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1. Teach the sound of each letter. An excellent website for this is Starfall. I have used this for many children. It is a fun and interactive way to learn phonics.
2. Teach children to sound out and blend each letter in cvc words (as well as vc words). These words are easiest to sound and blend. Keep practicing different words until children can do it. You will find that most children will mix their vowel sounds, especially a and u, and e and i. Another great site is Literactive. Register to their Road to Reading program for free.
3. Teach the easy sight words and/or high frequency words only after children have mastered sounding and blending. Sight words must be read by sight because they either cannot be sound out (because they are exceptions to any of the rules) or because they occur so often that they are easily recognised. It is important that sight words are taught after sounding and blending because if you teach sight words first then children will think that all words are recognisable by sight. So that when they encounter a word they have not yet memorised they will guess that word without trying to sound it out or applying any of the reading/spelling rules.
4. Teach word families. When children recognise the rime of a word family they read quicker because all they need to do is blend the onset with the rime instead of sounding out each letter. For example, the word cat has an onset of c and a rime of at. So instead of sounding c-a-t, they read it as c-at.
5. Teach digraphs, blends and long vowels. Children will need to learn new sounds made by combining 2 and sometimes 3 letters, such as th, ch, sh, tr, dr, sl. Long vowels have sounds that are the letter names. For example, a sounds can be written as a-e, ay, ai.
6. Teach other spelling patterns. There are so many spelling patterns including vowel combinations, irregular vowels, prefix, suffix, exceptions to rules. You might want to go to Phonics on the Web to read more about these.
Click on the image above to download the infographic. You could also watch these 6 Steps on YouTube:
I was totally unfamiliar with the method “hooked on phonics” for the children learning. First I thought that this method will like the other process and unconsciously I start reading your article and remain shocked to read such an effective method for the children. Thanks for such useful information and I want further information on your article on this topic
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting. Yes, children must start with phonics first to really have a foundation for reading. I am planning to write another article on the topic of reading. Can I ask you what sort of information you're after? Is it exactly how to teach it? A step by step guide? Let me know and I can work it into my article.
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