Yolanda Programme part 2

It has been a few months since I have attended the Yolanda Soryl phonics programme. Since the attendance of this course, I have changed my practice hugely, and I can see the progress that the children have been making since I started the phonics.

I have started off with the Stage 2 phonics. I really wanted to make sure that what I present to the children is as close as what Yolanda did, so I watched her videos and wrote down the important things that she said throughout the Stage 2 session. I printed this out so that I can always read this if I get lost while I was teaching. As I taught a sound everyday for over 2 weeks, I was feeling more comfortable and often I did not need the paper to guide me through. The children also became really good at managing themselves with the whiteboards and pens and just the process of the phonics sessions.
Those children who became very confident at Stage 2 and acquired most of the sounds have moved on to Stage 3 which was quite a short stage. I am currently doing the second group of Stage 3 as I felt that some children were not so confident at this stage and learning about the first and last sounds are quite hard to develop to understand.

Some of the children have moved onto Stage 4 which is where children learn to hear the middle sounds of the words. I really enjoy teaching Stage 4 as it gets more challenging and you can really see who is able to hear the middle sounds and who might have a hard time. I have a small group working through Stage 4 at the moment and is going really well. Writing a silly sentence in the end can get a bit hard for some children but I am able to take time with those children and support them.

For the past several weeks, once a week, I am teaching Stage 5 . This is for children who can hear most of the sounds in words and working on the mechanics of the spelling. I have children from the new entrants to Year 1 classes who are able to do this and this has been really fun working with various children who are really capable and enjoy that challenge.