meanings of new vocabulary items and to recognize the sound of letter that are used to the learners to read, write and spell.
2. Function of Letterland Pictogram
As the heart of letterland, pictogram has some functions to enrich new vocabulary items to the learners in learning English. Here are some functions
of letterland pictogram: a. Linking sounds to letter shape
Basically, there are no obvious reasons for a particular sound to be represented by a particular letter or group of letter. In letterland, each
letterlander becomes the reason for a letter’s shape and sound to be represented.
b. Reading direction The reading direction is an orientation cue built into each letterland
pictogram. c. Child-friendly metalanguage
Letterland pictogram makes it possible to talk about phonic concepts without jargon. Using language children already have to talk about letters,
sounds and concepts metalanguage.
d. Picture coding Picture coding is the process of adding letterland pictogram details to a
plain shape. By doing this, children become the animators of lifeless letters. The drawing process is fun, as the children bring the letter shapes
in their own. Picture coding also can used on the blackboard, worksheet, or cards to draw attention to target sounds within words.
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3. Strategies of Letterland
Letterland has eight main child strategies as that of the letterlanders letterland characters have thought up to help children to become better
readers and writers, there are:
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Gudrun Freese, Teacher’s Guide, London: Collins Educational, 2003, p. 12 - 13
a. The Sound Trick Objectives
1 To discover a-z letter sound 2 To match a-z letter sound to the plain letter shapes
The letterlanders have a special trick to help learners to learn their letter sound. The first sound of the letterlander’s name is the sound their
letter makes in words. To discover any letter sound, teacher started to say a letterlander’s
name. Whenever the teachers talk about letter sound, she always shows the plain letter side of picture code card.
Letter names are not much help to a child when it comes to blending words. The 21 consonants letter names are never used in reading
and letter names actually begin with another letter’s sound. Having the letterland character names Annie Apple, Bouncy Ben,
Clever Cat, etc gives a temporary alternative to the traditional alphabet names.
b. The Capital Letter Trick Objective
1 To learn when capital letters are used 2 To learn capital letter shapes
Each letterlander has a special way of turning their letter into a capital. They are so proud at being given the important job of beginning
someone’s name, or a sentence that they do their CAPITAL LETTER TRICK.
c. The Character Names Trick Objectives
1 To make use of noticeable recurring capital letters for the rapid identification of the 26 a-z letterland character names as sight words.
2 To use character names to read rhyming words by analogy In presenting the letterland character names, the teacher always
start a name with a capital letter, because names are important words. So in every letterlander’s name learners will see their capital letter.
d. The Actions Trick Objectives
1 To develop multi-sensory kineasthetic, auditory, oral, visual memory cues for letter sounds.
In explaining each letterlander to the children, the teacher has given an action to help their letter sound. To begin with, encourage
children to make the sound each time they make an action, so that the action and sound become firmly associated. Later the teacher could try an
action in various activities. For example:
1 A child makes an action and the rest of the class say the corresponding sound 2 Children play an action game where they make each action in
alphabetical order 3 Some children spell a word using actions only, the others convert the
action into sounds to build the word The actions are designed to be performed either sitting or standing.
Example: when children ‘become’ letters themselves and stand in a row form a word see appendix.
e. The Alliteration Trick and The Alliteration Game Objective
1 To develop phonemic awareness of initial sounds The alliterative ‘logic’ of letterland adds engaging discover factor
to phonemic awareness activities. In letterland, the characters love things that start with their sounds.
The activity of searching for alliterative words enables children to have creative input as they build up a bigger picture of each character.
Children feel like they are discovering new things about their letterland friends. This element of discovery has proved a real strength of the
letterland in making the children highly motivated to learn more about letterland friends.
f. The Rollercoaster Trick Objective
1 To blend individual sounds into words The rollercoaster trick is a multi-sensory strategy to help children
move on from just saying individual sounds to running sounds together to read words.
g. The Slow-speak Trick Objective
1 To segment words into individual sounds It helps children to break up spoken words into their individual
phonemes, in order to aid spelling. h. The Rhyming Words Trick
Objective 1 To spell and read by analogy
One of the strategies children should consciously use when attempting to read or write a word is to identify a spelling pattern in a
word they already know.
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Gudrun Freese, op. cit., p. 143 - 152
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Purpose of Study
The main purpose of this “skripsi” is showing for an appropriate technique in teaching vocabulary to the playgroup class. Not only does the writer show an
appropriate technique, but she hopes that this “skripsi” will give a better solution too.
Regarding that point, hopefully the teacher can apply it in doing the teaching and learning process at the school. All ideas which are related to that
point will be discussed and analyzed later.
B. Place of Study
The writer took place of field research at Tumble Tots Playgroup, located in Pondok Indah, south Jakarta. And I was taken my observation for 3 months
from 9
th
of October ’06 until 29
th
of December’06. Meanwhile, the library research will be taken from sources such as Faculty of Tarbiya Library, The State
Islamic University Library, and other sources.
C. Method of Study
This “skripsi” will be written based on field research. The writer will carry out the field research at Tumble Tots, Pondok Indah, Jakarta.
