Phonics and Word Study

What is phonics anyway? When you tell your child to "sound it out," you are saying to use phonics–which means identifying the sounds that correspond to the letters in a word. Sometimes people also use the term decoding to describe this same process. Playing a simple game like "find all the things in this room that begin with b" provides a great way to practice phonics skills.

Here's a quick rundown of the phonics skills that are taught in the early elementary years.

• Short vowels—a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y, as in bag, set, him, top, cup.
• Long vowels—a, e, i, o, u with new sounds, as in cake, seen, time, bone, cute.
• Consonants—all the letters in the alphabet except the vowels. They each have a single sound except c and g, which have hard sound as in cat and garden and a soft one as in circus and gentle.
• Consonant blends—two or three letters that blend together to make a sound, such as bl, sk, nd, spr as in blind, skin, desk, or sprain.
• Consonant digraphs—two letters that combine to make a new sound, such as th, sh, ng as in thing, shine, or finish.
• Vowel diphthongs—two vowels sounded so that both vowels blend together as one sound, such as oi and ou as in coin and loud.
• Vowel digraphs—two vowels that together make a long or short sound or have a special sound of their own, such as ea in steady, ie in piece, and ey in obey.

Very often beginning readers learn new words by practicing word families (the technical term is phonograms), such as pan, man, fan, and ran. This is a fun way to use words that rhyme. So many books can help you play with word families at home. Take any book by Dr. Suess, for example. Start reading and then let your child finish the rhymes.

Once your youngster is able to read and write simple words, he or she is ready to tackle bigger ones. One way to pronounce big words is to divide them into parts, called syllables, and then say each part. A syllable is a word or word part that contains a vowel sound. Buzz has one syllable; buzzer has two.

Prefixes can help beginning readers understand the meaning of words they may be seeing for the first time. Prefixes are word parts that are added to the beginning of a base word and that add meaning to the word. Re- is a prefix that means again; so write becomes rewrite which means to write again. Other examples of common prefixes are co-, meaning together, as in cooperate, and il-, meaning not, as in illegible.

 

Suffixes are word parts that are added to the end of a base word and that add meaning to the word. The suffix -ful means full of or having. Help becomes helpful which, predictably, means to be full of help. Other examples of common suffixes are -dom and -ness, which mean state or quality, as in freedom and kindness, and -ment, which means action or process, as in government or agreement.

Sometimes two words are combined to form a single word, called a compound word. Your second or third grader should be able to tell the meaning of a compound word by thinking about the words that make up the compound, as in the word rainbow.

By the end of third grade, most teachers will have completed all formal phonics instruction. However, most teachers will periodically review phonics skills throughout fourth grade and beyond.

If you see that your child has difficulty learning these sound—symbol relationships, you need to talk with his or her teacher about ways to supplement learning at home. This is important, for these skills are fundamental to all reading success (and enjoyment). But remember also that all children, even siblings, develop skills at different rates, so don't be discouraged. Most children do a remarkable job of catching up when they have the proper support at home and in school.

 

Taken from www.kz.com