Phonics

With several different ages and levels of children participating in this curriculum, I will refer to each age range by a certain name.

Robins:  These are our tiniest learners :)  They are the 6-24 month olds, the pre-toddlers of the group.  The typical 12-24 month old can sit for a short story, enjoy songs and rhymes, and do very simple crafts or activities with help.  There is no real need to focus on learning the alphabet and letter sounds with this group, but if your child is 18 months as of September and seems interested feel free to join along with the letter of the week that the toddlers do.  For most of this group, the focus will be on lots and lots of language exposure, colors, counting, singing the ABC song, etc.  If you don't want to do a letter of the week I would recommend a word of the week, or even a sign of the week if you'd like to use some sign language.

Ravens:  These are our toddlers, the 24-48 month olds (2 & 3 year olds).  While there is a big range of abilities here, as in the Robins group, there are more similarities than differences in how to approach the activities.  For this group we will generally assume they can scribble with a crayon, fingerpaint, use tape or glue with lots of help, and can sing songs or rhymes with us.  This group will do a letter each week and focus on the letter sounds in preparation for reading.  You can also choose to talk about beginning sounds in words or even make a game out of rhyming words. 

Owls:  This is the oldest group for the purposes of this curriculum, consisting of children 4 years and older.  For this group some activities will involve cutting and pasting, though adult help will usually be needed, it's expected that they can sit through longer stories and remember and sing songs along with you.  They will move beyond simply saying individual letter sounds and work on combining them into words, using word families (words that rhyme) to help spell out new words.  Remember that kids this age often still struggle with fine motor skills so pre-writing instruction should be light and at the child's level.