Learning Letter Sounds is a foundational step in a child’s reading journey. For kindergarten teachers, mastering this skill efficiently and engagingly is paramount. Sheryl Nicholson, a seasoned kindergarten teacher, shares her expert strategies honed through years of experience and incorporating the innovative Secret Stories® approach, alongside the Wonders Reading Curriculum. This article, expanding on Sheryl’s insights, delves into practical, music-infused techniques to ensure your students not only learn letter sounds but truly master them, setting a robust stage for reading success.
Rule #1: The Better Alphabet™ Song – Your Daily Sound Foundation
Sheryl’s non-negotiable rule is simple yet powerful: Sing the Better Alphabet™ Song EVERY day, TWICE a day, without fail. This isn’t just about rote memorization; it’s about building a deep, automatic connection between letter names and their sounds. The Better Alphabet™ Song stands out because it doesn’t just teach one sound per letter. It introduces every possible sound a letter can make in isolation – long and short vowels, hard and soft consonants, even the versatile sounds of ‘y’. This comprehensive approach, delivered through music, helps children grasp the full spectrum of letter sounds in a remarkably short timeframe, typically within two weeks to two months.
The magic of the Better Alphabet™ Song lies in its methodology. It “gives” sounds rather than traditionally “teaching” them. This distinction is crucial because it leverages muscle memory – a more developed cognitive pathway in young learners – to forge connections. By engaging the mouth muscles through singing, children bypass reliance on less developed cognitive processing centers typically used for memorization. This method facilitates automatic and unconscious sound retrieval, essential for fluent reading and spelling. For a deeper dive into the neuroscience behind this, Katie Garner, the creator of Secret Stories®, provides insightful explanations in her video resources.
Crucially, Sheryl emphasizes revealing the “secrets” of Superhero Vowels® and Sneaky Y® right from the start. Understanding the “short & lazy” disguises of vowels and the chameleon-like nature of Sneaky Y® empowers children to correctly produce these sounds within the song and beyond.
The Better Alphabet™ Song is readily accessible as the first track in the Secret Stories Kit music download. A video version is also available, but Sheryl often finds the audio version or even singing it a cappella equally effective, focusing the attention on the pure sound-symbol connection.
To reinforce this auditory learning, visual anchors are essential. Alongside Better Alphabet™ anchor posters displayed in the classroom, each student uses their individual Better Alphabet™ mat. These mats serve as personal sound charts, kept in their writer’s notebooks and brought out for each singing session. As Katie Garner stresses, visually seeing the letters while singing their sounds is critical. This “eye-glue,” as Sheryl calls it, cements the sound-symbol links in the brain, preparing them for decoding and encoding words.
Individual Better Alphabet™ mats aid visual connection to letter sounds, crucial for early literacy.
Fostering Sound-Symbol Connections with Engaging Incentives
To amplify engagement and focus during Better Alphabet™ sessions, Sheryl introduces a fun incentive system. She awards students demonstrating the best “eye glue” and “muscle mouth.” “Muscle mouth” highlights the importance of actively engaging lips, tongue, and teeth to maximize muscle memory activation. These awards, given twice daily, recognize focused effort and reinforce the desired learning behaviors. Weekly “Best of the Week” awards further motivate consistent participation and effort.
While tangible awards add excitement, Sheryl also suggests alternative motivational strategies like friendly competitions – “boys versus girls” or table group challenges. Winning groups can earn small privileges, fostering teamwork and positive reinforcement.
Recognition awards enhance student engagement and focus during letter sound practice.
This daily routine continues until students achieve 100% mastery of letter sounds, typically within two weeks to two months. Once a solid foundation is established, Sheryl incorporates “Letter Runs,” the next musical exercise in the Secret Stories® music download, to elevate their sound fluency.
Letter Runs: Building Fluency and Orthographic Mapping Through Music
Building upon the Better Alphabet™ Song, Letter Runs take letter sound mastery to the next level. While the former instills rapid letter name and sound recognition, Letter Runs challenge students to recall sounds instantly upon seeing a letter, mimicking the act of decoding in reading. This exercise skips the letter name, demanding rapid sound retrieval, crucial for fluent reading.
Letter Runs are versatile; they can be sung fast or slow, to any tune, even backwards! This adaptability is key to their effectiveness. According to Katie Garner, the shifting speed, tune, and order of Letter Runs purposefully avoid reliance on rote muscle memory. Instead, it compels children to actively manipulate sound-symbol connections in diverse sequences, mirroring the demands of real reading and writing. This dynamic practice is instrumental in developing orthographic mapping – the brain’s process of visually memorizing words for instant recognition.
Around the two-week mark, Sheryl introduces Letter Runs as an exciting challenge following the Better Alphabet™ Song. Maintaining “eye glue” and “muscle mouths,” students embrace the playful difficulty. The beauty of starting Letter Runs early is that children are motivated by the challenge itself. They aren’t discouraged by unknown letters; they enthusiastically participate with the sounds they do know, building automaticity and confidence. This early exposure to rapid sound retrieval accelerates their readiness for reading and writing.
By spring break, Sheryl’s students achieve remarkable fluency, confidently performing Letter Runs in any order – forward, backward, or randomly – mirroring the unpredictable letter sequences in real words. This mastery stems from the solid orthographic mapping cultivated through consistent practice with both the Better Alphabet™ Song and Letter Runs.
This daily routine of Better Alphabet™ and Letter Runs is a cornerstone of Sheryl’s approach. Simultaneously, she introduces “grown-up” reading and writing Secrets – phonics rules that explain letter sound combinations that deviate from expected sounds. Secret Stories® posters are displayed from day one, ready to be referenced whenever and wherever needed.
These Secrets are not abstract rules; they are living, breathing explanations found everywhere – in student names, calendar words, sight word lists, math instructions, stories, poems, even lunch menus! This constant exposure and application make phonics learning relevant and engaging.
Decoding Dictionaries and A-to-Z activities integrate letter sounds into writing and word recognition.
A to Z in Three & Decoding Dictionaries: Writing and Applying Letter Sounds
Complementing the musical approach, Sheryl incorporates “A to Z in Three.” The first 26 days of school dedicate a day to each letter, providing a quick letter-focused overview. This foundational step, even for students already familiar with letter sounds, is crucial for developing letter formation and fine motor skills necessary for writing.
Working alphabetically, students brainstorm words starting with the focus letter sound and illustrate them. They then practice writing the letter, with more advanced students attempting to write words for their drawings. Simple worksheets and Decoding Dictionaries, part of the Decoding Sight Words with Phonics Secrets pack, are utilized for these activities. Porta-Pics, portable phonics Secret references, are also kept in writing folders for easy access to sound-symbol knowledge.
Decoding Dictionaries are prepped for each student, becoming year-long tools for applying letter sounds and phonics Secrets in writing and reading. Fast-tracking individual letter sounds is essential so children can immediately use them alongside phonics Secrets to decode and encode words encountered everywhere.
The Secret Stories® approach makes phonics patterns surprisingly accessible to young learners, often even more so than individual letter sounds. This is because Secrets leverage relatable concepts – like sticking out your tongue for /th/ or the sounds of a car for digraphs – making them instantly memorable. Sound posters serve as visual reminders, solidifying the letter-sound relationships.
Sound walls and Secret Stories® posters provide visual support for phonics learning and application.
Conclusion: Unlocking Early Literacy with Letter Sound Mastery
By integrating the Better Alphabet™ Song, Letter Runs, and Secret Stories®, Sheryl Nicholson demonstrates a powerful and engaging approach to teaching letter sounds. These methods, rooted in neuroscience and practical classroom experience, ensure rapid letter sound mastery, paving the way for confident readers and writers from the very beginning of kindergarten. Embrace these strategies to unlock your students’ literacy potential and witness the transformative power of music and engaging phonics secrets in your classroom.
Sheryl JB Nicholson, kindergarten teacher and advocate for innovative phonics instruction.
Sheryl JB Nicholson
