One of the tasks required by teachers is to teach children to read and write, with this comes different approaches that teachers need to be aware of. Phonics is one of the approaches adopted by teachers when teaching children to read and write. Teachers adopt different methods to teaching phonics its what makes them effective teachers and adaptive. This essay aims to look closer at phonics and some of the different approaches used to teach phonics in the classroom. Phonic approaches that will be discussed in this paper include synthetic phonics, Analytic phonics, Linguist phonics and Word building.
Phonics is a method that teaches reading and writing, it aims to enhance investigation into sound-letter relationships and the understanding of the alphabet (Hill, S., 2012, p. 241). Phonics is used to assist with the decoding of words. However, it should be also used in conjunction with other approaches to allow readers to comprehend what they are reading not just decode the words. Phonics is valuable, but not the whole part of learning to read and write. Understanding what readers are reading is a very important role and should not be overlooked. Gough, Hoover and Peterson conclude (citied in Damianou, 2016, p. 128) that a ‘child who cannot decode cannot read; a child who cannot comprehend cannot read either”. Research has found that there are six elements that benefit children who are starting school that must firstly be fully understood, included are “the alphabetic code
Moat argues that learning to read is in fact not a natural process and students need explicit phonics instruction. Furthermore, the English alphabetic writing system cannot be learned simply from print exposure: students need to be taught how to develop phonological awareness to sound words out to help them learn how to read and without the support of context-based word recognition. Whole language’s legacy is still embedded in educational practices despite being disproven by scholars, thus Moat advocates for updating state language-arts standards, assessments, and textbooks to reflect direct, explicit phonics-based instruction as the best approach in teaching literacy. She also notes that teacher licensing requirements and preparation programs also need to be informed of effective literacy instructions that is supported by
Phonics is imperative to learning to read because it allows for the reader to distinguish these associations in letters and words that they read to captivate comprehension (Walbank & Bisby, 2016). At the preschool-grade, knowledge of the alphabetic principles should be extensive and in-depth, however, too much focus can lead to over application of this skills having words read but not comprehended. The directional approach for teaching phonics should be precise, articulated well with graphemes organised in a logical and systematic way allowing plenty of time to recite the new skills received inherited obtained attained gained acquired (Learning Point Associates, 2004). Likewise, with phonological awareness the expertise of listening to the sounds in phonemes and words, phonics helps complete the process of sounding out to decode what has been read to eventually move onto the primary goal of learning to read being comprehension (Fellows & Oakley, 2014). Another approach is to teach phonics is the analytical technique in which the teacher guides students to observe phonemes and graphemes by scrutinising full words to bring forth another critical thinking skill required to understand what the text means (Ewing & Maher, 2014). This essential component combined with
Phonics will start to be taught in nursery or reception and a child will not be able to learn to read without proper understanding of phonics.
Phonics advocates have been arguing that in order for children to learn to read, they need to have an explicit instruction in the rules of printed text in order to read properly. The phonics approach has been described as “bottom up” as it teaches the children to decode text and then the meaning and understanding will follow while the whole word approach is described as “top down,” as the children depend on the pictures within the book, form hypothesis and make predictions of the words with the text of the book being read (Wren, 2003).
The contrasting perspectives of the two passages, “CliffsTestPrep” by Jerry Bobrow (2006) and “The Place of Phonics in Learning to Read and Write” by Marie Emmitt (2013), address the issue of the importance of phonemic awareness in reading and writing scores. Bobrow believes that phonemic awareness is important to understand since it affects reading scores. Emmitt however, argues that there is no evidence that phonemic awareness has a major impact on reading achievement.
In Chapter 8 in The Best Practices in literacy Instruction, Gambrell expresses the role of Phonemic awareness, syllabic decoding, and developing strategies. Although there is not a best way to teach decoding to students, there’s a need to develop and strength their ability to decode and to teach phonics. She provides excellent examples of ways to teach rhyming (page 174) and phonic awareness (page 175). Phonics plays a vital role in the academic success of all students.
’51. Having considered a wide range of evidence, the review has concluded that the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming and much strengthened by a systematic approach’ (Rose, 2006, p20). To further his proposal Rose (2006) proclaimed that the teaching of systematic phonics should be enhanced and active by the age of five; It can be evidence through practice that children as young as five can define the terminology for a phoneme and a grapheme, due to the position phonics has within the English curriculum. There is also a world-wide debate on the various ways educational practitioners can most effectively implement phonics in their practice states Dombey (2010). Due to the impact of the Rose Review, it could be suggested that the value of systematic phonics had increased, meaning that primary teachers have to be confident in their ability to teach and support pupils in their reading and spelling through the use of phonological
Although for awhile, phonics had lost some of its popularity, research has proven its usefulness when teaching children to read. Without explicit instructions in phonemic awareness and phonics a student is in danger of learning issues. The Headsprout Reading Basics program can prevent these issues from occurring through explicit instruction in phonemic awareness,
A doctor once said ‘the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go’. That doctor was, of course, Dr Suess in his book 1978 book, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!. Reading is the orchestration of many skills. It is much more than simply decoding words. The National Reading Panel Report (A Closer Look, 2004, p. 1) summarised a child’s reading process and teachers’ effective reading instruction into five essential components. These five critical elements are phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each element is individually important; however, each cannot occur independently of one an other. The most effective way to teach these elements is through a balanced
As the standards of education change a consistent factor remains the focus on reading. Early childhood educators must provide an atmosphere that is both developmentally stimulating to the student while also meeting the standards of education. The methods used to help recognize phonics and begin the transition into emergent readers vary from student to student. Without the foundation of phonics research shows that a child will not learn to read. All children must know the alphabet in order to communicate effectively. Phonics cannot be drilled into the child. This will only produce memorization. Instead, educators must understand a child’s individual needs as well as balance. There is no true need to teach phonics as a separate subject. Most children will develop a sense of curiosity from their own knowledge, ideas, and interest. There will of course be a select few that may benefit from a more formal instruction. When children
For this assignment, I will first briefly discuss the value of early reading pre-school and the stages of reading. After that I will critically evaluate the history of introducing synthetic phonics reading in primary schools in England. Furthermore, I will investigate the developments and issues which have been brought about the different teaching strategies used in schools and using teaching synthetic phonics in early years to teach first reading.
Phonics is described as “understanding letter-sound relationships, as well as larger letter pattern/sound pattern relationships” (Ruddell, 2009). Though in my opinion there is a lot more to phonics than this. There are several aspects to phonics, different types of phonics, negatives to the idea, and several ways to teach it. In this paper I will address all of these based on research I found, the discussion I had with my peers, and my own opinion.
The history of the use of phonics dates back to the 1700’s. Backs then, children were taught to read through their memorization of the twenty-six-letter alphabet. Since many books hadn’t been written, their primary
How did you learn to read? Most of us do not put much thought into this question, but learning to read is a difficult task. According to Cervetti and Hiebert, the National Reading Panel identified five essential components that a teacher should use during reading instruction, which gives the student the highest chance of being an effective reader (2015, p. 548). These five essential components are also called five pillars of reading instruction. They are Phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. This paper will describe each of the five pillars, how they are related, the benefits, as well as give some effective methods of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness. It will continue by addressing the relationship between reading assessment and instruction and end by identifying ways to address the needs and different learning styles of a student. This paper will start by looking at a definition of phonics and phonemic awareness, then move onto the role that each play in learning to read, how they are related, the benefits and effective methods of teaching both.
“Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of the written language (graphemes) and the individual sounds (phonemes). It also teaches how these relationships are used to read and write words. This teaches students to systematically recognize familiar words and decode new words independently.” (Education.com, 2006)