Help! Re-learning the phonics sounds and not letters

[TinkerTills]

Hi all. Anyone have experience of "undoing" the learning of the alphabet in favour of phonics? My parents have been teaching my daughter the old sounds and not the phonics sounds. I was also pretty clueless until I found myself watching alphablocks the other week...

The problem is my daughter is stubbornly sticking to the "fuh" instead of "fff" and "muh" instead of "mmm". In some ways i'm proud - she knows her letters - but how will the teacher deal with this? (DD starts school in Sept). Reception teachers must have some experience of undoing the well-intended mistakes of families!!

Help.

[mrz]

that's the thing about phonics daftdame ...accent doesn't matter the sounds in the word hurt are still /h/ /er/ /t/ (even though in some accents the /er/ has a more pronounced /r/)

[daftdame]

So you are saying you teach /er/ (as a distinct sound in a word) separate to /r/. I understand that, its just you may be able to hear the /r/ in hurt. I guess there has got to be a division somewhere...

[daftdame]

I should probably hand the pedantry pendant back...

[mrz]

yes because /er/ is a distinct sound think /h/ /er/ her /sh/ /er/ /t/ shirt /t/ /er/ /n/ turn/ /w/ /er/ /d/ word /h/ /er/ /d/ heard (notice it has lots of different spellings)

[daftdame]

I think my son and I must have assimilated so much without being formally taught, I certainly was not taught very many letter combinations, my son only a few before he could read fluently, although he really liked phonics at school (talked about what he had learnt) and some of the phonic based programmes on TV. Saying that he was withdrawn from some of the lessons for work on reading comprehension - I know this is important but was not wholly convinced. However they said he just 'knew' what was being taught. Very interesting subject matter.

[VinegarDrinker]

breatheslowly your DD sounds like my DS. He was never going to just wait til reception. I read a bit on here, asked a few questions and just answered what he asked. By 2 he knew the phonic alphabet and he now (at 2.5) knows most of the sounds and can blend to read 2/3 syllable words. He can also have a good stab at spelling words (types on the computer - fine motor skills are nowhere bear being able to write letters).

I must admit I still struggle with some of his "why"s - why does a sometimes say ay*, why does c sometimes say s etc (and how do you tell when it does) but I tend to just say "it's a bit funny" and he tends to mostly accept that for now.

I also hadn't realised just how many sounds there are (most recent one he asked about was gh as in f), and the bit of phonics teaching I still don't really understand is how they teach how you know which one to use? Eg oo can sound like book or moo ... How do you know which? Any teachers that can enlighten me?

• I read a thread on here about not using "magic e" to explain it any more, but I'm not sure what has replaced it to explain it?
  
  (Sorry for crashing your thread!)

[mrz]

Lots of children do work it out for themselves over time, for these children direct teaching is faster but there are also lots of children who can't work it out for themselves and for whom direct teaching is vital. The problem is there is no way to identify which group your child will fall into.

My son was withdrawn from phonics because he was a good reader ... I wish I could turn back the clock.

[VinegarDrinker]

Is dge as in j one of the sounds they learn or is that made up of other sounds? I had to do another slightly fudged answer ("sometimes dge sounds like j") for that recently too (when reading "lodge")

[mrz]

is a spelling for the sound /j/ a single sound (can also be spelt jog giant cabbage adjust

Sounds can be spelt with 1,2,3 or 4 letters

c-a-t one letter represents one sound
d-i-sh two letters one sound
b- r- i - dge three letters one sound
w-eigh-t four letters one sound

[YoniBottsBumgina]

I know mrz, that was my point. If you say "hurt" there isn't an /r/ sound because the sound is /er/. But "rat" has a "pure" /r/ sound.

[VinegarDrinker]

Thanks mrsz - are there any rules about when to use which spelling (and vice versa how to pronounce letter combinations with more than one pronunciation eg oo/oo as above)? Or is it just a case of "because it is"?

I instinctively like phonic methods as they appeal to my "first principles" type of learning, so I get bit frustrated when I have to say "just because" type answers to DS.

[mrz]

Sorry YBB but your point wasn't very clear ... I wasn't sure why you were using a word that doesn't contain the sound as an example



beckclasswiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/SpellRead+Lexicon.pdf

[YoniBottsBumgina]

Because I was saying not to use it!

I'm sorry, I am really not an expert, feel free to correct me, but you seem to have misunderstood what I was saying.

[mrz]

but you may as well have said don't use "elephant"

[YoniBottsBumgina]

No because elephant doesn't have the letter "r" in the spelling of it.

I was trying to help people who are not familiar with the idea of phonics to isolate the phonic sound within words that they know. So rather than saying "ruh" "duh" etc, to pick a word which has the letter "r" or "d" in it and then isolate the sound from that. We don't say ruh-ah-tuh we say rrrrr ah t' (where the ' represents a sudden/hard stop) so the rrr sound is easy to isolate from that. But you can't just use any old word which has the letter R in the spelling because not all rs make the sound /r/.

That sounds overcomplicated and it might seem simple or obvious to you because you are familiar with the phonics system, but for others it is not obvious, I was trying to explain the difference in a different way.

[maizieD]

I knew what you meant, YBB

Vinegar Drinker. I suggest that you go to the Phonics International website (www.phonicsinternational.com ) and have a good look around. You will find lots of help on there.

[Sossiges]

My dd likes this game and after a couple of games is pronouncing her letters properly (fffff) //www.teachyourmonstertoread.com

[breatheslowly]

That looks great Sossiges - when it comes out for the iPad I think I'll get it.

[PastSellByDate]

mrz - our school (remember this school is non-London, but inner city & scored a stellar 62% NC Level 4+ in English/ maths KS2 SATs 2012) doesn't appear to roll out jolly phonics at 6 per week. [Many pupils are non-readers on entry and 1/3 to 1/2 are EAL].

I'm pretty sure they roll out more than one sound a week, but they send home practice materials for parents (for 20 minute weekend homework - for just one sound). No idea if this is good practice or not but certainly 100% improvement on absolutely nothing on phonemes at all for DD1.

I suspect that isn't unreasonable but would be interested to understand what you mrz or colleagues teaching Year R do send out for weekly homework to support in-class phonetics work/ learning to read work.

That boat has sailed where I'm concerned (DD1 going into Y6 & DD2 going into Y4), but I think it would be helpful for parents starting out on this primary school 'journey' to understand what schools send out standardly so that we can approach our own schools with solid ideas of what can be done, if our own schools aren't doing much in this area.

[mrz]

All our pupils are non readers on entry PSBD (I've had 4 in 20 years who could read at the beginning of reception) and we taught one sound a DAY. Each time a new sound was introduced it was added to the child's sound book which went home every night and came back next morning (sometimes)... apart from that we sent home nothing until children are reading when they get a decodable reading book (changed as often as returned).

We now use Sounds~Write and introduce 5 sounds but in the context of words right from week 1.
www.sounds-write.co.uk/docs/sounds_write_leaflet_for_yr_parents.pdf
We send home a sounds chart www.sounds-write.co.uk/docs/sounds_write_common_spellings_of_the_consonants_and_vowels.pdf

[homeschooling4]

As a homeschooling mom to four active little ones, teaching reading was a bit of a frightening concept. My kids had the letter sounds very early on, and I knew I wanted to teach using phonics (largely because that was how I learned), but I wasn't sure how to make the transition either. I ended up using an electronic resource. It kept my kids engaged, provided inherent rewards, and resulted in rapid reading success. There are so many ways to approach phonics, and so many tools out there! I used hooked on phonics, which I got from readingmadeeasy.org because they gave me a really cheap 30 day trial. I know others who have used Reader Rabbit phonics with success. We had that one as well, but it didn't seem to click as well as Hooked on Phonics did with my kids.

[Mashabell]

homeschooling4
U ar absolutely right re
There are so many ways to approach phonics,. And different teachers often mean quite different things by the term 'phonics' too. Which makes it very confusing for parents.

This stems largely from the fact that most English sounds can be spelt more than one way, without any teachable logic to explain the differences (e.g. stole, coal, bowl). And worse still, identical letters often have different pronunciations (bowl - howl).

There are 91 main English graphemes or spelling patterns, but 80 of them have one or many exceptions:
a: cat – plait, meringue

a-e: plate – wait, weight, straight, great, vein, reign, table, dahlia, champagne, fete

-ay: play – they, weigh, ballet, cafe, matinee

air: air – care, bear, aerial, their, there, questionnaire
ar: car – are + (Southern Engl. bath)
au: sauce – caught, bought, always, tall, crawl
-aw: saw – (in UK with the same sound in: or, four, more)

b: bed

ca/o/u: cat, cot, cut – character, kangaroo, queue
cr/cl: crab/ clot – chrome, chlorine
-c: lilac – stomach, anorak
-ck: neck – cheque, rec
rocket - crocodile, soccer, occupy, liquor
kite/ kept - chemistry
seek - unique
risk - disc mosque

ch: chest – cello
-tch: clutch – much

d: dad – blonde

e: end – head, any, said, wednesday, friend, leisure, leopard, bury
ee: eel – eat, even, ceiling, field, police, people, me, key, ski, debris, quay
--y: jolly – trolley, movie, corgi
er: her – turn, bird, learn, word, journey,

f: fish – photo, stuff, rough
g: garden – ghastly, guard
h: house – who

i: ink – mystery, pretty, sieve, women, busy, build
i-e: bite – might, style, mild, kind, eider, height, climb, island indict sign
-y: my – high, pie, rye, buy, i, eye

j: jug / jog
jelly, jig – gentle, ginger;
-dg: fidget – digit
gorge

k: see c: ...
l: lips – llama
m: mum – dumb, autumn
n: nose – knot, gone, gnome, mnemonic
ng: ring

o: on – cough, sausage;
want – wont;
quarrel – quod
o-e: mole – bowl, roll, soul, boast, most, goes, mauve
old – mould
-oe: toe – go, dough, sew, cocoa, pharaoh, oh, depot
oi: oil – oyster
-oy: toy – buoy
oo: food – rude, shrewd, move, group, fruit, truth, tomb,
blue, do, shoe, through, manoeuvre
good – would, put, woman, courier
or: order – board, court;
wart, quart – worn, quorn
-ore: more – soar, door, four, war, swore, abhor
ou: out – town
-ow: now – plough

p: pin

qu: quick – acquire, choir
r: rug – rhubarb, write

s: sun – centre, scene
-ce: face - case
-cy: fancy - fantasy

sh: shop – chute, sure, moustache, liquorice
-tion: ignition – mission, pension, suspicion, fashion
-tious: ambitious – delicious, luscious;
-cial: facial – spatial

-cian: musician

t: tap, pet – pterodactyl, two, debt
-te: delicate – democrat

th: this thing

u: up – front, some, couple, blood
u-e: cute – you, newt, neutral, suit, beauty, tuesday, nuclear
-ue: cue – few, view, menu

v-: van
-ve: have – spiv
-v-: river – chivvy

w: window – which
x: fix – accept, except, exhibit
y: yak – use

z: zip – xylophone
-se: rose – froze
television
-su-: measure – azure

Endings and prefixes:
-able: loveable – credible
-al: vertical – novel, anvil, petrol
-ary: ordinary – machinery, inventory, century, carpentry
-en: fasten – abandon, truncheon, orphan, goblin, certain
-ence: absence – balance; absent – pleasant
-er: father – author, armour, nectar, centre, injure, quota
butcher – picture

de-: decide – divide
in-: indulge – endure

Consonant doubling:
merry (regular) – very(missing) – serrated(surplus)

[Mashabell]

69 graphemes or letter strings have more than one pronunciation:
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

[mrz]

Your list continue to confuse me I'm afraid masha
why do you stick letters together and call them graphemes when they are separate sounds?