Letterland: ABC - Lyn Wendon and Richard Carlisle

This book in my oppinion is brilliant but my daughters school dont use this teaching method but i was taught this way so i have taught my daughter this way. This book helps in many ways to teach a child the alphabet and gives them easy ways to remember it. Each letter has a double page spread in the book, on the page you have a letterland character that represents the letters for instance annie apple represents the letter a. This page also contains lots of objects begining with that perticular letter. The pictures in this book are brilliant and help to keep a childs interest or concentration for longer. On each page there is ...  Read the complete review

Now this was a brilliant book and teaching method, that really brought the alphabet to life, for me as a 5 year old in the 80s. I can't think of anything else at school that simply more unforgettable. I could associate with "Poor Peter", since "P" is the first letter in my first name, and i don't mean Putley! The Letterland book was created by Lyn Wendon in 1968, and is sold successfully in 111 different countries. You open the book, and you'll find in order, from A to Z, you'll see a 2-page tribute to each letter, with i think the page on the left, will pose a description of the character, and it had smaller illustrations of the character ...  Read the complete review

The first time I heard of the Letterland characters was on my Teaching of Reading module on my teacher training course. It was mentioned in passing and brushed aside as “some schools use it but we don’t think much of it.” Fast forward 9 years and suddenly my eldest son was coming home from his day nursery telling me all about Annie Apple, Bouncy Ben and Clever Cat. Now I know all about the Letterland characters! The idea behind Letterland is quite a good one. Characters have been built around the shapes of the letters (small ones, not capitals) and then children learn who the characters are and build up their phonic knowledge. I personally find some ...  Read the complete review

Doo yoo know? Well, I’ll tell you. Hairy Hat Man is the representation of the letter ‘h’ in the Letterland alphabet used in many schools as the basis for learning to read. Alliterative characters such as Hairy Hat Man represent each letter. The favourites in our house are Clever Cat (for Conor) and Kicking King (for Kieran). I hate to say it but Kicking King on occasions seems apt! The school Conor attends uses Letterland and so this scheme fits in well for us. However, if your children are still too young for school or even nursery it would make a fun change from those alphabet books which all seem to be so similar. There are ...  Read the complete review

If you have never come across Letterland before, it's worth giving it a go. My wife and I are both primary school teachers and used the Letterland scheme extensively in our schools before the onset of the Literacy Hour, so what better recommendation could you get than that? The Letterland scheme teaches phonic awarenesss in a fun way. The letters are personified by a variety of characters: Clever Cat, Annie Apple, Ticking Tess, Eddie Elephant, to name but a few. However, these days, if you wish to teach your child to read using the Letterland method, it must be used with caution, as there are not too many overlaps with the Literacy Hour. It is actually, in ...  Read the complete review