What makes up phonics

Programs should acknowledge that systematic phonics instruction is a means to an end. Some phonics programs focus primarily on teaching children a large number of letter-sound relationships. These programs often do not allot enough instructional time to help children learn how to put this knowledge to use in reading actual words, sentences, and texts.

Although children need to be taught the major consonant and vowel letter-sound relationships, they also need ample reading and writing activities that allow them to practice using this knowledge. Usually, practice materials are in the form of short books or stories that contain words that provide children with practice in using the specific letter-sound relationships they are learning.

Most programs of systematic phonics instruction also include materials for use in practicing writing. For example, children might have activity sheets on which they write the letters and letter combinations they are learning, and then combine these into words, sentences, messages, and their own stories.

You can teach phonics effectively to the whole class, to small groups, or to individual students. The needs of the students in your class and the number of adults working with them determine how you deliver instruction. Some programs of instruction do not teach phonics explicitly and systematically.

Literature-based programs that emphasize reading and writing activities. Phonics instruction is embedded in these activities, but letter-sound relationships are taught incidentally, usually based on key letters that appear in student reading materials. Basal reading programs that focus on whole-word or meaning-based activities.

These programs pay only limited attention to letter-sound relationships and provide little or no instruction in how to blend letters to pronounce words. Sight-word programs that begin by teaching children a sight-word reading vocabulary of from 50 to words. Only after they learn to read these words do children receive instruction in the alphabetic principle. Further, adding phonics workbooks or phonics activities to these programs of instruction has not been effective.

Such "add-ons" confuse rather than help children to read. Quite the opposite is true. Because systematic phonics instruction helps children learn to identify words, it increases their ability to comprehend what they read. Reading words accurately and automatically enables children to focus on the meaning of text.

The research is quite convincing in showing that phonics instruction contributes to comprehension skills rather than inhibiting them. Again, the opposite is true. Phonics instruction contributes to growth in the reading of most children. It is important, however, to acknowledge that children vary greatly in the knowledge of reading that they bring to school. For phonics instruction to support the reading progress of all of your students, it is important to work in flexible instructional groups and to pace instruction to maximize student progress.

Systematic programs of phonics instruction produce more growth in spelling among kindergarten and first-grade students than non-systematic or no phonics programs. However, systematic phonics instruction for normally developing and poor readers above first grade does not produce gains in spelling. The reason may be that as students move up in the grades, spelling is less a matter of applying letter-sound relationships and more a matter of combining word parts.

Systematic phonics instruction by itself may not be enough to significantly improve the overall reading and spelling performance of readers beyond first grade. How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly , 19, pp. National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Shefelbine, J. Lipscomb, and A. McCormick and J. Zutell eds. Chicago: National Reading Conference.

Challenge level, polysyllabic decoding, 2nd ed. Stanback, M. Syllable and rime patterns for teaching reading: Analysis of a frequency-based vocabulary of 17, words. Annals of Dyslexia , 42, pp. Templeton, S. Development of orthographic knowledge and the foundation of literacy. Treiman, R.

The development of spelling skill. Topics in Language Disorders , 20, Get Started. Please let us know what questions you have so we can assist. For Technical Support, please call us or submit a software support request. What Is Phonics? Regular and Irregular Words Word recognition involves two types of words: regular words the words which students can decode by sounding them out and irregular words the words students cannot completely decode by sounding them out.

For example: Regular Words decodable Irregular Words not decodable hot they black was plain said In some programs, regular words that can be decoded are called sound-out words. High-Frequency Words Another important emphasis of phonics and word recognition is learning high-frequency words.

First High-Frequency Words Multisyllabic Words The average number of syllables in the words students read increases steadily in the primary grades. Affixes are worth teaching, because there are a limited number of them, they occur frequently, and suffixes are especially consistent across words Shefelbine and Newman, Students who have learned to read prefixes and suffixes by sight e.

The Importance of Developing Automaticity in Phonics Research tells us that in order to become fluent readers, students need to learn to decode unknown words accurately and automatically. Progression of Phonics Skills Children typically progress through a sequence of identified phonics skills as they learn to read and spell—whether they learn slowly or quickly Ehri, ; Moats, ; Templeton and Bear, ; Treiman and Bourassa, Introducing young children to the joy and wonder of books requires a systematic teaching of phonics.

The most widely used approach associated with the teaching of reading in which phonemes sounds associated with particular graphemes letters are pronounced in isolation and blended together synthesised. A popular approach in Scotland, this method is associated with the teaching of reading in which the phonemes associated with particular graphemes are not pronounced in isolation. Children identify analyse the common phoneme in a set of words in which each word contains the phoneme under study.

For example, teacher and pupils discuss how the following words are alike: pat, park, push and pen. Another factor that illustrates why English's alphabetic orthography is complex is that some letters make multiple sounds. Also, In English there are often multiple ways to spell the same sound. Despite this complexity, there are numerous sound-letter patterns graphemes that are useful to highlight, so that children can crack the code of written language.

English is also considered a morphophonemic language, which means that its spelling is also made up of various morphemes e.

The morphology of words increasingly becomes important for the teaching of reading and spelling as students progress in their literacy abilities. The morphology of words also adds to the complexity of the English spelling system. We have 20 vowel sounds, and 24 consonant sounds. In English we use graphemes to represent these various sounds.

It is important for teachers to be familiar with the most common and productive sound-letter patterns graphemes. Words can be categorised as either are regular or irregular words in terms of their spelling. Distinguishing between words that are completely or mostly regular or irregular can be helpful to know which words might be difficult for students to decode independently.

Regular words are words that can be decoded using knowledge of phonics patterns e. Irregular words are words that do not conform to phonics patterns e.

Words can also be categorised as either low frequency or high frequency, referring to how frequently they are found in texts for students of a particular year level. Overtime, it is expected that students will become proficient and efficient at reading words they encounter the most high frequency words. High frequency words are words that students of a particularly learning level encounter frequently e. Low frequency words are more rare or not usual for a student in a particular learning level to come across e.

It can be useful to use lists of high frequency words e. Oxford Word List, Magic Words. However, when you identify the graphemes within these words it is clear that many high frequency words are also regular words. Morphology is the study of words and their parts. Morphemes like prefixes, suffixes, and base words are defined as the smallest meaningful units of meaning. Morphemes are important for phonics reading and spelling , as well as vocabulary and comprehension.

For example, students can learn about the plural -s, and how it can be spelt with an "s" or "es", based on a sound rule. See plural s section for more details. For more information, see: Word Morphology. See the 44 Speech sounds video. In English, phonics is the teaching of introductory, basic, intermediate, and advanced sound-letter patterns graphemes. Awareness and recall of these patterns is relevant for the development of both reading and spelling. The phonics lesson sequences aim to provide teachers with explicit information about how to teach phonics to students who might require additional support in Foundation, Level 1 and Level 2.

The lesson sequences are examples and are not intended to cover all aspects of phonics.