Phonics approaches
focus on helping a person understand that words can be broken down into
smaller units, or sounds, and it is these sounds that need to be attached
to letters and then combined again to pronounce a word. The best approach
to helping a person understand this (called phonological awareness) can be done by simply playing
a few simple word games.
For example, practice
recognizing the sound (not the letter name) at the beginning of
a word, and then think of other words that begin with that same sound.
(The problem with teaching the letter names rather than the sounds in
words is that the letter NAME may not actually occur in a word that includes
that letter. For example, the letter name for B does occur in the
word "before," but not in the word "balloon," even though both begin with the same letter. However, both begin with
the letter sound "bah" as do all other words that include this
letter. So it is much better to teach a person the letter sounds first
rather than the letter name and then to play word games that help them
find a particular sound in spoken words.)
After working on
initial letter sounds, see if the person can say whether that sound is
inside or at the end of spoken words. Do not introduce the
actual written letter until this skill is well mastered.
Once the letter sounds
can be recognized within words, it is usually easy to learn which letter(s)
goes with each sound. Start with consonants and do vowels after consonants
are mastered.
Another game is to say what a word would sound like without the first
sound. For example, ask "How would you say the word STOP without the first
SOUND (S)?" Play this game orally; do not use letters or writing.
The answer is that the word STOP without the first sound (s) is the word
TOP.
You can also move
on to final sounds once the person can master the initial sound deletion
task. For example : "How do you say the word PLATE without the last sound
(T)?" Answer: PLAY.
If someone has trouble
doing these games you can start with compound words to give them the idea.
Example: "How would you say the word COWBOY without the COW?" Answer:
BOY.
Another good word game is rhyming. Begin by pronouncing a word like HAT
and ask the person to say a word that rhymes with HAT, such as CAT, MAT,
SAT, etc. Think of words that have lots of rhymes. Play this game orally
at first. Next you can show the person how rhymes work by making up a card that just has the rhyme part on it, like AT and then
thinking up new first SOUNDS that, when attached to AT, will make up a
word. Then, using a series of cards with single letters on them, find
the letter that goes with that first sound and put it in front of the AT, showing how sounds/letters can be combined to make new words.
All of these games are designed to get the idea across that words can
be broken up into sounds, and that it is these sounds that must be attached
to letters in order to learn how to read.
Whole language does not teach these phonological awareness skills. Although
many people will just intuit them without explicit instruction, many do
not and will then struggle to learn to read and will alway just rely on
memorized letter patterns and the words they represent, but will not be
able to figure out new words.
To learn more about how the brain learns language and reading skills,
see the Brain Connection website.
Also check out the Fast ForWord training programs that train phonological
and other language skills necessary for learning to read and become a
good reader. Read more about Fast ForWord.
Scientific Learning
Corporation has developed a computerized assessment of basic reading skills.
It is called Reading Edge and can be administered at home by a parent
or at school by a teacher. Find out more about Reading Edge as well as
Scientific Learning's
family of very successful language and reading training programs that
have been based on over 30 years of neuroscience research
