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Hello Everyone We do apologise for this being a little later than usual but we have been very busy processing orders etc. It was great to meet many of our teachers using Letterland around New Zealand last month at our very popular Letterland workshops. They were once again very successful. It was also great to be hosted by The Ministry of Education, Group Special Education, in Tauranga. We will have dates for our term 1 2008 workshops confirmed by December, so contact us if you would like to know more or check out the training page of our website.
In this issue: - Exciting News We have had a lot of enquiries from customers asking if our Letterland software is compatible with Apple Mac computers as well as PC. We are now very happy to announce that all the software has been re-developed and is compatible for both. This exciting new developement will be available in early December
We have put together a list of products that are great value. Please click here to have a look at them.
School and Pre-School Special Offer: HAVE YOU ALREADY SPENT YOUR 2007 BUDGET? We are once again proud to be able to bring you the fabulous offer of ORDER NOW AND PAY LATER. If you order before the end of term 4 2007, we will deliver your products before Christmas (as stock allows as this offer was very popular last year) and we will invoice you at the start of Term 1 2008. This will also allow you to beat the price increase that we are unfortunately going to have to have in 2008. Secret Parents' Business : Encouragement versus Praise We know we have talked about this previously in our Enews but we believe its importance in teaching and parenting can not be over emphasized. Encouragement is often misunderstood. It is very different to praise. It is far more powerful. It literally means to give a child the courage to succeed; it is your belief in their ability to succeed in any situation that they put their mind to. Encouragement is a continuous process. Praise is about control while encouragement is about influence and building self-esteem. The language of encouragement focuses on the process rather than the result. For example, ‘I know you can do it. Just keep it up.’ ‘It is great to see that you love riding your bike.’ ‘I really appreciate your help.’ ‘You are really improving your writing. Well done!’ ‘You really worked hard on that!’ ‘Thanks. That helped me so much.’ This rhyme was published by Letterland in 1999 and although it is no longer available, it is still a favourite.
Jumping Jim plays a jumping game. Kicking King likes to kick a ball.Lucy Lamp Light looks ever so tall. Muching Mike munches metal toys. Noisy Nick makes a lot of noise. Oscar Orange is ever so sweet. Peter Puppy has two wet feet. Quarrelsome Queen quarrels all day. Red Robot doesn't know right from wrong.
Munching Mike's Muffins.........mmmmmmmm: This recipe is healthy and easy to make. Any of your favourite recipes can be given a Letterland name, for example, Lucy’s Lemon Logs, Sammy Snake’s Sodas, Firefighter Fred’s Frozen Fruit, Annie Apple’s Anzacs, Bouncy Ben’s biscuits, Clever Cat’s cupcakes. Preheat oven to 180°C
Method:
Hello
Isn't it hard to believe how fast the year is going? October is an exciting month as we have our Austrailian Consultant, Maureen Pollard with us once again for our final workshops for 2007. We are sure the lucky teachers who have enrolled in the workshops will get an enormous amount of information and enjoyment from them.We have Maureen's own game on special this month so do check that out. Wishing you happy adventures in the world of Literacy until next month! Regards In this Issue.... - Christmas Gifts and/or Book Presentations for Pre-Schools and Schools Christmas Gifts/ Book presentations for Pre-schools and Schools:
Do you give out gifts or presentations at Assemblies or do you give staff presents at Christmas or anytime of the year? Letterland NZ and Nature Discoveries Riccarton have teamed up and if you provide us with a budget, gender and age we will select for you suitable gifts. We will even giftwrap all orders and orders over $50.00 will be posted to you free of charge. We think you will be surprised the range of fun, educational, science and nature related products we have available.
What about your your pre-schoolers? Do you give them a gift as a welcome to school? Wakelin Education (Letterland New Zealand) would like to offer you the very popular Letterland ABC book postage free and at a discounted price! Please contact us to discuss these exciting offers!
Try saying that quickly six times in a row! I know you’ll be thrilled by our special October offer of the Sylvester Syllable Game. Sssylvester Ssssnake has a sssecret about ssssyllables, and he’s dying to show you how to play his game. The game was created to help children learn about breaking words into syllables, which is a vital skill in reading and spelling. Young children can beat out the syllables in words but older children seem to have lost the skill. The Sylvester Game helps with lots of fun and practice. It’s a great family game and a wonderful resource to help with learning the weekly spelling words – and it’s a great alternative to watching television!
Wouldn’t you love to eat something called Sammy Snake’s Squares? This yummy recipe comes from the Tintern Clever Cat’s Cookbook (1994).
Ingredients:
Method
Simple and sensational! Secret Parents’ Business- Building Your Child’s Self-Esteem:
There are many building blocks to self-esteem, and one of them is to know what not to say! Avoid calling your child ‘naughty’ or ‘stupid’, even though you might be tempted to say these things in the heat of the moment through sheer exasperation (after all, parents are human too!) Pause a moment to think it through. Take a deep breath and consider if you really want to tell your child he or she is stupid or condemn them to a self-image of ‘naughty’. What you really mean is that their behaviour is driving you nuts, rather than their innermost person, so focus on the behaviour and explain why it is unacceptable, rather than flying off the handle in a way you might regret in your calmer moments. That’s the way to maintain a child’s self-esteem while still having appropriate boundaries of behaviour. Recently at a pre-school parent information evening we were asked the following: “I was wondering if you could clarify for me whether or not it is a good idea to introduce Letterland to my children if they then go to a school that does not use the system. I haven't yet decided what school they will attend and I don't know of any in my area that use the system. Everyone I have spoken to in regards to this gives me a different opinion. My children are nearly 3 and 4 years. I would greatly appreciate your advice.” As parents we want our children to enjoy school and feel confident about their ability to learn. Unless children are confident they don’t take risks. Learning is about taking risks and being resilient, and not giving up if the first attempt isn’t successful. Starting school can be challenging for little learners and we try to prepare them socially and emotionally as well as academically. Introducing Letterland is a way of ensuring that your child has knowledge of the alphabet and is aware of letters and sounds. Using Letterland provides a safety net for the start of school whether the school uses Letterland as part of their literacy program or not. It is preferable that the school has embraced Letterland, but in some ways it is even more important that you introduce Letterland if the school doesn’t use it. I wouldn’t leave it to chance, but be proactive before your child starts school by preparing them for the school context. There are lots of Letterland resources available to help with this. Letterland is so child friendly that it ensures that you and your child will enjoy and have fun talking and reading about all the Letterlanders. Remember to talk about the Letterlanders as friends and that sometimes you can’t see the Letterlanders on the page as they are hiding behind their letter. Letterland is an imaginary place so it is important to keep the fantasy alive and see it through children’s eyes. WALTER’S WORD WALL – becoming word wise:
When we talk about ‘vocabulary’ in our Focus on Literacy and Letterland workshops, teachers are extremely interested and want more ideas and information. Research shows that ‘words’ need to be taught and explained: immersing a child in a great language environment is enriching but it is not sufficient on its own. Children need to become ‘word wise’ or ‘word detectives’ and expand their working vocabulary. You can do this is by developing an ‘interactive’ word wall that is constantly used during the day. There are two types of word walls:
Each has a different purpose and frequently the two purposes overlap, like many language based activities. However, the important element is that the wall is interactive and updated frequently. Nothing is more boring in a classroom than a display that never changes and so it’s never used nor noticed – it’s just part of the furniture. Students need to actively engage with the word wall. This includes adding ‘weird, wonderful or even wise words’, words which have been picture coded, and most importantly, using this wall and the words as a reference point during writing sessions. Some ideas for classroom activities:
Play with words and encourage children to enjoy words. Help children to be interested in words, their meanings and their power. After reading, talk about the most descriptive word, then the longest word, and ask what a particular word means. This is how you can enjoy helping the children become ‘word wise’. SPREADING THE LETTERLAND FUN- CAN YOU HELP:
UNSOLICTED ELECTRONIC MESSAGES ACT 2007: The newly introduced Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 took effect 5 September 07. We understand from the information provided about this that current clients of Wakelin Education (Letterland NZ) who have given us their email address can be considered to have given implied consent to receiving electronic information from us, and also past clients whom we have continued to send information to. Such information could include new products and services available, information on what is going on at Letterland NZ, and website updates. However if you do not want to receive email from us (other than correspondence which you might initiate), please reply to this message ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’. If we do not hear from you we will assume we have your consent to continue to receive electronic messages from us. SEPTEMBER ENEWS 2007
We would love to see lots of entries in our competition - be in to win some fabulous Letterland prizes We hope the spring is bringing you some warm days Regards In this Issue: - Letterland Competition:
You can email them to letterland@xtra.co.nz or post them to Wakelin Education Services Entries close 30th September, We look forward to receiving the entries.
What happens when Clever Cat meets Harry Hat Man?:
Some people see Letterland as a program that only teaches the 26 sounds of the a-z alphabet. It isn’t! Letterland in fact covers the 44 sounds and all their letter combinations. These sample lessons explain how knowledge of the Letterland character traits helps in teaching children why the sound changes when two characters are together in words. If you would like to see how Clever Cat helps children with literacy, and what happens when Clever Cat meets Harry Hat Man, simply click on our link to the England Letterland website to check out our sample lessons. Enjoy! Building Your Child’s Self-Esteem There are many building blocks to self-esteem, and one of them is to know what not to say! Avoid calling your child ‘naughty’ or ‘stupid’, even though you might be tempted to say these things in the heat of the moment through sheer exasperation (after all, parents are human too!) Pause a moment to think it through. Take a deep breath and consider if you really want to tell your child he or she is stupid or condemn them to a self-image of ‘naughty’. What you really mean is that their behaviour is driving you nuts, rather than their innermost person, so focus on the behaviour and explain why it is unacceptable, rather than flying off the handle in a way you might regret in your calmer moments. That’s the way to maintain a child’s self-esteem while still having appropriate boundaries of behaviour. New Letterland Sentence Copymasters: This new set of copy masters is designed to develop print awareness at the letter level, word level and sentence level, all within one simple guided reading activity. It’s like a one stop shop for literacy development! Each sentence is based on alliteration around a Letterland character. For example, if we want to focus on the letter ‘f’, we just need to remember that ‘Firefighter Fred is feeding five fish’. This is an ideal tool to use with five to six year olds, who will enjoy the sound and the visualisation of this sentence. Click here for more information or to purchase
The workshops are filling fast so please do contact us so you don't miss out
AUGUST ENEWS
Hello Everyone I was thrilled to be talking to a new staff member of ours recently and to hear about his memories of schooling in England. He has fond memories of Letterland and was quite surprised how he had remembered all the characters when he started talking about it again after so many years. Letterland is fun and memorable, and that is why it leads to so much success for so many learners. How many other things do we remember from when we are 5/6 years old?! Kind Regards In this months’ issue: - Focus on Literacy and Letterland Workshops 2007 Focus on Literacy and Letterland Workshops 2007: Would you like to dramatically increase your awareness of the latest information and research about LITERACY and LETTERLAND? Then join one of Australia's most dynamic and respected child literacy specialists, Maureen Pollard for a full day workshop that will transform the way you approach literacy teaching. This workshop is guaranteed to provide you with the necessary strategies, valuable tips and practical idea's you need to ensure success.
For more information you can go straight to our website training page.
We are thrilled to have received the new Letterland desk strips from England. If you had some on backorder, you should have received them by now. A good way of using them in the classroom is to laminate them and to join two together as we saw at a school recently: As reported in our last enews we are now able to Laminate your Letterland products for you to protect them and make them last. If you order a product that can be laminated through our website www.letterland.co.nz you will be given the option of laminating. If you contact us direct please just enquire. Letterland around the World (supplied from New Zealand): We often get emails/calls from New Zealanders living in various parts of the world who want some Letterland materials while home for a visit. We thought you’d like to hear about Max Sutton. Max is 6 years old and has autism. He was introduced to Letterland by a British teacher while living in Bhutan. This teacher had set up a primary school in Bhutan and trained the other (Bhutanese) teachers in Letterland and it was their main method of teaching reading and writing to the fifty Bhutanese children in the school.
Max and his family are now living in Suva and he attends a mainstream school in the mornings and has a home programme in the afternoons.
To purchase a set of Letterland adventure posters please click here.
JULY ENEWS
- Crafty Letterland idea's from Greenpark School Crafty Letterland Idea's from Greenpark School: Our thanks to the children of Greenpark School in Tauranga for sharing their crafty Letterland idea's with us:
Thank you guys, They are all awesome! Laminating and Colour Photocopying Services: Laminating: It is great to hear that customers are wanting to look after their very well loved Letterland products. Due to an increasing amount of customers asking if we offer a Laminating service we are now in the position to do exactly that at a very resonable rate. Any products ordered in July will receive a 10% discount off the current laminating rates or if you wish to post your existing products to us for laminating you will receive a 5% discount off laminating and they will be posted back free of charge. Please contact us if you have any questions. Colour Photocopying: We have also been asked a lot if we would do Colour Photocopying for schools. We have just purchased a colour photocopier and we are more than happy to do any colour photocopying for schools at a reduced commercial rate. Please contact us for more details. Yolanda Soryll - Phonics Training Presenter:
Joanne was honoured to be invited by Yolanda Soryl to attend her "Phonics Training" course recently. Yolanda is an inspiring and motivational speaker, dedicated to supporting children achieve their greatest success in reading and writing. Yolanda has now trained hundreds of New Zealand primary school teachers how to use phonics as part of a balanced literacy programme. Yolanda believes that if phonics is incorporated into an exciting and rich full literacy programme, children will have everything they need to help them become confident and independent readers and writers who love literacy. Learning to read and write is not just about phonics. Children need to learn how to use meaning and structure and to recognise words so that everything they read and write looks right, sounds right and makes sense. They need to have the whole range of strategies. Phonics is just one small part of this package, but it is a strategy that is particularly vital for beginning readers and writers. Teachers know this, yet few teachers in New Zealand have been trained to understand the stages of learning in phonics and how to explicitly teach it. Phonics training offers teachers and schools this opportunity. We fully recommend Yolanda to you all. For more information about Yolanda and her training, you can visit http://www.phonicstraining.co.nz/. If you have already attended one of Yolanda’s courses, we can now help out with where our Letterland products fit into the Stages of Phonics. Just contact us any time for help.
Once again due to customer suggestions we are now able to publish our current enews on our website so if you accidently delete your enews and you wish to look something up it will be there. We wish to thank all our customers who send in suggestions and quotes regarding Letterland. Because of these suggestions we are able to implement them and hopefully offer you all a superior service. Please if you have any comments do contact us and we will look at how we can improve our service more. June 2007 Enews
Joanne was thrilled to be invited to participate in Yolanda Soryl's Phonics Training course earlier this term. This is an empowering course for all teachers and I can highly reccommend it. Letterland resources fit right alongside Yolanda's reccommended Junior Class Phonics teaching. ( We will have more about Yolanda and her training in our next enews.) This issue we have included a "Jargon Buster" sheet in terms used in the teaching of Literacy. There are a few items in the 2007 catalogue which are yet to be released (Sentence Copymasters, Desk Strips, Cookbook and Lucy Lamp Light's Lotto). However the good news is that the Beyond ABC book is due here in a few weeks. We are very excited to have a story book to follow the popular ABC Book. This book will have the stories for sh, ch, ar and other digraphs. Have a good month - Where in New Zealand can you get the Letterland "At Home" Range Where in New Zealand can you get the Letterland "At Home" Range Ashburton: Of course you are able to buy the complete range of Letterland products directly from us. Please click here to go directly to our website.
Christchurch:
Auckland: You are able to purchase Letterland "At Home" range from Te Rakau, the Tree of Learning at 254 Ti Rakau Drive in Manukau. This store sells a huge range of educational based products. This page is designed to be used as a reference facility for a some of the more technical words commonly used in the teaching of literacy. Some of the terms are specific to Letterland teaching. Phonemes - The smallest parts of sound that make a difference to meaning. Grapheme - The smallest part of the written language that represents a phoneme in a word. It could be one letter, or several, for example - p, b, s, or ch, sh, -igh. Phonics - The understanding that there is a relationship between the grapheme and phoneme. Phonemic Awareness - the ability to distinguish and manipulate phonemes in spoken words. Syllable - Part of the word that contains the vowel sound. E-ddy El-e-phant. Onset & Rime - These are smaller than syllables but larger than phonemes. The onset is the initial consonant(s) sound of a syllable, and the rime is the part that follows containing the vowel. For example, in the word shop, sh is the onset, and op is the rime.
Segmenting - breaking words down into smaller parts. The smaller parts can be syllables, onsets and rimes, or individual phonemes. Blend - The phonemes are known to be separate but when they are put together in a word they blend together, for example f and l can be separate phonemes, but in the word flag the phonemes have blended together.
Live Spelling - When children 'become' letters themselves and stand together in a row to form a word.
Picture Coding -This is the process of adding Letterland pictogram details to a plain letter shape
Analytic/Synthetic Phonics Synthetic phonics teaches letter sounds before they start to build words. Analytic phonics looks at a word, often in context of a story, then breaks it into its different sounds. Letterland teaches letter sounds first but very quickly moves into building words. Letterland pictograms also allow children to look at words in context and break down the sounds of its letters in a friendly and meaningful way. Letterland is therefore a synthetic phonics system that also uses analytic strategies. It combines the best of both approaches If you have any further questions please contact us
Available in hardcover or softcover, this book is 48 pages. Please click on either the hardcover or softcover link to order or phone us on (03) 3077473. Secret Parent's Business: Letterland to the rescue by Wendy Meckiff Having seen the great impact of the Letterland program on my two young boys’ early literacy learning, it was natural to turn to the system again when we needed it recently. We discovered at the end of 2006 that though our elder boy is a fantastic, and self-motivated little reader, his writing skills had not developed simultaneously. He had missed out on chunks of spelling and grammar basics in a Year one-two classroom that can only be described as disappointingly chaotic. Thankfully, over the Christmas holidays we saw a huge improvement in his spelling of high frequency words, his sentence construction and most importantly his confidence in his own writing skills, having gone back to basics with our old Letterland material. We worked through groups of sounds, from the ‘two vowel men’ series (ea, oa), the easily confused ir, ur and er, words, the tricky ‘wh’ words, and even re-visited the way the ‘silent magic e’ works. Though designed to be fun, the Letterland explanations for the way words are spelled was enormously helpful, and the information was able to be rapidly re-absorbed by our eight year-old. We, and most importantly our child, now feel he is ready for the more strenuous demands of Year Three. |
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