Phonics - basics

[Mashabell]

At this time of year many schools hold parents evenings to explain phonics.
So it occurred to me that parents who have never given the matter any thought before might find it helpful if I explain briefly on here what phonics is. (For me things always register better if I read or hear something several times.) So here I go.

Words are made up of sounds which are blended together: cat is a blend of C ? A - T.
Some sounds are spelt with just one letter, as in ?cat?, others with two or three (ch, igh). The different spellings for sounds are collectively known as ?graphemes?.

For reading, children have to learn to sound out the graphemes and to blend them into words.
For writing, they learn to break words up into their constituent sounds and what letters to use for them.

Most European languages have around 40 sounds, and English has 43 ½ . (The ½ sound is the unstressed, barely audible vowel in endings of ?flatten, certain?, but can be elsewhere in a word too (dEcide).

The 43 main English sounds (in alphabetical order) are as follows and illustrated with the words in brackets:
A : (ant), AI : (rain), AIR : (air), AR : (arm), AU : (sauce), B : (bed), CH : (chip), D : (dog), E : (egg), EE : (eel), ER : (herb), F : (fish), G : (garden), H : (house), I : (ink), IGH : (high), J : (jug), K : (kite), L : (lips), M : (man), N : (nose), NG : (ring), O : (pot), OE : (toe), OI : (coin), OO : (food), OO : (wood), OR : (order), OU : (out), P : (pin), R : (rug), S : (sun), SH : (shop), T : (tap), TH : (this), TH : (thing), U : (cup), UE : (cue), V : (van), W : (window), Y : (yak), Z : (zip), ZH (spelt mostly -si-) : (television)

Because some English sounds are spelt differently in different positions of words (mAY, mAkE) or are spelt differently for other reasons (KiCK, ComiC),
the basic English spelling system uses 81 graphemes:
A : (ant), AI : (rain, plate, play), AIR : (air), AR : (arm), AU : (sauce, saw),

B : (bed), CH : (chip, stitch), D : (dog),

E : (egg), EE : (eel, funny), ER : (herb),

F : (fish), G : (garden), H : (house),
I : (ink), IGH : (by, bite),

J : (jug, bridge, oblige),

K : (c/at/ot/ut, crab/ clap, kite/kept, comic, pick, seek, risk; quick, fix),

L : (lips), M : (man), N : (nose), NG : (ring),

O : (pot, want, quarrel), OE : (toe, bone, old), OI : (coin, toy), OO : (food), OO : (wood), OR : (order, wart, quarter, more), OU : (out, now),
P : (pin), R : (rug), S : (sun, face), SH : (shop, station, musician), T : (tap, delicate), TH : (this), TH : (thing), U : (cup), UE : (cue, cube), V : (van, have), W : (window), Y : (yak), Z : (zip), -si- : (television)

There are also 8 main endings ( doable, fatal, single, ordinary, flatten, presence, present, other),
2 prefixes (decide, invite)
and the use of doubled consonants for showing that a vowel is short rather than long (dinner ? diner).

There are many exceptions to the above which children get taught as they move up through the primary years, but to begin with, they?ll start learning the sounds for just a few letters which nowadays are often s, a, t, p, i, n.
Making them aware of the sounds in words is usually the very first step.

I would be happy to answer any questions about this.
I would be happy to be corrected too if I made any errors by trying to show the system on here without the use of bold or colour.
Masha Bell

I doubt many reception children will need phoneme theory Masha.

But then, their parents might think they need to buy your book,I suppose?

Btw, the most glaring of the many mistakes you've made is calling the most important and most used vowel sound in the English language (schwa) a half sound.

It is also absolutely not the same vowel sound as the "e" in "decide" which is /I/

The unstressed half-vowel, or schwa, occurs only in words of more than one syllable (decide, divide, certain, abandon). As young children start learning phonics mainly with one-syllable words, I did not think it worth saying much about it.

I have never before heard it called 'the most important English vowel sound'.

And I am trying to explain English phonics on here so people have no need to buy my book.

Any other mistakes?

Then you are clearly not a linguistics teacher.

If you have a good dictionary to hand, look up that rare one syllable word "the" Or even that other really rare one syllable word "a".

Schwa is the most important English phoneme because it can be represented orthographically by any of the 5 vowels. It is probably the sound most responsible for reading difficulties.

Decide is /I/, Divide is also /I/, the "ai" in certain is schwa, as is the first and last vowel in abandon. So you were half right there.

Hope that helps.

Mashabell

You really need to go back to the real basics of human development, which current research is having to uncover retrospectively.
So you really need to understand human communication from before the use of gestures, to drawing pictures, to the development of sound based communication, to the development of sound based languages, and the visual notation of these sound based languages. Each culture or society has its own langauge for the purposed of communication, which in mass communication terms begins with speech, and the next step in many societies, not all, is a visual notation of speech, which we call the written word.

Many writing systems have been developed, and we use the Latin Alphabet writing system. And Each writing system can be used to represent a speech langauge, some societies use two writing systems. The purest writing systems are the logographic writing systems single word sound to single word graphic representation, such as Chinese and Japanese; the most complex writing systems are alphabets which try to use multiple graphic symbols to represent the sounds of words.
Within the Latin Alphabet writing system there are many languages, and the purest languages, or shallowest orthographies (structure), are Italian and Finnish; while the most complex, deepest orthography, is English. Due in part to how the English language has evolved with many much input from other langauges especially from mainland Europe over hundreds of years.

Society either chooses which writing system it wants to use, or a writing system is imposed by the rulers of a society, the writing system which best suites their learning and communication needs. So we are lumbered with English the most complex language in the most complex of writing systems, not by personal choice based on our cognitive communication abilities, but by the choice of those who have ruled the UK for centuries. And it is they who find phonics the easiest method of creating a writing system, and who have devised how we have to learn to read and use this form of visual language.

Each writing system has positives and negatives, and each writing system is more or best suited to various different cognitive learning abilities each member of each society may have. So you may be born into a society which uses a writing system or language which is not best suited to your individual learning abilities or even cognitive learning disabilities.

So the way you have explained the English langauge in your opening post here, may represent the views of those who designed and best able to use the language, it may not apply to those for who this would not have been their first choice of language, given the option at birth, or for those who are not cognitively able to perform the tasks as you have described.

If you want to do some further research you could have a have a look at
CiteULike Group: Writing Systems - library
CiteULike Group: Reading: Acquiring and Developing the Skills and Abilities - library
CiteULike Group: Alexia (acquired dyslexia) - library
CiteULike Group: Developmental Dyslexia - library

Bloody hell, you've all got me scared now! I have always considered myself a very good reader and speller from I was about 8 or 9 years old (it's pretty much the only thing I'm good at!) but I never learnt phonics at all...in fact I can't really remember how I learnt to read except that I just did.

So if this this is how ds is going to learn I already feel out of my depth!

'There are many exceptions to the above which children get taught as they move up through the primary years, but to begin with, they?ll start learning the sounds for just a few letters which nowadays are often s, a, t, p, i, n.
Making them aware of the sounds in words is usually the very first step. '

What's scary about that, IDFTS?

IDrinkFromTheirSkulls

Not all are able to use phonics, many good readers do not use phonics. There are two parallel processed required for the task of reading, the lexical and the sublexical. Those who do not use phonics do not use the sublexical process, I have a disability which prevents me from using the sublexical process or phonics, but i can still read.

It is not how ds is going to learn, Idrink, fear ye not.

He will learn with his teacher, using easy peasy synthetic phonics probably (and you will want to eat your own head when he brings Kipper and Skippy (or whatever the feckity they are called) home)

If you google synthetic phonic sounds there are loads of free websites which will pronounce the sounds so you know how to say them to help your child. Remember too, this will only really be a problem if your child's teacher isn't doing her job properly which is unlikely

My day to day job involves phonetics, but I left the teaching reading to my daughter to the expert, her teacher. She is 3rd yr primary and half way through The Order of the Phoenix so I reckon the teacher did OK.

Can I point out to the general public that both Mashabell and dolfrog are enthusiastic specialists in their own areas?
So it's less like wandering into a discussion in Starbucks and more like launching into a hotly debating seminar between specific schools of thought.
Interesting, but often not the experience of the general public.
So don't panic!

It's scary because I didn't expect to have to learn what ds is to be taught myself before I helped him learn it i expect to have to brush up on some things that I promptly forgot as soon as I left school like algebra and physics but I didn't expect that learning to read at 4 would be one of them!

China...I remember the magic key books with kipper etc! I started school in '94 I'minterested to know why did they not use phonics then?

My mum seems to recognise them and she started school in 1960, she must have had the opposite problem when I started school .

''Mashabell and dolfrog are enthusiastic specialists in their own areas''

That's a kind way of putting it, DownbytheRiverside

Very interesting but the phrase "too much information" springs to mind!

IDrinkFromTheirSkulls

As DownbytheRiverside has pointed out this can be a multi level discussion, which spread across many website forums, and some of us retain the same names for all forums.
The history of education describe highlights the ebb and flow of two styles of reading program which have dominated for some time. The "whole word" and "phonics" based programs, and due to the way these debates have happened schools will either use a whole word based teaching program or a phonics based teaching program. And the marketing companies that provide these programs fuel the debate for increased sales, and there are various teachers and academics who will always support one or other program come what may.

What the research of the last decade has demonstrated via neuroscience is that both side are correct in that we learn to read using both phonics and whole word abilities, which means that we need to teach our children to develop and use both skill areas as part of their basic education.
The Lexical process is the whole word approach used by skilled readers and is more specifically related to comprehension.
The Sublexical process is the phonics approach and is more decoding and recoding specific.
Most children probably the average 60% will learn to read regardless of which type of teaching program being used. However there are other at each end of the various cognitive ability spectrums who will need to rely on a more learning style or need preferred approach to learning. And at the extremes you have the underlying cognitive subtypes of developmental dyslexia which need to be identified and the appropriate support provided.

So the current government policy of only promoting a phonic teaching program discriminates against those who are not cognitively able to use phonics. Such as those who share my disability Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) (a listening disability) According to the UK Medical Research Council 10% of children have some degree of APD including those who may have had Glue Ear.

So for the General Public their children need to be taught using both phonics and whole word teaching methods to enable them to become competent readers to be able to decode and understand what they have read. And for those who have information processing deficits both auditory, visual, and attentional to have access to the more specific support they need. And sometimes you have to educate the educators by resorting to current research to overcome their ignorance, and the lack of quality teacher training regarding these issues that exists in the UK.

''Mashabell and dolfrog are enthusiastic specialists in their own areas''

That's a kind way of putting it, DownbytheRiverside

dolfrog's spelling and grammar have improved remarkably over the 4 or 5 years that I have 'known' him. Well done, dolfrog!

That's very interesting, thank you dolfrog it makes sense that neither way is "right" or "wrong" for some people but that others need to use one or the other. Makes you think doesn't it, if they could get it right for each individual how much more would some people like reading if it had been taught to them in the way that suits them?

it makes sense that neither way is "right" or "wrong" for some people

Tell that to teachers who have a 100% success rate teaching children to read with phonics!

I've just read masha's OP

^There are also 8 main endings ( doable, fatal, single, ordinary, flatten, presence, present, other),
2 prefixes (decide, invite) ^

What on earth are you talking about masha? There are loads of prefixes and suffixes.

MaizieD, Dolfrogs post said that some people will find it difficult to learn using phonics, I wouldn't be surprised if they did manage to learn to read using phonics but if it's difficult for them would they enjoy it? That's the difference IMO.

Plus what's to say that the 100 per cent success rate these teachers have wouldn't have been achieved using the other method too? Everyone on my school learnt to read and we didn't use phonics. Some may have been better at reading had we used phonics, some may have been worse and others may find no difference. That's the point I was trying to make in my earlier post.

I love my DD's school approach to reading.

Though I will add that the fact you've used CAPITALS for the phonemes is driving me insane

IDrinkFromTheirSkulls we didn't use phonics

It always makes me smile when people say that as they clearly don't understand what phonics actually is.