It can be a bit of a puzzle to work out how best to support your child through the early stages of reading, especially since teaching methods may have changed quite a bit since you were at school.
“Phonics is the first step in teaching children to read. Phonics has been developed over the years to ensure that children learn to read with confidence, enabling them to go on to ‘Read to Learn’, which then transforms into a real love of reading,” explains Charlotte Grieves, vice principal and senior leader overseeing foundation stage and year one at GEMS Royal Dubai School.
Phonics has been part of the English language since the 17thCentury. However, the first UK government attempt to give phonics a higher profile in England came as part of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) introduced in 1998.
And since then the teaching of phonics has gone from strength-to-strength as part of the British curriculum.
“As with any kind of learning, the effectiveness of the learning to read process will depend on the school and curriculum. The English language is very complex, and it has been argued in the past that there is no point teaching children phonics,” says Grieves.
“Yet most primary school teachers agree that these complex aspects mean that it is even more important that we teach phonics. The emphasis is on the children learning it clearly and systematically. Written language is basically a kind of a code, and teaching phonics is teaching children to crack that code. Children learn the simple parts first and then easily progress to get the hang of the more complicated parts. After all, challenge is what makes children progress and thrive.”
Grieves says that some people worry that phonics is taught to children too early, but are always pleasantly surprised when they enter a phonics lesson because these lessons are incredibly fun and entirely made up of games, songs and actions.
“The lessons also have a great pace to them, only lasting 15-20 minutes per day. In fact, at GEMS Royal Dubai School, the children enjoy phonics so much that they often beg their teachers to play phonics games with them at other times of the day,” Grieves says.
Words are made up of small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children learn to read words and spell words.
Grieves explains that children are taught three main things in phonics lessons, which are: GPCs: This stands for grapheme phoneme correspondences. This simply means that they are taught all the phonemes in the English language and the ways of writing them down. These sounds are taught in a particular order. The first sounds to be taught are s, a, t, p.
Blending: Children are taught to be able to blend. This is when children say the sounds that make up a word and are able to merge the sounds together until they can hear what the word is. This skill is vital in learning to read.
Segmenting: Children are also taught to segment. This is the opposite of blending. Children are able to say a word and then break it up into the phonemes that make it up. This skill is vital in being able to spell words.
Thanks to the way teachers facilitate the learning, it is fun, memorable and has a lasting impact to ensure the children learn thoroughly and with excellent progress at such a young age.
So, what is the expected outcome for kids when learning phonics?
“The expected outcome is clear: to have confident readers that love reading. And once they know how to read, they use reading proficiently to learn, question and challenge themselves,” Grieves says.
“At GEMS Royal Dubai School, we particularly love the quote from Dr Seuss: “The more that you read the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
A very good adage to live by.
Home support
Charlotte Grieves shares her top tips for parents to help kids with phonics
Share Books with words and without words – make up stories and encourage story telling.
Model reading at home. If a child sees their mummy, daddy, grandparents, sisters and brothers reading, they will mimic this.
Familiarise yourself with the correct reading terminology.
Use the games used at school to learn the phonemes, sing songs and play games.
Draw on a child’s hobbies and interests. If they are into animals, see how many different animal noises they can make. Can they copy a sound you make, and then tell you what the animal is? Or if they love trucks, cars and diggers, encourage them to make the appropriate noises when they are playing.
When you are out and about, listen for sounds – birdsong, traffic noises, etc. Can your child tell you what made the sound? Can they copy it?
