From Tragic to Magic: A Phonological Fairy Tale and Guide to Prepare Children for Literacy

Georgie Cooney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367685928
• eBook ISBN: 9781000384918
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This engaging and colourful story and guide has been created to prepare children for reading and spelling through the recognition of phonological patterns such as rhyme, syllables and the awareness of phonemes within words. By working on and strengthening language skills, in turn, you are building children's literacy abilities – together.

A prequel to the storybook, Who Put the Spell into Spelling?, From Tragic to Magic tells the story of three siblings who set out to rescue their teacher, Miss Tragic. As they battle with a giant, a witch and a wizard, they encounter three phonological challenges that focus on syllables, rhyming and phonemes.

Key features include:

• Games and prompt questions for each chapter, based on Bloom's Taxonomy, to assess memory, understanding, application, analysis, evaluation and creativity
• A selection of additional activities to help to continue developing phonological awareness beyond the story
• Guidance and support for the adult reader throughout

With beautiful accompanying illustrations, this fun fairy tale provides an exciting and imaginative way of preparing children up to 7 years old for phonics, reading and spelling at primary school. It is an essential resource for parents, carers, grandparents and early educators.

Chapter 1: Miss Tragic

We start our story in a land that is similar to where you live but this land has more hills, trees, mountains, rivers and seas than you’ll ever know. It is known as Phon. This is a Greek word meaning ‘sound’. Sound can have highs and lows, like mountains and valleys and rollercoasters. Human beings can also have highs and lows, like waves.

As with most lands, Phon has goodness and badness. The nice folk are known as Kinds. They tend to care for others and have big, open minds about their land and the world in which their land exists.

The not-so-nice chaps are known as the Selfish. They’re more ‘sel’ than ‘fish’. They don’t have anything to do with fish, they tend to just do things for themselves. So, in fact, let’s just call them ‘Selves’. This works because there are many elves in the gang of Selves. Anyway, back to the story …

Three siblings Anita, Andreas and Angelica are sitting at home because their school is closed. Their teacher, Miss Tragic, has gone missing! Miss Tragic is a particularly lovely Kind but everything seems to be going wrong for her at the moment.

No one knows where she has gone but …

Anita (who is bold and brave) is determined to find out. Andreas (who is curious and clever) thinks he knows how to find Miss Tragic. Angelica (who is kind and cute) thinks that she is going to cry. Angelica is always crying.

To stop Angelica from crying, Anita decides that they’re all going to go and find Miss Tragic.

Andreas (who loves to solve problems) has finished his thought process and thinks he has the answer:

‘I bet those Selves who live in the Tall Towering Tower: Ginormous the Giant, Esmerelda the Witch and Wisdom the Wizard have kidnapped Miss Tragic!’

‘Why do you think that?’ asks Anita.

‘I heard that some of the Selves were trying to find a teacher to teach them new spells, but no one would educate them because they’re all too mean. So, they have kidnapped Miss Tragic in the hope that she will teach them new spells’, Andreas explains with great satisfaction.

‘Right then, let’s go and find her in the Tall Towering Tower’, insists Anita.

‘Oh no, I don’t want to go, I’m scared’, Angelica whimpers.

‘Such a cry baby Angelica! Come on, we’re going!’ commands Anita. With that, she pushes them all out of the door, on the hunt for the Tall Towering Tower.

The three children walk and walk and walk until they see the Tall Towering Tower in the distance.

Syllables

Syllables are beats in words.

Every single syllable has to have a VOWEL SOUND in it.

• The vowels are the sounds for a-e-i-o-u and ‘y’ can act as a vowel or a consonant.
• ‘y’ can sound like ‘i’s name in words such as ‘my’, ‘fly’, ‘cry’.
• ‘y’ can also sound like ‘e’s name in words such as ‘an-gry’ or ‘happ-y’.
• ‘r’ and ‘w’ can modify a vowel sound e.g. ‘war’, ‘wand’, ‘sort’, ‘skirt’.

Your child needs to be able to blend syllables in order to be able to segment syllables e.g. the segmented win-dow, if blended, becomes the word ‘window’; or the word ‘elephant’ can be...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Miss Tragic
• Chapter 2: Ginormous the Giant and Syllables
• Chapter 3: Esmerelda the Witch and Rhymes
• Chapter 4: Wisdom the Wizard and Phonemes
• Phonological Awareness Games and Activities