1. Phonemic Awareness
Once children have solid Phonemic Awareness, Phonics is straightforward.
Twenty-six letters and perhaps 50 major 'written sounds' make up the Phonics code.
For children with a solid foundation in Phonemic Awareness, learning letter-sounds is very much like learning the names of other objects.
The child sees a tree and says, "Tree."
The child sees letter M and says "m-m-m."
The child sees letters SH and says "sh-h-h.""
This skill is called 'naming.'
2. Rapid-Accurate Naming
After Phonemic Awareness, nothing is more important to Phonics success than Rapid-Accurate Naming of the letter-sounds.
Rapid-Accurate Naming means thinking of the names of things, quickly and correctly.
chair table window tree
Letters are objects, too; and they have letter-names like Em, Jay, Ess; and sound-names like m-m-m, j-j-j and s-s-s.
Kids can practice naming speech sounds-by-picture, with Playful Sounds.
Children learn Rapid-Accurate Naming of letter-sounds by plenty of accurate practice.
For best results, students need to practice their Phonics letter-sounds at about 85% accuracy--better than 8 out of 10 correct responses.
3. Blending and Segmenting
Your student is already skilled in blending separate sounds into words, and familiar with pulling apart or segmenting words into pieces, from his Phonemic Awareness training.
Continue blending and segmenting games as you practice with phonetic words he is reading.
4. Apply the Phonics Skills
Choose a Phonics program that includes stories to read.
Children need an opportunity to practice each new letter-sound they are learning, in some actual reading.
Phonics readers are not particularly ‘natural’ sounding, because the author is so limited in the words she can use; but research shows that this kind of reading is vital to a good Phonics program.
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