Introduction to Phonics

1.1 What is Phonics?

Phonics is a method of teaching literacy by talking about the differences between sounds. At its core, phonics is about matching sounds to individual letters or groups of letters. By teaching individuals how to read this way, they can apply these lessons to other unfamiliar words, by sounding them out.

For example

If someone knows the sounds associated with the letters 's', 't', 'o' and 'p', they can sound out words such as 'stop', 'tops', 'pot' and 'opt' on their own.

Phonics involves three main lessons:

GPCs

GPC stands for grapheme phoneme correspondence. Basically, this means that students are taught the sounds that are associated with certain letters, along with how they are to be written down. In most cases, a specific, pre-determined order is used to teach these sounds.Most programmes begin with common and easy sounds, such as 's', 'a', 'p' and 't'.

Blending

All phonics programmes also teach students how to blend certain sounds together, to form new words. This involves taking a written word and working out what it is, by identifying each individual sound.

For example

students learn how to read the word 'cat', by saying the sounds that make up each individual part and then merging them together, to work out what the word sounds like, when spoken aloud.

Segmenting

Segmenting is the opposite of blending and is also a key component of any phonics programme. To segment a word, students break it up into individual parts.

For example

Segmenting the word 'cat' involves breaking it up into three different sounds — 'c', 'a' and 't' — and then working out which letters correspond with each sound. This is a skill that is used quite frequently in writing.

1.2 Methods Used to Teach Phonics

There are four general ways in which children and ESL (English as a foreign language) students can learn phonics.

Synthetic Phonics

This method is usually associated with reading and is the most popular one used throughout the UK. Synthetic phonics involves associating sounds, or phonemes, with certain letters, or graphemes. These associations are practised in isolation and then blended together.

For example

Children may be taught the word 'dog', by separating it into three parts, introducing a phoneme for each one, and then, once the phonemes are mastered, blending the word back together.

Analytic Phonics

Popular in Scotland, this method differs from the synthetic approach in that individual graphemes are not practised in isolation.

Instead, students analyse sets of words, identifying the common phoneme that is currently being taught.

For example

Instead of learning the words 'pet' and 'park', by working out what each letter is supposed to sound like, students learn the phoneme associated with 'p', by studying words that start with 'p'.They then discuss how the 'p' in each word sounds the same.

Analogy Phonics

Analogy phonics is a type of analytic phonics whereby students analyse words by phonograms, instead of individual sounds. A phonogram is a letter or group of letters that represent a sound.

For example 'ake' is a phonogram.

This information is then used to talk about word families and how the group of letters always sounds the same. With our example, a student learning the phonogram 'ake' may discuss other words in the same word family, including 'make', 'cake' and 'fake'.

Embedded Phonics

This method is not used as often, although it does have some use with older students.This approach is based purely on literature, with phonemes and phonograms taught as they are required through a reading of the text, rather than one at a time.

For example

Students reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' may learn the phoneme 'the' before the sound 's'. This is because there is a practical application for the 'th' sound βirst, making it a learning strateg based on opportunity, instead of predetermined lesson plans.

1.3 The Six Phases

In 2007, the Department for Education released a document called 'Letters and Sounds', outlining how phonics should be taught in schools and childcare centres. The curriculum breaks down phonics into six phases:

Phase One

This first phase is split into seven aspects, focusing on sound discrimination and how sound generally works. Students are taught the difference between environmental sounds and body percussion and about rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, oral blending and segmenting.

Phase Two

The second phase teaches students 19 alphabet letters. This is done by associating a sound with each letter and then spelling and sounding out simple words. Words that do not follow normal phonetic rules are considered 'tricky' words. During this phase, tricky words with some connection to the first 19 alphabet sounds are also reviewed, to help illustrate certain exceptions.

Phase Three

The remaining letters of the alphabet are taught during this phase, along with two-letter digraphs, three-letter trigraphs and other tricky words. As with phase two, the focus is on both reading and writing, as well as being able to sound out unfamiliar words.

Phase Four

Blending and segmenting longer words, including multi-syllabic words, are introduced in this phase. Students are also taught how to properly use tricky words within sentences.

Phase Five

Students are shown alternative spellings and pronunciations during this phase. The big focus is learning how to read and write these words and correctly using them on a consistent basis.

Phase Six

Longer words and unusual spelling rules are introduced in the final phase. Lessons should start to shift away from learning how to read to learning how to spell.

Module Summary

This is the end of the first module in the Teaching Phonics course, which gave you an introduction to the concept of phonics. Our next and final module talks about how to work with phonics when teaching others how to read and write.