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Letterland

Letterland is a British educational company whose aim is to teach Phonics and letters to young children. They accomplish this by a story-based approach following the inhabitants of the titular Letterland. Established in 1968 by primary school teacher Lyn Wendon, it has spanned a variety of educational books, television shows and games, intended to help children spell. It has reached 111 countries.[1] The success of Letterland is in part due to the pictogram system, originated by Wendon.

Letterland is validated by the Department for Education (DfE) in England as an effective systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP).[2]

History

In 1968, Lyn Wendon created Letterland whilst working in the Special Needs department of a Primary School. Seeing that children were struggling, Lyn envisioned a practice that would make learning about phonics and the English Language accessible to all.

By 1975, Letterland began to integrate into UK schools, and by 1981 it began to implemented worldwide.

The inhabitants of Letterland each represent one letter of the English alphabet I.e Annie Apple, Bouncy Ben, Clever Cat etc. As shown their names are typically alliterative. The only exemption being the letter X represented by the character(s) Kissing Cousins. In this instance the X representative is one of a kiss (x) in later versions, the character was changed to Fix-It Max.

Characters:

A - Annie Apple

B - Bouncy Ben

C - Clever Cat

D - Dippy Duck

E - Eddy Elephant

F - Fireman Fred

G - Golden Girl

H - Harry the Hairy Hat Man

I - Impy Ink

J - Jumping Jim

K - Kicking King

L - Lucy the Lamp Lady

M - Munching Mike

N - Noisy Nick

O - Oscar Orange

P - Peter Puppy

Q - Quarrelsome Queen

R - Red Robot

S - Sammy Snake

T - Talking Tess

U - Uppy Umbrella

V - Vicky Violet

W - Walter Walrus

X - Fix-It Max ( formerly Max and Maxine, the kissing cousins)

Y - Yellow Yo- Yo Man

Z - Zig Zag Zebra

Letterland has released a series of educational books, mainly authored by Lyn Wendon, the originator of the pictogram system of which Letterland is based.

all books listed are written by Wendon unless stated otherwise:

  1. ABC (1985) co-authored with Richard Carlisle
  2. The Hairy Hat Man’s House (1985)
  3. Eddy Elephant and the Forest Fire (1987)
  4. Uppy Umbrella in Volcano Valley (1993
  5. An Alphabet of Rhymes (1994)
  6. Letralandia (1995)
  7. Oscar Orange and the Octopus (2008)
  8. Dippy Duck Dresses Up (2008)

In 1999, Letterland released ‘Once upon a time in Letterland’ a four episode feature, in 2000 it was released on VHS.

  1. ^ "Letterland | Phonics". www.letterland.com. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  2. ^ Hammond, Alexandra (2022-05-09), "St George's Church of England Primary School, London, England", Systematic synthetic phonics: case studies from Sounds-Write practitioners, Research-publishing.net, pp. 105–112, doi:10.14705/rpnet.2022.55.1365, ISBN 978-2-38372-001-0, retrieved 2024-02-28