Tag Archives: Souns

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Observe! Your Child Is Your Teacher.

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With the best of intentions, our timing and our direction are off! We are missing the most sensitive period in a child’s life to teach the fundamental tools of writing and reading if we do not engage between 0-5 with letter-sound associations. Lower-case letters and the most common sound for each letter is the simplest tool box leading to literacy.

Letter sounds taught kinesthetically with clay, cookie dough, or Souns, using only lower-case letters is so simple and logical. Engaged hands feed developing brains, say the directions that come with this little package called “child.”  Watch a child play, touch, manipulate, explore…all words reflecting engagement with the world. Digging, stacking, building, lifting, carrying – these are the efforts and endless work of the child acclimating to the world around him or her. As adults, we are so driven to teach; yet, if we paused and observed, we would understand ourselves to be the learners. Children know more about how they learn best than we do; but, too often we are not watching.

Today, at our Souns early literacy workshop, we took the time to watch. The images show you what we saw: stacking, matching, lining up, sorting – all the while learning letter sounds. Why not? They learn shoe much before they can put one on. They learn bath, well before they can run their own. Similarly, they can learn /o/m/s/t/ and on through the letter sounds of our alphabet. They are just objects being labeled, the same as a cup or a triangle. If we can keep it simple, they will learn. Look at those little hands and the activity we observed this morning. Enjoy your child. Observe and learn.

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The Souns Path to Reading = FUN!

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This is a Souns child who is 3 years and 3 months. She has arrived at this point in reading incidentally, without pressure or any formal “schooling.” Her Souns experience began as a toddler and unfolded as naturally as learning to eat or dress.

The joy is clearly there, having been protected by a gentle incremental approach to letter-sounds without the presence of letter-names. Letter-names will be a focus later, when she is 4-5 years of age. Consider her reading at the magical 3rd grade level and think of the world of children we are missing. The right information at the right time and in the right way makes a profound difference.

Her father said she cried when they asked her to stop! Motivation is not a problem if the timing is right.

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A Bowl Of Souns

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A typical moment in the Souns Early Learning Workshops! One mom wrote her story:

“My daughter was born on August 2011. She  was introduced to Souns at our library through a project of the local Rotary Club. We attended on 2 occasions; on January 2013 and March 2013.  Specifically, we [were intoduced to] the Souns letter  /o/.  Since we did not own a set of Souns, I used one of her toys shaped like an o to reference the /o/ sound.  

 
At the end of March 2013, my child pointed to an /o/ on her placemat at dinner and exclaimed, ” Ah!”
 

[Our family] started the every other Friday Souns Early Literacy Workshops at Counterpane Montessori school on August 2013 where our [daugter] was introduced to m, s and t.  My mother and her husband purchased a set of Souns for my daughter on that day.  Within a few weeks, my 2 year old daughter brought me her bowl of Souns.  She held up her m, o, s and t and said,” mm, ah, ss, and tih!”  We celebrated and she was introduced to /p/ and /e/.”  

Playing to learn works! The video below is where the little one in the story above will likely be in a year. She is 3 years 2 months in this video. Importantly, there has been NO pressure to “learn to read” or “school” to compromise the joy of learning through play.

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From The Field In South Africa

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An email from a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa. These humanitarian minded people are leading us into tomorrow. I am so honored to be working with them in this Rotary /Peace Corps collaborative literacy project.

Hello Brenda,

 
I have started the Souns programme with our village children.  Right now I’m focusing on the three-four year old classroom, and about 40 children have started the programme.  They are brilliant children!  I expected it to take a few sessions for them to really understand what I was doing, and to start relating sounds to the letters, but within the first 15 minute session, the children were starting to associate “ah” with the o’s and “mm” with the m’s.  It’s really encouraging, and the staff members are excited about the programme.  Considering the language barrier (the children can greet in English, but that’s it), I’m amazed at how easily the children are adapting to Souns.  I speak entirely in English, and hardly anything has been translated into Xitsonga after the first lesson or two.
 
Hope all is well with you!
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Paisley’s Souns

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A Souns Mom Shares! 

“She loves her Souns!  We are doing some extended travel [and mail is an issue].  It would have been a lot easier to just order the whole set to begin with, but we had never seen them in person or known anybody to use them, so we didn’t know if we would even like them or use them.She’s learning so quickly.  I had no idea kids could learn this stuff so early!  Sometimes we talk about Souns as we are reading stories (/m/ /o/ /m/, or /p/ /e/ /t/, especially) and she just soaks it all up.

That reminds me of one other thing–when I introduced /p/ and /e/, it was as if Paisley already knew them, and was glad to finally know what they were.  She was delighted!  (Especially with her /p/.)  I’ve been thinking about it, and I think Souns are especially good for her because she talks so much, and since she is still little, when she verbalizes different words her speech is obviously not as clear as an adult’s.  She sometimes thinks it is funny that words in English sound alike.  For example, she is always asking me what things are, and one thing she asked about recently was the sheet on her bed.  So I told her, “Sheet.  That’s called a sheet.”  She was really surprised and amused by that.  “BAAA!”–she grinned–“Sheep!”  OH!  Yes, those words sound very similar, don’t they.  I explained it to her and sounded the words out clearly and slowly…but that is fairly typical.  Souns make it easier for me to help her differentiate between very similar words because they give us a shared frame of reference and they help separate sounds that are related to one another but different.  I think that will continue to be the case when we are able introduce more.

She loves “reading” (just flipping through pages of her books, mostly silently), and being read to, and this past week I offered her a pen and paper and she finally loves to scribble…so it will be very interesting to see how Souns continue to shape her learning.  We’re having a lot of fun with this!”

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“a remarkable tool”

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As a professional I have used Souns in therapeutic play, as a teacher, and as a classroom facilitator; but Souns is so much more personal to me and my family.  We introduced Souns to our toddler and enjoyed watching him begin to mouth and sound out the alphabet one symbol at a time.  As he began to identify these symbols on placards and traffic signs we started the exciting process of blending sounds and later decoding.  During this process my son was identified as having pervasive developmental delays. Now, at age eight, he still works hard on self regulation and focus, but demonstrates fifth grade reading comprehension, is writing in a journal most days, and loves to read at night before he falls asleep.

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This personal process helped me to identify other children who were able to learn letter sound recognition using Souns.  As a special needs teacher in a DIR/Floortime school I used Souns to give meaning to the alphabetic symbols when children had memorized the letter names. Some of my non-verbal students were able to give the sound of a letter as the first means of language.  A child may not be able to say cookie but could grab the “c” cuh to express what s/he wanted.

I have also used Souns to help children who struggle with fine-motor delays.  Using the large letters, children are able to “write” words and short sentences by placing the letters together to form phonetically spelled words. The child is able to produce inventive writing  while their fine motor skills continue to develop.

Both personally and professionally Souns has proven to be a remarkable tool when introduced playfully and strategically during the appropriate developmental level.

Kellie Porter-Burks M.Ed.
DIR/Floortime Practitioner
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Souns FUN = Intentional Learning!

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Parents and children learning together is the best! Our Early Literacy Workshop today was a great example. Getting the hands into the building of letter-sound knowledge with finger paints – little hands and big hands. No letter-names are found in our environment until after the child has begun sounding out simple phonetic words comfortably, which usually happens between three to four years of age for typically developing children who have followed this very informal program. One little one – not yet two years  – loves her Souns and knows ten of her letter-sound associations already. I smiled at her and quietly enticed, “You think you are ready for a new sound?” She responded with a spontaneous and confident smile, “Yes!” I introduced /u/ to her and she shared it with her dad. What fun is this!!! I told her dad, “I can’t wait for you to see what three looks like for your child!”

Another member of the group is being helped to learn letter-sounds by his older sibling. They each are having fun “teaching” mom letter-sounds. Moms can be the most inspiring students for their children.

Another mom shared that her child – the youngest in the group – seemed to learn the first four sounds slowly, but the fifth sound was learned the same day it was introduced. This is what we see quite often. Once the child has created the “hook” for letter-sound associations with the first four Souns symbols, the rest snap right into place. Those little minds are amazing, particularly if play and child-time are taken seriously.

It was a great day for all!

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Sun + Paint + Water + Little Ones = Squishy

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Intentionality at its best! Souns games can look like this with little people, finger paints, sunshine, and water. Soooo much fun! Warm weather is an invitation to play outside with messy things in big ways. Setting out plates of individual colors about six feet apart and turning little ones loose to do as their little hands desire with color on themselves (and sometimes a willing parent) was so delightful. We used primary and secondary colors plus white. As one would expect…sensorial wins out! Paints were squished together between the fingers and spread like butter all over their little bodies. Giggles confirmed a good day for all. Cleaning up with the hose was as much fun as the painting.

Finger painting letter sounds on little backs tickled, but each could tell you the sound they felt being written… play is the best window for learning. All so GOOD!

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Through The Hearts Of Teachers

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Teaching the teacher (parent or caregiver) about Souns initially takes about two hours.   The Souns program – focusing only on letter-sound associations – is the most natural, developmentally appropriate route to reading for the young child. Teachers love this simple, logical, effective tool. After the introduction of the program, we observe the teacher teaching the children (below).

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The result, often in three to four months of learning letter-sound associations, is the building of words (below). This “writing” by listening to sounds in words lasts for several weeks or a month. Taking the puzzle of a spoken word apart, building it with symbols is fun! This understanding of the structure of words leads to a seamless step into sounding out printed phonetic words.

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Soon, the magic of decoding – sounding out words – appears spontaneously in the classroom….one little person at a time. The five-year-old in the image below is reading a sentence I wrote. She sought us out to share something she had read in the classroom. I wanted fresh material for her, so I created a short phonetic sentence, which she read with no hesitation.

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Are we making a difference in South Africa? Absolutely! Rotarian volunteers teach the teachers in the implementation of a program that is provided by a Rotary Global Grant.  In a country with 11 official languages, Souns focuses ONLY on letter-sounds, most of which are the same across all the languages. Letter-sound associations are the most direct link to writing and reading. These children will walk a better path toward success in school; they will read!

“Thank you!” to The Rotary Foundation for your support of this Global Grant 25244 literacy project initiated by the Rotary Club of Pretoria East in Rotary District 9400 and the Rotary Club of Peachtree City in Rotary District 6900.