Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Introduction to phonics

Phonics basically refers to the connections between letter patterns and the sounds they represent (e.g., sound /s/ can be represented by s, es, ese). It defines the set of relationships between written letters and the spoken sounds that those letters represent.

Phonics is a widely used method of teaching children to read usually at the age of 5 or 6. Phonics teaches the 71 basic letters and letter combinations (phonograms) needed to pronounce the 44 sounds of the English language.

The singular or group of letters used to represent these sounds, are called graphemes. A phonogram is a letter-sound combination that includes more than one grapheme or phoneme.

Phonics is a tool for decoding words; it is not a reading program. Knowledge of phonics does not ensure that one will
comprehend printed texts because reading is a far more complex process than simply sounding out words.

Closely related to phonics is "phonemic awareness", an understanding of the idea that spoken words can be broken down into constituent sounds. It is an oral skill and not a reading skill as in phonics.

Phonics was taught successfully by mostly young teachers in the days of one-room schoolhouses. Phonics has fallen in favor in the last 50 years, but is beginning to make a comeback.

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