Basic ?: What is the purpose of Phonics?

[kbpaulie]

Is the purpose of Phonics to teach reading or something more than this?

 

I have a 6yo son. We're doing mostly first grade work. I want to be certain that we're not missing things. We're doing some Phonics Pathways and completed ETC 1 & 2 last year. He's reading at about a 3rd grade level and easily reading difficult words. Should I continue w/ PP? Add ETC? I guess I'm not sure of the purpose of phonics.

 

Thanks for answering these basic questions.

 

KB

[merrymama]

Phonics is(are?) for reading and spelling. Since your son is reading easily, you could concentrate on phonics for spelling rather than reading. My first dc learned to read easily. Since I thought phonics was merely for learning to read, we dropped it. When she hit about 4th grade, it became apparent that dropping phonics altogether had been a mistake. Even though I taught her to read with Alphaphonics, she seemed to have memorized her way through. She was a terrible speller and could not decode very large words. We have since remedied those problems, and with subsequent children I have made it a point to focus on spelling from the beginning.

 

Can your son spell all the words in where you are at in PP? You could start where you are in PP have him spell through a lesson orally, with magnetic letters, or in writing, instead of reading it. If you did that you probably would just want to pick a number of words, not necessarily the whole list. ETC would work well too for focusing on spelling.

[laurad1125]

I've been thinking about phonics quite a bit lately as we've been struggling with spelling at my house. Phonics is basically a code we use to record audible messages in a visual way. We use the it to both encode (spell) and decode (read) and the more we know about the code, the more skilled we are at both reading and spelling.

 

With ds(10) I dropped phonics when he took off reading. Now we've backed up and are reviewing the basics. I wish we had done more work early on. I think he'd spell better now.

 

Also, as I've been researching phonics, my own reading and spelling have improved. It turns out that there really are reasons we spell things the way we do. I'd definitely keep going with the phonics. I will with ds(5).

[laughing lioness]

Phonics is important becasue it puts tools in your child's toolbox, empowering them to learn and grow intellectually on their own. We have always used a combo of Alphaphonics and ETC for phonics. I don't always finish the ETC series but I always finish AlphaPhonics. Once complete, the new reader reads daily to me -my choice and it could be anything- in order to ascertain that the new reader can read with ease and understanding. Imho it is one of the most important and foundational skills needed for true, independent learning. Having complete mastery allows the student to focus on the content of the material.

[angela in ohio]

With ds(10) I dropped phonics when he took off reading. Now we've backed up and are reviewing the basics. I wish we had done more work early on. I think he'd spell better now.

 

Also, as I've been researching phonics, my own reading and spelling have improved. It turns out that there really are reasons we spell things the way we do. I'd definitely keep going with the phonics. I will with ds(5).

 

Same here. I took the advice to drop phonics when they learned to read. Both my 12 and 10 yo were reading early and well. All is well until they start needing to spell longer words, or sound out longer words. I am not making that mistake with my 6 yo. He sounds just like your 6 yo, OP, and he will have phonics until he finishes off the sequence.

[Stacy in NJ]

Is the purpose of Phonics to teach reading or something more than this?

 

I have a 6yo son. We're doing mostly first grade work. I want to be certain that we're not missing things. We're doing some Phonics Pathways and completed ETC 1 & 2 last year. He's reading at about a 3rd grade level and easily reading difficult words. Should I continue w/ PP? Add ETC? I guess I'm not sure of the purpose of phonics.

 

Thanks for answering these basic questions.

 

KB

 

I teach phonics to teach reading initially, then continue with it to develop an understanding of how our language works. I don't necessarily think that phonics alone will ensure good reading or spelling, but I do think understanding some of the fundamentals of how the English language works enhances reading and spelling.

[Matryoshka]

I drop learning-to-read phonetic instruction when the kids start to read fluently, but I keep right on with spelling that teaches decoding and phonetics - Sequential Spelling is great for that. They keep learning the skills without them thinking "but I know how to read already!"

[kbpaulie]

I drop learning-to-read phonetic instruction when the kids start to read fluently, but I keep right on with spelling that teaches decoding and phonetics - Sequential Spelling is great for that. They keep learning the skills without them thinking "but I know how to read already!"

 

Thanks for the great replies.

 

One of my concerns was regarding spelling and if not continuing with Phonics will cause problems later with spelling. We were thinking of moving to Sequetial Spelling later. So this also raised some flags for me b/c I thought this wasn't phonics based. But you think that this teaches decoding and phonetics?

 

Thanks again for all the help!

KB

[JenniferB]

This is a topic of interest for me right now. My oldest dd is an excellent reader, but a struggling speller. So, I've been researching this topic of phonics. I signed up for the Spell to Write and Read yahoo group, recommended by someone on this board. I highly recommend signing up and reading under the "Files" section. Also, the author of Spell to Write and Read spoke to the Oregon Senate on the topic of literacy. You can read her speech here: http://www.swrtraining.com/id27.html . It's very informative on the topic of phonics and the importance for overall literacy (reading, writing, spelling). After much research, I've decided that phonics is a very important foundation in learning the English language for reading and writing (which includes spelling). I've researched different phonics curricula as well, and I've settled on Spell to Write and Read (SWR). BTW, I've used Spelling Workout and Sequential Spelling without success.

Edited December 2, 2008 by JenniferB

[Matryoshka]

One of my concerns was regarding spelling and if not continuing with Phonics will cause problems later with spelling. We were thinking of moving to Sequetial Spelling later. So this also raised some flags for me b/c I thought this wasn't phonics based. But you think that this teaches decoding and phonetics?

 

Sequential Spelling is "just" a daily list of 25 words, bu I find it absolutely wonderful for teaching phonetics, decoding, and also basic grammar, roots, prefixes, suffixes and homonyms. The daily lists teach 2-3 basic spelling patterns that are repeated with variations over a period of days (usually adding prefixes/suffixes). Homonyms are frequently included, so I'll talk about the different phonemes one can put together to make the same sound (like "no" and "know" - the latter uses "kn" for /n/ and "ow" for /o/) - a word we had this week was "acknowledgment", which was easy for my 7 yo to spell because she could see the root "know", and we'd also just learned the "edge" pattern, it has to be "ac" at the front because "kn" is part of the /n/ phoneme, and English doesn't have two k's in a row. That all sounds complicated, but the way it's taught in patterns, you barely have to explain it, it just becomes obvious. If she forgets, I just say something like "in this word we use the 'kn' phoneme for /n/"

 

This also shows a child how long words are frequently made up of smaller chunks, which helps with decoding as well.

[ElizabethB]

Reading and Spelling are correlated, and they are two different sides of the same coin.

 

They used to be taught together with Webster's Speller.

 

Webster's own 1828 dictionary defines Spelling Book as:

 

"n. A book for teaching children to spell and read."

 

http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/spelling-book

 

I find my daughter retains her phonics knowledge better when I also include oral and written spelling. ("Written" spelling can be with magnetic letters when they are still too young to be good writers.) I also find with my remedial students that they learn faster when spelling is incorporated. Oral spelling is especially useful for teaching groups of children. I use oral spelling almost exclusively when teaching groups of remedial children together.

 

The syllables in Webster's Speller and the focus on large numbers of multi-syllable words also helps advance progress beyond that of a normal phonics program, most of which include few words of more than 2 syllables.

 

I have links to some good free spelling programs online to help reinforce phonics, and also some cheap programs I've seen that I like:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Spelling/spellingforsucce.html

 

Like Laurad, my own spelling has improved as I've taught phonics and learned all the phonetic spelling rules.

[kbpaulie]

Same here. I took the advice to drop phonics when they learned to read. Both my 12 and 10 yo were reading early and well. All is well until they start needing to spell longer words, or sound out longer words. I am not making that mistake with my 6 yo. He sounds just like your 6 yo, OP, and he will have phonics until he finishes off the sequence.

 

OK, I took your advice and the advice of some of the others here and went back to ETC. I picked up book 3 and decided I'd rather work through it now that regret it at age 10+.

 

Thanks

[MgoBlue]

This is timely for me as well. Dd 7 just finished etc 4 and she's sort of complaining about going on with the series. but there's so much she doesn't know! And I think it's clicking with the combination of sequential spelling combined with etc. I wish there was just a curriculum that I could say was perfect for her, but the poor kid has to be my experimental child. (we're not changing *that* much! don't get me wrong...jsut hate all the second guessing I'm doing!)

Paula

[angela in ohio]

OK, I took your advice and the advice of some of the others here and went back to ETC. I picked up book 3 and decided I'd rather work through it now that regret it at age 10+.

 

Thanks

 

You won't be sorry! :)

[Lovedtodeath]

Same here. I took the advice to drop phonics when they learned to read. Both my 12 and 10 yo were reading early and well. All is well until they start needing to spell longer words, or sound out longer words. I am not making that mistake with my 6 yo. He sounds just like your 6 yo, OP, and he will have phonics until he finishes off the sequence.

 

:iagree:They might get to third grade level right quick, but without a thorough knowledge of phonics, they will come across unfamiliar words that they cannot sound out. My aunt ended up having her DH teach her phonics.

[kbpaulie]

This is timely for me as well. Dd 7 just finished etc 4 Paula

 

I've looked ahead at ETC 4. Seems different from the other books. Did you think this book was worthwhile? Is a whole book on syllables a good idea? What is the purpose of this?

 

Thanks!

KB

[Lovedtodeath]

I've looked ahead at ETC 4. Seems different from the other books. Did you think this book was worthwhile? Is a whole book on syllables a good idea? What is the purpose of this?

 

Thanks!

KB

 

Here ya go Hon, a whole thread on the subject. I had a heck of a time searching for it, can anyone else add some tags?

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69321

[angela in ohio]

I've looked ahead at ETC 4. Seems different from the other books. Did you think this book was worthwhile? Is a whole book on syllables a good idea? What is the purpose of this?

 

Thanks!

KB

 

Extremely worthwhile, but skip it in sequence and then do it after book 8, IMHO.