Phonics for Five Year Old Kids
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.