Is Phonics needed for good (but young) readers? What are the benefits?

[matrips]

Hi,

I see so much talk about phonics, and perhaps I'm not too clear on what phonics is. We're new to homeschooling, my kids are 4.5yo (triplets), and they are very good readers. about a 3rd or 4th grade level when I research some of their books, though actually there isn't too much that they can't read. We have not done a phonics programs yet. They did of course learn the basics of what letters sound like, and a few simple rules, but it sounds like a real Phonics program is more involved than that. I also hear people mention Phonics in relation to spelling.

 

What should I use a Phonics program for? and what should I look for in one (if needed)? Is there anything that simply lists all the phonics rules and some examples? maybe if they get stuck on a word, we could refer to it?

 

I feel embarrassed asking about this! but I appreciate any help you can offer! my kids kind of learned to read before I was ready to teach them!

 

Thanks,

Mary

[JenneinCA]

It depends on how they are reading. My oldest could read and spell almost anything. I stopped teaching her reading and spelling years ago because she knew it all. My middle guy reads very very well. The problem is it is almost all sight words. And therefore he can't spell very well. (I thought he was doing the same thing my oldest was. I was wrong!) My youngest can read well, but he is mostly doing it from phonics. He can spell about as well as he reads. He will do spelling in the Fall mostly to cement the phonemes and get him really spelling well.

 

So I would say if your kids are reading phonetically and can spell, you don't need to do more. If they are reading sight words and can't spell, then you need to teach them spelling and phonics. Sometimes reading and spelling just work well together and they mesh and sometimes they don't.

 

As for a good spelling program, we are using "All About Spelling" it is explicit phonics as related to spelling. I really hope it works for us.

[Truscifi]

I skipped phonics because ds was already reading quite well, but now we are going back through a basic spelling/phonics program over the summer just to keep him in practice. He doesn't really seem to need it, but he doesn't mind doing it (we only do the exercises verbally so we go through them pretty quickly). Also, his spelling skills are decent but not 100%, so maybe this wil help solidify them.

[Mommy22alyns]

I dropped phonics with my girls. Well, Sylvia is doing ETC 1, but it's way below her reading level - it's some easy work for her to call "school work." I teach them to rely on phonics to sound out unfamiliar words and obviously I'm doing spelling with Becca!

 

Neither of my girls would tolerate going back to true phonics instruction. :001_huh:

[forty-two]

Based on my experience, I would say that, yes, good phonics instruction is still important. I was an early reader (learned through sight words) and a voracious one, as well as a natural speller - all without any phonics instruction - yet I can't pronounce a word properly without having heard it before. I can't place the stress right, divide syllables correctly, or choose the right sound when there are multiple choices.

 

Can I live without that knowledge? Well, sure - I've done fine up to now. High SATs, salutatorian, managed fine in college and in the workplace, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I self-censor when I speak, avoiding words that I'm not sure how to say properly. Sure, I didn't *need* to say the perfect word - second- or third-best generally does fine. But I feel like an idiot every time that happens. At 28, I - an intelligent adult - don't know third grade phonics skills. I didn't even know there it was *possible* to figure out how to pronounce an unknown word without resorting to a dictionary till I started researching phonics programs in prep for hs'ing. I might not *need* to know it - but I want to. And, ridiculous as it sounds, I am now laboriously trying to teach myself advanced phonics skills.

 

So, yes, I think a thorough knowledge of English phonetics is essential. And while non-phonics-taught readers will likely intuit most of the sound-letter correspondences - possibly some of the rules as well (and if they have a good visual memory they will have no trouble with spelling), it is unlikely they will be able to figure out all the rules without some explicit instruction. As well, good phonics instruction will give the big picture of how English spelling works - it has an internal logic, but it is not nearly as transparent as most other languages.

 

However, you'd want to assess what they already know and move them quickly through a program, slowing down whenever you hit something they don't know, but otherwise speeding through it. After all, they probably figured out the basics already - they *are* reading, after all - they just need to fill in any gaps and learn the more advanced stuff. But there is no need to plod through an entire program from the beginning. The point of phonics instruction is to make sure kids have mastered English phonetics - if a kid has learned 60% of English phonetics on their own, then they only need to use a program to work on the last 40% (and not the whole thing).

[nova147]

I'm in a similar boat (but it's not as full - I don't have triplets!). DS sorted out phonics mostly on his own and now at 4.5 is reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. We're "starting school" this fall and I've been pondering how to handle phonics instruction as well. I've decided not to do anything with it right now, simply because he was VERY interested in letter sounds and combinations and obviously reads phonetically. (My reading on gifted kids suggests that many teach themselves by memorizing lots and lots and lots of words, but that's just not the case for him.) He's really focused on math ideas now and I plan to try to stay with his interests for now, adding in other instruction as it fits. When he starts getting into writing again, I think I may use a phonics-based spelling program to get at the advanced phonics.

[Amber in AUS]

I think there are two sides to phonics, phonics for learning to read and phonics for learning to spell. My DD is reading very well, about a 6th grade level. She no longer requires any phonics for learning to read however we are still covering phonics for learning to spell. I do think phonics is still important until a person can read anything put infront of them.

[Aloha2U]

We're just starting out so I don't know if the info I share will hold any merit for you, but... when I began researching different methods/programs on how to teach my ds to read and write, etc. it became clear to me that our long term goals would be best attained through a program wherein a strong phonetic awareness along w/spelling are the key elements to begin building a solid language arts foundation. I've read of many who did otherwise with their dc and later regretted the long term results - reading skills hit a road block, poor spelling and/or comprehension skills, to list a few. I personally am paying for the lack of this instruction bestowed upon me my the public school system and I would not wish it upon my ds when it is within my power to teach him otherwise from the start.

 

My goal was/is not only to teach my ds how to read (and write), but to equip him from the very beginning and throughout our hs journey with the tools necessary to analyze the reasons behind a word’s spelling and pronunciation, giving him a strategy to learn any word he may encounter. I introduced Spell to Write and Read to my ds last year during our Pre-K/K4 school year and I have not been disappointed with the results. I honestly can't imagine using any other program at this point. I agree with Britta McColl, a SWR trainer, that 'the preschool years are the most opportune time to begin learning with Spell to Write and Read'. I also agree with another poster here that I truly believe I am giving my little man the tools to attack new words forevermore.

 

Here are a few links if you're at all interested in Spell to Write and Read...

 

About SWR

 

What is Spell to Write and Read?

 

SWR and Preschoolers

 

SWR Methodology Overview

 

:001_smile: HTH!

 

Our Homeschool Blog

[Reya]

I would, for spelling. :-)

[matrips]

thank you everyone for your replies. I'm going to look at the links mentioned, and also check out some materials at our Home Education conference this weekend. they do phonetically sound out new words, but sometimes they will struggle over some, especially geography related ones (other countries/cities/rivers etc). and I know they don't know all the rules. in fact, it's likely that I don't even know all the rules! :)

 

it's nice to know I don't need to stress over it, but that it will be a beneficial supplement.

[skaterbabs]

Dot reads very well; we'll do phonics with her this year (it's part of her language arts curriculum) but more to teach her to spell than to improve her reading ability.

[mktyler]

The first thing to know is if your children are part word guessing (reading the first few sounds in a word, then guessing the rest from picture clues, context, or just random guessing) sight reading (, or reading all through the word. For future ease of reading, you want to make sure they can comfortably read all through the word. The reason is that if they are part word guessing or memorizing whole words without an understanding of the parts they can hit some roadblocks ahead. Not everyone does, but some do.

 

 

If your kids are fine reading all through the word, then you need to see how well they infer new sound-spelling correspondences from their reading. A sound-spelling correspondence is a unique letter or letter group that spells a sound. Here are some common correspondences for the sound /ee/:

 

ey key

ee see

e he

y happy

i police

ie field

ei receive

ea meat

 

If they infer well, that is, work through a new word fairly easily, until they figure out a reasonable pronunciation and they tend to remember the correspondences when they are applied in new words then you are probably fine doing what you are doing.

 

If your kids are memorizing or part word guessing then phonics instruction is invaluable, especially emphasizing reading all through the word.

 

Phonics really just means sounds and is used very loosely. Some programs teach a sound for each letter of the alphabet and call that phonics. Some programs only teach that letters represent sounds occasionally putting more emphasis on memorizing words as wholes. This is called incidental phonics.

 

Analytic phonics focuses on teaching the sounds of the letters in the context of words. So an analytic phonics program would present the word 'cat' and teach this is the word cat, the first letter says 'k', etc.

 

Synthetic phonics teaches the correspondences in isolation and then teaches explicitly blending all through the word for reading and segmenting all through the word for spelling. A synthetic phonics program would teach c-/k/, a-/a/, t-/t/ and then present cat and have the child figure out the word themselves. This method is the most efficient and effective and is the method preferred by almost all other alphabetic languages.

 

Some programs include "rules" to try and make reading easier, however, often these rules are more spelling-oriented and therefore not so helpful with reading, as well as being in error much of the time. Such a rule might be "when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking" which is completely untrue in many cases, or "i before e except after c" which is a spelling rule and also false much of the time (neighbor, weigh, etc.). In order to make the rules be more accurate they often become unwieldy.

 

What you really want to know is do your children understand the alphabetic principle which is that letters and letter groups represent sounds and that these are blended together from left to right to approximate spoken words. English has 44 sounds represented by some hundreds of possible letters or letter groups. It is considered the most complex alphabetic language. If they grasp this and can apply it to new words, then they don't really need formal phonics. Reading out loud with someone in increasingly more difficult text, pointing out the elements of new words, will most likely be sufficient.

 

Wow! That got longer than I thought, but I hope it helps!

 

Melissa

Minnesota

Reading Program Junkie

dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds (1)

[HiddenJewel]

Here is an interesting article on the importance of pure phonics.

[matrips]

I read that article. it got me wondering, how do kids learn when to use the right sounds?? they had an example of the 'ea' group,

 

bead

head

steak

learn

bureau

 

each one is a different sound. how do you teach kids which sound to make for new words they encounter? my kids can read these words fine, but probably because they've seen them before.

 

or they had the example for 'ch' of

 

child

chord

chef

 

again, three different sounds. but how do you teach your kids how to pick the right sound for new words?? would the phonics books teach me this? are there rules that cover this stuff? I'm feeling a bit clueless!

 

any comments? thanks!

[nova147]

Learning the right sounds can be confusing. For "ea" words, there is no way to tell by looking at the word. (Also, there is no way to tell how to spell the word by it's sound: should it be "bead" or "beed" or "bede" which are all ways to spell the long e sound? Should it be "head" or "hed", both ways to spell the short e sound?) For "ch" sounds, the origin of the word helps - english words use the sound like in child, greek words use the k sound, and french words use the sh sound. Not too helpful when you're 5, but . . . I suppose it's good to know for spelling bees.

 

I recommend "The ABC's and All Their Tricks" by Margaret Bishop. I just got it and I now understand a lot more about phonics. It has about 60 pages at the beginning explaining about phonics instruction and how phonics work in English. The bulk of the book is a reference guide to the different sounds used to make words in the English language. There is, for example, a page of the english "ch", a page for the greek "ch" and a page for the french "ch". Each page lists words that follow the rule (including words children are likely to encounter early in their reading days as well as harder words), an explanation of the rule and other rules that relate to it, and exceptions to the rule (like "yacht" which has a silent "ch"). I wish I had it when DS was learning to read!

[HiddenJewel]

My experience with dd5 has been that learning and working with the phonograms and spelling rules has automatically translated into more advanced reading.

Edited July 9, 2009 by HiddenJewel

[HiddenJewel]

I read that article. it got me wondering, how do kids learn when to use the right sounds?? they had an example of the 'ea' group,

 

bead

head

steak

learn

bureau

 

each one is a different sound. how do you teach kids which sound to make for new words they encounter? my kids can read these words fine, but probably because they've seen them before.

 

or they had the example for 'ch' of

 

child

chord

chef

 

again, three different sounds. but how do you teach your kids how to pick the right sound for new words??

 

I begin by teaching them the sounds of the English language. I teach them spelling rules to help them logically determine when to use which sounds. I guide my student to hear a word, write a word, and read a word. Any complex subject is best taught by breaking it apart and putting it back together. That is exactly what I do when I train my children to read and write by teaching them how to spell.

 

 

would the phonics books teach me this?

 

Spell to Write and Read has taught me this.

 

are there rules that cover this stuff?

 

In the Spell to Write and Read program there are 29 RELIABLE spelling rules. Reliable is capitalized because SWR rules do not become obsolete or alter over time.

 

I'm feeling a bit clueless!

 

any comments? thanks!

 

We live in a society in which we have been told that the English language is neither logical nor reliable. We have been told this for so many years we simply assume it is illogical and unreliable. We don't even try to understand it. Instead, we resort to memorization and whole-language techniques. Even in our "phonics" programs, we find sight words! Why? Because the authors of these programs have been so influenced by whole language that they incorporate whole language into their "phonics" programs.

 

Many people look at the end product rather than how we got there. Beginning with words simply does not work. It is important to begin with the basic foundation, the sounds. We teach ea says E-e-A. We teach the child to hear E-e-A and write it. Over time we introduce words which use this phonogram and the child hears the words, sounds the word, spells the word and then reads the word. The child internalizes the process. The child knows how to read the word because the child has heard and written the word in his log book. Over time, as the child is exposed to the program, the larger his spelling vocabulary becomes, and the more he has taken apart and put back together words spontaneous reading results. A child knows what the word says because he has already manipulated many like it and understands the sounds of the English language. Using this method, students understand the English language so well that they would not place learn or bureau in the ea list. Students do not see "ea" in learn but "ear" - the er of early. And they see the advanced phonogram "eau" in bureau.

 

(I asked my SWR trainer for help because I couldn't think of the best way to answer your questions. She helped me greatly by verbalizing what I couldn't put into words.)

 

 

 

I have used phonics programs in the past that frustrated me greatly. Until I realized that it all can be broken down into 70 programs and 29 rules, I did not realize how simple teaching phonics could be. Building a strong foundation by teaching spelling first has made teaching reading a joy instead of a frustration.

 

 

 

 

[skaterbabs]

For words that have more than one possible way to pronounce them (read="red"/read="reed" comes to mind), I teach my DD to read it both ways and think about it in the context of the sentence. Most of the time, one will make sense while the other does not.

[mktyler]

I teach the possible sounds for a letter or a letter group and the habit of trying other sounds if one doesn't make sense. So, if they read it wrong and can't seem to figure it out, I say, "What other sound can this spell?" If they can't remember I will say, "This spells the sound /___/" but make them sound through the word for the practice.

 

I choose not to teach rules because these are confusing to my kids (When this looks like this but don't have that then do this, except when you don't :-)). I just teach, "In these words, this letter(these letters) spell this sound" Then we practice. I'll point out patterns if necessary.

 

Melissa

Minnesota

Reading Program Junkie

dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

[Marie in Oh]

I made my stb 8 yo dd finish phonics in K even though she was reading at the 4th-5th grade level. It was painful for her. I just didn't know what else to do with her. My oldest two needed to go through it all all, but she really didn't.

 

So, my 5 yo dd is reading at about the 4th-5th grade level now- comfortably reading short chapter books on her own, can read anything outloud to me, and topped out the ITBS reading test this year. We only did about 1/2 of the phonics we usually do, but I am thinking that we aren't going to finish. I think instead I will do ETC 4-8 with her to help with spelling and call it good. THese are below her reading level as well, but I am pretty sure that even though she can read complex dipthongs and diagraphs, she wouldn't know how to spell them. Maybe, but I want to make sure. Her older sister actually could read and spell them, but I tortured her anyway. Poor child. :tongue_smilie:

[ElizabethB]

On my how to tutor page, I have a list of phonics rules, spelling rules, and syllable division rules along with horribly explicit, scripted lessons to use them with Blend Phonics for tutoring groups of remedial children. I also have syllable division exercises. The file is called "Blend Phonics Syllables," the link is "guide to using Blend Phonics," it shows how to easily work your way into Webster's Blue Backed Speller.

 

Webster's Speller teaches how to spell and read any word, my daughter was able to read out of the KJV Bible after completing the Speller in K (and, we only did the most common 2+ syllable words, there are 6,000 words total, we did maybe 50% of the 3 syllable words, 20% of the 4 syllable words, 10% of the 5 syllable words, and just a handful of the 6 syllable words.)

 

Here's my how to tutor page with all the rules and how to teach them. I hope to eventually have a less scripted version, but that's what my friends demanded so they could teach in my absence. I'm in the middle of a move, but after that hope to make a less scripted version as well as my over-scripted version.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/howtotutor.html

 

The links are in this paragraph, but I'd read the whole page to get the big picture...also the link to a fun game that will be helpful for teaching nonsense words.

 

Your number one task is to get them to stop guessing and start sounding out each and every word from left to right. Nonsense words are key, they help prevent guessing. Here is a free website that generates nonsense words. Syllables are also helpful, I would use the Blend Phonics Reader (it helps show how guessing is a bad strategy by showing words with similar configuration together) followed by Webster’s Speller. Here is a step by step guide to using Blend Phonics that also adds in syllables, spelling and phonics rules, syllable division rules, and syllable division exercises. There are also readings from Hebrews 12 that can be added to show progress through the program.

I was taught with a bit of phonics and then whole word methods. I was a good reader and a horrible speller until I started tutoring with phonics and learning the phonetic reading and spelling rules. I went from misspelling on average 6 words per page to one word every page or two after learning all the phonics I missed out on.

 

You may also find my letter sound charts helpful.

 

They show that for ea, it makes the long e sound 67% of the time, the short e sound 32% of the time, and the long a sound (as in steak) 1% of the time.

 

ear is part of a "r modified vowel," it's not ea, it's ear, just as er is not e, it's er. eau is also its own group, and very rare, it's only in a few words, mostly French.

 

Ch makes its normal sound 71% of the time, k 23% of the time (and mostly in Greek words), and sh 6% of the time (French.)

 

The ABCs and All its Tricks by Bishop has most of the above info (but with numbers, not percentages) and also has examples. I highly recommend it, it's a great resource. Both the ABC's book and my percentages are based on the Hanna study of the most common 17,000 words in the English language.

Edited July 18, 2009 by ElizabethB