Phonics: A Tool for the Task of Reading
Jan Joss
Say the word phonics in a crowd, and the definitions of it will be as varied as the people. Simply stated, phonics is the study of the spellings of the sounds of a language. English has only twenty-six letters, so obviously some letters must represent several sounds. Beyond that, because of the variety of origins of our words, English has two hundred and fifty ways to spell the forty-four sounds. English speakers seldom have to say, "We have no word for that idea." But the price for this lovely language is that when young children are trying to figure it all out, it is the most difficult.
Some modern educators compare learning to read with learning to talk. They surround the child with many opportunities to learn and let the natural process take place. Learning to read is, in reality, more like learning to swim. Some teaching reading methods encourage students to read by putting them into deep water with no instruction. Other programs keep the children on land to practice breathing and to learn the strokes (phonics rules and sounds) before they allow them to get wet—that is, to begin getting the message of the word noises they are making. A balanced reading program invites children into the joy of reading and at the same time provides them with the phonics instruction they need to become fluent, skilled readers.
Listening comprehension and phonics can develop simultaneously. While the child is building his phonics skills little by little, he can also be learning many other things. Listening to stories just for the joy of it can increase a child’s comprehension skills. Later as students begin to recognize specific sounds, they should encounter each sound in interesting words that demonstrate the sound. As soon as the children know enough sounds to form even a few good words, they should read that limited text with a conscious awareness of the idea as well as the sounds of the words. The sentence, "I win!" has great meaning if it is connected to a story about a game or a race.
In every syllable is a vowel sound. Although children can most easily identify a vowel sound at the beginning of a word, it is more frequently in the middle of a syllable or is in a one-syllable word. The letter o, however, does not always represent the short sound (the one you hear at the beginning of October and in the middle of hot). The sound of the o in note, in shout, in oil, in lemon, in scissors, in spoon, and in cook varies, but it will nearly always make the short sound when it is in what we call a closed syllable. The words hop, top, and chop are closed syllable words, as are kick, lick, and pick. Both sets of syllables have a one-vowel letter. The first set ends in one consonant letter; the second set, in two consonant letters. A closed syllable, then, is one that has a single-vowel letter followed by one or more consonant letters.
The reader gets the signal for which of the many sounds o represents from the letters that follow it, not from the letters that precede it. (Notice cap and cape.) Within a given pattern, the vowel sound is much more regular. The original Blue Backed Speller, probably the first "phonics teaching help," used these patterns to make sense of the vowels. It included lists of word families. Word families provide an interesting avenue for practice. They not only look alike but also rhyme.
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The "sounding out" child would say /mah/ /eh/ /tuh/ rather than the whole word met. To focus on comprehension while practicing word families requires a meaningful context. In a sample activity, a child might look at a word card or a word written on the chalkboard as the teacher reads a context sentence. When it is time for the word to fit into the sentence, the teacher stops and the child pronounces the word he is looking at. He waits to say the word until he hears the context of the sentence.
bat (I have a baseball and a _____.)
As the teacher gives the beginning reader a context sentence like the one above, the child is involved in more than putting sounds together to make word noises. He is learning to use all the skills used by good readers. So practicing the word-family words in context allows for the meaning of the whole sentence and emphasizes letter/sound associations as part of the process we call reading. Repeated practice in reading these words is phonics drill. Drill is important, and this kind of drill is not harmful or boring!
Phonics is a tool—one used consciously by beginning readers and subconsciously by mature readers. It is like swimming. When you first learn, you think about each movement, each breath. After a while you use all that knowledge without thinking about it—until you learn a new stroke. Then you bring out all that knowledge and apply it consciously, just as a mature reader does when he encounters a new word.
Reprinted from Teacher to Teacher, June 1999.
Used with permission from BJU Press. For permission to reproduce this article, please write BJU Press.