METHODS FOR TEACHING READING

What is Phonics? Phonics is the method of teaching children to read which focuses on the individual sounds of letters, or groups of letters, and blending them together. Words are broken down and sounded out (decoded) and then blended together to reveal what the word says. “Phonemes” are the smallest sounds in the English language.  These sounds are made up of consonants, short vowels, long vowels, and digraphs.   “Phonemic Awareness” consists of learning those sounds and how to manipulate them within a word.  Digraphs are unique sounds comprised of individual letters like /th/, /sh/, /ch/, etc. “Phonics” includes learning how to spell those sounds and the various rules that the English language follows.  Phonics is an important components of reading/spelling, but it should never be the main focus.  

Word Families Word families are words that rhyme.  Teaching children word families is a phonemic awareness activity that helps children see patterns in reading.  This is an important skill because it allows children to begin “reading” by grouping sets of letters within a word.  The first part of a word is called the onset and the last part of the word is conveniently called the rime.  Word families share a similar “rime” as the onset changes. Once a child recognizes the word “mop”, he’ll then have an advantage to reading all of the other words that have the same rime (top, pop, stop, cop, hop) because only one letter is changing.

What are Sight Words? Sight words are the basis of the whole-word approach in which readers are encouraged to recognize the whole word rather than breaking down the individual sounds of each letter within the word.

Sight Word Bingo: Sight Word Bingo is a fun game that helps children learn to read frequently used words . No. of Players: suitable for individuals or for small groups. The Aim: or the child to locate a word, when it is called out, on their grid and cover it with a marker. The game is finishes when all words have been covered.

Phonics enables children to: learn many words at one time such as word families (e.g., top, pop, mop, bop, etc.) develop strategies for sounding out unfamiliar words develop spelling skills quickly. Sight words gets children: up and reading quickly especially in regards to frequently used words such as 'is' and 'the'. This boasts children's self-esteem and confidence as they can see they are reading all by themselves. In turn, the increased self-confidence helps children in the reading process to recognize words that have irregular spellings and which can't be decoded using phonics.