Beginning Phonics
How to Help Children Make Sense of Unknown Words
by Nancy Redding, M.Ed.
Picture this. A six-year-old boy, sweaty forehead, smudges on his cheeks, bends over his primary-lined paper, where he has written these letters:
d a d
Deliberately and slowly, he says the sound for each letter. Then, as his teacher sweeps her hand under the letters, he begins to blend the sounds. After a few tries, he says "DAD!" A big smile breaks out, as he conjures up a picture of his own dad. The miracle of reading has begun for another child.
New brain imaging techniques have allowed us to witness what a miracle the act of reading actually is. Multiple areas of the brain are activated when we read, and it is a highly sophisticated process. No single "reading areas" exists in the brain, unlike those for speech or vision. So how does this miracle occur?
English is based on the alphabetic principle, which means that letters are symbols, with letters and combinations of letters representing sounds. Dr. Sally Shaywitz states in Overcoming Dyslexia that "Prospective readers must master the alphabetic principle in order to learn to read, yet one in five children is unable to do so." (p.45) Phonics, the study of sound/symbol relationship, is the key to helping children crack the alphabetic code for mastery of reading and spelling skills.
In order for students to begin to read, they must first realize that words can be broken up into tiny units of sound, called phonemes. They then must begin to understand that the symbols we call letters are used to represent these sounds. Next, the students must learn the sound/symbol relationships and the blending skills necessary to break the code of reading. A student who is guided through the process of phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, blending skills, syllable division, and the study of morphemes (units of meaning), is given the lifelong tools necessary for reading and spelling. Dr. Shaywitz reminds us that "The National Reading Panel found that children who are taught phonics systematically and explicitly make greater progress in reading than those taught with any other type of instruction."(p.203) Older students who are struggling readers can make steady and sure progress when they are exposed to a structured, sequential, multisensory approach to learning phonics and the structure of language. The goal of reading is comprehension, yet this cannot occur unless a student first achieves fluency in decoding.
The American school system has had a love-hate relationship with the study of phonics over the years, and many adults today, although fluent readers, do not have a strong phonics background. Many of the teachers in primary grades today have only a vague knowledge of the structure of the English language. Teachers and parents can greatly increase their ability to help beginning and struggling readers by understanding the basics of phonics and the rules that govern our language.
In the Beginning Phonics break-out session of the Phonics and Beyond program on February 9, participants will learn the vocabulary that is integral to the study of phonics. They will receive instruction and ideas for helping students learn phonemic awareness, knowledge of the sounds of common phonograms, blending skills, rules that govern the English language, non-phonetic words, types of syllables, and syllable division rules. In short, participants will explore the elements that can help many students break out in the same grin described at the beginning of this article — the unmistakable smile that comes when students first break the code of the language and begin to read.
References:
Shaywitz, Sally, M.D., Overcoming Dyslexia, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Wolf, Maryanne, Proust and the Squid, New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
About the Author: Nancy Redding received her B.A. in education from the University of Texas and her M.Ed. in special education from the University of Utah. She has worked with learning disabled students for over 30 years and is currently a learning specialist at De Anza College and St. Francis High School. Ms. Redding conducts teacher workshops on the structure of language, is a frequent instructor at Orton-Gillingham summer trainings, and has co-authored multisensory curricula.
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