Readers and SpellersReaders and SpellersReaders and SpellersReaders and Spellers

What exactly is phonics?

• Phonics is knowing that sounds and letters have a relationship

• It is the link between what we say and what we can read and write.

A child who has mastered phonics can connect the sounds he knows with letters, then put them together to make words. (And then he can put words together to read sentences, and so on.)

How is phonics How is phonics taught?taught?

How is phonics How is phonics taught?taught?

Kindergarten ( 大班 )• Letter recognition: learning the letters of th

e alphabet. • Connecting some letters with their sounds

(she'll know about 20 sound-symbol connections by the end of the year).

• Phonemic awareness: understanding that words are made of individual, separate sounds. She may be asked to clap out her name, make up nonsense words, or listen for the rhymes in a poem to build sound sensitivity.

• Reading and writing easy consonant-vowel-consonant words (in some schools).

• A few sight words.

Grade 1• Mastery of short and long vowels • Letter combinations: The "b" sound plus th

e "r" sound makes the "br" blend, in which you can still hear both of the consonants you started with; "t" plus "h" makes a new "th" sound

• Reading simple words, sentences and stories

• Beyond phonics: word endings, like "-ed" and "-ing," and more sight words, such as is, was, have, and are

Grade 2• Vowel combinations (what sound doe

s "ea" make? How about "ai"?). • Spelling patterns of increasing difficul

ty. • Multisyllabic words and putting word

parts together ("pan" plus "cake" equals pancake).

• Vocabulary and word recognition

Reading Milestones• Phonics

– Understanding that the order of letters in a written word represents the order of sounds in a spoken word

– Knowing the sounds letters make

– Blending letter sounds together to make a word /b/ /i/ /g/ makes "big"

• Spelling– Automatically

reading high-frequency irregular words such as "are," "was," "were," "you," and "said"

– Instantly reading familiar words such as "cat," "dog," "mother," and "daddy" without having to sound them out

Reading Milestones• Phonics

– Recognizing word families: fat, cat, and sat all have the same last two letters, as do pig, big, and dig

– Recognizing letter patterns: "ee" stands for the sound in street and feel; "sh" makes the same sound in shirt and fish.

– Sounding out words she doesn't know, both real and nonsense: "sit" and "zot"

• Spelling– Correctly spelling p

reviously studied words

– Spelling a word the way it sounds if he doesn't know how to spell it

Tips to Teach Beginning Readers

• TIP #1: Check Your Child's Readiness Skills

– Make sure your child has the necessary prerequisite skills to learn to read. The two best predictors of early reading success are (1) the ability to recognize the letters of the alphabet quickly and in random order, and (2) phonemic awareness ability, or understanding that words are made up of different and discrete sounds.

• TIP #2: Fill His World with Just-Right Books

– Search out simple phonics readers in your child's school, your town library, or at a local bookstore. These simple books, focusing on 3-letter short-vowel words such as cat, run, sit, and hot, will allow your child opportunities to sound out simple words using the phonics skills he's learning in school.