Phase 1 is the very start of your child's journey. It is all about listening to sounds and learning to discriminate between different sounds. The Phase focuses on sounds in everyday life rather than sounds in words. Phase 1 is essential in laying the foundations for all future learning. Your child needs to be able to discriminate between sounds in everyday life before they can be ready to learn sounds. If your child cannot identify the sound of a car horn over the sound of a banging drum then they will struggle to begin hearing the separate sounds that make up words. Letter sounds are not introduced until Phase 2. 

During phase 1 children will have opportunity to experience the following 7 aspects: 

- Environmental sounds. 

- Instrumental sounds. 

- Body percussion. 

- Rhythm and rhyme. 

- Alliteration. 

- Voice sounds. 

- Oral blending and segmenting. 

You can help at home by completing some of the suggested activities below. 

- Talk with your child about the noises they can hear around them in the home. 

- Go on a listening walk eg in the woods and encouraging them to listen to the different sounds around them. 

- Make musical instruments eg, dried peas or rice in a bottle. 

- Using different sound effects when reading them a story. 

- Sing songs and action rhymes. 

- Clapping out syllables to words. 

- Listening to music and clapping to the beat. 

- Encourage your child to talk about what they see and hear in their surroundings - do this when in out and about in different situations eg, the park, supermarket, the farm etc