The very best phonics for 3 year olds doesn’t need to be formal. Developing prephonic skills effectively doesn’t even always look like phonics at all!
Here’s how using the action songs many of us remember from childhood, can accelerate the underpinning foundations of phonics, with lots of fun along the way!
What do we mean by action songs?
Action songs are simple, repetitive nursery songs, with actions that match the words.
These are hugely popular with preschoolers because they’re active, repetitive, engaging, and lots of fun.
There are so many songs involving actions to teach your 2, 3 and 4-year-olds. These range in difficulty and can be matched easily to the age and stage of the children.
Short action songs for 2-year-olds can involve super simple finger rhymes with repetitive phrases.
Movement songs involving actions are perfect for 3-year-olds with a developing vocabulary.
4-year-olds can master and enjoy ring games where actions, singing, and a game element are combined.
Wind the bobbin up
How do action songs develop essential prephonics skills?
Learning to read is largely a matching process which starts with prephonics.
For example, when children learn to read, they need to match words with objects and pictures.
They also need to match spoken sounds with letter shapes, including how each letter is formed.
To perform the complicated brain processes required for these abstract matching activities, prephonics preparation with preschoolers is key.
Phonics for 3 year olds in action
Although action songs don’t look like phonics for 3 year olds, the mental matching processes are surprisingly similar.
By introducing super simple action songs to 2, 3 and 4-year-olds, they will be learning to:
- Make and match sounds as they sing to words, in the right order.
- Match words to the appropriate actions, moving their bodies accurately in accordance with the spoken words.
Action songs therefore help young children develop the mental processes they require to eventually become capable and confident readers.
Fun Phonics for 3 year olds
One finger one thumb keep moving
Action songs and phonics phase 1
Learning to read critically also involves memory. Young readers need to be able to hold the knowledge of the letters and sounds they recognise, to process these by blending with lightning speed.
Developing a phonics phase 1 curriculum where action songs are at the heart of lessons incorporates this memory building process.
2 channelled attention and phase 1 phonics
Preschoolers who have had daily exposure to action songs as part of phase 1 phonics, secure 2 channelled attention and memory on several levels.
The process of remembering words, tunes, and actions, at the same time and in order, is just the brain training needed for remembering sounds, letters and words in order.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
Phonics activities phase 1 develop speech sounds
Phonics activities phase 1 need to develop clarity of speech sounds too
Singing phonics for 3 year olds
Speech sounds are a fundamental element of phonics for 3 year olds because saying sounds matched to letters is required for success in phonics and reading.
Daily singing builds strong mouth muscles and develops control of breath so that little mouths are ready to say separate sounds matched to letters.
Action songs provide a great gym workout for the mouth.
More about speech sounds and phonics for 3 year olds
Building on Letters and sounds phase 1
The original advocated Letters & Sounds Phase One action songs as part of ‘body percussion’. However, there was little explanation of how the physicality of actions songs helps little learners.
When 2, 3, and 4-year-olds learn action songs from memory, their bodies learn and remember corresponding actions to words.
This is an important prereading building block as there’s a strong correlation with the early stages of phonics.
Learning to match letters with sounds, involves the physicality of drawing a letter in the air, or performing an associated action.
The brain activity is exactly the same as joining in with an action song
Action songs teach preschoolers to match actions and words in a context embedded and meaningful way, before abstract sounds matched to letters are introduced.
Another easy example of phonics for 3 year olds
Hokey Cokey Song
How phase 1 phonics sounds activities build vocabulary
Including action songs as part of a phase 1 phonics sounds routines has a further benefit. When chosen carefully, action songs have the power to introduce and reinforce new words effortlessly.
Phonics for 3 year olds builds vocabulary!
A song like ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ introduces key vocabulary matched to different body parts.
Matching the song words by pointing to these body parts helps preschoolers remember the meaning of these words through easy-peasy, fun repetition.
Phonics for 3 year olds | Great action songs to try today
Hopefully by now you’re sold on action songs as a super successful way to introduce phonics for 3 year olds, ready for reading.
Super Simple Action Songs to Start With!
Here are some super simple action songs to get you started.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
Ring-a-ring-roses
Hokey Cokey
If you’re happy and you know it
Heads, shoulders, knees and toes
One finger, one thumb, keep moving
Action songs require no preparation and can be a fun part of preschool learning, indoors and outdoors.
2,3- and 4-year-olds love learning new songs, particularly with lots of movement, it’s a right of passage.
This post highlights that this easy-peasy activity is packed with prephonics learning potential too.
Great books for introducing phase 1 phonics for 3 year olds
There are plenty of great action song books to choose from.
Read these aloud as part of your daily phonics for 3 year olds for repetition and modelling that preschoolers need.
Include these as part of your free choice reading provision so your preschoolers can revisit songs they know well.
Turning the pages and singing along will really make them feel like readers!
Here’s a list of action song books to get you started. This is part of the FREE prephonics booklist that’s just what you need if you work with 2, 3 and 4-year-olds.
Download the booklist here for a progression of books, perfect for nursery and preschool.
With over 100 books with instant clickable links there’s plenty to inspire you and your preschoolers straight away.
If you’re happy and you know it
Add action songs to your phase 1 phonics planning for 3 year olds today!
Feeling inspired and want to fit action songs into your phase 1 phonics planning- and want to know how? Super Sounds is a fun, tried and tested prephonics programme that’s full of action songs, nursery rhymes and stories to join in with. Specifically for 2,3- and 4-year-olds, its perfect for using before any phonics programme. Super Sounds includes all the planning you’ll ever need to teach prephonic skills step by step. Whether you want fresh ideas as an alternative to Phase 1 Phonics, or you’re new to phonics in nursery or preschool and don’t know where to start, Super Sounds is for you! |