Early phonics, St Paul’s Cathedral and sheep.
I wrote this blog on VE day as I was travelling from Yorkshire to London on a train…time and space to think!
This trip wasn’t particularly to take part in the National ‘celebrations’ as such, but more because my partner was singing in St Paul’s Cathedral in the evening. Although the evensong would be paying respect to the day of course. I was excited, not just to be listening to some beautiful music in a spectacular cathedral, but also because I would be meeting my sister who I don’t see often enough and also a dear friend who, after the music, would return to Yorkshire with us for a few days.
Bells and a caterpillar
Anyway, on the first part of our journey, I was also delighted as beside us in our designated seats was a 9 month old baby boy. Thomas was his name. Smiley and gorgeous. My partner began employing the sounds he always makes use of upon sight of any child under the age of 5 – duck noises. Rarely found not to elicit a broad grin and/or a chuckle from the child and parents alike! Mum was well prepared and had brought a small number of toys for entertaining Thomas and the sounds they made were clearly the focus of my attention. Firstly, a bell inside a box, an obvious sound. But the second was a wobbly rainbow coloured caterpillar, not so obvious I thought. As the segments wriggled they clattered together, making an interesting, elongated sound. I quietly wondered whether his mum was aware of the importance of this sound beyond its ability to draw Thomas’ attention to it and keep any potential grizzling at bay? How it would be nurturing those early skills of auditory discrimination and the realisation that sound is both interesting and important!
I’ve been considering further ideas to share with parents, reinforcing the importance of encouraging small children to really listen to sounds, as I discuss in my book The Right Start to Phonics. I am sure new parents are aware of obvious sound sources but perhaps more needs to be made of the more subtle sounds around us?
From Cattle to wood pigeons
Further into the journey I started to wonder again about my grandson who’s now around 18 months old. I’ve desperately(ish!) tried not to make him into my early phonics project! But I (and my daughter – probably because she’s my daughter!) have always drawn his attention to sounds and talked about them with him. As he’s starting to make more comprehensible utterances, my daughter is noticing that his animal sounds are rather interesting. As the Spring has come upon us, many trips to farms have been made to see lambs. What’s interesting is that he’s making far more realistic animal sounds than those we make as adults when we traditionally teach such sounds to small children. The ‘baa’ of a sheep from my grandson is a much louder and a more urgent ‘uuuueeeerrr’! It’s hard to replicate in phonic form but sounds way more akin to the sound of a sheep or lamb than ‘baaa’. I’m wondering why we say ‘baaa’? I’m quite sure sheep cannot actually annunciate a ‘b’ phoneme any more than a cow can utter a ‘mmmm’? I wonder what a google search would come up with?
“…I couldn’t resist that search! Apparently ‘baa’ has been in written use since the 1500s! It then described ‘baa’ as a phoneme, a unit of sound – I believe I’d have to disagree with that one! Two phonemes there…😊 Anyway, the sound is used internationally I’m told – ‘bah, meh, beh’, so there we have it!...”
Back to other animal sounds. My daughter lives in a new house on a new estate near the Fens. Until recently, despite a well-stocked bird feeder in their garden, few birds had visited. That is until ‘Pidgee Pigeon’ (nice bit of alliteration there) made his presence known. Interestingly, my grandson also developed his own understanding that birds make sounds that are not actually ‘cheep’ or ‘tweet’ but more of a lilting ‘oooo, ooooo’. The sound he makes really does mimic that of a wood pigeon. As an aside to this, I once took a class of children I was teaching in Tottenham, North London, to a ‘secret’ wildlife space beside a railway line, close to our school was. Whilst there, the enthusiastic man who was showing us around and sharing his love and knowledge of all things ‘wild’ in the environment, told us a story about the call of a wood pigeon. I have never forgotten the story and certainly hope some of the children remember it. I used this with my own children too! Apparently his grandad use to tell him that when the wood pigeon called he was saying ‘You good boy Mich-ael, You good boy Mich-ael’! How lovely! You should try this next time you hear a pigeon cooing. It worked with my own two children as both of their names had two syllables. More of a sing-songy bit of poetic licence comes into play with my grandson who has just one!
So as the young man begins to speak, we are regaled with very realistic bird and animal calls!
Questions, questions, questions
Another thing that has become apparent is the consistency with which all of us must have been saying ‘ooo, what was that?’ whenever there was any sound within hearing! We know this because his first sentence, almost before individual words were appearing were some vowel-containing successive utterances of ‘ohhhh…uhhh…aaaaah?’ Now this is always used as a question due to his intonation, in context and at amusingly varying speeds (often very elongated with pauses between to create drama and suspense!) but is his very first conversation piece! Very clearly saying ‘What… was…that?’
What a joy to think that the little chap is so tuned into and clearly so interested in sound that he tells us when he’s heard something. It is, of course always followed by the adults around him with a reply of either ‘I have no idea what that was…shall we look?’ or an explanation if the sound is known… or a good guess at least!
I think this all just demonstrates the vital importance of really listening to and hearing sounds in our environments and the importance of drawing our young children’s attention to them. I know that this will serve them so well when they finally begin their own, individual phonic journeys – not to mention a great big dollop of general knowledge (cultural capital if you like) on top!
To purchase the book please click on the book or alternative click the button below.
My book is designed for anyone spending time with small children. For parents, grandparents and other family members, for those who might be training to become early years practitioners, play leaders, those supporting children in hospitals or home schooling their children, teaching assistants, nursery workers or managers. For trainee teachers, whether phonics will be taught discretely in their preferred key stage or not, there may well be children in Key Stage 2 who will benefit from these listening activities. For Literacy or English subject leaders and for senior leaders in schools. It may provide new information for some or reminders for others. The crucial element in my mind is to ensure that all children get the very best possible start to their lifelong reading journey!
If you would like further information or support to enrich children’s Early Phonics or to enhance and develop a broad and rich early reading approach, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Rose Blair, Early Years Consultant at The Right Start Early Years Consultancy
