Setting Up for Literacy Success in the Early Years

In today’s episode, Kristy chats with Del from The Little Reading Nest, an early literacy specialist based in the UK, about what parents can do at home to set their kids up for success with reading and spelling, right from the start.

With over 10 years of experience and a background as a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo), Del & Kristy share practical and realistic advice for parents, including:

What We Cover in This Episode:

• What is phonological vs. phonemic awareness, and why it matters
• When and how to start phonics instruction at home
• Why structured, progressive phonics is so important
• The role of oral blending and segmenting in early literacy
• How to make phonics fun and embedded in daily life
• The truth about tricky words, high-frequency words, and sight words
• Multisensory activities that actually work (like movement, music and magnifying glass word hunts!)
• How to avoid common mistakes parents make when teaching phonics
• Encouragement for parents who feel unsure or overwhelmed

Resources Mentioned:

• Del’s curriculum: Phonics at Home (The Little Reading Nest)

Connect with Dell:

• Instagram: @thelittlereadingnest

Thanks for Listening!

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with a fellow parent or educator who’d find it helpful. And don’t forget to subscribe for more conversations just like this one. ❤️

Need support that doesn't break the bank?

Check out our Phonics Club for families to access high quality structured phonics lessons at home with additional live monthly support.

www.allkidscan.com.au/phonicsclub

Transcript

Welcome to the All Kids Can Podcast. Dedicated to supporting parents on their journey to nurture happy, successful children in every facet of life, particularly their journey through their education. Whether you are navigating the complete. Complexities of a recent diagnosis, or you are finding that your child is struggling to have success with their learning. This podcast is for you as a parent. You have incredible power and influence in your child's life, and with the right knowledge and strategies, you will be empowered to guide your child. Towards their best life. I'm your host, Kristy Haworth accredited dyslexia therapist, special education teacher, family coach, and mom of two brilliantly neuro spicy kids of my own. Are you ready? Let's dive in. Thanks for tuning into another episode on the All Kids Can Podcast. Today I have Dell with me from the Little Reading Nest. Dell is an early literacy specialist who supports busy and overwhelmed parents with their child's early literacy at home. She has over 10 years experience teaching in the early years and is a qualified s se in Co. I'm gonna ask you what that means because Dell is in the UK so, um, that's not familiar to me, so I'm gonna ask you in a second. She believes that every child deserves the magic of reading and writing, and every parent deserves the right tools and knowledge to help them succeed. Welcome Dale to the podcast. Hello? Hello. It's like, it's, it's one 30 in the morning to you. So kudos for making time for us today. I hope that makes sense. I'm sure you will. We've both got our tea here. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we're ready to have a good chat about how to empower parents to get their kids off on the right foot with reading and spelling right in those early years. So first of all, tell me a little bit, what is SENCO or SEN Co. You probably know what it means. It's just a different name for it, isn't it? In different countries, it's, um, it's Ako is a special educational needs coordinator. So when I was teaching, I was in charge of helping all those children with, with special needs. Yes. Yeah. So here we would call it, I think the inclusion teacher. Here in Queensland and yeah. So that makes a lot of sense. Alright, cool. So let's get started. I wanna talk a lot about phonics today because we know that phonics, you know, the research tells us that that is the way that kids need to learn how to read and spell and getting them off on the right foot is really, really important. And those parents that have kids that are around about eight. To 10 years old that are struggling will also mm-hmm. In retrospect agree with that statement, is that if we can get kids off on the right foot and avoid future issues in terms of struggling, and we know how that can turn into self-esteem issues and the gap can widen, um, and then they can be locked out of the curriculum. So. Today's chat is really about how can we prevent that and how can we, um, basically give parents the information and the tools that they need to be able to, um, to get on on that right track. So first of all, what age do you, would you say that parents can start phonics instruction at home? So it depends what you mean. When you say phonics instruction, do you mean. Phonemic phonics instruction. So letter sounds or do you mean phonological awareness? Because if you mean phonological awareness, that's basically from birth. Yes. Yeah. You mean phonemic awareness? This is where it gets a little bit of, um, kind of like a gray area online because there's lots and lots of people online who say, um. You can teach your toddler how to read, but mm-hmm. From my experience teaching the child to read, you also need to teach 'em how to write their reciprocal skills. Right. So yeah. Children's children can't actually learn how to write until their hands are ready, which is about four or five years old. Yeah. So it, it depends. Personally, I would say if you were talking about letter sounds, it would be four. Earliest three, and I'm talking like an older 3-year-old, just because that first phase of phonics, that foundational phase is so, so integral to children's reading journey. Their whole literacy journeys basically is based on that first phase. Um, so without that, if you, if you. Shoot straight into letter sound. You miss like a whole chunk. And that's when you start. Yes. Do you know what I mean? Mean? Yeah. That's so, so important. And um, so let's talk about then the first steps for parents to be aware of when they are trying to set their kids up for success. Tell us a little bit about what pH phonological and phonetic awareness is. I have talked about it on the podcast before, but just for those who haven't listened to that episode. So chronological awareness is, sounds like as a whole, so like environmental sounds and tuning into rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, um, voices, um, listening and attention, that's an incredibly important skill that some, some parents might not actually realize is a phonic skill. You have to actually listen to the sounds that you're saying, um, and that other people are saying, um, memory. That's, that's also a really, really important skill when you're sounding out words. You need good memory. Yeah. Um, uh, syllable awareness, oral blending, all that stuff is, um, the phonological awareness. So if you get that right and you spend the right amount of time on it. Then phonemic awareness. So learning letter sounds comes quickly because you've put all that foundation in place. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to starting children with letter sounds, the best thing you could possibly do is lots and lots of oral blending and segmenting first before you even worry about. Introducing any of the, any of the graphene. So what the sound looks like. Um, because the whole point of reading is to tune into what you're hearing, right? Yeah. So give us an example of like what that looks like Dell, if we were to do that with our kids. So oral blending, you can just put into everyday conversation. So you can say things like, um, can you get your oat for me? Yeah, I just kind of let them work. And I love this and I've talked about this so much on the podcast, 'cause I'm passionate about the time that I got to have with my kids. When I was doing this, I was just in, you know, I'm just in my element during this time. Mm-hmm. And we did it. Throughout her whole day, like it just was like dotted into everything that we did. So once you know what to do, and you know what phonemic awareness is, you can throw it into just your every day. It's not a sit down and, and let's study thing. Is it, it's a fun activity. Absolutely not. Most, most of phonics is just games and, but yeah, lots of, lots and lots of oral blending, but also oral segmenting. So. Um, pulling the word apart, but in sounds, yeah. Not like letters. Um, yeah. So. Saying, oh, this is a cat. What's the first sound? What sound can you hear at the beginning of that? What sound can you hear at the end of Cat? Yeah, and also we can start with those continuous sounds too, can't we? In those very mm-hmm. When we're just introducing it because we can lengthen and overemphasize it. So, oh, I see a mouth, what's the first sound in mouse? And then they can pull that out. Much easier than, oh, I see a bat. But you can't really, you can't stretch that sound 'cause it's a stop sound. The B Do you, so what did you call them? Continuous and stop. Yeah, that's what I call them. What do you call them? We call, well I call them bouncy and stretchy. Oh yeah. I love that. Yeah. So, um, a good guy. I play with some of the, well, I used to play when I was teaching would be, um, with a ball. So all the bouncy sounds, we would bounce the ball. So this is an apple? Yep. This is a, ah, yes. Yep. And then all the stretchy sounds, you'd give them a, like a, what's it called? A piece of elastic, like this is a mass and we'd add actions to it. Yeah. Um, that's the other thing as well that I, I wish more parents did, I wish more parents knew about, because that's the thing, some parents just don't know. What I would really, really stress is adding movement, um, when you're learning phonics. So adding actions, getting up and moving around, um, like jumping out the sounds. So you're talking about multisensory learning and, and really. Um, having as many sensors involved within the learning because we know that, um, when we are learning something, what, what is it? Neurons that fire together, wire together. And um, and so when we've got that going on and that movement, it's so important. Not only do kids love it, but it helps them learn a lot quicker, doesn't it? Absolutely. I was just about to say, activates that part of your brain, doesn't it? So the more movement and the more singing music is a really, really good way of learning phonics. Um, just all of that creative movement. Goodness. That's what you need. Yep. Yep. Here, here. So we're talking about starting from the very baseline, we've got the phonological awareness, so that's more of the sounds as a whole. So like animal sounds, environment sounds. Yeah. And then we are gonna sort of narrow in then on phonemic awareness. And so that's where we want kids to be able to identify different sounds. So the first sound in a word, or maybe the last sound in the word, um, we need kids to be able to blend separate sounds together because that's a direct pre-reading skill. And also on the other side of the coin, like you are saying, we need to have reading and spelling. Integrated as the same skill. We need to be able to have kids that have a word that can break it down into those individual sounds. 'cause that's a direct skill. Preread, uh, pre spelling skill. And, and then we can step into phonics. Then we can start to attach those sounds to letters or symbols. And then by that time, kids are gonna really start to take off because they've got all of that back information. Or that foundation to be able to take off. So tell us, what sort of materials and resources do you recommend for parents who feel like this is kind of overwhelming? Like there's a, I feel like there's a lot and that can sometimes put us in a place of overwhelm. What, what kind of materials or resources would you recommend to parents going or where do I start? What do I do? This was like my biggest. Thing when I first started my business was that there was so much out there for parents. Yeah. And some of it I, I listened to and I think, I can't believe you are saying this because this isn't actually like Right. Which is terrible to say. There's so much misinformation. Mm-hmm. Um, and I would get. Dms from parents regularly just saying, look, I, I really just don't know what to do. Just, just tell me what to do. So, yeah, I, um, I actually wrote my own curriculum, um, for, specifically for parents at home. Um, it's called Phonics at Home and it's. It's me teaching the lesson basically, so parents follow along with their children. Um, and it's an interactive multisensory lesson from, from phase two all the way through to phase five. So all of the sounds, but that's, I mean, you don't necessarily need mind, but you just need like a plan structure. Yeah. Tructure. Yeah, absolutely. You need to know the progression because phonics is progressive. That's the one thing I see online most, most of the time, is that. There's, there's like lessons about split tie graphs and then lessons about initial sounds, and it's just like parents just don't know the order. Mm-hmm. You need a structure. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's right. 'cause there's nobody saying, sorry, there's nobody saying do this now do this, now do this. Yeah. And best practice builds too. So we know that once we build a skill, uh, once we establish a skill and we master something, we need to then apply the next skill. And some very clever people yeah, have figured out what that order is. And so when we follow it, we follow that research, um, we get the results. Um, and the best part about it is it's always, um, reviewing too, right? Cumulative. So yeah, absolute. Some parents say to me, oh, you know, sometimes, um, they get it and sometimes they don't. Well, it's because it hasn't been mastered, it hasn't been sort of practiced. Yeah. Get to that point of mastery because if they got to the point of mastery, they don't forget. They keep going. Um, yeah. So, so what are the, some of the common mistakes that you see parents make and what, so what should parents be aware of and how can they correct them? Well, it was the biggest thing I see is not working through phonics progressively, which is what we were just talking about. So you have to for sure make sure you go through progressively, like you were saying, it's it skills build on each of it. Um, so if you miss one, that's where gaps in learning start appearing. Yeah. One of the things that I've started seeing more of, which is really good, um, because it's sort of. You know, coming into so more a little bit now is, um, yeah, less sight words, meaning tricky words. Do you call them tricky words in Australia. Well see. Well, I don't have a short answer for that because we have sight words and so my understanding of sight words is actually a word that we've gone through the process of orthographically mapping so that we can see it and say it. Right. So that takes a whole. Process to get to that point. And then once we're at that point of having words that we can recognize by sight, that's when we can start to get that fluency. But then we have other types of words called irregular words, and they're the words that don't follow the predictable spelling patterns. They're sometimes called tricky words. But then we've got the most frequent, like, what do they call it, the free, the My Frequency Words. High frequency words, and that comes from a balanced literacy or a whole language approach where we're trying to get kids to memorize whole words. Yeah. Um, and that's what we know overwhelms our kids and causes them failure. So, um, I guess we would call them high frequency words here. So we have both, we, we still have high frequency words and they're still taught in schools in the uk, which just absolutely baffles me because. That's so confusing when you're, when you're saying to parents, we have to sound out all the words and we have to learn all the phonics patterns. And then you're saying also memorize these a hundred high frequency words. Yeah, that's, that's totally like confusing, isn't it? Um, yeah. But tricky words is one of the things that, um, parents can sometimes get wrong just because, like you say, some of the pretty words don't follow any. Phonetic pattern, but it's English is so difficult, isn't it? Like you were talking about on your, um, Instagram stories the other day when you got the word father. Yeah. Like some words in English language just have such a history and have come through like, like all that. It's been changed by that, so it doesn't actually follow any pattern. Yeah. Yeah. But definitely when, when you are focusing on those words, that's when you can start putting games in to your instruction at home. So when you have words like one, um, that don't follow anything, any anything pattern, that's when you need to start putting games in. So, um, I dunno, like finding it around the room. Mixing up all the letters and putting 'em in all, all the right order, making up a song, um, using onic. Yeah. Yeah. Mnemonics. Yeah. Yep. And we do try to map it with some structure, so, but one, as, as an example is one that I just taught the the phonics club in a phonics club lesson. And it's like you got nothing with that word. You got ONE and the sounds are work. Mm, you've got a mm in there, but that's it. It's in the wrong place. So for those ones, it's very, it's very difficult. But for other key, for other words, for example, um, like we said, we go, eh, duh. And if we can identify that, that a and the I in the middle is making that eh, sound, then that's the only little part in the word that we need to remember. We still have the structure with using those sounds so kids don't just, you know, feel very lost. They've still got some kind of structure. Um, and we can explicitly teach them that, that irregular part in that word. Um, it, it's felt differently to how it sounds. It's not predictable. Um, but I love that you are incorporating games with it and, um, and lots of things like that because we do need different ways to engage our kids, right. Yeah, absolutely. And not every child is the same either. So if it, if you see something on the internet and somebody's saying, this totally worked for my child, and it doesn't actually work for yours, then you need to find somebody you can ask. So whether that's your child's teacher, if they're in school or people are not experts online like you and me, you just, you just need to message and say, um, I had a message a few days ago from a parent who was. So, so stressed about her child's reading book that her child was in school and, um. She said, I've been, I've been stressed about this for a few days, and it was the quickest fix ever. So if she misses me, she, it would've been, you just need to ask if you're not, yeah. If you're not sure of something or if something doesn't fit, quite, fit your child. Yeah. It's, it's important to know that parents, um, can be supported by people like you and like me, but it's a, it's a matter of sort of. I guess finding those people and getting those people in, in your, um, circle so that you know who to ask, because like you said, there's a lot of misinformation out there and so we do, um, as parents need to sift through a lot of that. Right. So tell me, what are some of your favorite hands-on activities that you do with kids? Oh, when. So when I was teaching phonological awareness, the rhythm and rhyme bit of, of like the foundation of the phonics is always really good. But one of the games I would play would be a syllable game. Mm-hmm. Um, and you can play it even when you're learning sounds. It's just, it's just a fun, like, like brain warmup. Um, but you. Whatever topic you learning about. So if it's under the sea, you would pick a picture of something with one syllables, something with two syllables, something with three syllables, and you would put them in a pattern and then use instruments to play the pictures. So you like pitch octopus, sea horse, do you know what I mean? Yeah. With all the little cute two in my class. Um, but from, but if you are, if it's letters, if you're in phase two to five, it would be singing. So, uh, in phonics at home, are you, are we use, um, letter formation songs because learning letter formation can be the driest thing ever. Can't it? Yeah. When you're practicing. Yeah. But singing and making up a, a quick rhyme to remember to form the letters is one of my, um, one of my gotos I think. Yeah. And that's really, really effective whether you sing it or whether you don't, when you've got those directional, um, uh, instructions, like for a d we go over, around, up and down. And when I give kids some kind of verbal, um, prompt like that, whether I don't sing it, maybe I should. Um, but it, it really, you, you hear the kids. Saying it and doing it and being successful with it. So, um, I can see how that would be, um, really effective and fun. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then of course, everyone loves like a good, a good hunt, don't they? Good sound hunt. Um, yes. To hide. It used to take them forever, which was good because they were so engaged and every time we played it that the children would love it when we'd play this game. So, um, it would be like a simple word hunt, but instead of sticking out words that you've like written normal size, we would make them really, really small that you would need a magnifying glass. So the children would walk around like hunting for teeny tiny words. Um, to find and read and then write down next to a picture that that is really fun and it keeps them entertained so much because they love the challenge of needing to find all of these teeny tiny words. I love that. And you would be, um, those words would be focused on a specific skill that you're teaching in the session, right? Not random words. Yeah. Yeah. No. So they'd be either, like, all of them would be one, have like one digraph sound in them, or they'd all have a phase four blend in there. Um, yeah, I love that. But then they would find them and match them to a picture. They'd all carry around like a little clipboard and a pencil and a magnifying glass. It was. It was really good. They were, that was the game that was my go-to because it kept them so engaged. Yeah. Love that. That's so good. So Dell, before we finish up, give us what's one piece of advice that you would give to parents who feel unsure about supporting their kids with phonics at home? With we've, we've said it. I think we, you just need to ask, you need to find that person and you need to ask them because there's. It's so easy to get lost, um, especially if you're not sure on what to do and what the next step is or what skills your child needs. Um, you need to find somebody who you think, okay, yeah, they seem to know what they're talking about and ask them, um, because nine times outta 10 they'll know the answer, and that one time they'll be able to point you in the direction of somebody who does. Yeah. Yeah. And someone that's following obviously the science of reading and, uh, well trained in evidence-based practice, right. 'cause that's key. Mm-hmm. And then if you, you can, you can ask that too, can't you? And just make sure that you're getting the information off the right person. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry. Just make it as fun as you can, um, for your child. Don't worry if they're not sitting down at the table. With you for like 20 minutes if they wanna get up and run around, incorporate that. Get them to Yes. Run. Run across the room. Run back, read the sound. Run across the room. Run back. Read the sound. You don't have to, they don't have to sit still. Yeah. It's just finding what works for your trial. Yeah. And keeping it fun and light and something that builds connection between you and your child too, because Yeah. Um, yeah. That's, that's a beautiful thing to be able to do and look back on. Yeah. And remember she says with a tear and, well, my daughter's only two, so I've still got, you've got a whole thing ahead of you. Also, I should said, read, read as much as you can. Yes. Once we've got those foundational skills, it's important to then hit the ground reading, isn't it? Not hit the ground running. We've gotta hit the ground reading because once we've got those foundations, it's the time to take off there. Um, and if kids delay that, then um, that's where the gap starts to happen. We don't get that snowball effect with their skills. Absolutely. Yeah. But even when, even when your child can read, read to them as well. 'cause that is such, honestly, you don't, you won't realize that you don't have that anymore until you wake up one day and think, oh my gosh. Like they're reading chapter books. I don't have to read to them. Yeah. But just read to them as much as you can. That's great, Dell. And tell us what have you got on the boil at the moment? I know you've got some cool stuff happening over at, um, the little reading nest I have. So my phonics curriculum comes out at the end of the month. Um. It was meant to come out yesterday, but I ended up losing some footage over the weekend, so probably in the middle of sorting that out. But I have my, um, my curriculum coming up and I ha I'm really excited about a big project about phonological awareness that I've got coming next, early next year that I'll be working on for that. But lots of really fun things happening. Yes. Good. Well, it's been such a pleasure to connect with you Dell. Um, I knew that once I connected with you online by Instagram and you are all about helping parents. We are all help about helping parents. So I knew that we'd have a really great conversation today and we have. So thank you for making the time. I'm sure you're gonna hit the hey now and um, have a bit of sleep. It's like two o'clock in the morning for you. It's, yeah. So thanks again for making the time. Thank you so much for having me. I've been, it's been really, really good. Yay. Thanks Dell.