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| - Beginning to Read - The majority of schools use reading programmes following a Synthetic Phonics approach. Synthetic Phonics basically means SOUNDS (or phonemes - a term your children may come home with). So, as well as learning the letter names, as when reciting the alphabet, a,b,c,d,e... children are now encouraged to learn the pure sound that each letter makes. Although this sounds complicated, it really is very simple - although, it may take some getting used to. Pure sounds could not be simpler and make it much easier for children to break down and sound out unfamiliar words. When you start to put it into practice, you will understand why so many children have difficulty 'sounding out' words when they only know the name of each letter. For example - if you try and sound the word 'cat' using only the letter names, you will end up with this: see-ay-tee Similarly, 'dog' would be: dea-oh-jee However hard you try, you will never BLEND these sounds together to make the words 'cat' or 'dog' because you are using the letter name, rather than the pure sound. So, what is a pure sound? A pure sound is the SMALLEST, SHORTEST sound which can be represented by one or more letters. (Your children may be taught to call this a grapheme) However, when we start sounding out, many people, particularly when we stress sounds to a young child,use a schwar - this is a word used by speech therapists and other professionals for the 'uh' or 'er' that we unintentionally sound. For example - c-a-t sounds more like cuh-a-ter and d-o-g sounds more like duh-o-ger It may take a little getting used to but you basically have the tools necessary to successfully help your child learn to read. AND IT WORKS!!! ************************************ NOT all at once It is really important that children are not rushed. Introducing too many sounds too soon just causes confusion and will lower a child's levels of confidence and self-esteem. Phonic-based schemes introduce sounds in a particular order, starting with the simplest sounds such as: s, a, t, p, i, n ... etc |
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| click image for 'putting it all together' |