Tricks and
Strategies
© Letterland International Ltd
The ALLITERATION TRICK & GAME
Objective
l To develop phonemic awareness of initial sounds.
Teaching point
The alliterative ‘logic’ of Letterland adds an engaging discovery factor to phonemic awareness
activities. In Letterland, the characters love things that start with their sounds.
The activity of searching for alliterative words enables children to have creative input as they
build up a bigger picture of each character. Children feel like they are discovering new things
about their Letterland friends. This element of discovery has proved a real strength of the
Letterland programme, making the children highly motivated to learn more about their
Letterland friends.
The TRICK
Do you know how you can tell what each Letterland character likes? Let me give you a clue. Listen
carefully… Firefighter Fred’s fffavourite fffood is fffresh fffish. Munching Mike likes
mmmushrooms and mmmelons. Lucy Lamp Light loves lllettuce llleaves and lllemon lllollipops.
Can you guess what the Letterland ALLITERATION TRICK is? How can we tell what each character
likes?
Each Letterlander likes things that start with his or her sound.
The ALLITERATION GAME
l Children supply their own alliterative information about a Letterlander. You can help them
with hints, for example: I’m thinking of a long, thin, crunchy, orange vegetable (carrot) that Clever
Cat likes to eat.
Home
Transport castle, cottage,
car caravan Hobbies
Food
cake, carrots, counting, colouring in,
cauliflower cooking, climbing cliffs
Drink
cola, cocoa Praise words
clever, correct, cool,
congratulations
Animals
cat, camel, crocodile,
canary, cuckoo
Book titles
Names The Very Hungry Caterpillar (by Eric Carle)
Catherine, Chris, Corduroy (by Don Freeman)
C…
The ‘I LIKE …’ GAME
l Each child thinks of their own favourite food and tells the class who in Letterland is sure to
like it too. I like ___________ and so does ___________!
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Cross-Curricular Opportunities
Objectives
O To make conceptual links between target sounds and other subjects.
O To broaden the learning experience.
Procedure
O Relate the Letterlanders to arts and craft, e.g. make masks or puppets of the
Letterlanders out of card or papier mâché. Alternatively, use modelling dough
with thick letters in one colour and the characters’ features in other colours.
O Make large murals of the imaginary place called Letterland. Encourage the
children to plan where each character might live and add appropriate alliterative
landmarks or objects around them.
O Organise a Letterland day or event. For example an assembly, a Letterland
dressing-up day, a Letterland Olympics or a Letterland fête, bringing in artwork,
crafts, puppetry and storytelling.
O Incorporate Letterland into any Science and Technology lesson, e.g. study light
or electricity with Lucy Lamp Light or magnetism with Munching Mike.
O Relate individual Letterlanders to other activities that begin with their sound,
e.g. count with Clever Cat or do sums with Sammy Snake.
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Picture-coding
Objectives
O To draw attention to the shape and orientation of individual letters.
O To draw attention to target sounds in selected words.
O To draw attention to all the sounds in selected words.
Teaching point
Picture-coding is the process of adding Letterland pictogram details to a letter shape. It can be
done by teachers and children. It can be used for arts and craft, for board work and for object
labels.
Procedure
O Children add pictogram details to plain letters. They can draw individual pictogram characters
or picture-code whole words.
O To begin with, you may like to provide the plain letter shapes for children to picture-code.
O The children can also make spelling pictures by selecting regular words that can also be
illustrated, e.g.. cat, red, sun.
O You can also use picture-coding to draw attention to target sounds in words. You don’t have
to be an artist - simple ‘hand-code’ the letters by adding stick figures of simple details to the
target letters.
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The RHYMING WORDS TRICK
Objective
O To spell and read by analogy.
The TRICK
If I can read ___ I can also read ___, ___, ___, and ___.
If I can spell ___ I can also spell ___, ___, ___ and ___.
Teaching point
One of the strategies children should consciously use when attempting to read or write a new
word is to identify a spelling pattern in a word they already know. (You will need to control the
use of this strategy, so that children are not making incorrect analogies.)
Section 2 focuses on developing reading and spelling by analogy, using three main resources:
1 Rhyming chants
For example:
Hello, I’m Annie
Apple
I am happy saying aa
‘ …’ in at.
I am happy saying ‘ a …’ in at. I am happy saying
‘ aa…’ in bat.
I am happy saying ‘ a …’ in bat. I am happy saying
‘ aa…’ in cat.
I am happy saying ‘ a …’ in cat, and lots of words
like that.
and lots of words like that.
2 Vocabulary Cards
You will find rhyming words on the backs of most of these 78 picture cards. Help children
to read these rhyming words by analogy, first using the Vocabulary Cards and then the 6
photocopiable Rhyming Words Lists on the insert accompanying the Vocabulary Cards pack which
contains all 256 rhyming words.
Rhyming Words Lists
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