It is a great teaching method as it helps simplify the English language and is perfect for young children. But what exactly is phonics, why has it become so important to the teaching of English, what are the benefits to teaching phonics, how is it taught in schools and what resources are available to help teach it?
This article will give you everything you need to know about phonics. The English language is complex. One such example is buy, by and bye. Whilst all pronounced the same, they have very different meanings. This is a similar number reported by the Oxford English Dictionary.
So the English language is complex. This is where breaking down words into more manageable chunks and phonics comes in. In order to develop a complete understanding of the English language, children must be able to grasp and master key skills.
They must be able to recognise letters; they must be able to turn these letters into words; and they must be able to turn words into sounds and make sense of these sounds. It is essential for children to learn the relationship between letters and sounds due to the fact that the English language relies heavily on letters to represent sounds. Phonics is the process of teaching children how to achieve this. Throughout phonics learning, children are taught to identify letters and the subsequent sound that accompanies that letter.
Put simply, phonics is a method that helps children decode words using sounds or, phonemes to give them their correct name. Whilst there may be over , words in the English language, there are only 44 phonemes in total.
In this stage, children are taught the 44 phonemes that make up the English language. The first sounds that are taught are s, a, t, p and all are taught during this stage.
The below graphics give a full overview for your reference. Once children understand the 44 phonemes and how they interact with graphemes, they progress through to the blending stage.
As a key reading skill, children must learn how to blend individual sounds together to create words. This normally starts with simple three letter words with a CVC consonant, vowel, consonant structure — think dog, tin, buy. For example, games are often tied to lessons, and the visuals which accompany the lessons are usually very vibrant.
This approach is meant to enhance the learning experience, and ultimately results in better overall development of reading and writing skills. Of course, all children are individuals, each with their own learning styles.
Phonics education is one method that can be incorporated into a complete, well-rounded reading program that encourages visual learners to recognize whole words by sight, and creates opportunities for extensive reading and creative writing. The Literacy Project TLP aims to bridge the literacy gap of emerging 2nd-graders, by introducing programs to remove the impediment of illiteracy and foster a life-long love of reading.
Discover how you can help your child read better today. You must be logged in to post a comment. Reading exercises the brain. Children who practice reading often through phonics, get better. Sound to symbol recognition becomes faster A child who learns reading through phonics will have excellent phonemic awareness — which is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate letter symbols with their appropriate sound.
Explicit — directly teaching children the specific associations between letters and sounds, rather than expecting them to gain this knowledge indirectly. Systematic — English has a complicated spelling system. It is important to teach letter sound mappings in a systematic way, beginning with simple letter sound rules and then moving onto more complex associations.
For example, some programs, such as Embedded Phonics, teach phonics by asking children to guess unfamiliar words using cues, such as the meaning of a word gleaned from sentence context. Other programs ask children to look at words for example, pig , page , pen all start with the same sound and learn letter-sound rules by analysing or making comparisons between those words analogy or analytical phonics.
These programs are not as effective as those focusing on letter-sound knowledge taught in an explicit and systematic fashion. Phonics instruction teaches children how to decode letters into their respective sounds, a skill that is essential for them to read unfamiliar words by themselves.
Keep in mind that most words are in fact unfamiliar to early readers in print, even if they have spoken knowledge of the word. Having letter-sound knowledge will allow children to make the link between the unfamiliar print words to their spoken knowledge. The majority of words young kids come across are decodable, from simple words like top to more challenging ones like peach or raccoon.
Phonics is, hands-down, the best way to teach kids to read words. This is well-supported by research: we know that systematic phonics instruction is better than any other approach when it comes to learning to read. Why is it so effective? Because phonics gives your child the tools to read almost every word he or she comes across. Learning phonics will have a big payoff for your child.
The more success your child has using phonics to read words, the more capable and confident he or she will feel about reading. Phonics is best taught systematically, starting with the easiest elements and working up to more challenging ones. For most kids, it begins in kindergarten and wraps up by the end of second grade.
From kindergarten through second grade, learning to read is exciting, but it can also be challenging. This is completely normal. With the right instruction and lots of practice and encouragement, your child will master these skills. So, how can you support your child? Your child will learn phonics at school, but there are some great ways you can support your child at home. Learning phonics and beginning to read is a huge milestone, and so much learning is packed in to just a few years.
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