Phonics is one method of teaching children how to read. Children are taught how to "sound out" new words by learning the following items:
Consonant letters sounds: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z
Blend sounds: br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr, wr, bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl, scr, str, sm, sn, sp, sc, sk,
Short vowel sounds: a, e, i, o, u
Always teach short vowel sounds first: a - apple, e - elephant, i- igloo, o - octopus, u - umbrella)
Digraph sounds: sh, ch, th, wh
Two letters combine to make a totally different sound.
Double vowel sounds: ai, ea, ee, oa
These pairs say the name of the first vowel.
Other double vowel sounds: oi, oo, ou, ow
Silent e: Silent e is bossy, it doesn't say anything but makes the vowel before it say its own name.
R controlled vowel sounds: ar, er, ir, or, ur
Notice that er,ir and ur make the same sound.
The best way to teach phonics is systematically. This means moving children through a planned sequence of skills rather than teaching particular aspects of phonics as they are encountered in texts. Systematic instruction can focus on synthetic phonics (decoding words by translating letters into sounds and then blending them), analytic phonics (identifying whole words then parsing out letter-sound connections), analogy phonics (using familiar parts of words to discover new words), phonics through spelling (using sound-letter connections to write words) and/or phonics in context (combining sound-letter connections with context clues to decode new words). Regardless of the specific method used what is most important in systematic instruction is that there is a deliberate and sequential focus on building and using the relationship between sounds and letter symbols to help readers decode new words.
