How you can help to improve your child's phonic skills at home
- trishgan2804
- Mar 16, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 28, 2023
Letter sound knowledge is a key requirement for reading and the foundation on which everything else is built .Even though teaching letter sounds may seem simple, there is more to it than what meets the eye. There are some common mistakes that persons teaching this principle tend to make. These mistakes can have long- lasting negative impacts on a child’s reading skills.
The tips below will help you to:
avoid common letter sound mistakes
improve your child phonics skills:
Tips:
Teach the correct letter sounds:
Children must be familiar with the correct sound of each letter of the alphabet. A very important skill that must be learned is the ability to distinguish between a pure sound and a schwa.
A pure sound is a single sound that is made from a letter or group of letters. For example: the "pure" sound for the letter /m/ is pronounced /mmmm/ as in the word /mat/ and not /muh/ or /em/. The letter /s/, is pronounced as /sssss/ as in the word /snake/ and not /Suh/. By saying /Suh/ it is actually adding an ‘uh ’sound. The "uh" sound is known as the schwa. Schwa sounds will confuse children when they try to blend and segment words later on in the reading process.
Be aware and teach the type of sounds:
The awareness of the following sounds will help you to guide your child/students when teaching the various letter sounds. These are: continuous sounds, tricky sounds and stop sounds.
Continuous sounds are spoken sounds that we make with a continuous flow of air from our mouth or nose. An example of a continuous sound is /s/.
Stop sounds are spoken sounds where the flow of air from the mouth is first blocked and then released. An example of a stop sound is /p/.
Tricky sounds can all be extended, but it’s harder to do this without distorting the sound by adding /uh/ at the end. Example of a tricky sound is the letter /h/.
Teach letters that produce more than one type of sound and know which one to teach first:
The letter /g/ has two sounds, a hard and a soft sound depending on which vowel comes after it. When the letter /g/ is in front of / /i/, /y/, or /e/ it produces a soft sound and says the /j/ sound. For example: gym, gentle, gist, germ. When the letter /g/ is in front of any other letter, it says the /g/ sound. For example: girl, gate, green.
The letter /c/ has two sounds, depending on which vowel comes after it. They are classified as hard and soft sound.
When /c/ is in front of an / i/, /y/, or /e/, it produces a soft sound and says the /s/ sound. For example: city, cycle, cereal, cent
When /c/ is in front of any other vowel, it produces a hard sound and produces the /k/ sound. For example: car, cone, cake, can
Place a strong emphasis on the vowels and their sounds
Understanding vowels is one of the strongest foundations for reading and writing the English language. Confusion with vowel sounds, or a lack of knowledge in knowing how the vowel sounds go together poses reading problems in children. Do not confuse vowel that has similar sounds for example, the /o/ sound can easily be mistaken for the sound of /u/, even though they sometimes intertwine.
Teach children how to differentiate between the two types of vowel sounds
Long vowel sounds differ from short vowel sounds in that the long vowel sounds say their names. Children must learn to differentiate between words that make short vowel sounds from words that make long vowel sounds. The big question is how to know when to say the long vowel sounds and not a short sounds, when reading. No need to worry as there are existing rules that you can use to guide you in assisting your students through this phase.
Teach children how to differentiate between long vowel sounds and diphthongs
Both long vowel sounds and diphthongs can be represented by two vowels, however, the long vowel rule states that when two vowels are beside each other in a word, the first vowel makes a long sound while the second one is silent. On the other hand, a diphthong also has two vowels that are beside each other, however, there is a noticeable sound change from one vowel to the other which is otherwise called a gliding sound because one vowel glides to the other creating a new sound. Children must learn the vowel combination what create a diphthong and to know how these combinations are pronounced in order not to confuse them with a long vowel sound representation.
Know about the exceptions to the rule and teach children at the correct time
In phonics, the concept of "exceptions to the rule" refers to words that do not follow the usual spelling-sound correspondence rules. These words are sometimes called "irregular words" or "sight words" because they cannot be decoded using regular phonics rules.
For example, in English, the letter combination "ou" is usually pronounced as /aʊ/ (as in "house" or "loud"), but there are some words where it is pronounced differently, such as "enough" or "through". Similarly, the word "said" does not follow the regular phonics rule for the letter combination "ai" (which is usually pronounced as /eɪ/ as in "rain" or "pain").
Exceptions to the rule can make reading more challenging for learners, especially if they rely solely on phonics rules to decode words. It is important for students to develop sight recognition of these words and to be explicitly taught these irregularities to help them become more confident readers.
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