Hooked on What?

I just had one of my college students ask me the other day, "Whatever happened to 'Hooked on Phonics?" Well, as far as I know, this product is still on the market. This question did give me cause to stop and think about how little we all know about teaching phonics. Many of us just learned to read without thinking twice about it. Now, if we have a child who is struggling, we aren't quite sure as to the correct order that phonics should be taught.

In my last blog, I discussed the importance of "phonemic awareness" aka: helping our children become aware of the sounds that make up words . I discussed the importance of reading and chanting poetry and nursery rhymes with your child. Phonemic awareness, after all, is the foundation of reading. This article is going to be about the second stage in teaching reading--teaching phonics. I will begin by explaining the difference between phonics and phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness is just as the name implies--an awareness of sounds. Letter symbols should not be introduced at all at this stage. When for example, I say the word "sun" to a preschool child and ask them what sound they hear at the beginning of the word, I want them to say "ssssssss" and not state the letter's name. Phonemic awareness is also about where in the word the sound comes from. "Do you hear the sound "nnnn" at the beginning or the end of the word?" And, as formerly stated, phonemic awareness deals with rhyming words as well.

Phonics, on the other hand, is placing symbols to the sounds we hear in words. This is when letters are introduced. There is however a developmentally appropriate order that letters and sounds should be introduced. I will state each stage and the appropriate grade level in which this phonetic skill should be taught.

1. Once phonemic awareness is mastered, students can be introduced to consonant sounds. Yes, that's right consonant sounds. In the past, we simply began at the beginning of the alphabet and taught the letters A-Z. We even had a "letter of the week" and spent a whole week on just one letter! No wonder the students were bored and began to dislike school! We know so much more now in our research! Children need to connect letter sounds to letter names/symbols in authentic context. The director of Excel Discovery Center preschool--Molly Wilson--sent me the following as to how she introduces letters:

"We begin with the child's name; "s is for Sebasitan... /s/" and then continued with m for mommy, d for daddy, then g for grandma, friend's names, etc. We talk about them frequently and point them out with environmental print. The MOST emotional attachment is with their own name (I ALWAYS start with a child's own name!) and then others close to them. In the Excel Discovery preschool classroom, most of our little 3 year olds can say the first letter of all their friends' names. Then we can extend it to objects... like bubblegum, bat or whatever (at our house t for trains was next.)"

In Kindergarten, consonants should be taught as follows: Four consonants and then one short vowel. In this way, early on, students learn that letters form words and that all words must have a vowel. Four letters and one vowel can easily be taught in two-three week's time in a kindergarten classroom. The condition is this: STUDENTS MUST BE EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED WITH THE LETTERS! For example, instead of the teacher dictating that the letter "b" stands for "ball". She can do some phonemic awareness rhymes to get the children familiar with the sound "b," and then have each student choose what his/her "b" will stand for. Will it be "bubblegum" or "bridge", "bat" or "bull"? When a student gets emotionally involved with the letter, it can last in his memory forever!

2. Upon learning all of the consonant and short vowel sounds, students can be introduced to consonant blends. This is where we teach two consonant sounds blending together. For example, "bl" and "st". This skill is introduced in kindergarten and covered more thoroughly in the first grade.

3. Long vowels are next in line. These should be taught in the first grade. Students will learn that the vowels each have two sounds and will also be introduced to the silent /e/ as in the word "cake". Vowel/silent "e" words (v-e) are somewhat difficult for students to grasp and may take some time. When I teach this I use the little saying, "The E jumps over, bops the (a, e, i, o, or u) on the head and says, "Say your name in the alphabet (a, e, i, o, or u)!"

It is also very important in this stage that we show students there are many different ways to spell long vowel sounds. For example, did you know that there are eleven ways to spell the long "a" sound? I do not teach all of these to children at this stage, but I do show them a card that shows them all the various ways to spell each long vowel sound. In this way, students see the full picture right from the start. Below, I have listed the various ways to spell each of the long vowel sounds with sample words next to them:

Long A: a as in acorn, a-e as in made, ea as in steak, ai as in rain, ei as in reindeer, ay as in stay, ey as in obey aigh as in straight, eigh as in eight, et as in buffet, e` as in cliche`.

Long E: e as in ego, e-e as in delete, ee as in sheep, ea as in beak, ei as in ceiling, ie as in field, ey as in key, -y as in baby,

Long I: i as in island, i-e as in ice, ie as in tie, ei as in eidetic, ey as in geyser, igh as in night, -y as in fly

Long O: o as in oval, o-e as in poke, oa as in boat, ow as in tow, ou as in soul, oe as in hoe, ough as in though, ew as in sew, eau as in plateau

Long U: u as in ukulele, u-e as in mule, ue as in hue, eu as in feud, and ew as in few

4. Following teaching the long vowel that says its name and the v-e rule, we can introduce vowel teams. (ai, ay, ea, etc.)

5. Next we teach diphthongs. (oy, ow) These are teams with more than one sound. They are sometimes called "sliders" because our mouths slide from one sound to another.

6. R-controlled words are next. These are words that have ar, or, er, ir, or ur in them. For example car and bird.

7. In the second grade we move into two syllable words.

8. Finally, in the third grade we move into teaching multi-syllable words.