Phonics
What is Phonics?
Phonics is the relationship between letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. When a younger child learns that the letter 'T' has the sound of /t/ or when an older child leans that 'tion' sounds like /shun/, those are examples of them learning phonics. Knowing the sounds of letters and letter combinations will help your child decode unfamiliar words during their reading and phonics will help the child with spelling by them knowing which letter to use. Phonics is a key element to helping children learn to read and write. When learning phonics they are developing the ability to match a unit of sound (a phoneme) to a the letter or letters that make the sound (a grapheme). This is the foundation of reading by separating the written word into individual sounds and then blending it all together to make out a word.
Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound that makes a difference in communication. In the English language we use about 44 different phonemes.
Grapheme: is the consonants or consonant combination that represents a phoneme
Alphabetic Principle: rapid recognizing upper and lower case letters and matching sound to letter
The alphabet has 26 letters, 21 are consonants and 5 vowels (sometimes 'y' and 'w')
Blends: two consonants come together quickly; still able to hear both sounds (L Blends, S Blends, R Blends)
Digraphs: two letters come together to make one sound; they can not be separated
Consonant Digraphs: two or more consonants in which you can hear both sounds blended (can not be separated) Example: th, sh, ch, ph, wh [can be found anywhere in a word]
Vowel Digraphs: two vowel letters that make one sound; "when two vowels go walking, the first vowel does the talking"
R-Controlled Vowels: vowels in which the vowel sound is affected by the r; Also known as the "Bossy R" or "R-Influenced Vowels; Example: car, her, girl, horse, or urgent
Consonant + le: ble, ple, gle, dle, kle, cle, fle, stle, tle, or zle
examples: table, apple, eagle, cradle, crackle, uncle, waffle, castle, bottle, and puzzle.
Open Syllable: syllable that ends in a vowel sound, such as the first syllable (CV and CVCe words are open syllable)
Closed Syllable: syllable that ends in a consonant sound. (CVC words are closed syllable)
Rule of Silent 'e': the silent 'e' makes the first vowel say his alphabet name
Phonics is the relationship between letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. When a younger child learns that the letter 'T' has the sound of /t/ or when an older child leans that 'tion' sounds like /shun/, those are examples of them learning phonics. Knowing the sounds of letters and letter combinations will help your child decode unfamiliar words during their reading and phonics will help the child with spelling by them knowing which letter to use. Phonics is a key element to helping children learn to read and write. When learning phonics they are developing the ability to match a unit of sound (a phoneme) to a the letter or letters that make the sound (a grapheme). This is the foundation of reading by separating the written word into individual sounds and then blending it all together to make out a word.
Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound that makes a difference in communication. In the English language we use about 44 different phonemes.
Grapheme: is the consonants or consonant combination that represents a phoneme
Alphabetic Principle: rapid recognizing upper and lower case letters and matching sound to letter
The alphabet has 26 letters, 21 are consonants and 5 vowels (sometimes 'y' and 'w')
Blends: two consonants come together quickly; still able to hear both sounds (L Blends, S Blends, R Blends)
Digraphs: two letters come together to make one sound; they can not be separated
Consonant Digraphs: two or more consonants in which you can hear both sounds blended (can not be separated) Example: th, sh, ch, ph, wh [can be found anywhere in a word]
Vowel Digraphs: two vowel letters that make one sound; "when two vowels go walking, the first vowel does the talking"
R-Controlled Vowels: vowels in which the vowel sound is affected by the r; Also known as the "Bossy R" or "R-Influenced Vowels; Example: car, her, girl, horse, or urgent
Consonant + le: ble, ple, gle, dle, kle, cle, fle, stle, tle, or zle
examples: table, apple, eagle, cradle, crackle, uncle, waffle, castle, bottle, and puzzle.
Open Syllable: syllable that ends in a vowel sound, such as the first syllable (CV and CVCe words are open syllable)
Closed Syllable: syllable that ends in a consonant sound. (CVC words are closed syllable)
Rule of Silent 'e': the silent 'e' makes the first vowel say his alphabet name
Why is Phonics Important?
Learning phonics is learning the foundation of reading and writing. It teaches children how to read by sounding out the word by each letter and putting all the sounds together to form the word. This is also teaching them how to spell. It is helping the child know which letter to use as the are writing.