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