How ClickNRead makes it easy to teach phonics?

Being an English teacher for students till 4th grade, I realize the importance of phonics and a strong language base for kids. In a class every kid has its own pace of learning, understanding and grasping depending on the level of intelligence, aptitude and alertness. I have come across kids with disorders like dyslexia, autism too and I wanted these kids to be trained on a common platform like other children. The challenging factor for me was to hold the attention of each child as every child is not ready to study at the same time. But, with such interactive and entertaining lessons in ClicknRead, it was no more challenging!

This online reading program has letter sounds, word endings, prefixes, suffixes, word blending, etc. It reinforces listening skills and teaches basic keyboarding and mouse computing skills simultaneously which help in better co-ordination of their eyes and ears. It enhances their speaking skills in terms of fluency, accent, pronounciation etc, and then reading skills, sentence formation and so on.

ClicknRead gives them the freedom of exploring and practicing these skills in a very comfortable environment. Children learn at their own pace as they see and hear letters, words, and sentences on the computer and find them on the keyboard.

What I found as one of the best features in the tool was that it doesn’t have too many mediums to be used like flash cards, CD’s, kits, pieces, puzzles, etc. Here, the child focuses completely on the program which helps in better concentration.

The series of these 100 lessons are put sequentially so that they move ahead step by step. After completion of each lesson by the student, the result appears informing the number of attempts taken by them to respond correctly. I have also made them repeat the lessons until they master it. Also, the scores can be compared with other students for the respective lessons to encourage a competitive spirit amongst each other. The assessment of the reports is comprehensive and accurate. It helps me in judging the progress of every child.

It is overwhelming to see my students grow independently with such high self-confidence and also the smiles on their proud parents!

Difficulties in learning, reading or writing

The main reasons for reading problems are:

1. Ineffective reading instruction
2. Auditory perception difficulties
3. Visual perception difficulties
4. Language processing difficulties

Some children have auditory discrimination problems. It is not unusual for children to reverse letters and words when they read or write. They are unable to differentiate left-right, on self or paper. Lot of times kids find it difficult to pay attention on a subject at a stretch.

Children and adults who do not learn to read through an intensive phonics program often have one or more of the following symptoms:

• Below grade level reading achievement
• Slow reading
• Poor comprehension
• Fatigue after reading only for a short while
• Poor spelling skills
• Lack of enjoyment from reading
• Difficulty repeating what is said to them
• Difficulty understanding or remembering what they have just read
• Difficulty putting their thoughts on paper

Another group of children has difficulty matching the word image on the page with a previously stored image in their brain. Exercises that train the brain to "see" more accurately may help but instruction with phonics is the best approach to overcome this problem.

Necessary points to learn phonics

Knowledge of phonics and how it should be applied to sounding out unknown words is an essential skill that all readers must develop in order to learn to read with ease and understanding. If phonics is taught in a step by step fashion with much of the time spent on giving the student practice in applying the skill, tremendous results occurs.

The secret lies in teaching one skill at a time and then giving the student plenty of practice is using the skill. In this way the student internalizes the phonetic sound and can apply it to improve his reading skills.

One should first test this phonemic awareness in students, and then follow with instruction in letter/sound relationships, each letter/sound at a time. The next steps would be to teach blending sounds, and building words.

Start with one syllable words, then gradually increase this to two syllables, three syllable and then finally four and five syllable words. Teach them the vowels a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y. Explain to them about the short sounds (eg; i in pitch, a in bat, etc) and long sounds (eg; a in lake, o in cone, e in seat, etc). Make them learn prefixes, suffixes and their usage.

Teachers need to show students that even tiny sounds, that are not always consciously discernable to the ear, are there, and that they are represented by letters. In addition to teachers, parental involvement by way of encouraging them to worksheets, online reading program like ClickNRead and software is an added assistance to children.

Checklist for parents to know

1. Read regularly with your child, atleast 4-5 days a week.
2. Let your child browse through the book before attempting to read.
3. Have confidence in your child’s abilities and show them.
4. Gift them books on topics that interest them like boys enjoy knowing more about cars, bikes while girls may prefer more on dolls, etc.
5. Give them an opportunity to read in front of friendly people like Grandma, neighbour, uncle, aunt, etc. It will boost their confidence.
6. Don’t rush with them. Give them enough time to read or write.
7. Give your child opportunities to read and write. Such as letting your child write his/her name at the bottom of a letter or a card, shopping lists, etc.
8. Start with easy books to encourage your child and then move on to the tougher ones.
9. Don’t compare your child’s progress with other children too often. It might create inferiority complex and they may lose the interest in reading completely.