Basic Phonics SkillsPupils need to knowthe letters of the alphabet wellthe specific matches between sounds and letters in words(e.g. /ch/air/)that words are made up of separable sounds (awareness of phonemes)sentences are made up of words

The KSSR English Language SyllabusThe teaching of Phonics as one of the strategies to develop children basic literacy.

What is Phonics?

A method of teaching children to read (not something they need to learn)

Phonics instruction teaches children the relationships between the letters (graphemes) of written language and the individual sounds (phonemes) of spoken language. It teaches children to use these relationships to read and write words.

It is NOT Phonemic awareness.

Theory of PhonicsChildren must learn that connections between letter patterns and the sounds they represent.The teacher must provide direct, explicit instruction about phonics rules and patterns.Children taught phonics using systematic phonics made better progress in reading and spelling.

IssuesEnglish is complex:

44 sounds represented by 26 lettersConfusion because of the possible range of correspondence between a sound and spelling represented

/f/: f - /fish/, ph - /photo/

IssuesA proportion of commonly used English language words that are not phonetically regular.(e.g. /ch/air,

/ch/aracter, ma/ch/ine)75% of the English spelling system is phonetically regular the rest could be quite problematic .

Approaches to teaching PhonicsSynthetic PhonicsAnalytic Phonics

Synthetic PhonicsSounds and corresponding letters are learnt first and in isolationBlending and segmenting are taught specifically and separatelyRead phonetically regular books

Analytic phonicsSounds are taught in connection with wordsChildren learn that multiple words share the same initial soundLearn phonics by deduction from texts e.g. bat, bus, beg, bill

PhonemeSmallest unit of sound /-/

e.g. /s/, /ch/,/ph/, /oi/oy/, /ee/,/ff/

GraphemeWritten form of the letters in the English alphabet

a - z

DigraphWhen 2 graphemes are combined to form a phoneme

Consonant digraph ph - /f/, ff - /f/, kn - /n/, nn - /n/

Vowel digraph ow - /ow/, ay - /ei/, ee - /e/, oo - /oo/

Approaches to teaching PhonicsBlending - to combine the individual sounds to letters to form words

cat - /k/a/t/Segmenting to break down individual letter sounds to sound it correctly

/h/a/t/ - hat

Approaches to teaching PhonicsSubstitution - identify beginning, middle, and end sound of a word. Then change the beginning or end sound/letter

e.g. cat ca/t/, ca/p/; /c/at/, /h/at/; Deletion - identify and omit the beginning or end sound of a word Word family a word ending consisting of a vowel and consonant combination e.g. /an/, /at/, /op/

Sight & High frequency wordsSight words need to be memorized on sight

e.g. where, were, one, who, youHigh frequency words - words that occur frequently in English

e.g. it, he, them

Phonological awarenessPupils need to know thatsome written words are longer than the spoken formwords are made of syllablesthat words rhyme

Phonemic awarenessPupils need tounderstands that there are many words that start with the same soundknow that spoken words are made up of individual soundsable to identify and manipulate individual soundsknow that phonemes can be rearranged and substituted to make new words