1.+Learning+to+Read+&+Phonics

 ** Learning to read is an important educational goal. For both children and adults, the ability to read opens up new worlds and opportunities. It enables us to gain new knowledge, enjoy literature, and do everyday things that are part of modern day life, such as, reading newspapers, job listings and going on the computer, the list goes on. ** The phonics method is probably the best known and widely used method to teach reading and writing in the English language. It relies on children being taught the alphabet first. They learn the names of the letters and the sounds they make. Once they have learnt the letter sounds they will begin to blend two letters together to make simple words then three letters, then four and so forth. Learning to read is a different process because it involves learning about a symbolic system (writing) used to represent speech. Before children begin to learn to associate the written form with speech, ‘they need to learn the vocabulary, grammar and sound system of the spoken language. The ability to attend to the individual sounds within words (phonemic awareness) is also a skill that is closely associated with reading ability.’ (Ainley, J & Fleming, M, 2000) Children who are able to attend to the individual phonemes in alphabetic languages are much more likely to learn the alphabetic principle (how letters map onto phonemes) and, therefore, learn to recognize printed words quickly and accurately. Phonological awareness helps children to discover the alphabetic principle. At the same time, learning to read alphabetic script also develops phonological and phonemic awareness. ‘For children to learn the phonics method they need phonically written books using regular words that are interesting to young children. Each word must be sounded out by the child in order to achieve the highest level outcome.’ (Learning to Read, 2006)  For example: The cat sat on the mat. The hen is in a pen.

**Approaches to phonics instruction ** Here are the main strategies to phonic instruction. The distinctions between approaches are not absolute, and some programs of instruction combine approaches.  media type="youtube" key="oBRZil8ASeU&hl=en" height="355" width="425"
 * Synthetic phonics ** Children learn how to convert letters or letter combinations into sounds, and then how to blend the sounds together to form recognizable words.
 * Analytic phonics ** Children learn to analyze letter-sound relationships in previously learned words. They do not pronounce sounds in isolation.
 * Analogy-based phonics ** Children learn to use parts of word families they know to identify words they don't know that have similar parts.
 * Phonics through spelling ** Children learn to segment words into phonemes and to make words by writing letters for phonemes.
 * Embedded phonics ** Children are taught letter-sound relationships during the reading of connected text. (Since children encounter different letter-sound relationships as they read, this approach is not systematic or explicit.)
 * Onset-rime phonics instruction ** Children learn to identify the sound of the letter or letters before the first vowel (the onset) in a one-syllable word and the sound of the remaining part of the word (the rime).

Some of the approaches to phonic learning are: Synthetic Phonic Approach ‘Children blend individual letters to make words. For example, a teacher writes ‘s’ on the board and then say that this letter ‘s’ makes the sound /s/. Then the teacher writes the letters ‘u’ and ‘n’ and the children are encouraged to blend the sounds to make the word //sun//.’ (Hill, 2006; page 227) S – U – N Analytic Phonics Approach ‘Analytic phonics begins with writing on the board a word the child already knows such as //leg.// Next the teacher shows how the word can be broken into its component parts by saying something like ‘The middle of the word leg has an /e/, a short ‘e’ sound. The letter name is ee.’ Then a list of words with the short ‘e’ is written with the help of the children.‘ (Hill, 2006; page 228) Egg Wed Peg Shed Ten Word Study Approach ‘Word study is a spelling approach where children categorise words and word patterns by sorting words and pictures according to their common orthographical pattern. The orthographical features in words are then studies. For example, if a child is spelling ‘rane’ for ‘rain’ and makes a similar pattern error in other pieces of writing, the teacher might begin instruction on long /a/ word patterns. In this approach, the teacher bases instruction on the words the children are writing but are finding confusing.’ (Hill, 2006; page 229)

Reference for Video Video taken from YouTube on the 23/4/08 //Learning to read with flash cards// < http://youtube.com/watch?v=oBRZil8ASeU