Children love to learn
Children love to use their imagination. If we help them to link their imagination to their learning, we are sparking their curiosity to find out for themselves how the world works.
Letterlinks uses imaginary characters to help children link the sounds of English to their complex alphabet code. Diggle Dog is a favourite character.
Capital letters are fun too.
What can you do?
Enjoy the Alphabet Book together. Explore and talk about all the things you can find in the pictures. It will become a favourite book.
All the Letterlinks stories about the characters should be referred to and talked about frequently. Include the characters in the things you do. At the supermarket you could say "Saucy Sausage loves the ssssupermarket. He would buy sssausages and ssssaveloys".
Follow you child's lead. They may say 'Mum, I can see Saucy Sausage on the road'. This is your opportunity to talk about words. For example, "Yes I can see him too. That's the word STOP." Then you can go on to see how many times you can spot Saucy's word.
You child's natural inquisitiveness will lead you on and before you know it she/he will know about sounds and letters.
You can have fun with your child and develop their skill with words simply by:
- Singing and chanting nursery rhymes
- Enjoying silliness with words
- Playing with rhyme and nonsense
- Playing word games
- Using Letterinks
Your child learns from you. I'm sure you've heard her/him sounding 'just like you' whilst pretending to be Mummy or Daddy with her/his toys. Take advantage of this enthusiasm. Everything else will follow.
Download a helpful guide for parents.
Frequently asked questions
- If my child uses Letterlinks then goes to a school without it, will she/he be at a
disadvantage?
No. There are two good reasons to use Letterlinks even if only for a short time.
- It is the sound/letter link that is most needed by your child, especially for the vowels. The characters help to establish this link without confusion.
- Traditional letter names like 'cee, aitch, cue, are, double-you, why' are confusing because they do not match the sounds that letters represent in words. The traditional letter name can be acquired once these links are established. 'Yoghurt Yan' not 'why'.
By having this extra information your child in fact has an advantage.
- At what age do children stop using the characters?
Children naturally stop using the characters when they no longer need them. Letterlinks is used in schools and if your child is at a Letterlinks school it will be used for the first three or four years. In other words Letterlinks can be used by anybody wanting a multisensory interactive approach to learning spelling.
Diggle Dog loves to dig in the dirt.