By Henry Akubuiro
Curriculum and education experts have stressed the need for early education. It is a necessity to lay the foundation for their future success by shaping their mindset, habits and values. Early learning also helps in the emotional development of children by making them imbibe skills of self-expression, self-respect, self-confidence, self-regulation through teacher-pupil interactions.
Phonics teaching serves as a foundation for reading and learning. For beginners, phonics is most effective when teaching begins with the easiest sounds in a structured manner before progressing through to the most complex. This echoes the need for CVC learning for kids.
CVC words CVC words are single syllable three-phoneme words that follow the pattern of consonant sound, vowel sound, consonant sound. In other words, they are words created using a consonant, vowel, and a consonant. Vowels are the letters A, E, I, O and U, while consonants are all the rest of the letters in the alphabet.
Tracing and Reading of CVC Words is a book written by Damilola Olatundun for the age 3-8 bracket. Its features include phonics, reading, tracing writing, proper formation and line alignment for children. By using images of vehicles, animals, fruits, objects, food, humans, clothes, symbols, etcetera, the author teaches kids phonetics through impressions and repetitive writing, which help them with reading, writing and rhyming three-phoneme words.
The pages of this book teem with instructions for children to “read and write”. Children reading Olatundun’s book learn valuable phonics which is helpful in learning to decode words by matching the sounds of letters to words.
Words taught in the book include but not limited to “an” (can, pan, van, man, fan); “am” (sam, ham, jam, yam, rat, mat, hat, cat, bat); “ap” (tap, nap, map, gap, cap, tag, tag, bag, wag); “en” (pen, men, hen, ten); “eg” (keg, pen); “et” (pet, vet, wet, jet); “it” (sit, kit); “ig” (dig, pig, big); “in” (win, tin, pin, fin, bin); “up” (tip, dip, sip); “ot” (jot, pot, hot, dot); “og” (log, jog, dog, fog), “op” (mop, top, pop, hop); “ox” (ox, fox, box); “un” (run, sun, bun, rub, tub); “ut” (cut, nut, put), and “ug” (hug, mug, jug, rug, bug).
The author, Damilola Olatundun (Nee Taiwo), is an early years practitioner with six years of experience in various settings, including nurseries, preschools, and kindergarten. She is a Jolly Phonics trainer par excellence, incredible and creative author of children’s engaging phonics workbooks.
A widely travelled teacher, she has served as early years teacher at The Nurturing Tree, Lekki, Lagos; early years teacher at The Central School, Dubai; early years teacher at Little Einstein Nursery, United Kingdom. She has also taught Kindergarten Class, taught toddlers and preschoolers, and developed phonics and literacy programmes. She is a children’s phonics author, and has collaborated with educational publishers, with her phonic books on Amazon.
Her books include The Basics of Reading Skills (2016), A-Z initial Sounds Colouring Workbook (2024), and Tracing and Reading of CVC Words (2024). Others include Digraphs Sounds Colouring Workbook (2024), Pictorial Vowel Digraphs Activity Book (2024]), Pictorial Consonant Digraphs Activity Book (2024).