Phonemic Awareness In Kindergarten

Jolly Phonics
I spent Valentines Day away from my Kinders attending a workshop on Jolly Phonics. It was a hard decision but I know how important it is to integrate a good phonics program into my play based program and my colleague Margie is having really good success with Jolly Phonics.  Friday was the only day that the program is offered on the island.
When Niki and I arrived almost all of the participants were from Nanaimo. I guess that I am not the only Kindergarten teacher wanting to improve my practice. 
This program provides a systematic approach to teaching letter sounds and names. It also uses the guided release model, which I fully believe is a critical instructional strategy. Students learn to read using clusters of letters planned in a specific sequence and tricky words as well as hand gestures. It requires explicit teaching and is intended to be  combined with a strong literacy program. 
The company has created a lot of support resources; big books, small books, puppets, readers, song books, cards and a wide range of circle games and lessons to help deliver a program. Fortunately for me they are on sale and our school had a wee bit of money to purchase some of the resources. A colleague of mine has been using this program with her Kindergarten class for the past two years with great results and I am excited to add this kinaesthetic program. I  have had success with my practice and think that this will dovetail nicely with what I am already doing.
The program components are: 1. Learning the 42 letter sounds. 2. Learning letter formation. 3. Blending 4. Segmenting 5. Tricky words
I have just assessed my students so it will be simple to track their growth and help me identify which students are responding positively to the program. 
If you are using Jolly Phonics let me know what you think of it. 
Thanks for stopping by,