What is Phonics?

[jofeb04]

Ds is 3, and starts nursery in September. He loves letters and numbers etc, and loves books.

We bought ds a phonics story book, so we can read it to him etc.

But, what is phonics?

Thanks

the sound of the letter - just fancy intimaidating speak.

phonics is where children learn to read by breaking words down into sounds ie

c a t = cat

There different versions , my children learnt by jolly phonics or synthetic phonics which have all the normal
a b c etc plus combined sounds such as "ch" "th" "oo" etc

At my childrens' school they teach by a mixture of phonics and words they learn by memory.

Phonics is breaking words into their sounds. Sounding words out c-a-t rather than cee-ay-tee IYKWIM. There are 48 (i think) phonemes as there are the 26 letters of the alphabet, 5 of which have 2 sounds (the vowels) and then there are things like sh, ch, th etc. Speech therapists (well my mate who is one) say you have to say 'c' not 'ker', keeping it to the very initial sound, but really it's just using the letter sounds not names.

HTH

X threads, christywisty!

Thanks for the info. makes the book a bit easier anyway!!

Also, at ds1's school they have actions to go with each sound, which I initially found rather odd and unnecessary. They have the whole set of Jolly Phonics books at the Early Learning Centre.