ABSTRACT
The activities in this section are not designed to be followed through as one continuous scheme of work. Rather, they should be used at appropriate points in the curriculum as the teacher sees fi t. For example, the sections on onset and rime (Activity Sequence 7), phonemes and rhythm (Activity Sequences 2 and 4) or compound words (Activity Sequence 8) might be linked to work on poetry. The activities on prefi xes and suffi xes (Activity Sequence 6) might be best placed as part of a series of lessons on spelling. However, the sections do build on each other. For example, the work on blends and digraphs (Activity Sequence 5) and kennings (Activity Sequence 8) provides opportunities to apply learning accessed in the earlier activity involving rhythm. What matters is that students appreciate the tactile, aural and visual relationships between sounds and the physical marks that represent them (Johnston and Watson, 2007). Secondary students who are still fi nding aspects of reading or spelling a challenge (for example, blending and segmenting strategies) might benefi t from activities that help them engage with the building blocks of language in a physical, interactive way. They might also appreciate the chance to work in a space that is free of the trappings that they may have come to associate with academic diffi culty. Others who feel more confi dent as readers and writers might fi nd that the activities help them to secure a metalanguage with which to explore their own engagement with the written and spoken word. Presenting the information they have acquired in dramatic form to a young audience just embarking on the journey to print literacy provides a powerful means of securing and consolidating that metalanguage (see Activity Sequence 9: broadening the context for details).
