It is true that there are many English words, such as yacht and isle that do not follow typical letter-sound rules. Every reader must make this transition to read fluently. This transition from slowly sounding out a word, to rapidly recognising it, is what we call “learning to read by sight”. 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). If you’re a Harry Potter fan, the pronunciation also probably lit up connections to the meaning of the word.Ģ) It drew your attention to the details and the combination of the letters of the word.
When you first read these words, you probably used your letter-sound knowledge, which involved two important processing stages:ġ) It helped you produce the correct sound of an unfamiliar print word. For example, make a mental note of how you feel when reading the following words: Having letter-sound knowledge will allow children to make the link between the unfamiliar print words to their spoken knowledge.Īnother aspect that is rarely discussed is that the letter-sound decoding process itself is a learning mechanism. Keep in mind that most words are in fact unfamiliar to early readers in print, even if they have spoken knowledge of the word.
#PHONICS READING PROGRAM HOW TO#
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. These programs are not as effective as those focusing on letter-sound knowledge taught in an explicit and systematic fashion. 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). The term “phonics” has been used quite loosely by several reading programs, with some straying from these fundamental principles.įor 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. 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. Systematic – English has a complicated spelling system.
This type of phonics teaching is often referred to as “synthetic phonics”.Įxplicit – directly teaching children the specific associations between letters and sounds, rather than expecting them to gain this knowledge indirectly. 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).
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