Pre Reading

Phonics and Word Building
By Phil Builder

The debate about teaching Phonics has raged for decades. There are basically three schools of thought. Each case is presented here:.

Case 1.

Don't teach phonics at any stage

This assumes that children will absorb phonics knowledge merely by being readers and writers.

Children teach themselves many things about phonics and spellings when you provide the right conditions for learning such as being immersed in reading and writing activities every day; and when a sound foundation of knowledge already exists.

However, there are some children for whom this is not true. They require to be taught phonics as they need it.

Case 2.

Teach phonics carefully and thoroughly, introducing a new skill to the whole class each week for the next two years

You teach each element sequentially, one new skill a week for the next two years.

However, you'll be holding many children back and probably boring them to death because they already know this stuff, while other students may not be ready for that yet. If you persevere with this approach there is a risk some children will find learning irrelevant, boring, or difficult! Every class contains students with a spread of abilities and experience which demands a more inclusive approach.

I always teach listening and sequencing skills, and alphabet knowledge as early as possible. I then build on this with open ended activities to improve their ability to understand the way words are made; to discover patterns; and to build their confidence in being able to process print, decode and spell.

Case 3.

Teach phonics as the child needs it, when they need it; and teach groups/class in open ended ways.

With this approach you teach things that your child needs to know right now. You base your teaching of phonics on your observations of what the child can already do, and what they are trying to do next.

This means that the child has to be constantly reading and writing to show you where their needs are.

This is the approach I favour because it works so well with every child. You do the ground work as I have said above with the basic listening and alphabet work as early as possible, followed up with regular activities to expand their repertoire. As they progress you observe their writing and reading skills and note the things that they are trying to do, and what they need to know next. Children love this approach because they are always successfully learning the things they want to know, and they never get overloaded.

The following collection of ideas and activities is provided to get you started working with sounds, words and word families in an active and open ended way.

By using an open ended approach you can allow every child to work at their own pace, at their own level, with a high degree of success.

Some of the following activities are suitable to be used as research projects for children to work on over an extended period of time. They may begin with a rough draft of ideas and notes, leading to a final presentation when all the bits are put together. Encourage the use of felt tip pens, crayons, colour, drawings, tables of information, etc, so that everything is displayed well. Use a digital camera to record their progress and help with the displays too. Research can be conducted using magazines, books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, the family, and the Internet.

Alphabet poster of words beginning with....

Make alphabet posters or charts to record words starting with a, b, c, etc. Only write in the words that are known or those that are needed for writing. Keep it handy when writing so that children can refer to it. (Tip: make each child have a go at writing it first, and put it on the chart later). You can have one poster or chart per child or posters for the whole group or class.

a
and am ant
at

b
beach ball
Barry

c
car caravan cat

d
dog died do
Dad David
didgeridoo

Research project:

"Sort all the words you know into groups, so that words that belong together go together".

Present this as a colourful project to display on the classroom wall or fridge at home

You may have to help by making up cards for words that they know.

Children will begin with all sorts of theories so you must let them explore their ideas before they can refine them. Expect to see some groupings such as the ones below at first. You will have to keep challenging them to find different ways to categorise or group words. They will probably keep changing their ideas. At the end of the day you will discover what your child knows (and doesn't know), and they will have a lot of fun showing you.

Challenge with a question: "Is there another way you could group them?" Accept whatever they produce and learn about how they think.

Some different ways children might sort words:
at on in (2 letters)	the for out (three letters)	Mum Dad Gran Gramps David (names)	pop go jump up say (words that go down)	Sam skip silly say said sorry (s words)
my by donkey Harry (words ending in 'y')	me be bee sea donkey silky funny (ending with the 'ee' sound )	caravan didgeridoo (long words)	in on run ran noon zoo coin (words that don't go up or down)	caravan elephant dinosaur (Three clap words)

Sorting activities

These are great for creating an awareness or finding out what children know. They are 'low risk' activities because the child is just sorting cards that you have provided.

Provide a stack of words on cards to be sorted. Select words that will lead to the answers you want the children to discover. Question why they sorted them that way.
For example, sorting the following group of words should lead to the discovery of short and long vowels. Use your imagination to find other ways to sort.

rod us rode rate Pete slope	pet slop globe plat use hid	rat glob hide ripe plate rip

Find all the words containing ...

the			one
ba fa mo o	the the the the the the	re m r r r	b st m ph l b	one one one one one one	y y ly y

Find all the words that start like ba....
Have a competition to see who can write the most words starting with 'ba', or ending with 'at', 'et', etc.

bat
bag
ban
bad
back
banana

bat
sat
mat
rat
fat
hat
Laundromat

set
bet
get
let
jet
met
alphabet

Brainstorm all the words in one family. They will put down words that sound the same but are spelled differently. Their differences can be pointed out and new families discovered.

See who can find the most words in the 'ight' family for instance.
eg. night, fight, right, etc. eg:

night
fight
right
light
sight
might

bite
kite

ear
hear
fear
gear
rear
dear

queer

ought
bought
brought
sought
thought
fought

Help children to create this a,e,i,o,u,y,w,r, grid to explore how single vowels are combined with other letters to make new sounds.

Discover that there are more than one sound for some, some don't work, some are common, while some are rare.

	a	e	i	o	u	y	w	r
a	aa	ae	ai train	ao	au laugh Paul	ay day	aw draw	ar car war
e	ea beach head	ee see	ei eight freight	eo	eu	ey they key	ew drew	er her
i	ia	ie tie	ii	io	iu	iy	iw	ir fir
o	oa boat	oe toe	oi oil	oo wood moo	ou out	oy boy	ow cow flow	or for work
u	ua	ue glue true	ui fruit	uo	uu	uy guy	uw	ur hurt

Begin with a blank grid, and add one or two for a start.
Start with the ones that are already known. Then add new ones as they are discovered. Hasten slowly.

Change one letter at a time game
Take turns making new words by changing only one letter each time. Who will be stumped first?

bat
bet
set
sit
fit
fig
rig

plop
slop
slip
slit
spit
spat
spot

bear
pear
peat
meat
moat
moan
mean

Use this as a quick activity for pairs of children

Make flip books or slider cards.
Use cardboard to make flip books or slider cards where you change a word by changing one aspect of it. One way is to write the base word on a piece of card and cut slots for the longer, narrower strip to pass through.

	a
	i
sl	o	p
	oo
	ee

	ay
	y
tr	ee
	oll
	ip

tr
d
s	a	y
m
l
r

Teach your children how to make slider cards

These slider cards are simple to make and use

Make a chart of the words that use the 'h' with another letter such as ch, sh, th, wh

ch	sh	th	wh
chill chop church munch much chilli match	she shop shell dish shelter shrub	the then there they that them think with	when where why what whether

Explore how the final 'e' changes the preceding vowel.

Bingo games can be made using these

a-e		e-e		i-e		o-e		u-e
at	ate	pet	Pete	bit	bite	hop	hope	tub	tube
fat	fate			hid	hide	not	note	us	use
gat	gate	let	lete?	pip	pipe	rob	robe	jut	jute
hat	hate			rip	ripe	slop	slope	mut	mute
rat	rate			strip	stripe	rod	rode	cut	cute
plan	plane			slid	slide	glob	globe
mat	mate			quit	quite	to	toe

Build a Blends Challenge Chart

Challenge children to find words that fit the chart.

Start them off with examples of combinations to demonstrate how it works.

"We can find br__ and bl__ words but can we have bt__ or bc__ words?"

-r

-t

-c

-p

-l

-w

brown

blow

cry

cling

draw

dwell

frown

fly

grape

glide

prick

please

stick

scold

spot

slip

swim

try

twig

wrestle

scr

scrum

spr

sprint

spl

split

str

strip

shr

shrimp

thr

throw

thw

thwack?

chl

Chloe

Syllables
Teach syllables the easy way...by hearing them. Clap the sounds as you say a word and you will hear the syllables correctly.

You also need to let them know that each syllable will contain a vowel sound, and double letters are usually split, except at the end of words.

1 clap	2 claps		3 claps
card	hello	hel-lo	animal	an-i-mal
me	seven	sev-en	electric	e-lec-tric
help	picnic	pic-nic	cabinet	cab-in-et
day	poison	pois-on	eleven	el-ev-en
flight	bottom	bot-tom	fantastic	fan-tas-tic
spell	mantle	man-tle	disappear	dis-ap-pear
freight	six claps
brought	disorientation		dis-or-i-en-ta-tion
peach	prehistorically		pre-his-tor-i-cal-ly

What's my word?
Use a white board or chalk board to help your children learn how to work out new words and learn not to fear longer words. Boards are better than paper because children can experiment and erase easily.

Select appropriate and phonetically simple words at first to build up their confidence before trying more challenging words.

Prepare unknown multi-syllable words on cards. Give one card at a time to each child. Instruct them to write the word in syllables and work out how to say it. They score a point for each word pronounced correctly at the end of the lesson. The learning is in the experimentation of trying to pronounce the word, getting close, changing it, and then finally recognising it!

	first try	second try	third try	fourth try
animal	an-imal a nimmal? enamel?	an-im-al an-immal? an-im-al?	an-i-mal animal!!!
caravan	ca-ravan ca-rav-an caravvan?	car-avan car-avven?	car-a-van caravan!!
dependent	dep-end-ent depp-ended?	dep-en-dent depen-dent? deepen-dent?	de-pen-dent dependent!!!
proceed	proc-eed prockeed?	proce-ed prosaid? processed?	pro-ceed proceed!!!
handicap	han-dic-ap handic-ap?	hand-ic-ap hand-icap?	hand-i-cap handicap!!!