Home Educators
Letterland is a wonderful place to start your little ones on the road to reading and writing! Stories, imagination, songs, actions, role play, art & crafts all work together to make learning letters and sounds (the building blocks of reading) fun and engaging!
For an early start, the Learn to Read and Write – a Parent’s Guide is a great little resource for activities to encourage early literacy at home.
For a very quick start and to save 20%, you can look at these 2 Home School Starter Packs:
– Home School Early Start Pack (ages 3-4)
– Home School K-Start Pack (ages 4-5)
Teacher Guides
Once you are ready to start more formal instruction, the Early Years Handbook (age3+) is your best guide for teaching letter shapes and sounds to 3 and 4 year olds.
If your child is Kindergarten age, the Phonics Teacher’s Guide covers all the phonics facts that you need to teach for Kindergarten, and even into grade 1.
The Advanced Teacher’s Guide continues after the Phonics Teacher’s Guide to cover the rest of the phonics facts needed for more complex words.
Stories
Storytelling is an excellent teaching strategy; it engages the child’s imagination and builds vocabulary. Lyn Wendon, the creator of Letterland, says “I have found that by sharing an imaginary world where letters come alive and personally tell the children how they behave in words, it is possible to create engaged listeners, speakers, readers, and writers in a language-rich environment. How? By introducing a ‘story logic’ that brings those dry phonics facts to life.”
The ABC book and its two sequels contain all the stories needed to explain the major English spelling patterns.
Additional Resources to Support Your Teaching
These additional resources will help enhance the children’s learning experience.
Music
Music has a way of sticking with you, therefore putting facts to music helps them stick with you.
Alphabet songs, Handwriting songs, Action Songs, and Blends & Digraphs songs are all available on CD to enhance learning through music.
Flashcards and Picture Code Cards
Seeing and manipulating cards add visual and kinesthetic channels to learning.
Posters and Friezes
Posters add to the visual element of learning, acting as a reminder of what is being learned.
Bookwork
Activity books are filled with a variety of activities for younger ones to practice and reinforce what is being learned.
As the student progresses, there are Phonics Workbooks for practice.
And, of course, there are handwriting practice books as well; from printing to pre-cursive to cursive.
Software
In this day and age, computers are a part of most households, and can also play a part in education. Letterland has developed software programs that incorporate the stories, music, flashcards, and activities of Letterland.
Games and Fun!
Last, but not least, games and fun activities can also be used to advance learning. The more fun learning is, the more engaged children will be.
Starter Packs
These starter packs have been created to make it easy for you to start using Letterland and also to save you money:
– Home School Early Start Pack (ages 3-4)
– Home School K-Start Pack (ages 4-5)