Amari (3) has fun with Speech Sound Play! 

We use Speech Sound Play before starting phonics because speech sounds are what the alphabetic code represents. Graphemes are letters, or groups of letters, used to represent the individual speech sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.
 

Speech sounds are therefore central to both reading and spelling. When reading, children identify the graphemes in a written word, retrieve the speech sounds they represent and blend those sounds to say the word. When spelling, they work in the other direction: they say the word, identify the speech sounds they can hear and select graphemes to represent those sounds.

Before children are asked to make these connections with letters, we want them to become aware of the speech sounds in the words they already know and use. Through Speech Sound Play, children listen to spoken words, isolate individual speech sounds, blend sounds together and segment words into their smallest sound units. They are developing phonemic awareness.

The Speech Sound Monsters® (aka Phonemies®) make these otherwise invisible speech sounds visible. Children can play with and manipulate the sounds without needing to know which letters represent them yet.

For some children, this phonemic awareness develops easily, as you can see below. But when we screen for dyslexia risk using Dys-Code®, these are some of the skills we want to look at from age three. If a child is finding it difficult to notice, isolate, blend or segment the speech sounds in spoken words, we can give them more Speech Sound Play before formal phonics begins.

Then, when systematic, self-paced phonics starts, the letters have a purpose: they are pictures of the speech sounds the child has already been exploring. Children begin learning which graphemes represent those sounds in written words.

The relationship works in both directions:

Reading: graphemes → speech sounds → spoken word

Spelling: spoken word → speech sounds → graphemes

The aim is to identify children who need additional support early and give them the Speech Sound Play they need, so that when they start being taught phonics, they are better prepared to use the alphabetic code in both directions: from print to speech for reading and from speech to print for spelling. 

We are immunising them against illiteracy.

Miss Emma
Emma Hartnell-Baker MEd SEN
Advocate for Self-Paced Orthographic Learning