Phonics refers to a system of teaching reading that builds upon alphabetic principle, a system of which a central component is the teaching of correspondences between letters or groups of letters and their pronunciation.

Research shows building words is one of the most effective strategies for learning letter/sound correspondences. Teaching children letter names does not in itself result in success in learning to read, however, it can facilitate memory for the forms or shapes of letters and can serve as a mnemonic for letter sound associations or phonics. Children progress faster in both spelling and reading if they are taught to analyze speech sounds in words and taught how to spell using sound/symbol correspondence.

Phonetic spelling has been recognized as a powerful indicator of phonemic awareness and knowledge of sound-letter relationships. Phonetic spelling not only helps children become better spellers but also facilitates their development of decoding ability in reading.

In the Student Services Center we teach consonants before vowels because consonants usually “say their own name.” We teach consonant sounds in the context of a specific picture and corresponding cue word. Students can visualize the picture to remember the sounds. Tactile-kinesthetic learners prefer action words as their cue words (“s” as in “ski”, “r” as in “run”, “p” as in play, while auditory and visual learners prefer nouns.

Sometimes we make up a little story for each cue word to enhance the mental picture. The sillier the story the better! After teaching sounds in the context of words, we work on letter recognition. We show the children a letter while saying its sounds. We typically immerse the children in one sound at a time. We include all the senses in learning the sounds. For example, we have the children “punch out” sounds and words in the air, we sing a song with target words, or “dance” or “act out” sounds as they say the words.

Most of all we try to have fun as we learn!

Questions? Please contact the Student Services Center.
Last updated: December 08, 2000.