When you are learning how to teach your child to read, you need to familiarize yourself with a few words. If you read widely about reading, you will encounter these words all the time. But even if you don’t, understanding them will make reading instruction easier to follow.
phonemes
One such word is “phonemes.” The smallest sounds we utter are called phonemes. About 48 such small sounds exist in standard American English. These sounds are not letters; they are sounds to which we pair letters in order to read and pronounce sounds. Some words such as eye have one phonemes (a long ī), but most words have two or more phonemes. Snow, for example, has three (s, n, ō). Putting together phonemes to form words is an important reading skill.
phonics
Another important word is “phonics.” Phonics means combining phonemes to form words. For example, the phonemes b, ă, and t combine to form the word bat. 250 letter patterns represent the 42 to 44 phonemes in American English. Most children cannot figure out phonics on their own. They need instruction to match a phoneme to a letter or to a pair of letters.
systematic phonics instruction
Systematic means that concepts are taught in a particular order. For example, phonemes which are always represented by a single letter such as b are taught before phonemes which are represented by more than one letter such as th. Short vowel words such as cat are taught before long vowel words such as bike.
For more details on the sequencing of learning sounds, go to http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200901/BTJPhonologicalAwareness.pdf. While you are there, check out 1) the list of read-aloud books that emphasize sounds, and 2) activities you can do with a child who is learning sounds.
vowels
A vowel is the primary speech phoneme in every syllable (one vowel phoneme for one syllable). Vowel phonemes are made by the mouth without any blockage by the tongue or lips. Short vowel phonemes are the vowel sounds in Pat, Ben, Jill, Tom, and Bud. They are sometimes represented by a curve over the vowel. Long vowel phonemes are the vowel sounds in Kate, Eve, Mike, Joe, and Lou. They are sometimes represented by a straight horizontal line over the vowel. Other vowel sounds are also represented by a, e, i, o, and u, and by combinations of these letters. W and y can also be vowel phonemes in combination with other vowels or alone as in cow and by.
short and long vowels
Short and long are a traditional way to describe certain vowel sounds. Short vowel sounds can be said quicker while long vowel sounds take a fraction of a second longer to pronounce. In recent years, the terms closed and open are used the same way to mean, respectively, short and long.
consonants
A consonant is a speech sound made by partially blocking the air as you breathe out. Most phonemes are consonants, but they cannot be pronounced without connecting them to vowels. American English includes the consonant phonemes b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, qu, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, and z.
syllables
Syllables are units of sound containing one vowel phoneme and usually one or more consonant phonemes. Mitten has two syllables: mit and ten. Robotics has three syllables: ro, bo, and tics.
Knowing these terms gives you a basic vocabulary enabling you to follow instruction about reading.
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I suggest you give your child a pretest to see what reading skills your child has learned well, and what ones he has not yet grasped.
The words on this pretest are more or less divided into four kinds of words in this order:
1. Short (closed) vowel, one-syllable words. These include one- and two-letter words, words beginning or ending with blends and digraphs (black, church) words which end in twin consonants (fell, jazz), words which end in “ck,” and words to which an “s” can be added to make plural words or certain verbs (maps, runs).
2. Long (open) vowel, one-syllable words. These include words ending with silent “e,” words with double vowels which have only one vowel pronounced (goes, pear), and certain letter combinations (ild, old). They also include words with “oi,” “oy,” “ow” and “ou” letters.
3. Two– and three-syllable words which follow the above rules (catnip, deplete) and two- and three-syllable words which don’t follow the above rules but which follow a pattern (light, yield). These words include words with certain suffixes (le, ies) and words with a single consonant between two vowels (robin, motel).
4. Exceptions. These include words with silent letters (gnaw, lamb), words from other languages (debris, cello), and words which fit no pattern (business).
Ask your child to read the words in the pretest below. Each row across tests a particular phonics skill. If you child hesitates at all, that is the place to begin teaching him or her phonics. I will talk more about how to teach these four groups of phonics skills in my next blog.
Phonics assessment
bad, hem, fit, don, pug, am, if, lass, jazz
lock, Mick, bills, cliffs, mitts, catnip, Batman
grand, stent, frisk, stomp, stuck
chuck, shun, them, branch, brush, tenth
star, fern, birds, fork, purr, actor, doctor, victor
muffin, kitten, collect, pepper, gallon
complex, helmet, falcon, napkin, after
tantrum, muskrat, constant, fulcrum, ostrich
skate, bike, Jude, mole, dare, shore, tire, pure
need, cheer, aim, hair, bay, pie, boat, oar, Joe, low, soul
fruit, few, child, blind, fold, colt, roll, light, high
earn, worm, rook, pool
fault, claw, all, chalk, Walt
boil, so, pound, down
comet, dragon, liver, salad, denim
total, ever, student, basic, demon, vital
apron, elude, Ethan, Owen, ideal, usurp
inside, nearly, absent, unicorn, degrade, tripod
advance, offense, fence
gripped, planned, melted, batted, handed
sweeping, boiling, thinning, flopping, biking, dating
rapper, saddest, finer, bluest, funnier, silliest
easily, busily, massive, active, arrive, wives
keys, monkeys, armies, carried
action, section, musician, racial, crucial, nuptials
brittle, pickle, carbon, dormer
parcel, decent, gem, urge, badge
lose, sugar, nature, sure
graph, Phil, then, moth
bomb, thumb, gnat, gnome, high, sign
whip, whirl, echo, ghoul, knee, knob
could, calf, folk, hustle, listen, wrist
alone, bread, bear, chief, young, squaw, swan, waltz, word
decision, exposure, gigantic, polarize, occupant, quarantine
If you want to help your child learn to read, one of the best things you can do is not to let him guess. Most words can be deciphered if the student has a phonics background.
Also, don’t let your child depend on pictures for meaning once the child starts to read. Most adult reading material is not accompanied by graphics. Students must learn to gain meaning from the text alone.
If you have decided to help your child read this summer, good for you. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to help your child read better. Years of research show that the best way to teach reading is to start with letter sounds (phonemes) and then to combine those letter sounds into words (phonics). If you do this in a systematic way, such as following the four-part sequence I describe above, your child will learn to read.
Weak word recognition skills is the mostly likely cause, and because of that, students guess at words or search for clues from pictures and other words.
The word “it,” for example, has two sounds, each of which is associated with a letter. The word “shop” has three sounds with “sh” corresponding to a single sound.
comicphonics for early readers 