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

My son has been totally failed by the education system (and I'm afraid by me). He could read by sight before the age of 2 and started nursery able to read the Financial Times to his grandfather I assumed he didn't need phonics so never questioned how he was taught. There are a number of other factors but the end result was an unhappy child who hated school. A child who scored 98% in an exam having never attended a single lesson for two years ...

I see, but I guess the school wouldn't have realised he would need to be taught, if he had already reached FT level a year before he started.

regardless of whether the teacher is good or bad at teaching phonics/reading/writing they are the one the parent is going to have to work with
Indeed. But primary school is not just about teaching children to read. They might have other strengths. Also unlike u Mrz, I believe that teachers who teach reading badly are extremely rare nowadays, despite the claims to the contrary by phonics fanatics.

And if parents feel that the reading progress of their c is rather slow, most can remedy this themselves, if they have the patience and understand what learning to read English involves and why it needs so much practice.

My daughter learnt before starting school, more or less by herself, with minimal help from me. My son found the going very tough, but he got there because my dh and i helped him for at least 20 mins a day for a few months, with decoding and whole word reading, apart from regularly reading to him and with him. His teacher used to write on little cards the words which tripped him up when reading to her and we then practised them as homework. It worked a treat. That's when I first became aware what makes learning to read English difficult: the spellings with variable sounds.

U keep claiming that I post misinformation without ever saying what it is.
Does English not have 44 sounds?
Does it not use 205 spellings for them, often unpredictably as in 'leave, sleeve, believe?
Do 69 spellings not have more than one pronunciation?

masha your lists give me nightmares! your posts frighten me because I worry parents will take you seriously. Your message is negative and unhelpful.

The number of phonemes in English varies according to dialect and whether we include additional phonemes for foreign words that have become part of everyday language. Jolly Phonics only teaches 42 phonemes whereas Letters & Sounds introduces 44 ...
If you consider the etymology of words their spellings are not as unpredictable as you suggest... you have your agenda to change the English spelling system so perhaps sending out the message that English is too difficult to learn to read is understandable.

Of course English has more than 44 sounds.

With your 42/44 you aren't including tripthongs or,for example,the 2 distinct pronunciation variations of /l/ (lemon/pull- stand in front of a mirror and watch what your mouth does with the /l/ in those words, 2 completely different things)

You might find a book such as English Pronunciation in Use handy Masha, if you are going to continue. You cannot continue to make massive sweeping statements (Incorrect sweeping statements) about the English language,you are starting to make yourself look silly, with primary teachers and linguists alike.

This is the issue I have with you, Masha. So much of what you claim to be gospel about spelling/pronunciation is just plain wrong.

If ever there was a case of the Emperor thinking he had new clothes and turning out to be stark bollock naked,Masha, your gobbledegook is it.

I'm not a primary teacher, I'm a linguist. (who has an 8 yr old who is half way through The Order of the Phoenix) I appreciate there are many and varied phonics/synthetic phonics reading schemes around, and at primary school the difference between lemon and pull doesn't matter, it isn't going to stop the child from "decoding". But if you could please stop telling everyone on here stuff about phonetics which is plain wrong, I'd be happy.

I would also venture that if your "system" was so good, then your massive self-publicity machine would have had more of an effect and we'd all be talking about the Mashabell reading books and not ORT etc. However, whilst I have yet to see, despite the scattergunning of primary reading threads, one single poster who has said "Gee, thanks Masha, that's really made it clear" I think Ruth Miskin and Chris Jolly etc can sleep safely. They can sleep safely, and 99.99% of us can continue to have faith in the fact that our child's highly trained and sympathetic teachers know what they are talking about and will help our children to learn to read.

(I was China upthread, have gone back to original ID)

When it comes to teaching children to read, it's does not matter if your particular English accent has 44 sounds as set out by Letters & Sounds or a few more or less.

What matters is that English uses 205 spellings (or graphemes) which I can list for your and which children have to learn to sound out and blend into words, but this 69 of them make this tricky and time-consuming because they can have more than one sound:

a: and ? apron, any, father
a-e: came ? camel
ai: wait ? said, plait
al: always ? algebra
-all: tall - shall
are: care - are
au: autumn - laugh, mauve
-ate: to deliberate - a deliberate act
ay: stays - says

cc: success - soccer
ce: centre - celtic
ch: chop ?chorus, choir, chute
cqu: acquire - lacquer 19

e: end ? English
-e: he - the
ea: mean - meant, break
ear: ear ? early, heart, bear
-ee: tree - matinee
e-e: even ? seven, fete
ei: veil - ceiling, eider, their, leisure
eigh: weight - height
eo: people - leopard, leotard
ere: here ? there, were
-et: tablet - chalet
eau: beauty ? beau

• ew: few - sew
• ey: they - monkey

ge: gem - get
gi: ginger - girl
gy: gym ? gynaecologist
ho: house - hour
i: wind ? wind down ski hi-fi

• ine: define ?engine, machine

ie: field - friend, sieve imb: limb ? climb ign: signature - sign mn: amnesia - mnemonic

ost: lost - post
-o: go - do
oa: road - broad
o-e: bone ? done, gone
-oes: toes ? does, shoes
-oll: roll - doll
omb: tombola - bomb, comb, tomb
oo: boot - foot, brooch
-ot: despot - depot
ou: sound - soup, couple
ough: bough - rough, through, trough, though
ought: bought - drought
oul: should - shoulder, mould
our: sour - four, journey
ow: how - low

qu: queen ? bouquet
s: sun ? sure
sc: scent - luscious, molusc
-se: rose - dose
ss: possible - possession
th: this - thing
-ture: picture - mature
u: cup ? push
ui: build ? fruit, ruin
wa: was ? wag
wh: what - who
wo: won - woman, women, womb
wor: word ? worn
x: box - xylophone, anxious

• y-: type - typical
• -y: daddy - apply

z: zip ? azure

masha whenever someone says something that doesn't fit your personal agenda you respond by posting your list and every time you post your list it demonstrates your lack of understanding of what people are saying...
I suggest you buy an etymological dictionary and investigate why our orthographical system is as it is.

It does seem to be a very strange compulsion, this 'listing' people if they say something you can't answer properly.

Can I just say that, as a parent with little knowledge of teaching children how to read, the lists are reallly unhelpful and I usually phase out after the first line.

You have nothing to worry about mrz!!!

I just don't know what the lists are supposed to show us that we don't already know. We know that there are 44 phonemes, that some sounds can be written in several ways and that some graphemes can represent more than one sound. We also know that the vast majority of children are able to learn these phoneme/grapheme correspondences pretty quickly ( and with less confusion than parents seem to believe!) and that some children take longer ( even much longer).
Masha's only suggestion to what she perceives to be a problem is to change the English language to suit how she believes we should write. Unfortunately her system-such as it is-appears to take no account of different accents, the use of spellings to differentiate homophones, the etymology of words and so on. If she actually posted some examples of HOW she believes we should spell we could then explore the principles behind her work. ( for example her constant use of "u" for you would cause difficulties for me when writing ewe as both are pronounced exactly the same in my regional accent!) As it is we just get endless lists!

I have to say the use of 'u' for 'you' was beginning to get on my nerves throughout the thread.

I guessed that it might be to make some sort of linguistic point but it just reminds me of irritating text speak [hgrin]

As the letter 'u' represents at least two distinct sounds in English orthography I am tempted to read it as /uh/ (as in 'bun') whenever I see it

I am a teaching assistant in a primary school and have a phonics group. I have a southern (Hertfordshire) accent and the children all have Yorkshire accents. I regularly have to change the way I explain certain sounds, for instance,glass,grass,bath( I say 'ar' they say 'a') and, like maizieD, bun. (I say it with a 'uh' sound but the children tend to say it with an 'oo' sound.) We talk about why there is a difference. The children understand my accent is different. It's actually not rocket science.

masha always manages to make me think uh !!!

masha always manages to make me think uh !!!

And sometimes 'AARRRRRRRRRRRGH'!!! [hgrin]

I think uh! [hhmm] and scream ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH! [hgrin]

Is that sound on her list, msz? [hwink]

She probably spells it R [hwink]

[hgrin]

Minor error in my post of 24 Oct
English uses 205 spellings (or graphemes) which I can list for your and which children have to learn to sound out and blend into words, but the following 69 of them make this tricky and time-consuming because they can have more than one sound:

a: and ? apron, any, father
a-e: came ? camel
ai: wait ? said, plait
al: always ? algebra
-all: tall - shall
are: care - are
au: autumn - laugh, mauve
-ate: to deliberate - a deliberate act
ay: stays - says

cc: success - soccer
ce: centre - celtic
ch: chop ?chorus, choir, chute
cqu: acquire - lacquer 19

e: end ? English
-e: he - the
ea: mean - meant, break
ear: ear ? early, heart, bear
-ee: tree - matinee
e-e: even ? seven, fete
ei: veil - ceiling, eider, their, leisure
eigh: weight - height
eo: people - leopard, leotard
ere: here ? there, were
-et: tablet - chalet
eau: beauty ? beau

• ew: few - sew
• ey: they - monkey

ge: gem - get
gi: ginger - girl
gy: gym ? gynaecologist
ho: house - hour
i: wind ? wind down ski hi-fi

• ine: define ?engine, machine

ie: field - friend, sieve imb: limb ? climb ign: signature - sign mn: amnesia - mnemonic

ost: lost - post
-o: go - do
oa: road - broad
o-e: bone ? done, gone
-oes: toes ? does, shoes
-oll: roll - doll
omb: tombola - bomb, comb, tomb
oo: boot - foot, brooch
-ot: despot - depot
ou: sound - soup, couple
ough: bough - rough, through, trough, though
ought: bought - drought
oul: should - shoulder, mould
our: sour - four, journey
ow: how - low

qu: queen ? bouquet
s: sun ? sure
sc: scent - luscious, molusc
-se: rose - dose
ss: possible - possession
th: this - thing
-ture: picture - mature
u: cup ? push
ui: build ? fruit, ruin
wa: was ? wag
wh: what - who
wo: won - woman, women, womb
wor: word ? worn
x: box - xylophone, anxious

• y-: type - typical
• -y: daddy - apply

z: zip ? azure

Marsha...seriously??

there really was no point in re-printing the whole list for the sake of deleting irrelevent two words.

I'm beginning to think you have hidden comic timing second to none [hgrin]

Hettie, I brought this back to the top for your benefit.

but your lists just confuse people as much as you are confused masha [hhmm]

Mrz - but your lists just confuse people.

Many write via my website to tell me that they find them very helpful.

which clearly demonstrates how confused they are