Phonics – Page 8

Developing and Supporting Your Child’s Reading Journey – Week 2

April 19, 2018lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Phonological Awareness Games and Book Sharing Ideas

Phonological awareness relates to our sensitivity and understanding of the sound structures of our oral language. It enables us to progress from our awareness of large sound units (words in sentences) to smaller sound units (phonemes in words).

Our phonological awareness develops over time and the depth of that awareness is based on the range of experiences we have. Research suggests that our phonological awareness begins in the womb at about 24 weeks and is continually built upon throughout our lives. We tend to think of children going through ten distinct phonological stages; the later stages being related to phonics.

Children are taught to read in schools through phonics; the association between sounds (phonemes) to written alphabet letters (graphemes).

Phonics reading is the process of firstly segmenting the written word into letters, or letter combinations, then associating known sounds to those letters and finally blending the sounds together to form words (decoding). If a child is weak in any of the phonological awareness stages before those relating to phonics then they will struggle with learning to read.

Because of the nature of how we develop our phonological awareness games and activities cannot easily be split into categories. Playing, drawing, writing, singing and book sharing all require you to talk with your child highlighting sounds, words and rhythms of language.

Here are some games and activities to help you:

Singing and sharing nursery rhymes is a great way to help children hear sounds in words because the words are drawn out and the sounds highlighted or exaggerated.
Clapping, bouncing or tapping to songs and rhymes helps to highlight the syllables of the words. A syllable is the largest phonological unit (one or a group of sounds) of a word and is like the rhythmic beat of the word.
Point out the sounds you hear such as animal or environmental noises and explain what is making that noise.
Play games or sing songs where you and your child can make noises such as animal sounds (Old MacDonald had a farm) or vehicle noises (The Wheels on the Bus).
Draw animal or other every day objects that have a distinct sound, name them and make the sound they produce.

Book Sharing

What books should you choose?

Books with sounds of animals and other things
Nursery Rhymes
Book formatted from songs
Books with rhyme and alliteration
Poetry books
Any book really, remember your local library can help you to chose a good range of books to share with your child if you are not sure.

Book Sharing Tips

Don’t be shy, make animal and object noises. If you are self-conscious about it your child will pick up on this. No one thinks twice about an adult making what may appear to be strange noise if they are sharing them with a child (its when you forget they are not with you and you do it that they tend to look at a you a bit funny).
Talk about whether a book rhymes or not. Point out the rhyming words, make up other rhyming words for any of the words in the book. Remember they do not have to be real words they can be silly funny words that pick up the rhyming sounds in the original word.
It is important to remember for some children saying a word that rhymes with one you have given can be very difficult if not impossible. So, don’t stress them out with this, it is often easier for them to recognise a rhyme than to make one. You could ask them to tell you if two words you give rhyme or not. If they find this easy try giving them three words with only two that rhyme and ask them to identify the rhyming words.
After sharing the book pick out words that you can clap out the syllables for. You could make this into a jumping or hopping game instead. With older children ask then to tell you how many syllables the word has and then to check their answer by counting the number of claps or jumps they make.
Play an ‘I Spy’ game using the pictures in the book looking for rhyming words for instance by giving clues such as; “It is red and rhymes with the word sock.” The answer is clock.

The Skills a Child Needs to Achieve Phonics Success

January 18, 2018lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Phonological Awareness Chart

Phonics is actually stage 8 of the 10 distinct and progressive stages of in phonological awareness development.

Pre-phonics skills are those a child learns as they develop through the phonological awareness stages 1 to 7. Throughout this time they are continually developing their understanding and knowledge of our spoken language as well as other communication forms such as gestures, facial expression, body language and social conventions.

Speaking and listening skills play a vital role in helping children develop their phonics knowledge as they need to be exposed to a wide and varied vocabulary that allows them to hear and use the range of sounds that form our language.

Being exposed to a greater range of sound experiences helps children to develop their awareness of the sounds around them. The more they hear, the more associations they can make to those sounds (what they see, feel, experience), the greater their ability to distinguish between them. This skill becomes important later on as they begin to isolate individual words in sentences, being able to distinguish between words that sound similar such as dog and hog.

Through listening and speaking games and activities children are exposed to new vocabulary as well as learning to play with the sounds in their language. This helps them to remember how the sounds feel when they make them as well as how they sound in isolation and when combined with other sounds.

Scientists believe a child’s sound awareness begins before they are born; at about 24 weeks, which highlights the importance of sound awareness, including environmental and speech sounds, as part of our instinctive natural development.

The Phonological Awareness Stages on our website are set in a developmental order from one to ten. Against each stage we have provided an age range guide based on research, which shows when most children develop the various phonological awareness skills. Clicking on a stage will take you to another page which gives more in-depth information and links to tips to help you support children through the stage.

Letter & Sound Relationships That Break the Phonics Rules

January 11, 2018lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Back in September we explained that Phonics is a very useful decoding tool used for developing reading skills and as an encoding tool for spelling. It is the simple process of linking sounds to letters, its complexity comes from how many sound (phonemes) to letter combinations (graphemes) there are.

Some letter and sound associations just don’t follow the normal phonics rule of a single sound being associated to a letter or letter combination. A few letters represent two sounds, such as the letter ‘u’ which in the word ‘cupid’ represents the two sounds /y,(j)/ and /oo,(uː)/.

A more common one letter two sound relation is that of the letter ‘x’ representing the two sounds /k,(k)/ and /s,(s)/ as in the words: six and box.

Here are some other examples of single letters and split digraphs making two sounds instead of the usual phonics rule of only making one sound:

Level 1 More Than 1 sound Level 2 More Than 1 sound

Accents and Phonics

January 4, 2018lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Bath - phonics section

Because the English language is so rich and diverse it is very difficult to create a phonics system that caters for all. Every region that speaks the English language has its own accent which means there are always variations in the way that a word is pronounced.

Across England we all spell words the same but we certainly do not say them all the same, even though we all use the same 44 sounds. In the English language the 44 sounds can be represented by over 280 letter combinations.

So accents have arisen from regions applying different phonemes (sounds) to graphemes (letters) when they pronounce words. The regions still use the same sounds and letters, they just associate them differently.

For example, in the South of England the letter ‘a’ can be pronounced as the ‘long ’R’ controlled’ vowel sound /ar,(ɑː)/ in words such as ‘grass’ and ‘bath’ whereas in the North of England it will be pronounced as the ‘short’ vowel /a,(æ)/ sound in these two words.

Click here and scroll down the page to see the animations of the different pronunciations of the word ‘bath’.

Both pronunciations are correct, which can make teaching phonics a little tricky; the key is to teach the sound to letter relationships which best suit the children being taught in relation to their regional accent. It is important to remember that children’s knowledge of the sounds that make words is based on how you speak to them naturally and not a strict standardized set of sounds.

However, for general educational and learning purposes the English language’s phonics system has been standardized, this is known as the ‘Received Pronounced’ (RP) English, and is used in comprehensive English dictionaries and translation dictionaries. The RP is based on a southern accent sound to letter relationship basis.

The ‘Long Vowel’ Sounds

December 21, 2017lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Tree animation Toy animation

There are 13 ‘long vowel’ sounds in total; 7 ‘long vowel’ sounds and 6 ‘long ‘R’ controlled vowel’ sounds.

The 7 ‘long vowel’ sounds are so called due to the length of their pronunciation; these can often be held without distorting their sound.

The /ai,(eI)/ sound found in the words: train, tray, cake and break.

The /oa,(ǝƱ)/ sound found in the words: boat, hotel, toe and bone.

The /oi,(ɔI)/ sound found in the words: boy, coin and buoy.

The /ow,(aƱ)/ sound found in the words: owl, house, drought and hour.

The /ee,(іː)/ sound found in the words: tree, pea, me, and pony.

The /I,(aI)/ sound found in the words :iron, fly, pie and light.

The /oo,(uː)/ sound found in the words: spoon, blue, screw and you.

The 6 ‘long ‘R’ controlled vowel’ sounds are so called because of the slight /r,(r)/ sound quality that can be heard in them along with the length of their pronunciation; these can often be held without distorting their sound.

The /ar,(ɑː)/ sound found in the words: car, father (southern UK accent) and art.

The /or,(ɔː)/ sound found in the words: fork, door, walk and sauce.

The /ear,(Iǝ)/ sound found in the words: ear, here, deer and pier.

The /er,(ɜː)/ sound found in the words: bird, kerb, nurse and worm.

The /re,(Ʊǝ)/ sound found in the words: manure, tour and mature.

The /air,(eǝ)/ sound found in the words: chair, pear, square and where.

English (UK) Vowel Sounds

December 8, 2017lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Toy animation Tree animation

Learning to hear and differentiate the vowel sounds from consonant sounds is an important skill in understanding how words are formed. Every word in the English Language has to have a vowel sound in it and every syllable in a word also has to have a vowel sound within it. This knowledge is an important element in developing our phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge as we start to learn how to read and spell words.

There are 20 vowel sounds in the English (UK) Language, usually (in the UK Education System) split into two main categories based on sound quality:

‘Short’ vowel sounds, due to the short duration of the sound being made, the sound cannot be held onto without becoming distorted
‘Long’ vowel sounds, due to the length of their pronunciation, these can often be held without distorting their sound.

Here at Teach Phonics we split the ‘long’ vowel sounds category into ‘long’ vowel sounds and ‘long ‘R’ controlled’ vowel sounds. The ‘long ’R’ controlled’ vowel sounds are so called because of the slight /r,(r)/ sound quality that can be heard in them.

The English Phoneme Chart, which uses the unique symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), splits the 20 vowel sound into two groups based on mouth position:

Monophthongs which have one mouth position throughout the sound
Diphthongs, where the mouth position changes, giving a 2 sound quality to the phoneme.

The Consonant Sounds with Their Most Common Letter and Letter Combinations

November 30, 2017lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Bin Girl

There are 24 consonant sounds in the English language. A consonant sound is made (produced) when the air flow is being restricted in some way, which means that the mouth doesn’t open as wide and so the jaw doesn’t drop noticeably, which is different from vowel sounds.

Here is a list of just some of the most commonly seen letter and letter combinations used to represent the 24 consonant sounds. For a more comprehensive lists check out our English Phoneme Chart or Alphabet Keyboard which can be found on our ‘Phonemes’ page: bit.ly/1Qgc9dA

/b,(b)/ bin, rabbit
/k,(k)/ cat, key, duck, queen, anchor, broccoli
/ch,(ʧ)/ church, watch
/d,(d)/ dog, ladder, towed
/f,(f)/ fish, puffin, phone, laugh
/g,(g)/ girl, digger, ghost
/h,(h)/ hen, who
/j,(ʤ)/ jigsaw, giant, bridge
/l,(l)/ lion, llama
/m,(m)/ man, hammer, lamb
/n,(n)/ nest, penny, knife, gnome
/ng,(ŋ)/ king, sink
/p,(p)/ panda, hippo
/r,(r)/ robin, lorry, wrist
/s,(s)/ sun, dress, city, geese, castle
/sh,(ʃ)/ ship, chef, delicious, initials, sugar
/t,(t)/ tent, butterfly, jumped
/th,(θ)/ thumb
/th,(ð)/ feather, breathe
/v,(v)/ van, sleeve, of
/w,(w)/ well, whale, penguin
/y,(j)/ yo-yo, euro
/z,(z)/ zero, puzzle, sneeze, cheese, is
/zh,(Ʒ)/ measure, television

Sounds in the English (UK) Language

November 23, 2017lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Phonics Chart with Phonemes — Received Pronounced English (UK) Phonetic Alphabet

The English Language is created through the different combinations of 44 sounds (phonemes), 20 vowels and 24 consonants. Vowel sounds allow the air to flow freely, causing the chin to drop noticeably, whilst consonant sounds are produced by restricting the air flow.

Vowel sounds are usually (in the UK Education System) split into two main categories based on sound quality:

‘Short’ vowel sounds, due to the short duration of the sound being made. The sound cannot be held onto without becoming distorted
‘Long’ vowel sounds, due to the length of their pronunciation. These can often be held without distorting their sound.

Consonant sounds are made (produced) when the air flow is being restricted in some way, for example, changes in tongue position resulting in the mouth not opening as wide. This means that the jaw doesn’t drop noticeably, which is different to vowel sounds.

Because the English language is so rich and diverse it is very difficult to create a ‘phonics’ system that caters for all. Every region that speaks the English language has its own accent with variations in the way that a word is pronounced.

Across England we all spell words the same but we certainly do not say them all the same even though we all use the same 44 sounds. In the English language the 44 sounds can be represented by over 280 letter combinations.

This can make teaching phonics a little tricky; the key is to teach the sound to letter relationships which best suit the children being taught in relation to their regional accent. It is important to remember that children’s knowledge of the sounds that make words is based on how you speak to them naturally and not a strict standardized set of sounds.

The Simple View of Reading

November 9, 2017lucyteachchildren3 Comments

The term ‘Simple View of Reading’ used by schools may seem strange as there is nothing simple about learning to read.

The Simple View of Reading was adopted by the Government in 2007 and now underpins the English National Curriculum’s programmes of study for reading at Key Stage 1 and 2.

Even though reading, the ability to decode the word and extract the correct meaning of the words, is a complex set of skills; the Simple View of Reading conceptual framework (Stuart et al. 2008, cited Hoover and Gough, 1986) reduces it down to two key components:

Word recognition – the ability to decode unknown words and recognise printed words.
Language comprehension – the ability to understand the spoken words and use this process to understand the written text.

Reading Comprehension = Decoding x Linguistic Comprehension

So in theory a child’s reading comprehension ability can be predicted by looking at their decoding and linguistic (spoken language) comprehension abilities (Johnston & Watson, 2007).

When using the Simple View of Reading as the basis for teaching reading it becomes clearer as to why:

A high quality phonics scheme is required, which the Rose Report (2006) explains ‘…is not a ‘strategy’ so much as a body of knowledge, skills and understanding that has to be learned.’ (page 20) [This teaches children how to decode.]
A language rich environment to develop and encourage linguistic comprehension is vital.

The simple view of Reading diagram

[For a pdf copy of this diagram click here]

Bibliography

Johnston.R. and Watson.J. ‘Teaching Synthetic Phonics’, 2007, Pub: Learning Matters, Sage Publication Ltd.

Rose.J. ’Independent review of the teaching of early reading: final report March 2006’ Pub: DfES Publications

‘The simple view of reading and evidence based practice’ Rhona Stainthorp Institute of Education, Reading University, Morag Stuart, Institute of Education, University of London (2008) Pdf downloaded from internet

What is Reading?

October 30, 2017October 31, 2017lucyteachchildrenLeave a comment

Reading

Reading is the ability to first decode the letter sequence of the word (phonics) and then to place meaning to it in relation to the context in which it is being used.

We ask children who are learning to read to ‘read out aloud’, but forget to tell them why. It is not just so we can hear they have decoded a word correctly. The important point is to encourage them to actively listen to what they are saying. The idea is that if they hear the words they will, if it is part of their vocabulary, understand their meaning and therefore fully comprehend the text they have read.

Unfortunately many children just decode, speak and do not actively listen to what they have said, so they do not gain meaning from the words they are reading (poor reading comprehension skills).

Poor reading comprehension skills may also occur because a child has a limited vocabulary usage and /or understanding. A language rich environment is vital to help support and develop a child’s vocabulary and linguistic comprehension which in turn will support their reading comprehension skills.