3.+Learning+To+Read

**Learning To Read.**  In order for a child to begin to learn how to read this first step is letter identification and the alphabetic principle. A child needs to understand what sound each letter in the alphabet makes before combine the letters together to form words. A method for teachers to teach this to children is getting the class to resite the alphabet and sounding out the alphabet. The repetitious nature of this activity with help instil the letters and the sounds into the minds of the children. Once the child is competent with knowing the alphabet and the sounds, they can be taught how to write simple and common words. These are generally words such as dad, mum and their name. Here child can learn the alphabetic principle where by letters in words represent particular sounds and is the foundation to the relationship between written words and being able to pronounce them. Take the name Matthew as an example. The ‘E’ and the ‘W” together expresses a single sound.  __Phonics __ Building on letter identification a strategy to teach the relationship between written words, recognizing them and being able to pronounce them is phonics. Phonics is a key strategy in teaching child to read,, therefore teachers need to introduce phonics to children early on in there education so that children have adequate time to grasp the concept. Phonics assists children to be able to identify words by sounding them out to read the word. This incorporates the alphabetic principle. For example with the word rock, the child can make the sequence of sounds ‘r’ ‘o’ ‘ck’ to say and read the word. The progression in complexity of phonics is children understanding that words that begin with the same letter can have different sounds. For instance ‘Crater’ and ‘Centre’ both begin with the letter ‘C’ but give different sounds. It is the ‘en’ following the ‘C’ that gives centre a soft c sound and the ‘r’ following the ‘C’ that gives crater a hard sound. This is where phonics leads into the content area of consonants and vowels. The alphabet is made up of consonants and vowels. Vowels are the most common appearing letters in words; a, e, i, o and u. The sound of vowels is made up in the mouth. The other 21 letters of the alphabet consists of consonants which the sounds are made by and obstruction of air. Children can begin to read a larger range of words by working through the stages of phonics. As they progress through each stage, the greater amount and variety of words children can read and write. Once children can identify the vowels and consonants they can be introduced to the next stages.

The video bellow is Literacy teacher John Potter giving a presentation on phonics for a year 1 class.

media type="youtube" key="Gvbpm_XMXcA&hl=en" height="355" width="425" Video By Don Potter Created in January 2008. Video Retrieved From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvbpm_XMXcA

Onset and rhyme word families is a stage of phonics where children can quickly build their vocabulary as simple rhyming words are easy to remember and recognise because students can both hear and see the similarity is letter structure. For example, ‘bump and ‘dump’. Children hear the ‘ump’ sound and can see the letters; u/m/p together on the page and notice their similarity but also distinguishing one begins with b and the other with d. A good exercise for teaching phonics using rhyming words is getting the children to list all the words they can think of that rhyme with ‘date.’ Moving forward from rhyming words teachers can present blends of consonants. Blends are the combination of two or more consonants. There are 3 types of blends; 2 letter blends at the start of a word, 2 letter blends at the end of a word and 3 letter blends at the start of a word. In conjunction with the rhyming activity teachers can ask the children to list all the words they can think of that begin with the letters ‘st’ then asking them all the words they can think of that end with ‘nd.’ This involves the whole classroom and gets the children hearing new words from their fellow classmates. Children will naturally identify themselves with their classmates therefore it is a good teaching technique to get the kids listening and learning off each other.

Here are some examples of blend phonics Photo retrieved from [|http://www.weallcanread.com]

Cards like these could be used in an activity where the teacher shows the child a card and asks them to make the sound of whats on the card.