MYC08 Phonics (Sugi)
From Akita Wiki
What is phonics
- Not “what we teach,” but “how we teach”
- Correspondence (一致･対応) between letters or groups of letters and sounds
- Goal is approximate sound
- Ability to pronounce unknown words
Why teach phonics
Pros
- Each pattern learned is helpful to further reading
- Confidence building and independence
- Overlapping (重複な･相乗的な) methods for learning reinforce material
- Shows how the language actually works
Cons
- Outside the normal curriculum / not strictly necessary
- Structure of English itself is an obstacle
- Can be challenging to learn and teach
- Effects are difficult to see / quantify
The difficulty with English
- 40+ phonemes with only 26 letters. Many of the letters (x, q, c) are unnecessary
- Combinations and patterns are the focus, but even then…
- Good, blood, food
- Still, many patterns do apply
(ex. -ough, not –ouhg)
(mice, twice, nice, not niec)
Does it have an effect?
- There was much disagreement
- Recommendation of: US Congress, Government of Canada, National Reading Council, National Council of Teachers of English, UNESCO, and others
- National Reading Panel meta-study says definitively yes
- Worst case scenario is still a help
How to teach phonics
- In early classes:
- When teaching the alphabet, teach combinations of letters as if they were individual ones (th, ch, sh, ph, kn, etc.)
- Make use of “minimal pairs”—letters in context (see minimal pair handout)
- Periodically throughout the year:
- Take time to explain a phoneme-letter correspondence when many appear in the vocabulary. Reinforce previously learned material.
Activity Idea 1: Early instruction
- When learning letters, give out easy examples. They are artificial, but useful to students
- Ex: Cop, Chop, Cat, Chat, Car, Char. Students will learn that they can read a new word even if they don’t know what it means.
- Use comparisons with similar words
- “C”
- Ca-, co-, cu-, ck, and c+consonant are all ‘k’ sound
- Ce-, ci- is ‘s’ sound, and ‘ch’ is its own
Activity Idea 2: Reinforcement
- Use points in textbook to go back and cover spelling patterns
- New Horizon, 2年生, p. 65: traffic light, right (along with page 61’s bright and sightseeing from earlier)
- Use phonics as a review of vocabulary, spelling, and tool for future study
- An advantage is the short time necessary to go through a useful point
Game Idea 1: Tandem Phonics
This game requires teamwork and speed, and allows every member to both write and read aloud.
Requires about 20min
- Hand out cards
- Students complete the puzzle, and one student pronounces all the words to the teacher
- They proceed through the cards to the end. The first team to get through all the cards wins
- Variations (missing elements, make it themselves, as dictation, etc.)
Game Idea 2: Guess the Word
Mostly intended for beginners. Uses newly acquired knowledge of sounds to match them up to words spoken by the native speaker.
- Mostly for １年生、２年生
- We present many cards with different words on them. ALT pronounces the word, and the students guess which of the words it corresponds to
- Can also be done as karuta or other speed-related games
Other Game Ideas
Dice Game
- Two dice, one with blocks of letters (ph, sh, ch, th, wr, wh, ight, ck, kn, etc.), the other with 1-6
- Roll the dice, and come up with that many words which include the combos
Pronunciation Tree Game
- Students learn to distinguish phonemes
- Follow the tree to the bottom. Where did you end up?
