PHONICS FOR KIDS

Over one billion people in the modern world speak and understand English.

The language that influenced the European languages can be traced to more than 4000 years ago to the plains of India. Migration of tribes and groups of people can be mapped and the historical development of languages can be traced.

It is as if language itself dictated its development and nothing was going to prevent its growth.

The strength of English since its origins is its capacity to absorb other languages.

It began as a few local Germanic dialects spoken by a hundred and fifty thousand people.

In the 5^th Century Germanic warrior tribes arrived in Britain as mercenaries to keep the peace after the Roman Empire collapsed. Over time they overpowered the local Celts or Britons.

They were followed by farmers and people who wanted to settle in the area known as England today.

The language of the Celts survived in Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

It is likely that some of the Celtic language was incorporated into the developing English language. The differing dialects of the Germanic tribes took time to be assimilated into one language. The influence of the Danes also has to be taken into account.

King Alfred the Great is the person who is regarded as saving the English Language as his armies defeated the Danes.

The influence Doctor Samuel Johnson cannot be underestimated. In 1755 Dr Johnson recorded and defined 43 000 words and set the mark for future English dictionaries.

The British Empire and its world domination as well as the United States ensured that English gained its status as an influential world language.

A superb account of the history of English is:

The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language: 500AD to 2000

Sceptre – Hodder and Stoughton  c2003.

Melvyn Bragg

What sets humans apart from animals is language. It is language that enables us to think and communicate with one another. We form all our concepts through words. 

If our thinking is confined to the words we hear and speak our intellectual development is

limited for it is through the written word that complex thinking is recorded and communicated.

The Alphabet is the foremost invention of all time. It has enabled hundreds of thousands of words to be invented to record and communicate human achievement.

Reading and writing have a language base. They are skills which contribute to personal growth and enable people to contribute to society in countless ways. Teaching reading strategies need to be specifically undertaken throughout formal education.

All skills have fundamental principles that underpin them.

When these principles are understood and mastered the skill can be established through practice.

To master any skill involves the correct form of practice and continuous effort.

We are not born with the ability to read and write. People need to be taught how.

I have been a teacher for over 35 years and have seen firsthand how many children and adults struggle with reading.

My experience within the school system led me to search for answers to this problem. It didn’t make sense to me that some very young children could read easily while older children, teenagers and adults struggle and give up.

There is a lot of research done into reading trying to find the answers why so many have trouble learning to read and some of the findings will be outlined in this blog.

One of the fundamental reasons many people have trouble learning to read is they do not understand how an alphabetic writing system works.

Understanding how The English Alphabetic Writing System works can be taught in a systematic way – step by step, one step at a time and in a relatively short time.

Learning the mechanics of reading and writing is like cracking a code. Did you know that all the phonics information you need to know can be outlined “on the back of an envelope”. 

Once a person understands how to crack the code they can concentrate on the information the text presents. For we read to get information.

Reading and writing are skills and people master skills in their own time.

It is never too late to learn to read and write because they are not biological processes.

Learning how to crack the English Alphabet Code is not difficult. But you need the key!

What is reading?

Reading is a complex process involving word recognition, comprehension, fluency, and motivation. Reading and writing abilities continue to develop throughout life. The years from birth to eight are the most important in literacy development.

Do most children learn to read easily?

Only 5% of children learn to read effortlessly.

20% – 30% of children learn to read relatively easily when formally instructed including phonics lessons. Phonics for kids as early as possible gives a beginning reader a head start.

60% of children find learning to read challenging. This is why phonics for five year old kids is an absolute necessity.

What can parents and caregivers do to ensure a child learns to read?

For a child to become a good reader, it takes a partnership that begins at home and continues at school.  You can prepare your child to read by sharing your time, talking about the world around you, telling and reading stories and asking and answering questions.

What factors hinder reading development?

Not understanding the sounds that make up the language.

Not understanding that letters stand for the sounds in words. (The Alphabetic Principle)

Not able to comprehend what is read known as poor comprehension skill development.

No motivation to read.

Fundamental skills not taught systematically.

Can a person be taught to read at any age?

Definitely. It is never too late for someone to learn to read.

What is a learning disorder?

A learning disability is a disorder that affects a person’s ability to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain. The most common of which is difficulty with language and reading.

What is Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability which results in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading, spelling, writing, and pronouncing words.

People with dyslexia have been found to have problems with identifying the separate speech sounds within a word and/or learning how letters represent those sounds.

Dyslexia occurs in people of all backgrounds and intellectual levels.

People who are very bright can be dyslexic. Dyslexia runs in families.

With proper help, many people with dyslexia can learn to read and write well.

What does the future hold for reading instruction?

Scientific research is now providing insights on how to prevent the development of poor reading and all the problems that come with it. Scientifically based reading instruction techniques can be used to improve the brain function of those with reading difficulties enabling them to read better.

What do you do if you suspect your child has a learning disability?

Don’t ignore your concern. Children want to please their parents and teachers and want to learn and succeed. Do not blame the child for their lack of success. Be sure to search for the reason for their difficulties. Begin with the child’s school and seek other professional help until you have an answer and your child is receiving the necessary support.

10 Secrets on How to Get Your Child to Love Reading
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Shawn_Snyder]Shawn Snyder

Are you aware that there is a crisis in the American educational arena today? That the children who live in the greatest super power country of the entire world are no longer the brightest nor the best educated children any more! In fact, colleges are crying out for help because the average freshman college student does not have the reading comprehension to read an assignment, contribute to a class discussion and certainly not able to write a college term paper.

What can we do? Educators in all grade levels are pointing away from the high tech gadgets that today’s child spends countless hours on and towards an old forgotten favorite; books. But some say that their children are not interested in reading, that they don’t enjoy nor like reading. Here are 10 different ways to help your child to love reading.

1. Set the example for reading. Let your child see you read an assortment of different items from the mail, to the newspaper to books. Be willing to share from your reading, is there a story in the paper that will affect your community, a funny section from your book. The dinner table makes an excellent place for everyone to share something from what they are reading.

2. Read out loud to your child everyday. Get into the story, use different voices for the characters, be as silly as possible. Lower your voice in soft parts of the story and then grow loud at exciting times. Reading isn’t just for bedtime; make a tent in the living room and snuggle with blankets and pillows. Or enjoy a story outside on the back porch. That’s the beauty of books, they can go anywhere.

3. Make a weekly trip to the library. There is usually a story hour at the library and sharing a story with others is always fun. For older kids have them join a book club or start one if there isn’t one going. Make sure to check out some books before you leave the library! Make some of the books fun and at age level also get some books that will challenge your child’s thinking and imagination. Different topics in different areas; stories, science, history. Open up different areas for your child to see and explore.

4. Ask questions when you are done reading. What was your child’s favorite part of the story, which was their favorite character? How would they of liked the story to have ended?

5. Let your child follow their interests in their reading material. Do they love horses; are they into World War 1? What a great way for them to learn and enjoy their favorite subject. And don’t worry; their interests usually shift before they run out of books in that topic. Especially, if new topics are available for them to glance at.

6. Give books as gifts. This is the perfect time to invest money into nice hardbound books of a favorite author or series. To finish the series that the child knows or to introduce a new author, ask the child. What a perfect time to build a nicely stocked library in your home. A child can’t grab a book and enjoy a few minutes of quiet time if you don’t have books in your home.

7. Make time for reading. Turn off the TV, limit the computer. Have a “20 minute read-a-thon.” Have a fun reading contest; whoever reads the most pages in a set time wins a fun prize (maybe a trip to a bookstore!) There is reading contests through businesses were the child can earn a free prize. Pizza Hut offers a free personal pan pizza, Dairy Queen, a free ice cream cone. Ask your local businesses about the contests they run or just stick with creating your own.

8. Have your child create their own book. They can print the story, illustrate it. Have a write up about the author. Laminate it, make a special cover. Share the books at the dinner table.

9. Teach your child to respect books. Books are our friends, we need to show the child not to mark on the pages nor tear them. Books aren’t meant to be thrown on the floor; there is a correct way to put a book on the book shelf. That way the book will last longer and be able to be read later by others.

10. Stress breaker! After an afternoon of reading stories of long, long ago in far, far away lands with your child. Who couldn’t love an adventure that would take you away from the stress for both you and your child?

Visit us at http://kidzfunmedia.com/ for great ideas on personalized childrens books. Also, http://kfmpersonalizedkidsbooks.com/ has books and other ideas to get your child to love to read.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shawn_Snyder http://EzineArticles.com/?10-Secrets-on-How-to-Get-Your-Child-to-Love-Reading&id=3274844

In 1955, a book entitled “Why Johnny Can’t Read (and what you can do about it)” was published in the USA.  This book was a best seller and caused a lot of controversy.

The author, Rudolf Flesch wrote the book for the millions of parents whose children were being, according to his research, handicapped by the teaching methods of the day.

Flesch explained how he came to write the book and the research he did before publishing it.

The book contains lessons on phonics and is still available today. It is marketed as the classic book on phonics and endorsed by Readers Digest and the method recommended by the US Department of Education.

Below is a summary of the phonics lessons in his book.

We know a lot more about how reading and writing is mastered today. Because the activities are so important for people in modern societies enormous sums of money has been spent on scientific research.

Flesch was a forerunner in speaking about how to master the English Alphabetic Writing system. He was aware that reading is much more than decoding words but without this ability one cannot read. It has been my experience over the years that if a poor reader cannot decode (sound out) the words he is reading very little progress is made.

If a reader cannot read fluently they will not developed the comprehension skills that enable them to process information from print.

If you would like to learn more about helping your child with reading please visit

www.superlearner.com.au

All parents hope and expect their child will learn to read and most expect this to happen during their child’s first few years at school.

However many parents do not realise or ignore the important part they must take in their child’s literacy development.

Simply stated it is the parent not the teacher who sets a child up for reading success and this needs to begin from birth.

If you do not read to your child and enjoy sharing books with him or her you are short changing you both.

When the important adults in a child’s life share books and model their respect for reading and writing this is passed on subconsciously to a child.

Your child will learn to value reading if you do. When reading aloud is part of an everyday routine, without fail, the time you share together shows the child you care and the books you read tells the child that reading is important and enjoyable.

Mem Fox is one of Australia’s most successful children’s authors.

Her picture story books have a worldwide audience.

Mem is also an internationally respected literacy consultant who has had a long career as a trainer of teachers.

In the forward to her passionate book, ‘Reading Magic’, she points out that reading aloud to children should no longer be viewed as a mildly pleasant educational activity. It should be seen as a win-win situation for all concerned in the raising of children.

Many people including paediatricians, speech pathologists, child psychologists, social workers, bookstore owners, politicians, teachers and researchers, carers, media personalities, parents and other passionate individuals all support the importance of reading aloud to young children.

The benefits are well recorded.

Governments now realise that the money spent on promoting early literacy will save money spent on illiteracy, crime, depression, unemployment and welfare benefits. Research results show this to be money well spent.

If you would like to hear an example of Mem Fox reading aloud go to http://www.memfox.net and go to the link ‘Reading  Aloud’.

I also recommend her book

Reading Magic-How your child can learn to read before school-

and other read aloud miracles

Published by Pan Macmillan Australia in 2007 this inexpensive little book has a wealth of information for anyone who wants to know how children learn to read.

Teaching children to read through a phonics only program is never successful.

However an understanding of the letter/ sound relationships is a skill needed by successful readers and writers.

I have written an ebook that discusses how phonics fits into an overall reading and writing program.

If you are interested go to www.superlearner.com.au for more information.

Phonics (the relationship between letters and sounds) is the key to unlocking the over 500,000 words in the English Language. 

Modern scientific reading research overwhelmingly proves the superiority of systematic phonics instruction for beginning readers and for the first three or so years of formal schooling. However this does not work if done in isolation.

There are many strategies used when teaching young children to read and write and phonics is only one of them but it is fundamental.

Thirty five years teaching experience has taught me that people who struggle with reading and writing were not taught how the English Alphabetical Writing System works. They were left to work out the system when learning to read – and didn’t.

I cannot stress the importance of teaching phonics in the early years of school. Phonics for five year old kids will enable children to read fluently. Reading and ophonics go hand in hand. Phonics is a necessary reading subskill that must be systematically taught.

If decoding skills are not mastered in the beginning emotional factors often inhibit later learning.

Whole word and phonics instruction if not done carefully and systematically causes confusion and may be the reason for dyslexia in many students.

I have tutored several students who were having difficulty reading because they had memorized too many words by sight. They experienced a lot of discomfit when phonics was introduced.

Going back to reading simple easily decodable texts often helps poor readers gain confidence and a belief that they can learn to read. I have seen self confidence grow in teenagers as they began to read simple texts and I explained to them how the system worked.

 
Many teachers are not taught all the phonics principles and rules needed to teach students to read. I certainly wasn’t. It took me a long time to figure it out.

I am not trained in phonetics. This is a different area.

Teaching a student to read with phonics is simple if you are taught all the rules. Trying to teach reading without the knowledge of these rules is like teaching basic mathematics without knowing the rules for borrowing and carrying.

No matter how we look at it effort is needed to learn to read. It involves practice. Learning to read is a challenge for over 40 percent of children. This doesn’t mean they cannot be taught.

Our teaching methods must be looked at when we have a child struggling to learn to read.

A lot of research continues into reading and writing because they are so important to society. It seems the same arguments turn up again and again.

Professor Max Coltheart of Macquarie University NSW Australia has done in depth research on the reading process.

I am presenting here a summary of his research findings from an interview he did on ABC Radio in Australia.

Dr Coltheart has read 300 and 400 year old books on how reading was taught that long ago. The earliest book he read was written by a man called Mulcuster in 1590.

There were chapters in this book about the whole word and phonic methods of teaching.

The book seemed very modern, even though it was written 400 years ago.

The same argument as today was that the whole word reading didn’t teach people to generalise to new words they hadn’t seen before.

The problem about teaching phonics seen then as now was that it was meaningless drivel that’s hard for children to understand.  

In schools today the whole language approach which teaches reading and writing as natural processes like learning to speak and understand speech is the philosophy followed.

The whole language approach is different from the whole word method.

It is assumed that just as most children learn to speak naturally with little trouble they’ll pick up reading and spelling too quite naturally, without systematic instruction because it’s just part of language.

There’s a lot of hostility to breaking language up into whole words or into letter-sound relationships, because that’s seen as artificial and an impediment to the natural acquisition of reading and writing.

The truth is, spoken language is natural and biologically easily acquired, but written language isn’t.

Reading and writing are completely artificial, unnatural processes that only a minority of the human race today acquire.

There are many cultures where there’s no reading and writing, because there’s no writing system.

 An 8 year old child’s spoken vocabulary probably contains tens of thousand of words and his sight vocabulary 100 to 200 words.

So what is absolutely critical in learning to read is to be able to sound out words that you are looking at and never seen before.

 Children who are not taught to sound out words are missing a fundamental reading strategy.

 A fluent reader does not sound out all the time.

What eventually happens for the reader who can sound out words is that a sight vocabulary is built up where many words are recognized in print on sight.

 Professor Coltheart states that whole word recognition and letter sound knowledge are both essentials for normal learning to read.

 Around the middle 1960’s it was recognized how important it is for young children to understand that words can be broken up into individual sounds.

 If that is not known a person will not relate letters to individual sounds. Researchers in kindergartens noticed that some children could not break simple words such as c-a-t into single sounds.

They were also unable to play the game ‘I Spy’ (I Spy something beginning with C or any letter of the alphabet).

 Two years later these children had reading problems. In the first couple of years of learning to read the focus is on building up a very small stable sight vocabulary.

 These children didn’t have problems in the first two years of learning to read but it was around 7 when they started to fall behind. It is at that time that using sounding out to try and expand vocabulary escalates.

Research indicates that there is a genetic contribution to the problem some children have with recognizing phonemes (sounds). This does not mean they will remain non readers but they will need help.

Professor Coltheart emphasises that to become a fluent reader the two skills that are the building blocks of reading are:

1. Knowing about letters and sounds and sounding out.
2. Ability to build up a sight vocabulary

This is an analytical way of looking at learning to read.

 Learning to read is acquiring a set of cognitive (mental) skills.

It can be boring at times and hard work and many children refuse to do the groundwork. Most people need systematic training as early as possible.

I will let Max Coltheart speak:

“… you can teach children to break “cat” up into three sounds in kindergarten, and that’s going to help them learn to read.”  

” there’s certainly a two-way street between learning to read and knowing about the structure of language.” 

“(reading) isn’t a biological skill. We don’t need practice to learn to understand speech, or to learn to walk, or anything biological like that. But we do need practice in reading because it’s an artificial skill, no more natural than learning to play chess or learning to play golf. “ 

“But there’s not a critical period for learning to read because it’s not a biological phenomenon. And so whether a person is six or sixty, you can diagnose the kind of reading problem and the same kind of treatment method is appropriate whether they be six or sixty.”  

“Of course the problem with referring to a child as having a learning difficulty suggests that they’re having difficulty learning anything, but in fact it’s just reading they’re having difficulty with. This doesn’t mean the child’s problem is anything to do with brain damage, that’s certainly not true. What it means is that there’s a certain structure that the reading system needs to have …………………………….. in the case of children, they have trouble learning particular components of that structure. “

If you or a child you know has a reading problem first check whether two fundamental skills are in place:

1. Knowing about letters and sounds and sounding out.

2. Ability to build up a sight vocabulary.

If you have any concerns seek advice as quickly as possible. Don’t hope your child will grow out of it.

Many children do not.

The National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy in Australia found that early, systematic and explicit teaching of phonics is a necessary part of an integrated approach to the teaching of reading.

In the first three years of school – and beyond if necessary – all children learn best within an integrated approach to reading, which teaches phonics, phonemic (sound) awareness, fluency in reading, vocabulary and text comprehension. 

Phonics is the relationships between letters and sounds.

Fluency is the ability to read quickly and naturally, recognize words automatically, and grouping words quickly.

Vocabulary knowledge is remembering new words and what they mean.

Text comprehension is processing what is being read and developing higher-order thinking skills.

Over the past twenty five years or so much scientific research has been undertaken into how children learn to read and write.

Many of the findings are now being incorporated into best teaching practice.

In the modern world where we are surrounded by print we often forget the inheritance we have received from the past. This history needs to be told to children so they can appreciate what has been passed down through the generations.

In pre historical times the pictures of primitive man were often recorded in caves or on tablets.  These are known as pictography or ideography. The spoken word was used to interpret these pictures often of a religious or spiritual nature. Oral traditions grew from these interpretations.

The first writing systems appeared about the 4th Century BC in the Middle East.

The first two systems were: The Sumerian Cuneiform Script and Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
The Chinese Script (characters) developed around 1600 BC. 

Olmec and Maya scripts also developed before Columbus discovered the ‘New World’.

Characters were added to picture symbols in an attempt to depict what was being said more accurately. Some characters represented whole words and some parts of words. Thousands of characters and symbols were used to record the more complex needs of developing civilizations.

Learning to read was a huge task. Hieroglyphics had to be learned by memory. Some hieroglyphics incorporated phonetic clues. Learning hieroglyphics was laborious and tedious and only scholars and priests were the experts.

The fundamental idea behind an alphabet is one symbol per sound in a given language. Writing is recording these sounds with a symbol – a way to record an unlimited number of words.

A successful reader knows what sound each symbol represents and blends the sounds into recognizable words. Once this process is automatic the real purpose for reading (meaning) can develop.

The Alphabet is the foremost invention of all time. It opened up knowledge and communication for humanity.

This first alphabet is the direct descendent of all the alphabets used in the world today.

A Brief History of the English Alphabet

Time Line
1200BC: 

North Semitic people (Middle East) had a working alphabet of 22 letters.

1100 BC: 

The Semitic Alphabet developed into the Phoenician Alphabet.

The alphabet invented by a Phoenician was a commercial tool and was first used to record commercial transactions. It was a business man who invented the alphabet!
The earliest Greek alphabet was developed either directly from the Phoenician or from a version of North Semitic almost identical to it.

The Etruscans adopted the Western Greek Alphabet.
5th Century: The Romans adopted writing from both the Etruscans and the Western Greeks.
The early Roman alphabet looked like this: 

A B C D E F H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X

The Romans also borrowed letters from the Greek alphabet. 

At its peak, the Roman alphabet looked like this:
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z 
Due to the Roman dominance of Europe, the Roman alphabet became the standard alphabet throughout Western Europe, and eventually spread throughout the Western World.

The Advantages of the Alphabetic Method of Writing

A code is a series of symbols that represents something.

Any alphabet is a code for the sounds of a language.

The superiority of the alphabetic method of writing was clearly seen.

All civilized nations in the western world eventually adopted this method of writing.      

Features of Alphabetic Writing Systems

• More accurate recording of spoken language.
• Less reliance on memory to master.
• Easy and faster to learn than hieroglyphics.
• More citizens could learn it with relative ease. Learning to read involved mastering the sound symbol system.
• A secular and practical sound system liberated from stifling priestly traditions and superstitions.

The English Alphabet is a series of symbols developed over centuries. These symbols represent the sounds we speak.

The alphabet used to write English today was developed from the Roman alphabet.

The Anglo-Saxon language was written down using Roman letters due to the Roman invasion of Britain. Over time the letters J, U, and W were introduced to spell the sounds the Roman alphabet didn’t accommodate.

The English Alphabet today is:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
     a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 

The English Alphabet has 26 letters. Each letter has a lower and upper case form.  The upper case letters, most of the time, will be larger than the lower case letters.  Upper case letters are used at the beginning of sentences in names and in titles. Punctuation was added over time.

The English Alphabet code is not a perfect code. One letter per sound would be much easier to understand.

We only have 26 letters to spell around 43 sounds.

There is an argument amongst linguists as to the exact number of sounds. Most languages have around 43 sounds.

The English Alphabet is the way hundreds of thousands of words can be recorded and read. It is not possible for the human mind to memorize that many characters or words.

One, two, sometimes three and four letters can stand for the sounds of English within a word. Sometimes the sounds of the language have more than one spelling. This is why

English spelling is regarded as difficult.

If you would like an outline of the way English sounds are spelled I have written an eBook that systematically outlines the steps to mastering the phonemes of English spelling.  Please visit www.superlearner.com.au  for more information.