Early Grammar with Jolly Phonics {TOS Crew Review}
Early Grammar
A TOS Crew Review of Jolly Phonics
What We Received
We received physical product for this review. What we received in our box:
- The Jolly Phonics teacher’s book in print letters
- Jolly Phonics student books 1, 2, 3
- The Jolly Grammar 1 Teacher’s book in print letters
- One Jolly Grammar 1 Student Book
- Jolly Songs in print letters
In correlation with this review we are also using Can Do Cubes which I’ll share more about tomorrow. They work wonderfully with the Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics to help the student learn.
About the Program
Jolly Phonics is a beginning phonics program for your child. It can also be used for someone learning English as a second language. It shows that it’s for elementary, but the child really should have little to no prior phonics experience for it not to be boring. For instance, my five year old has done other phonics books and already knows all her letter names and sounds. Starting her off in book 1 would have just made her really bored and possibly turned her off on learning.
Jolly Grammar is for after Jolly Phonics has been completed. They calculate Jolly Phonics taking about a year to complete. Jolly Grammar helps to develop good early grammar habits. It focuses on spelling rules, beginning grammar rules, and punctuation. This is done through fun activities like unscrambling words. There are also spelling tests and more fun to be had.
The other aspect of the products we received is the Jolly Songs. This is a CD and book that allow children to sing about what they’re learning. I have long held the belief that singing and doing things in rhyme or to a rhythm will help children and even adults remember things better and longer. I still remember the times tables that I was taught to a rhythm as well as the Books of the Bible!
How We Used It
I started the review out by putting my 6 year old in Jolly Phonics book 1. She has no prior early grammar or phonics knowledge really as she is a bit developmentally behind for her age. Because of her being behind I haven’t pushed her to learn before she’s ready. We decided to give school a try with her this year.
The work is not long which is great for the short attention span she has. Just one page a day and you can see she’s making progress. She loves it because it’s school! Plus, she loves that she can show daddy that she did something at the end of the day. Whereas when we were just working on learning our letters and numbers I mostly used a wipe off board with her so there was nothing completed at the end of the day for her to show off.
Something that really encouraged her and made her so excited was that in the first few weeks of doing one page a day five days a week she was able to sound out a few small words. This was huge. In a child’s mind once they sound out their first two or three letter word, they’re reading. It’s immensely gratifying to them to be able to do that.
We used the Jolly Grammar curriculum as well. One of the great things with having a large family is that I have a child at almost every stage of learning. My just turned 8 year old son used Jolly Grammar. He has finished his normal phonics program and is reading on a solid beginner level so I thought it would be a great fit.
He loved the ease of the program though he really didn’t care much for the spelling tests. This was his first encounter with them. I have seen an improvement in both his reading and his writing which I attribute to Jolly Grammar and the early grammar learning he’s getting.
Read More
Ready to hear what other members of the Crew thought? Check out the Main Blog Page where all the reviews are linked up. You can also find Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics on facebook, twitter, and pinterest.
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