Many parents of beginning readers have heard about phonics and many have questions: What does my child’s teacher really mean when she talks about phonics? Does my child need to learn phonics to learn to read? Is phonics most effective if taught at a certain age?
What is Phonics?
Phonics is simply the system of relationships between letters and sounds in a language. When your kindergartener learns that the letter B has the sound of /b/ and your second-grader learns that “tion” sounds like /shun/, they are learning phonics.
Imagine not being able to make the “a” or “s” sound! Not knowing how to sound out these letters would mean that you would struggle with stringing letters together, pronouncing words, reading or spelling! Phonics is about making connections between printed/written letters and speech sounds e.g. looking at the letter “k” and being able to make the “k” sound. It is also about being able to merge separate sounds together to make one word. An example of this would be h-a-t to hat.
Scientific studies have repeatedly found that explicit systematic phonics instruction is the most effective way to teach children how to read. Without it, some children will end up having serious reading difficulties. But what is explicit systematic phonics? Let’s break this term down.
Phonics – teaching children the sounds made by individual letter or letter groups (for example, the letter “c” makes a k sound), and teaching children how to merge separate sounds together to make it one word (for example, blending the sounds k, a, t makes CAT). This type of phonics teaching is often referred to as “synthetic phonics”.
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.
The term “phonics” has been used quite loosely by several reading programs, with some straying from these fundamental principles.
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.
Why is Phonics Important?
Being able to decode (read) and encode (spell) words is essential for children. When a child comes across an unfamiliar word, their phonics skills can help them read the letters and link them together to make a word. Generally, children who cannot recognise or verbalise letters of the alphabet will struggle with reading and spelling.
Learning phonics at a young age also helps improve reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension. Reading fluency relates to the speed or reading rate of a student along with the ability to read with expression. It is important to note that reading at a fast pace, without understanding the words being read, isn’t fluent reading. In regard to phonics, accuracy is when a student can sound out the words properly while reading comprehension links to the ability to understand the meaning of the words being read. Having good reading comprehension helps widen a child’s vocabulary.
At the end of the day learning phonics is important because it helps children pronounce words and understand them. We want our children to be able to read well and feel confident in their abilities.
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.
Another aspect that is rarely discussed is that the letter-sound decoding process itself is a learning mechanism. For example, make a mental note of how you feel when reading the following words:
Wingardium Leviosa
When you first read these words, you probably used your letter-sound knowledge, which involved two important processing stages:
1) It helped you produce the correct sound of an unfamiliar print word. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, the pronunciation also probably lit up connections to the meaning of the word.
2) It drew your attention to the details and the combination of the letters of the word.
These two steps then function as a learning mechanism, allowing you to recognise the previously unfamiliar word quicker the next time around (go back to read the words again and see how you feel about them now).
This transition from slowly sounding out a word, to rapidly recognising it, is what we call “learning to read by sight”. Every reader must make this transition to read fluently.
It is true that there are many English words, such as yacht and isle that do not follow typical letter-sound rules. Even then, research has shown that children can still learn these words successfully by decoding some parts of the word (y … t for yacht), with help from spoken vocabulary knowledge to facilitate the learning.
Phonics is important not only because this knowledge allows children to read on their own, but it is also a learning mechanism that builds up a good print word dictionary that can be quickly accessed.
Will it really improve reading?
Recent National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results have shown no improvement in reading and writing skills despite much government funding.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results demonstrated a steady decline in children’s reading ability in Australia since 2000.
So, will more effective phonics instruction really help to improve these results?
Of course, reading effectively (whether to learn or for pleasure) is not just about phonics or having a decent store of single words.
Functional reading requires several other skills such as good vocabulary, the ability to extract inferences, and synthesise and hold information in memory across several sentences. But if your single word reading is not efficient, comprehension is going to be dramatically affected.
If we use building a house as an analogy, understanding text is the complete home; single word reading ability is the structural frame of the house, and phonics is the foundation of that frame.
Effective phonics instruction is important because letter-sound knowledge is the foundation needed to build up reading and writing abilities.
The phonics screening check will indicate whether children have gained the necessary skills. If not, schools need to review current methods of teaching and implement methods that stick with evidence-based principles of explicit, systematic phonics teaching.
When is phonics usually taught?
Your child will probably learn phonics in kindergarten through second grade. In kindergarten, children usually learn the sounds of the consonant letters (all letters except the vowels a, e, i, o, and u). First- and second-graders typically learn all the sounds of letters, letter combinations, and word parts (such as “ing” and “ed”). They practice reading and spelling words containing those letters and patterns. Second-graders typically review and practice the phonics skills they have learned to make spelling and reading smooth and automatic.
Children vary in the amount of phonics instruction they need and when they need it. Some children need very little phonics instruction, while others still benefit from phonics instruction in third grade. Many children with dyslexia benefit from phonics instruction even beyond third grade.
Here are 3 fun ways to teach your child phonics:
Feel the Letter before Saying it
Create letters using sandpaper. You can stick each letter onto a colourful piece of paper and make an alphabet deck. Before teaching your child how to sound out the letter, trace the letter with their fingertips. After they have felt the letter, say it together and then ask them to repeat it. Once you have gone through it a few times, check to see if they can say them without your help.
Sound of the Week Table
Start each week with a different sound. For example, create a table for “a” to stick on the wall. Print out six images from the internet, or from magazines. Find three objects that make the sound and three that don’t make the sound. Scramble the images and have your child stick the correct images on the table.
I Spy with My Little Eye Something that Begins with “b”
Find a couple of objects around the house that start with different letters. You could use a ball for “b”, a pencil for “p” and a doll for “d”. Put these objects in front of your child and begin the game with “I spy with my little eye, something that begins with…the letter b!”. Your child needs to be able to identify which of the objects begin with the letter “b”.
Many parents of beginning readers have heard about phonics and many have questions: What does my child’s teacher really mean when she talks about phonics? Does my child need to learn phonics to learn to read? Is phonics most effective if taught at a certain age?
What is Phonics?
Phonics is simply the system of relationships between letters and sounds in a language. When your kindergartener learns that the letter B has the sound of /b/ and your second-grader learns that “tion” sounds like /shun/, they are learning phonics.
Imagine not being able to make the “a” or “s” sound! Not knowing how to sound out these letters would mean that you would struggle with stringing letters together, pronouncing words, reading or spelling! Phonics is about making connections between printed/written letters and speech sounds e.g. looking at the letter “k” and being able to make the “k” sound. It is also about being able to merge separate sounds together to make one word. An example of this would be h-a-t to hat.
Scientific studies have repeatedly found that explicit systematic phonics instruction is the most effective way to teach children how to read. Without it, some children will end up having serious reading difficulties. But what is explicit systematic phonics? Let’s break this term down.
Phonics – teaching children the sounds made by individual letter or letter groups (for example, the letter “c” makes a k sound), and teaching children how to merge separate sounds together to make it one word (for example, blending the sounds k, a, t makes CAT). This type of phonics teaching is often referred to as “synthetic phonics”.
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.
The term “phonics” has been used quite loosely by several reading programs, with some straying from these fundamental principles.
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.
Why is Phonics Important?
Being able to decode (read) and encode (spell) words is essential for children. When a child comes across an unfamiliar word, their phonics skills can help them read the letters and link them together to make a word. Generally, children who cannot recognise or verbalise letters of the alphabet will struggle with reading and spelling.
Learning phonics at a young age also helps improve reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension. Reading fluency relates to the speed or reading rate of a student along with the ability to read with expression. It is important to note that reading at a fast pace, without understanding the words being read, isn’t fluent reading. In regard to phonics, accuracy is when a student can sound out the words properly while reading comprehension links to the ability to understand the meaning of the words being read. Having good reading comprehension helps widen a child’s vocabulary.
At the end of the day learning phonics is important because it helps children pronounce words and understand them. We want our children to be able to read well and feel confident in their abilities.
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.
Another aspect that is rarely discussed is that the letter-sound decoding process itself is a learning mechanism. For example, make a mental note of how you feel when reading the following words:
Wingardium Leviosa
When you first read these words, you probably used your letter-sound knowledge, which involved two important processing stages:
1) It helped you produce the correct sound of an unfamiliar print word. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, the pronunciation also probably lit up connections to the meaning of the word.
2) It drew your attention to the details and the combination of the letters of the word.
These two steps then function as a learning mechanism, allowing you to recognise the previously unfamiliar word quicker the next time around (go back to read the words again and see how you feel about them now).
This transition from slowly sounding out a word, to rapidly recognising it, is what we call “learning to read by sight”. Every reader must make this transition to read fluently.
It is true that there are many English words, such as yacht and isle that do not follow typical letter-sound rules. Even then, research has shown that children can still learn these words successfully by decoding some parts of the word (y … t for yacht), with help from spoken vocabulary knowledge to facilitate the learning.
Phonics is important not only because this knowledge allows children to read on their own, but it is also a learning mechanism that builds up a good print word dictionary that can be quickly accessed.
Will it really improve reading?
Recent National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results have shown no improvement in reading and writing skills despite much government funding.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results demonstrated a steady decline in children’s reading ability in Australia since 2000.
So, will more effective phonics instruction really help to improve these results?
Of course, reading effectively (whether to learn or for pleasure) is not just about phonics or having a decent store of single words.
Functional reading requires several other skills such as good vocabulary, the ability to extract inferences, and synthesise and hold information in memory across several sentences. But if your single word reading is not efficient, comprehension is going to be dramatically affected.
If we use building a house as an analogy, understanding text is the complete home; single word reading ability is the structural frame of the house, and phonics is the foundation of that frame.
Effective phonics instruction is important because letter-sound knowledge is the foundation needed to build up reading and writing abilities.
The phonics screening check will indicate whether children have gained the necessary skills. If not, schools need to review current methods of teaching and implement methods that stick with evidence-based principles of explicit, systematic phonics teaching.
When is phonics usually taught?
Your child will probably learn phonics in kindergarten through second grade. In kindergarten, children usually learn the sounds of the consonant letters (all letters except the vowels a, e, i, o, and u). First- and second-graders typically learn all the sounds of letters, letter combinations, and word parts (such as “ing” and “ed”). They practice reading and spelling words containing those letters and patterns. Second-graders typically review and practice the phonics skills they have learned to make spelling and reading smooth and automatic.
Children vary in the amount of phonics instruction they need and when they need it. Some children need very little phonics instruction, while others still benefit from phonics instruction in third grade. Many children with dyslexia benefit from phonics instruction even beyond third grade.
Here are 3 fun ways to teach your child phonics:
Feel the Letter before Saying it
Create letters using sandpaper. You can stick each letter onto a colourful piece of paper and make an alphabet deck. Before teaching your child how to sound out the letter, trace the letter with their fingertips. After they have felt the letter, say it together and then ask them to repeat it. Once you have gone through it a few times, check to see if they can say them without your help.
Sound of the Week Table
Start each week with a different sound. For example, create a table for “a” to stick on the wall. Print out six images from the internet, or from magazines. Find three objects that make the sound and three that don’t make the sound. Scramble the images and have your child stick the correct images on the table.
I Spy with My Little Eye Something that Begins with “b”
Find a couple of objects around the house that start with different letters. You could use a ball for “b”, a pencil for “p” and a doll for “d”. Put these objects in front of your child and begin the game with “I spy with my little eye, something that begins with…the letter b!”. Your child needs to be able to identify which of the objects begin with the letter “b”.
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