A Phonic Workshop was organized for parents of Pre Primary on Thursday 27.8.20 to understand the importance and value of appropriate language development in early years.

Pre Primary section is organizing Parent Workshop every academic year but this is the first time it has been conducted virtually.

Actually, Phonics is a method of teaching children by linking sounds. It is a fun and child centered approach for reading, writing, and speaking. Since it is an important skill, the workshop was aimed at educating parents on ways of teaching English Language to their children appropriately at home; keeping pace with the school. The Pre Primary teachers tried their best to demonstrate in detail the importance and uses of Phonics by showing PPT, Videos, Flash Cards, Activities and Learning Engagements. Some videos on phonic sounds were shown by the teachers that gave parents an idea about the various sounds that the letters have and how those letters can be taught to their kids.

Teachers talked about five key skills which is very important for phonics: Learning the letter sounds, Learning letter formatting using different multi sensory method, Blending – in which students are taught how to blend the sounds together to read and write, Segmenting

• which is the best start for improving spellings, Tricky Words which have some irregular spellings.

The Parents Workshop was divided into four slots. Play Group had their workshop in the evening from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm. They started with showing videos on phonic sounds. Then they explained a PPT and then they divided parents into two groups for doing some activities. The instruction was that parents had to draw a picture with the “S” sound. It was really great fun for the parents. They ended the workshop providing Learning Engagements.

Nursery workshop was held in the morning at 9.00 am. First of all they introduced the first, middle and last sounds. They showed how to blend and segment them. They showed videos on phonic sounds. Teachers conducted some activities for parents like repeating sounds with teachers. Then they practiced phonic rhymes. There were activities like writing the instructed sounds and find out the first, middle and last sounds.

KG started their workshop at 10.15 am. They started their session by showing a PPT. For further clarification of the sounds they showed videos on letters, vowels, consonants and diagraphs. Parents were divided into two groups for doing some activities like telling their names and identifying the first sounds of their names. They ended by providing Learning Engagements.

Grade 1 workshop was held from 11.20 am. The great show started with a PPT where teachers explained what is phonics, importance of phonic sounds, core area, key skills, resources, vowel sounds, consonant sounds, tricky words and magic ‘e’. Parents were shown some flash cards for better understanding of the contents of the PPT. Then there were two videos on sounds of Alphabets and Magic ‘e’. Teachers conducted two activities for parents which they enjoyed a lot. At the end parents were instructed to do the Learning Engagement.

The core object of the workshop was to familiarize the parents with various sounds of letters; so that they can provide extra assistance to their kids to learn English Language correctly at home along with the teaching of the school. All the parents enjoyed the workshop. It was really a great leaning and fun experience for them all. After the workshop they all went off line with immense happiness and satisfaction.