Several years ago I taught phonics to two middle-aged men. Both had suffered from look/say teaching in grade school, and had feeble decoding and spelling skills. I taught the same lessons that applied to any beginner: the sequential flashcards and the vowel chart. After they realized that they could decode unknown words, they were on their way. Because they were both intelligent and successful people, they applied their knowledge and greatly improved their skills.
In this chapter, I give you a brief introduction to phonics and the way this book approaches it to help you and your child master the art of reading. This chapter also outlines the concepts you see throughout this book and how I (as an experienced phonics tutor) approach the subject with children. With equal doses of patience and perseverance, and help from this book, your phonics routine will run as smoothly as a fine-tuned Cadillac.
Taking the First Steps toward Using Phonics
Getting your child reading at the earliest possible age and keeping him happy at the same time makes the whole process of learning to read easier. Learning to read isnât supposed to consume every moment. As your child enters this stage of discovery, he needs to be busy with other things â like playing outside, having a hobby or two, learning board games, experimenting with art supplies, and so on.
The phonics approach to reading proves itself to be the best. It isnât reading in itself; itâs the best method for word recognition, far superior to the look/ say (see the word/say the word) approach. Phonics covers all the bases. Sliding sounds together to make words gives way to instant recognition of the words as you progress in your reading. Phonics training also makes for excellent spellers.
Phonics, quite simply, is a method of learning to read in which you connect sounds with letters or groups of letters. For example, c, k, and ck can all represent one sound: /k/.
The term phonic shouldnât be confused with the word phonetic, which simply describes the sound of human speech. I use phonetic occasionally in this book when describing sounds of letters or words, but the term doesnât apply to the letters or words themselves.
Some words are purely phonetic in that they donât have any sort of visual reference, such as the words and or but. Words that have a visual reference, such as nouns like cat or rabbit, are often referred to as sight words or look/say words throughout this book.
Whether you choose home-school or regular school for your child, your goal is to educate him to his unique capacity. You want to help him develop his inherent talents and abilities, which will serve him for his entire life. When you teach him to read, youâre there with him at the beginning of his intellectual achievement.
Phonics For Dummies contains a program that you can use to instruct your child in how to read. There are many methods for teaching phonics, but the one used in this book involves teaching a child to read starting with the following:
The most frequently used words
The most often used letters that make up the words
The easiest-to-sound letters that make up a word
This means that you arenât teaching the alphabet in alphabetical order, which may be a new concept to you, but itâs a successful and tried-and-true method.
You can use this method to help your child pronounce the consonant and vowel sounds of the alphabet, decode words, and read. Your child will learn guidelines for interpreting different letter patterns. Along the way, heâll discover how to read in a logical and methodical manner. The phonics program breaks down learning into succinct, compact units so that your child can learn one skill at a time without getting frustrated. Phonics becomes fun and easy for your child.
There is a bit of a controversy regarding how to teach phonics. Educators disagree about how large a role phonics should play in learning to read and how often teachers should use phonics in teaching reading. But learning to read, spell, and write is only part of phonics.
The phonics approach I present in this book enables your child to think logically in terms of reading and spelling words. Heâll develop techniques for processing and using the information. Youâll see him progress quickly from lesson to lesson.
A remarkable offshoot of phonics
When you take the phonics approach to teaching your child to read, your child learns to use his language skills in an organized way. The method starts with the most basic elements of language and then builds on them a little at a time. Your child is accumulating layers of skill and is able to hang on to them. (Saxon math books take a similar approach to mathematics.)
Youâve probably heard someone say something like, âMy mind is like a sieve! I read or hear something, and it goes right on through!â Teaching your child with an organized method keeps him from ever having to utter these words. Itâs akin to painting a great piece of art by using the brush as a tool rather than splashing paint and allowing it to stick where it may. Learning to read with phonics (the brush...
