Children require knowledge of the alphabet in order to learn to read, spell and write. Alphabet sound knowledge is the key to early literacy learning, rather than letter naming. For example:

• In order to read the word ‘dog’ a child must recognise each letter symbol and convert each symbol into the correct sound ‘d’, ‘oh’, ‘g’ and then the child must blend the sounds together (phonemic blending ability).
• In order to spell the basic word ‘cup’ a child must first ‘sound-out’ (or phonemically segment) ‘c’, ‘u’, ‘p’ and then the child must recall and apply in the correct order the alphabet symbols.

As these examples illustrate, alphabetic letter naming does not help a child to blend nor segment the sounds in words. It is their knowledge of the alphabet sounds which allows them to read and spell the words. For this reason, Alphabet sound charts contain bright and attractive charts that represent the alphabet sounds and the mouth position that produces the sound for early literacy learners.

Within this resource, designed by Speech Pathologists for teachers and parents, a multi-sensory approach to teaching the alphabetic letter sounds has been adopted:

• Children see what mouth looks like when producing the alphabet sound (via the visual representation of the mouth on each chart).
• Children kinaesthetically feel what their mouth is doing when they produce the alphabet sounds.
• Children also visually connect a core picture/word with the alphabet sound (e.g. ‘mix’, ‘tiger’ and ‘snake’).
• From an auditory (and phonemic awareness) perspective children identify the initial sound in simple target words (e.g. tiger starts with a ‘t’).

The recommended order of presentation

• Group 1: s, p, n, i, a, t (cards with a yellow border)
• Group 2: m, r, h, e, d, c (cards with a blue border)
• Group 3: f, l, g, o, u b (cards with a green border)
• Group 4: w, j, v, k, z, y, q, x (cards with a red border)

Includes:

• 26 x A4 colour cards
• General information card

This publication is mentioned within the ‘Whole School Literacy Strategy‘ booklet on page 11.

Other phonic posters, available in print or as eBooks, in this series:

• Phonic Charts – Stage 1
• Phonic Charts – Stage 2
• Phonic Charts – Stage 3
• Phonic Charts – Stage 4