move your mouse off the button to stop listening.

This book of simple songs has been written to support the learning of letter sounds with young children.  

Singing songs helps us to think in units of sound, and then helps us to isolate smaller patterns and individual patterns from within the whole.  All the songs in this book have very simple melodic patterns, simple rhythmic structures, repeated letters and alliterative interest. These qualities help the children to anticipate and predict.  Music also exists within a rigid time frame and this, despite what one might think, is a major virtue.  The children have to make decisions both collectively and as individuals that happen exactly together.  The predictability of the musical structure enables the brain to process information so that this can happen.

 

  • The order and content of the songs in the book is based on the “Jolly Phonics” programme who also produce a book of poems and songs – “Jolly Jingles” which uses existing nursery rhyme tunes as a basis for the singing activities. 

 

ing And Talk is carefully written to make sure that the key letter is given  correct emphasis in the song and the words scan rhythmically.  Without this discipline using singing and music is not an effective literacy tool.

                 

 

5 or 10 minutes a day using this book will improve the phonological awareness skills of the pupils. Children will enjoy the wide variety of styles and rhymes of the songs, which are written with attention to a young child’s singing range and rhythmic abilities.

 

 

Copies of the Book, Audio CD and SmartBoard Software are available from The Music Service at a cost of £17.50.

 

John P. Verney