As both a parent and a teacher I have been aware that many parents are often confused regarding the methods they should use to teach phonics.
I hope that, by reading this simple guide outlining the steps of Phonetic Development, that parents will have a better understanding and feel more confident when selecting and using reading resources with their children.
Phonics are simply the patterns and ‘sounds’ that are made by the letter/letter groups in English. A phonetic programme needs to be very structured and sounds need to be introduced and learnt in a systematic order. Children can then transfer and apply the skills that they have gained from one level of development to the next.
In order to be competent readers, children need to be able to instantly recognise and remember the different ways in which "sounds" are enunciated and combined at each level. This then enables them to blend ‘sounds" together to form words and starts an exciting process of bringing meaning to print.
As a young teacher I achieved great success in teaching children to read by ensuring that they had a solid knowledge of phonics.
In later years I received an appointment as a Specialist Reading teacher. Small groups of children who were experiencing difficulties in learning to read were sent to me for intensive reading tuition.
In this position I had the opportunity to observe closely the reasons why these young children were struggling to read. It became apparent to me that the children with problems learning to read did not know or remember the sounds of the English language.
This meant that these children had no "word attack" skills….the ability to analyse and to sound out new words. I found that even with the slow readers 10 to 12 years of age , the most successful approach was to teach them their phonics starting with the sounds of the alphabet. It was very rewarding to see the children quickly gain confidence and pride in their new reading abilities.
The range of Learning Can be Fun reading posters has been designed to reflect the order in which I introduced the most common phonetic sounds in my classroom. They are identical except in size to those used in classrooms throughout Australia & many other countries around the world.
As children will need to spend approximately one year at each level of reading development I have designed many other learning aids that will help introduce, practise and consolidate the sounds at each level.
Young children have a short attention span and will need to be exposed to as many different games/methods of teaching sounds as possible. As children have a natural desire to play, all products have been designed using themes and colourful graphics which are appealing to them and which will encourage them to participate.
Research has consistently shown that information is retained more easily when the student is actively involved.
Please note that no age groups can be found on the Learning Can be Fun products. This has been done so that slower readers are not disheartened by seeing a recommended age that is lower than their own chronological age.
Pre-Reading Stage – Age 2-5
Children are not yet able to read. They merely "see" letters and words as a collection of different shapes. A wide variety of visual discrimination activities need to be given to help train "the eye" to distinguish different colours and shapes.
Aim: To assist children to see that each letter has its own distinct form or shape. This will also help them at the next stage to ‘see" that many words have their own pattern.
E.g. e is different to f 
is
different to 
Matching the same colours / finding the one that is different
Matching the same shapes / finding the one that is different
Direction |
(b is different to d / bad is different to dad) |
Missing Parts |
(a is different to g / hot is different to not) |
Internal differences |
(n is different to m / leg is different to log) |
Sequencing and following a pattern
Memory/Concentration
Pre-Reading activities assist children to categorize, to process information, to follow directions and to solve problems.
Phonetic Development Stage
1 – Age 5/6
LABCN—Single Sounds Are Fun Poster
Aim: To teach the children to recognise and to "hear " the "sound" that each letter of the alphabet represents, to build up a basic sight vocabulary and to practice rhyming skills.
The Single Sounds are Fun poster is phonetically correct and can be used to establish a regular programme of practising the "sounds" of the alphabet.
Whisper......(the sounds)......Shout......clap and say......jump and say......write in the air. Do whatever it takes to make it fun!
If your child begins to lose concentration......stop and go back to the poster the next day. (Activities & instructions for use are printed on the back of each poster)
Illustrations are very important when children are learning to read as they provide "picture clues" which assist them to "guess" the words. This is not to be discouraged, as it is essential that they feel that they are succeeding.
Once a child can confidently recognise and clearly hear and say the sound of each letter, then he/she is ready to put several single sounds together so as to read a word.
E.g. s...u...n......sun
Rhyming activities help children to "hear" and provide a very valuable method of assisting them to understand that there are many "word families" where only the beginning sound/sounds vary. E.g. man, can, fan, van...........hop, stop, flop
" Sight words" or "High frequency words" are a collection of approximately 200 words that young children can instantly recognize without being able to "sound " them. In fact, the 100 most common sight words make up about 50% of all the material we read. The instant recognition of these sight words is extremely important for the fluency and efficiency of the young reader.
Words are selected from the spoken language of young children, and reflect their interest levels and experiences, and relate mainly to the family, home and school. Other common words such as I, the, a, is, to, etc. are also included in a "sight word" vocabulary.
Once a basic sight vocabulary has been established children can then use their knowledge of the single sounds to extend their reading vocabulary. Eg If the child can read and "hear" the word dog then by changing and stressing the initial sound they can read other words such as log...fog...hog
Practice can be given in putting a vowel and a consonant together.
E.g. b...a (ba) b...e (be) b...i (bi) b...o (bo) b...u (bu)
This helps the children to read far more fluently.
A) It is a good idea to allow your child to suggest places at home that they would like to put words. Write the word in lower case letters and place in the appropriate spot.
e.g. bed, chair, television.
B) Let your child create his/her own dictionary. Choose only one "letter sound" at a time and encourage them to draw or to cut from magazines etc pictures of items that begin with the selected sound.
C) Remember to read to your children regularly.
D) Do not be alarmed if children "read" a book by telling you about the picture rather than reading the actual words. This is a common step in their development and indicates their interest in learning to read and improves their language skills. Perhaps you can read the book correctly back to them pointing to each word. ( Not too slowly)
E) Encourage your child to draw an illustration and to tell you about it. Using lower case letters write their "story" at the bottom of their drawing
Phonetic Development Stage 2– Age 6/7
LBLPN—Blends
and Ends are Fun Poster
Children are now ready to put two/three letters together and to read simple sentences. This is known as "blending" or word attack.
If the child has to pause and think about a sound then he/she will lose track of the word. This is why it is vitally important that recognising, writing and saying the sounds becomes automatic to the child.
Continue to encourage your child to read, read and read...set an example. Continue with harder rhyming activities.
Phonetic Development Stage 3– Age 7/8
LDSPN—Sounds
Are Fun Poster
At the final stage of phonetic development children are ready to learn the most difficult letter combinations. Once these are known reading skills expand rapidly and children can "word-attack" most words.
There will always be words in English that cannot be "sounded" because they are not phonetic. Children often correctly "guess" these words by the context of the sentence. Constant exposure to reading reinforces the child’s memory of these words.