Phonics

What is it and how can it help?

Agenda
Objectives Rationale for Hong Kong Phonics and the Four Language Skills The teaching of Phonics Sharing experiences Q and A time

Objectives
To develop a better understanding of Phonics To develop an awareness of useful strategies in teaching Phonics To provide an opportunity to share and discuss activities for local schools

Rationale for Teaching Phonics in Hong Kong

For teachers: Provides teachers with strategies to assist students phonological awareness and word attack skills. For students : Helps to reduce the amount of meaningless drilling Allows learners to make approximate pronunciations of a word Enhances students confidence to try to sound out new words Embeds spelling awareness Provides students with skills that allow them to attempt reading and spelling of unfamiliar words

Importance of Reading
Reading helps to develop thinking skills, enrich knowledge, enhance language proficiency and broaden life experience. Emphasis has to be placed on motivating learners and providing them with proper guidance and opportunity to enhance their learning capacity through reading.

Phonics () is...
about the relationship between letters and sounds. We apply this knowledge when decoding words to facilitate reading and spelling.

Phonics is not...
an aid to understanding the meaning of words;
the only skill needed for reading. Phonetics this is the IPA which uses symbols to represent the 44 sounds English speakers use.

Phonetics () ...
The study of speech sounds deals with the way in which speech sounds are produced. Sounds are classified according to the position of the lips and the tongue.
Phonetics attempts to represent the sounds of languages through the use of symbols- IPA (44 sounds).

Where does Phonics fit into reading?

Phonics skills are used in conjunction with semantic, syntactic and visual clues to predict the meaning and sounds of new words.

Basic Reading Strategies

Does this sentence make sense? Does this picture match the word?

Would we say the words in this order?

Do the sounds I want to say match the letters of the word?

http://teachers.santee.k12.ca.us/carl/

Relationship with reading

Phonics, blends phonemes into words; develops skills to decode texts with fluency and accuracy; develops confidence and proficiency in reading.

Relationship with writing

Phonics, Helps with spelling because the students can hear all the sounds in the word Helps to divide words into sound chunks (syllables) provides some understanding of spelling, aside from memorization.

Relationship with speaking

Phonics, develops skills to read texts aloud with fluency and accuracy;
develops skills to pronounce the sounds of letters accurately.

Relationship with listening

Phonics assists children to work out the sounds of unfamiliar words; to identify sounds in spoken words (phonological awareness); to discriminate between words of a similar sound by using contextual clues, e.g. blue and blew

Activity One
Lets Get Oriented

? ? ? Words ? ? ?
Marrangaroo Yangebup Badgingarra Mooliabeenee Warrnambool Pannawonica

Letters and Sounds

A letter is the written form what you see The sound is the auditory form what you hear

Contemporary English is encoded into approximately 44 sounds (phonemes) represented by 26 letters. There are
21 consonants + extra consonant digraphs e.g. sh, th 5 vowels + extra vowel sounds made by combinations of vowels e.g. oo, ie, ou, ei

Phonemic Awareness is
The ability to hear the separate sounds (phonemes) within words.
A phoneme may be represented by a letter, a digraph or a trigraph The crucial point to remember is that it is a SOUND.

Activity Two
Phonics for Teachers Test

Can you hear the Sounds?

How many sounds are in each of these words? dog chick thought change must straight What is the first sound in each of these words? man train football think choose

Final Sounds
What is the last sound (not letter) in each of these words? table glass never know

sharp

car

fence

happy

Rhyming Pairs
Sort these words into pairs of words which rhyme
stuff moan foul owl basin come calm bone farm hasten crumb rough

Solution
stuff moan hasten farm foul come rough bone basin calm owl crumb

Developing Phonemic Awareness

Without Phonemic awareness students cannot effectively use Phonics Phonemic awareness can be taught through the use of alliteration, rhyme, blending, segmenting, syllabification, onset / rime. As with any skill, it takes frequent practice to develop proficiency.

Making it Simple
Letters make sounds phonemes Phonemes make words Think of it as a code Phonics is the tool to crack the code

Making the Correct Sound

Sounds are produced by the tongue, lips, teeth, hard and soft palates, larynx (voice box), lungs and nose.
The correct production of a sound needs to be taught.

Suggested teaching sequence

Initial sounds and short vowel sounds Onset and rime Digraphs Blends Long vowel sounds

Activity Three
Alphabet Chant Action Alphabet

Action Alphabet
a d G j m p S V Y a ankle d down g gun j jump m mouth p point s sit v victory y yes b b e e h h k k n n q q t t w w z z back elbow hair kick nose quiet teeth wings zip C c f f i i l l o o r r u u x x come fingers in leg on run up six

Lesson Demonstration 1
Watch a short initial sounds lesson

Activity Four
With a partner, choose a consonant letter and list words beginning with that letter. Make a sentence using as many of those words as possible.

Lesson Demonstration 2
Watch a mini-lesson on a vowel sound

Learning and Teaching Strategies

Letter cards Phonics fans Tongue twisters Matching games Word families Word sorts Rhymes, action poems Flashcards Alliteration Bingo Flip books Sound games

Experience Sharing
A Secondary perspective from the classrooms of an HKTA school.

Question and Answer Time

Feel free to ask Feel equally free to offer answers, comments and experiences . Questions can be asked verbally or written and passed forward

A Final Thought
The Proper Place of Phonics (M J Adams, 1990)
Phonics cannot be treated in a vacuum. Their proper acquisition depends on articulation with both lower and higher-order knowledge about language and text. Neither understanding nor learning can proceed hierarchically from the bottom up. Phonological awareness, letter recognition facility, familiarity with spelling patterns, spelling-sound relationships, and individual words must be developed in concert with real reading and real writing, and with deliberate reflection on the forms, function, and meanings of texts.

Thank You
We hope you found this useful and will be encouraged to implement some of these Phonics teaching strategies in your future planning and teaching.