Question to the experts on phonics from a non-native speaker

[Ellle]

Hi, I’m trying to understand how the teaching of phonics is done during the early years of primary in this country, and I also had a question about a couple of words my son encountered while we were reading one of his books.

I read in another thread that English has 44 spoken sounds (I think it was Mrz who said it), so are these 44 spoken sounds the phonics that children get taught in order to learn to read in English?

Do all the phonic sounds get taught at once during Reception, or do they get taught little by little with some phonic sounds during Reception and others in Year 1? Or does it depend on the child so that some of the children know all the phonics they need by the end of Reception and others by the end of Year 1?

I was listening to my son reading the other day and we found a couple of words that he didn’t pronounce correctly. One I knew (island), so I told him the correct pronunciation and he corrected himself and remember to read it properly whenever he saw it written again.
The other word (sewed) I was almost sure I knew how it should sound, but I told him to check with DH as he is the native speaker.

Now, my point is, was my son supposed to know how to read “island” using his phonics knowledge? He read it as “is” – “land” instead of “ai” – “land”. If so, which is the phonic rule for “island” that he should have used?

And, when he encounters a word he has never seen before and tries to read it, if he gets it wrong, is it okay that I tell him how it is supposed to be read which I know he will memorize and use every time he sees it, or do I need to tell him to sound it so he practises the use of phonics?

Thanks

I can see this is quite complicated for you!

There are a lot of English words that confuse even native speakers, so don't worry too much.

Phonics will normally be taught a few sounds at a time, over several months or a year; different schools will have different methods and time-scales.

Words like "island" are difficult for someone who has not seen it before, and as you say, using the "is" sound is a normal try for a child. That he could remember it once he was told if very good, as some children can't manage that and have to be told several times.

Regarding "sewed", that is difficult, and it is a 'past tense' of "sew" (using a needle and thread). I have looked it up myself, and other forms include:

"sew, sews, sewing, sewed, sewn".

There is an easy to use book that can help you with some of this. Look in the MN Book Reviews section, "children's educational books and courses" part. The Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary can be used by children on their own, or will adult support. It lists words by order of SOUND. Thus in the /S/ (ssssss) pages there are words starting with 'S', but also ones that have a 'S' sound like: "celebrate, centre, cinema, circle, cycle, science" that do sound as if they ought to start with 'S' , but instead start with ce, ci, cy, sc.

So it is hardly surprising children can find it difficult, especially if English is not their first language!

Look through these free charts and select one that you think is suitable for your use:

alphabeticcodecharts.com/free_charts.html

Although there are around 44 sounds in the English language, we need to teach more units of sound because some letters and letter groups are code for more than one sound such as letter 'x' is code for /k+s/ as in 'fox' or /g+z/ as in 'exam'.

The letter groups 'ue', 'ew', 'u-e' are code for /y+oo/ or long /oo/ dependent on the words - so compare 'blue' with 'rescue'. In 'blue', the letter group 'ue' is code for long /oo/ and in 'rescue', the 'ue' is code for /y+oo/.

This sounds very complex but having an Alphabetic Code Chart to explain the relationship between the sounds of speech and the various letters and letter groups is the best starting point.

Warm regards,

Debbie

Thanks a lot for clearing my doubts Ferguson. I guessed "island" was probably a difficult word. I'll check the book that you recommended.

Yeah, phonics is a whole other world for me. I've tried to stay away from it, DS usually reads his school books with DH but occasionally we read some of them together. His teachers at school have done a great job teaching him to read through phonics, I'm amazed at how quickly he picked it up.

Thanks debbiehep for that link. Those charts look quite good. I think getting a bit more clued up about phonics will even improve my own pronunciation! DS is starting to correct me :)

DH and I are not English-native speakers, we are Germans. German is a very phonetic language and therefore we struggled a bit with all the different ways you English pronounce the same letter or letter combination in different ways.

Explaining why the "ea" in eat or sea is different to in head is not possible to a 4 year old.

What we did may not be totally correct but it worked very well for us, DD tried to decode phonetically and very often would use phonics correct but the word wasn't. So she would read "head" with an "iii" sound and we would say "Well done but in this case it is a different sound" and she then store this in her memory.