THRASS UK
has
already earned a reputation for producing highly successful
innovative resources for helping children to read and spell
as part of its widely-acclaimed THRASS phonics programme.
Today it is launching its amazing new THRASS SING-A-LONG
Family Reading Project which uses 44 songs that parents and
others can sing with children to explain the 44 sounds and
120 main spelling choices of English, while at the same time
having an enormous amount of fun.
Everyone knows just how important it is for children to
develop sound literacy skills from an early age and it is
widely accepted that parents can play a very important role
in helping them to do this. However, many parents, and also
teachers and teaching assistants, are not confident with
identifying the one-, two- and three-letter spelling choices
in English words and saying the sounds that they represent.
It
is also widely accepted that music, and in particular
singing, can have a wide range of benefits for children, the
most important of which, in the context of teaching
literacy, is that it can accelerate learning and improve the
memory. In addition, when
combined with movement, it can also help to combat obesity
and increase general physical fitness.
With
this in mind, British educational psychologist, Alan Davies,
an expert in synthetic phonics who has pioneered the
extremely successful THRASS (Teaching Handwriting
Reading And Spelling Skills) phonics programme, has been working
with a truly international team – a music specialist in
South Africa, an artist in Australia, and a computer
programmer and Alan’s wife, an experienced teacher and
teacher-trainer, in the UK - to develop the resources that
make up the THRASS SING-A-LONG Family Reading Project.
The Project revolves around 44 songs that teachers and
parents can sing with children to explain and help them
understand the 44 sounds and 120 main spelling choices of
English, with each song focusing on one of the 44 sounds and
its main spelling choices.
The
songs have been written so that they will be real fun for
both children and adults to sing. They all have wonderful
imaginative titles such as “The moon fell out of the sky”,
“A great big gorilla” and “You don’t get pandas in Africa”,
and they also have really memorable tunes.
But
the THRASS SING-A-LONG Family Reading Project doesn’t only
encourage parents and teachers to sing with children, it
also encourages them to move to music with them. The 44
SING-A-LONG songs are ideal for this as they are all written
in different musical styles and dance rhythms from around
the world such as African Round, blues, Charleston,
Hawaiian, Irish Dance, jazz, ragtime, reggae, twist and
waltz.
The
songs are featured throughout all the THRASS SING-A-LONG
Family Reading Resources, which comprise a 96-page hard-back
book, an interactive book and audio CD, each with vocal and
instrumental tracks, and a colouring book. The Resources are
all really easy to use and parents, grandparents, pre-school
staff and teachers can use them to teach speaking,
listening, reading and spelling skills. Older children can
also use them to teach their younger brothers and sisters.
The SING-A-LONG Interactive Book is an amazing piece of
software featuring interactive page-turning and text
highlighted in time with the vocal or instrumental
soundtrack. Teachers and parents
are encouraged to sing-a-long with the tracks until children
are so familiar with the songs that they are able to point
underneath the words and read them, and also name the
spelling choices for each of the 44 English sounds.
Later
in the year a sheet music book and a MOVE-A-LONG WITH
SING-A-LONG DVD will be available. There will also be
THRASS MOVE-A-LONG WITH SING-A-LONG workshops to give
parents and teachers group experience of singing, dancing
and performing actions to the 44 songs in South Africa, the
UK and the Caribbean, as well as SING-A-LONG concerts.
Everyone who has heard the SING-A-LONG songs has been really
impressed and THRASS UK has been inundated with requests for
the SING-A-LONG theme song. Reactions to a pilot MOVE-A-LONG
WITH SING-A-LONG Workshop held recently in Johannesburg were
extremely positive and the children taking part in tonight’s
launch have all enjoyed rehearsing the songs and movements
so much that their parents have reported that all they have
been hearing at home is the SING-A-LONG songs!
In South
Africa, Absa Bank, part of the Barclays Group, and Pritt are
the founding principal sponsors of the THRASS SING-A-LONG
Family Reading Project, and major construction company,
Murray & Roberts, is to become an associate sponsor of the
Project in early childhood development centres in Soweto and
elsewhere.
The
THRASS SING-A-LONG Family Reading Project will be launched
later today at Holy Rosary School, Johannesburg, where
children from 12 schools will give the world premiere of the
SING-A-LONG songs. The event will be attended by VIPs and
all the international delegates to the THRASS Absa
TalkTogether Conference currently being hosted by the
University of the Witwatersrand. Together with parents,
teachers and children from schools in the area, they will
have the chance to see the tremendous potential of the
THRASS SING-A-LONG Family Reading Project and Resources for
helping children to develop their literacy skills, while at
the same time experiencing the benefits of group singing and
having an enormous amount of fun.
The THRASS extensive picture-based training website for
schools and parents with easy access to a wide range of
resources and support materials and extensive evidence of
the widespread success of THRASS is at
www.thrass.co.uk
For information about the SING-A-LONG resources, visit
www.thrass.co.uk/list2008.htm
For
more information about the THRASS Absa TalkTogether Project,
visit
www.talktogether.co.za and
www.thrass.co.uk/talktogether.htm
For
details of THRASS Professional Development Courses that are
held regularly in the UK, Europe, West and Southern Africa
and elsewhere, visit
www.thrass.co.uk/courses.htm
Issued by: THRASS UK News Media Centre
www.thrass.co.uk/nm.htm
Mike Meade, Media Director, +44 1829 741413 Mob: 07970 151
738
mikemeade@thrass.co.uk
Chris Griffiths, International Development, +30 266 203 1207
chrisgriffiths@thrass.co.uk
