BEG
GINN
NING
G PH
HON
NICS A TUTOR
RING PROG
GRAM
MME FFOR P
PAREN
NTS B C K
KENNA
A RSM 2012
2 1 TEACHING PHONICS FROM THE BEGINNING My aim with this publication is to provide some guidance for parents who wish to help their children begin the study of phonics. There is no way I could write a complete programme on this topic, as educational books with a hundred plus pages have been written on the subject, so I am confining myself to the practical teaching of alphabet letter sounds and the study of 3 and 4 letter words, some with digraphs, followed by long vowel sounds, these will be explained. There will be some “whole‐words” for recognition included, so the students can write very simple sentences. I will direct parents about useful computer programmes, games and materials that are available for learning purposes, and what groups of letter‐sounds still need to be learnt after I complete this section of the learning sequence. No educational jargon will be used. The practical teaching process is fairly repetitive and modern phonic texts are a great help. These can be purchased at educational booksellers in the Primary Schools section. Once children know long and short vowels – these will be explained, and can use them for attacking new words or at spelling, they are well on the way to mastering phonic learning. There are three ways of teaching children to read and all of these methodologies must be carried out at different times during a school week. 1. Phonics 2. Sight words 3. Texts Students will progress at their own pace through each of these methods and teachers and parents have to be prepared to do lots of revision and encouraging. This writer believes that slow learners are pushed through the phonic learning phase too quickly. Some take longer than others to learn individual sounds and they become confused with letter names. Some have difficulties blending sounds, realizing that they produce a word when they 2 blend sounds to
ogether. Lo
ots of listeening activvities need
d to be givven to shaarpen the child’s heariing. Correct producttion of sounds need
ds to be atttended to, also. on listeningg skills and soundin
ng letters. Sight worrds are Phoniccs is mainlly based o
learnt through w
whole‐word recognition. That is throug
gh recogn izing word
ds by shape,, size and spacing. V
Visual skills must be
e fine‐tune
ed for thiss approach
h to come iinto effectt. The stud
dy of phonnics helpss the development oof visual skills, becausse children are tracing/writinng letters aand small parts of w
words, e.gg. “an,” “at,” w
whilst learning frequ
uently useed sight words, e.g. “the,” “a,,” and they begin by writingg short sen
ntences ussing words or picturres e.g. “I see a cat..” Storiess have beeen read to
o most children as toddlers an
nd in Prepparatory and Yr.1, laarge story books witth approppriate textts are displayed andd pointed tto, whilst being reaad. To writte about aall three m
methods off learning to read iss beyond the scop
pe of this article. Phhonics is th
he methodology moost learne
er‐
teacheers find co
omplex and difficult . Phonicc teachingg begins w
with the “soounds” off single lettters of thee alphabe
et. Chartss are availaable for purchase w
with each lletter and its picturee symbol, the first so
ound of th
he picture is the souund made by the lettter, for exxample ‐ a
a. a b
3 a ‐ pple b ‐at Pictures can be found in “Google” by writing in the search space – “Free picture of cat.” Aim at getting Royalty Free images, then copy and paste the pictures beside their respective letters. Other alphabet picture symbols from d to z might be – dog, egg, fence, gun, hat, ink, jam, kangaroo, lamp, mop, net, orange, pup, queen, rat, snake, truck, umbrella, van, watch, box,( underline and emphasize sound X) zip. Note that the second letter in all of these suggested symbols (pictures) is a short‐ vowel or a consonant. This is important, because when the symbol (picture) is identified, you can hear its first sound more clearly if a consonant or short vowel follows it. The short‐ vowels are the sounds of the letters; the long‐vowels are the letter names. For those readers who have forgotten what the vowels are, I’ll include them here. a e i o u All other letters are consonants. Simple activities for fine‐tuning sight skills Lots of simple activities with pen and paper are easy to produce e.g. Circle the shape that is different 1 1 1 1 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 6 6 6 6 6 6 9 6 6 6 6 xyz xyz xyz zyx xyz There are lots of fun books that can be purchased where the reader has to find an object hidden amidst other shapes. Simple jig‐saw puzzles are very useful. Any matching game using cards or computer activities will improve the child’s visual skills. There are free printable worksheets on computer for Kindergarten and Preparatory children with “same” and “different” activities. 4 Simple activities for fine‐tuning sound production and hearing Activities like getting children to reproduce animal noises, sequencing letters or numbers or words e.g. 1,5,7,9,8 and f, t, p, o, k, are valuable exercises for listening and memorizing. Playing initial games like “I Spy” can be fun e.g. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with the sound “t”. If the child gets it right, s/he takes a turn. Asking the child to do any of these activities can reveal speech problems which must be attended to if they exist. Choosing letter‐sounds to begin the study I prefer to introduce letters that will help children with writing skills where possible, that is, I present the straight letters first, including those with a curve, like “f”. Then I teach the rounder letters. After I have helped the child to identify the symbol (picture) and sound, then I reveal the first letter in the words and teach the child how to write it correctly. Try to select four or five pictures for identification of the sound. This is not always possible. Remember you are mainly dealing with very small children, who have limited vocabularies, so try to use words that show the image of the word e.g. a picture of a cat with the sound “c”. This makes questioning easier – “What is the picture?” If you were introducing the word “in” which is probable when teaching the “i” sound, you might use the picture of a doorway with an arrow pointing in. You would have to change your question to, “Is the arrow pointing in or out?” “In” is a preposition, not a noun. If the child calls the sound by its letter name then tell him/her “Yes, its name is “eff”, but its sound is “ffff”. We are going to learn the letters’ sounds. You know their names!” Keep emphasizing sound. There are books available for purchase on how to write correctly the letters in cursive script. I usually begin with the sound of “l” and use the pictures lamp, log, leg, lid, ladder. Then I introduce “t” with the pictures ten, tent, teddy, train, toy. “f” is 5 easy to
o match w
with picturres, fog, faan, fish, frog, fence. The letteer “r” is eaasy to write aand match
h with picttures – redd, ring, rat, run, rou
und. “i” is not so easy to match with imagges. I leavve this souund until the childre
en have leaarnt severral word‐w
wholes, beecause it, is and in will probaably be inttroduced aas sight‐w
words. Picturees could b
be – indian
n, igloo, ill, image. Iff I cannot think of aa suitable p
picture to illusstrate a so
ound, I loo
ok in the ddictionary to find a w
word that is suitable
e. Intrroduccing tthe sound
d: “f”
‐‐‐‐‐
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ 6 ‐‐‐‐‐
‐‐‐‐‐
‐‐‐‐ 7 How you might teach the letter‐sound “f” Step 1. Show the child the letter‐symbol sheet above, giving her/him a minute to look at the contents. Ask the question, “Why can’t we see the train properly?” When the child answers, “Because of the fog.” You might share experiences you have had with a fog. Under the picture write the word “fog” and emphasize the sound of “f” – fffff – og. Step 2. Get the child to identify the flag picture and ask her/him if s/he knows which country it belongs to. Suggest a clue like Disneyland. Write flag under the picture and as you do so, emphasize ffffff‐lag. Steps 2, 3 and 4. Deal likewise with the pictures fan, fish and frog. Step 5. Reinforcing the sound of “f’ Say, “Now that we have identified all of the pictures, you listen to me say all the words. You find the same sound that is in all of them.” fff‐og fff‐ lag fff – an fff – ish fff – rog The child will answer with the sound of “f”. 8 Step 6. Writing the “f” sound Say, “We are going to write the “f” sound on the line. It looks like a walking stick with a little line across the middle of it. Some might say it looks like a red and white striped candy stick. We begin this letter‐sound with a small curve and join it to a straight stick. Last of all we put the little line across the middle of the stick.” You do the letter on the line saying “fff” then let the child write it. Do likewise with the other pictures. I do not write the words, just the letter‐
sound. Deal similarly with all the sounds of the letters in the alphabet. Games for revision of sounds/words Place the letters on cardboard squares or rectangles, approximately 14cm by 6 cm. Later this can be done with 2, 3, 4 letter words for revision. Children love playing “Skittles.” Put letter/word cards under the skittles and when s/he knocks over a skittle, she reads card correctly and gets another turn. When playing board games like “Snakes and Ladders” a pile of cards can be placed on the table. If the child lands on a snake, s/he can be given a chance to read letter/word correctly and move on without sliding down the snake. “Hide and Seek” can be another card game. Hide the cards in the room and the child who finds and reads correctly the most cards can go “He”. “Spin the knife” is another game that can be played. Divide the table into areas depending on the number of game participants. If the knife is spun and points to your space, you read the card. The person who attains the most cards wins. Parents are creative people and can invent games where the cards can be used. Two and three letter words After the child is able to identify all the letter‐sounds, s/he is ready to learn two and three letter words. Remember, they have been learning sight‐words such as is, the, can, was, I, and, in class through size, spacing and shape, so they won’t find it difficult to take the next step in phonic learning. I always begin with bigger words built on meaningful little words e.g. an – can, ban, fan, man, Nan, pan ran, tan, van. Again I introduce these words with pictures, and treat them in a similar way to the letter‐sounds – c‐an, b‐ an, etc. Ask the child 9 to find the common sound in all the words and underline the letters that make this sound, “an”. They have done this activity so often with the single sounds they are quite ready for it. Make sure they are hearing a word when they blend the letters together. You may have to be patient at this stage and do a lot of demonstration for the child. You sound words with her/him. This is a very important stage in the learning process and do not move on until each child has mastered the blending. I think this is where children begin having difficulties. When they are ready, you can add four letter words – band, hand, land, sand. Children’s visual skills are improving all of the time, so you’ll be surprised how quickly they will master this and following stages. Other two‐letter words that can be built upon are – at, cat, rat, bat etc. am – dam, ram, ham, Sam, jam, lamb, as – has, gas, it – bit, fit, hit, kit, lit, mitt, sit, The more practice children get with three‐letter words the easier it becomes for them to blend four and five letters, even without the use of pictures. At this stage there are lots of exercises in lower grade phonic books to help them revise and reinforce their learning – three and four‐letter blends. There are many programmes on the computer you can use. I think an excellent programme is www.starfall.com “Learn to Read with Phonics.” This presents games and activities with sound and children seem to enjoy it. My one criticism is the American accent, but that does not impede learning. For other programmes, write into your computer search bar – “Literacy learning through phonics,” and explore the various sites. There are many worthwhile learning materials to be downloaded free of charge. I’m reluctant to include book titles, because companies like Oxford Press, Macmillan and RIC are improving their products all of the time. Educational staff will help you with purchasing the best books for your child’s needs. One activity I find very helpful is getting the children to find small words inside bigger words e.g. garden – den, catch – cat. etc. 10 Sight‐word or whole‐word learning These are words that cannot be sounded such as – I, was, were, the, etc. and teachers teach and exercise the children in various ways through short and longer text readings. They use flash cards for drilling the words and children do lots of word and picture matching activities. It has been said before that all the methods of learning to read improve children’s visual skills. Many youngsters off‐load phonic approaches as they find they can recognize words and remember them from the word’s image. One aid I would introduce at this stage is a basic word list containing the most frequently used words in the English language. There are some of these lists available on the net. I suggest, Dolch’s Basic Sight Vocabulary of 220 Words. There are other word lists that are equally as valuable – Edwards and Summers Word Lists 1 and 2, Spelling List for First Grade by Marie Ripple. Games can be played with the words using rhymes such as – “Tick tack toe, Down I go, Where I stop you do not know” Point to a word and ask the child to recognize it. Other word recognition games might be,” Who or what am I?” or “What is it?” You choose a word secretly in a particular column e.g. buy, and ask this question –“The word is an important action. You must have money to do this. You choose something you want, give the shopkeeper your money and you get your purchase. This secret word has three letters. What is it?” Basic word lists can help children to spell words that they want to use in their sentences. 11 TABLE OF WORD ATTACK SKILLS Level 1. Recognize, say, write the letter names and sounds of the alphabet. (a) Lower‐case letters. (b) Upper‐case letters – capitals) Level 2. Blend, recognize and build word families from Levels 2 – 4. Three‐letter words in a consonant‐vowel‐consonant pattern e.g. can. Make words by adding letters to these endings – ab, ad, ag, an, am, ap, at, eg, en, ed, et, ib, id, ig, im, in, ip, it, ix, ob, og op, od, ot, ub, ug, um, ud, us ut Level 3. Two letter initial consonant blends e.g. bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fr, fl, gl, gr, pl, pr, sc, sl, sk, sm, sn, st, sw, tr, tw. As you can see these blends can lead to building bigger words, such as bl – blot, br – bring etc. Two‐letter final consonant blends can be used for word building too – ft, ld, lk, lp, lt, mp, nd, ng, nk, nt, py, ry, sk, sp, st, ty. Words might be – lift, plod, milk, melt etc. Three letter initial consonant blends might be – scr, spl, spr, str, squ Words might be – scrap, split, spring etc. Level 4. Digraphs – groups of two letters expressing one sound ar, er, or, ee, th, sh, ch, qu Words: car, letter, for, tree, etc. wh, ck, (‐y) as in sky, try, my (‐ y) as in happy, funny, merry Diphthongs – uniting two vowels to make one syllable or vowel Sound e.g. oo, ay, all, oa, aw, a‐e, ou, i‐e, oy, ue, ew ow, ea, ai, u‐e, a‐e, o‐e Words: show, sea, use, etc. Level 5. h‐igh, n‐ew, m‐ight, c‐age, c‐ould, f‐air, w‐eight, t‐alk, t‐ough, b‐ought, 12 c‐aught, fr‐ui‐t, l‐augh, tele‐ph‐one, monk‐ey, p‐oor, he‐dge and the silent letter e.g. know. Level 6. Syllables – placing accents on parts of a word e.g. gar‐den has two syllables, lawn has one syllable. Compound words – one word made from two words e.g. clockface, football Prefix: a syllable attached to a word e.g. unhappy. Suffix: a syllable added to the end of a word – successful, sadness Year Level English Books, spelling and phonic books will introduce and continue all of these concepts with suitable exercises at the appropriate time. This is the progression through the whole study of phonics. Other word study skills that I teach can be developed from books about English spelling rules. It can take seven or eight years for students to become efficient at all of these skills. Short and Long Vowels On the above Table of Word Attack Skills the words made from double letters between the Levels of 2 and 4 will all contain the short vowels i.e. the sounds of the vowels. A few examples might be ‐ “ft”( sift) “mp”( jump) “bl” ( black) “ap”( snap). However, Levels 4 and 5 contain many combinations of two and three letters that have long vowels i.e. the names of the vowels ‐ a e i o u. Look carefully at the following chart of long vowel sounds and words. a e I (ay) hay (ee) tree (igh) high (ai) paid 13 (oa) boat u (u‐e) tune (‐y) funny (i‐e) like (o‐e)bone (ew) few (a‐e) made (ea) sea (ey) they o (‐y) try (ow) know (ue) cue (e‐e) gene (ei) weight It helps the children to learn spellings if teachers put suitable sounds and words on wall charts e.g. “ay” chart could be made with the words ‐ bay, day, gay, hay, jay, lay, may, pay, ray, stay, way. In higher grades, the words could be more difficult. When all the sounds have been taught other charts can be made containing words from combinations of letters which make each vowel sound e.g. long vowel “e” might have words with “ee” “‐y” “ea” “e‐e”. These sounds follow a general rule, and like all general rules there are exceptions to the norm. “Give” and “have” do not follow the pattern. As well as saying the long vowel “e” sound, “ea” can say the short vowel “e” sound as in words like bread, head, steady etc. So too with “ow,” it can say “ou” as in “out.” For example, down, clown, town etc. This is what makes teaching so difficult. However, I do not mention the exceptions to very young children. Older students can cope with two sounds each for “ea” and “ow.” Do not introduce them close together. When you teach long vowels there are rhymes that will help. For example, the silent “e” words, symbolized by a‐e, e‐e, i‐e, o‐e, u‐e – made, gene, mice, bone, flute. Note that the “e” does not sound on the ends of these words; they are silent “e” words. The rhyme is – “e” on the end of the word Makes the other vowel say its own name. Lazy old “e” says nothing! Shame! 14 When two vowels are placed together in a word – coat you can teach the children the following – Two vowels go walking The first does the talking. It says its own name. Examples of this rule are – pain, tree, pie, boat, cue. Use pictures to teach the long vowels and provide many exercises using them. Although I have written that I am reluctant to mention book titles, I have found the series of texts: My Spelling Activity Books, numbered A to F, indicating levels of difficulty, excellent for exercising long vowels. These books are produced by RIC publisher in Perth. There are many computer disk phonic programmes obtainable from companies advertising on the net. Nodtronics Publishing is one of those companies. They also publish school products under the name of Eureka. Booksellers can give you advice on these products if you are not computer friendly. This completes my guidance for parents or tutors. I began by saying that I would help the readers with teaching/tutoring phonics from the sounds of alphabet letters through the learning sequence to long vowel sounds. I have suggested learning activities, materials and practices. Some sight‐ word practices have been included. I offer my very best wishes to all those who take up the challenge of helping their youngsters to master reading with the aid of phonics. B C Kenna RSM Ballarat Centacare, May 3, 2012. 15 Acknowledgements Thank you to “Google” for the Royalty Free copies of the pictures used in this assignment – The two cover pictures, the apple bat, fog, flag, fan, fish and frog. B C Kenna RSM P O Box 2537 Bakery Hill Ballarat 3354 16