Hi all,

I am currently studying for my Level 2 NVQ Teaching Assistant qualification. I have been volunteering in a school since September and the class teacher has asked me to work on a one to one with a girl in Year 2 who is struggling in Literacy. I'm not sure if she has any specific problems but she struggles with the letters p, b and d ( she can't tell them apart ) and she doesn't know the letter sounds eg sh, ch, th etc. I will be working with her weekly for 15 minutes a time and wondered if anyone had any ideas on the sorts of things I could do with her especially to help tell the difference with p, b and d. The teacher hasn't given me any ideas it's just a case of get on with it.

Many thanks.

you could use the phonic tubs,which have different objects in that begin with the same letter.

using sandpaper to form the letters and get her to follow them with her finger to form the shape. painting letters is also another good one.

game called buried treasure which involves different objects and you have to sort them according to what letter they begin with.

All i can think of off the top of my head.

I have a p d b dominoes game here which you can download and make:

Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum!

A fun game to learn how two letters make one sound is to put the sounds in a mixing bowl, let the children mix them up like they're mixing the ingredients for a cake then have them pull out two letters - say you pull out 'c' and 'h' then you have made a 'ch' cake. Add some extra letters in the bowl that don't combine to make one sound when they start to understand the idea. Let the children see how many cakes they can make. Kids love this game!

teach her the word bed patting the table i.e left hand pat whilst saying phonic sound b then nod your head for e and then pat the table with your right hand and say d.

Then show her that b is like her left hand i.e down the 4th finger and around the thumb whereas d is like the right hand ...down the 2nd finger and around the thumb.

Draw around her left hand and get her to fill it with b and so on.

Most importantly acknowledge with her that these are the sounds she gets mixed up and encourage her to work it out by remember to chant b-e-d

It works!

Thanks for your help.