Foundation Phase parents were treated to a colourful assembly yesterday morning, where Grade 1 – 3 pupils showcased THRASS®. Parents were enlightened on how their children learn to master the often confusing spelling of the English language, all in a fun and memorable way. THRASS® is a phonics programme that has been specifically designed to teach children about the 44 speech sounds (phonemes) in spoken English and their related 120 keyspellings (graphemes) in written English.
In the words of Alexa Frost, Academic Director of the Foundation Phase:
“This morning our message is: that in our Oakhill foundation phase we certainly know how to have fun while we learn – and to us THAT concept is extremely important. At Oakhill we believe in “The joy of learning” and we have no doubt that you will be experiencing that with us this morning and that you will leave us today with a smile on your face, music in your ears, a lightness of step and joy in your hearts…
As this morning we are going to show you how we THRASS – IT – OUT Sing-a-long style. As you all know, at Oakhill we use the Thrass phonics programme as the basis of all our literacy teaching. We love this programme because it is completely multisensory and alive with pictures, music, rhythm and movement which all combine to create memorable links to reading, writing and spelling and to make literacy learning a fantastic fun-filled experience.
One of the Thrass supporting resources that we use in our classes are the Interactive Sing-a-long songbooks. These give us a fun and easy way to lay the foundations for literacy and help your children learn and understand the 120 main spelling choices. Children find it easy to learn through song and dance. Grannies jumping over a gate and a gorilla driving a car singing about bananas are some of the fun and easy to remember images and songs we find in these learning resources. Each song represents a specific phoneme (or sound) box on the Thrass chart and each song typifies a particular musical style – from hip hop to jazz, country to rock and pretty much every style in between.”
