Phonics Study Guide

Consonant Generalizations

• Consonant Generalizations
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Balanced Literacy

• A comprehensive program that consists of all the components necessary for students to master written and oral communication.

The 5 Components of Reading

• Alphabetic code, high frequency words, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Alphabetic Code

• English sound-symbol system, including phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling.

High Frequency Words

• Read and spell the most commons words, such as, the, what, and said.

Fluency

• Ability to read and write effortlessly so that they have cognitive resources available for comprehension

Vocabulary

• Acquisition of a wide vocabulary and strategies of unlocking the meaning of words.

Comprehension

• Use of comprehension strategies to direct reading and writing.

Reading Aloud

• Foundation of the early literacy framework. The teacher selects and reads a book or other text to the children. Texts are rich in meaning or language and class favorites are read again and again, and used as the base for activities.

Shared Reading

• The teacher introduces and reads an enlarged text of which each child has a copy.

Guided Reading

• The teacher selects and introduces a new text. The children read to themselves or with partners.

Independent Reading

• Children read to themselves or with partners. Little to no teacher support.

Shared Writing

• The teacher guides children to compose messages and acts as their scribe. The message is reread many times.

Interactive Writing

• The teacher guides group writing of a large-print piece, which can be a list, chart, pages of a book, or another form of writing. All children participate in composing and constructing various aspects of the writing.

Guided Writing/Writer's Workshop

• The teacher has individual conferences with writers, giving feedback. The teacher may work with the whole class or a small group to provide general guidance and mini-lessons on any aspect of writing.

Independent Writing

• Children write their own messages and stories, sometimes helping each other.

Writing Briefcase

• Plastic carrying case that contains all kinds of writing materials.

Principles of Literacy Learning

Important Considerations for Teaching Phonics

• - Phonics instruction is not a complete reading program itself
• -Phonics is not a one-size fits all
• - Phonics instruction should not be about rules and drills
• -Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction should not be boring

"Teacher effect"

• The two key ingredients of making any educational program work effectively, then, are knowledge of the subject and belief in the system.

Phonics

• A method in which basic phonetics, the study of human speech sounds, is used to teach beginning reading. Teachers teach phonics, not phonetics.

Phonetics

• The study of human speech sounds.

Phoneme

• The smallest sound unit of a language that distinguishes one word from another. There are about 44 phonemes in the American-English language.

Phonemic Awareness

• The ability to recognize spoken words as a sequence of individual sounds. Being able to distinguish or differentiate between the sounds that make up a word and apply this knowledge as it relates to the written form of a word is an essential skill in beginning reading.

Consonant

• A sound represented by any letter of the English alphabet except a, e, i, o, u, w, y. Consonants are sounds made by closing or restricting the breath channel.

Consonant Blend

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• Sounds in a syllable represented by two or more letters that are blended together without losing their own identities.

Vowel

• A sound represented by a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y and w in the English alphabet. Vowels are sounds made without closing or restricting the breathe channel. Saying the names of the vowels out loud will cause the vocal cords to vibrate.

Dipthong

• A single vowel sound made up of a glide from one vowel sound to another in immediate sequence and pronounced in one syllable. Examples: / oi / in oil and boy, / ou / in house, / ow / in owl.

R-Controlled Vowel

• When a vowel letter is followed by the letter r, it affects the vowel sound so that it is neither short nor long.

Schwa Vowel

• An unstressed sound commonly occurring in unstressed syllables. The schwa sound is the most common vowel sound in English and may be represented by any of the vowel letters.

Grapheme

• A letter of combination of letters that represents a phoneme (sound). Example: the phoneme / b / in bat is represented by the grapheme b; the phoneme / f / in phone is represented by the grapheme ph. There are more than 200 ways to spell the phonemes. Example: / f / can take the form of f in fine, gh in cough, and ph in elephant.

Digraph

• Two letters that stand for a single phoneme (sound). Examples: thing / th /; shop / sh /; boy / oi /

Onset

• The consonant sound(s) of a syllable that comes before the vowel sound. Example: mat / m /; pig / p /

Rime

• The part of a syllable that includes the vowel sound and any consonant sound(s) that comes after it. Examples: mat / at /; pig / ig /

Phonogram

• A letter sequence comprised of a vowel grapheme and (an) ending consonant grapheme(s), such as -ig in wig, dig, big or the -ack in back, tack, sack. From phonograms, we can generate word families.

Syllable

• A unit of pronunciation consisting of a vowel alone or a vowel with one or more consonants. There can be only one vowel phoneme (sound) in each syllable. The syllable is considered to be the basic unity of pronunciation in English.

Closed Syllable

• Any syllable that ends with a consonant phoneme (sound, not letter) Examples: come / m /; paste / t /; love / v /

Open Syllable

• Any syllable that ends with a vowel sound. Example: boy / oi /;

Breve

• The orthographic symbol placed over a vowel letter to show it is pronounced as a short sound (sometimes called an unglided vowel)

Circumflex

• The orthographic symbol (^) placed above vowel graphemes to indicate pronunciation.

Macron

• The orthographic symbol (-) placed over a vowel letter to show it is pronounced as a long sound (sometimes called a glided vowel).

Umlaut

• The orthographic symbol placed above vowel graphemes to indicate pronunciation.

Orthography

• The ways in which letters and letter patterns in words represent sound and meaning.

Three Layers of English Orthography

• Alphabet- Represents the relationship between letters and sounds.
• Pattern- Grouping of letters beyond single letter sound match-ups.
• Meaning- Students learn that groups of letters can represent meaning directly, which will lead them to be less puzzled when encountering unusual spellings.

Morphemes

• The smallest units of meaning in a language.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• Span between what a learner knows and is able to do independently, and what he/she is able to do with support and guidance.

Stages of Spelling Development

• Emergent Stage: Encompasses the writing efforts of children who are not yet reading conventionally an din most cases have not been exposed to formal reading instruction.
• Letter Name- Alphabetic Stage: Encompasses that period during which students are first formally taught to read, typically during kindergarten and early first grade.
• Within Word Pattern Stage- Transitional Reading: Can read and spell many words correctly because of their automatic knowledge of letter sounds and short-vowel patterns.
• Syllables and Affixes Stage- Intermediate Reading: Students are expected to spell many words of more than one syllable.
• Derivational Relations- Advanced Reading: Students examine how many words may be derived from base words and word roots.

Morphology

• Use of meaning units.

Homophones

• These words sound the same, but have different spellings and meanings.

Concept of Word in Text

• Ability to point accurately to a few lines of familiar text.

Vowel Generalizations

• Vowel Generalizations:
• 1. A single vowel letter in a syllable usually represents the short sound if it is not the final letter (cat, but, lot, met, mit)
• 2. A single vowel letter in a syllable usually represents the long sound if it is the final letter (he, hi, go, pa-per)
• 3. When two vowel letters in a syllable are separated by a consonant and one is a final e, the first usually records its long sound, and the e is silent (hope, late, cute)
• 4. When two successive vowel letters occur in a syllable and they are not any of the special digraphs (oi, oy, ow, ew, ou, oo, au), the first vowel letter is usually long and the second silent (especially ee- keep, ae-meat, ai-pain, ay-say)
• 5. ow has two sounds, the / o / as in own and the / ou / as in cow.
• 6. oo has two sounds, the / oo / as in food and the / oo / as in foot.
• 7. The r gives the vowel before it a sounds that is neither long nor short.
• 8. The vowel digraphs oi, oy, ou, and ow blend into single sound (diphthong) as in boil, boy, out, and owl.
• 9. y at the end of a word usually represents a vowel sound.

Phoneme Isolation Map

• Phoneme Isolation: Teach children to isolate sounds in words. This can be done in several different ways, shown in the map.
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Phoneme Segmentation

• Phoneme Segmentation: Ability to isolate all the sounds of a word. In teaching this skill, Lewkowicz (1980) found that it is extremely important for the teacher to prolong or stretch the word to be segmented and essential that the child attend to the articulatory clues, as well as the auditory cues, by slowly pronouncing the word.
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Visual Discrimination

• Visual Discrimination: Because reading is a visual act and requires visual discrimination ability, teachers should prepare children for phonics by providing exercises that help them discriminate between letters and words. Research results indicate that this task is best accomplished by having children practice using letters and words rather than pictures or various geometric shapes (Durkin, 1993).
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Phoneme Subsitution

• Phoneme Subsitution: Replace an identified sound with a new one and pronounce the new word. For instance, in the word seat, if you replace the / s / with a / b /, how is the new word pronounced?
• 1. Introduce children to the concept through modeling: Slowly say a word and emphasize its sounds; then identify each sound separately.
• 2. Provide practice for children by slowly reading words to them, emphasizing each sound. Ask children to articulate the individual sounds that make up each word. Start with 2-letter words and advance from there to longer words as children become competent in voicing each sound in the words.

Phoneme Deletion

• Phoneme Deletion: This activity requires children to identify a new word that is made when a phoneme is deleted from the original word.
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Phoneme Identity

• Phoneme Identity: Teach children to recognize common sounds in different words.
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Consonants

Vowel Digraph

• Vowel Digraphs (application/pdf)

Consonant Digraph

• Consist of two letters that stand for a single phoneme (sound). Several letter combinations are classified as consonant digraphs. In teaching phonics, however, a limited number of these digraphs must be taught. Children should learn either that some letter combinations represent a new sounds that is different from the sounds represented by each letter separately or that one of the two letters is silent.
• Initial Consonant Digraphs
• ch (chubby) ph (phone) wh (why) gn (gnat) sh (she) wr (wrong) kn (known) th (the)
• Ending Consonant Digraphs
• -ch ( lunch) -gh (tough) -ng (sing) -ck (luck) -ll (call) -ss (class) -ff (off) -mb (lamb) -th (teeth)

Consonant Blend (Clusters)

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• Caption: It should be noted that 15 of the 21 initial consonant blend combinations contain either and r or l.

Double C and Double G

• When consonants c and g are doubled within a word, frequently they record sounds that represent a combination of their hard and soft sound. In the word suggest, for example, the first g records its hard sound, while the second g records its soft sound. In success, the first c records its hard sound, and the second c records its soft sound.

The Letter S

• S generally represents two phonemes /s/ and /Z/, with /s/ being taught first.
• smile /s/
• season /z/
• is /z/
• his /z/
• tops /s/
• test /s/

The Letter X

• X generally represents three phonemes: /z/, /k/ /s/, and /g/ /z/. (Remember that x does not represent a phoneme that is identified by its own name)
• sox /k/ /s/
• exit /g/ /z/ or /k/ /s/
• xerox /z/
• anxiety /g/ /z/

The Letter C

• C generally represents two phonemes, /k/ and /s/. (Remember the letter c does not represent a phoneme identified by its own name)
• city /s/
• coat /k/
• rice /s/
• pact /k/

The Consonant Digraph Th

• Th can represent one of two phonemes, /th/ or /TH/. One is called a voiceless sound (/th/) because, when spoken, air is expelled and little vibration is created by the voice box or tongue. The other sound associated with the consonant digraph th is called a voiced sound (/TH/) because, when spoken, little air is expelled and a definite vibration is created in the voice box and by the tongue.
• When teaching the sounds it is not necessary to burden children with the terms voiceless and voiced.

The Consonant Digraph Ch

• Ch usually represents the phoneme, /ch/, as in church. Less frequently, ch represents the phoneme /k/, as in chemical, and the phoneme /sh/, as in machine.

Short-Long Vowel Sounds

• Short vowel sounds are usually introduced in three-letter words with a spelling pattern of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC). This is expanded to include words that follow the spelling patterns VC and CVCC.
• Long vowels are usually introduced in words with a spelling pattern of VCe, as in whale. This is expanded to include certain vowel digraphs (oa in boat) and single-syllable words ending in a vowel (o in go).

R-controlled Vowels

• Children should be taught that when a vowel is followed by the consonant letter r, the vowel sound is neither short nor long.

Intrusive L and R Sounds

• Teachers often notice that the beginning readers in their classroom insert the sound /l/ or the sound /r/ where they do not belong in a word. These "added sounds" are interesting to observe and think about because they represent a phenomenon related to the class of sounds to which the letters l and r belong, called approximates.

The Schwa Sound

• The schwa sound is introduced at approximately the second or third grade level and is often taught in conjunction with syllabication and/or dictionary use. A schwa is a short, unstressed vowel that often occurs in unaccented syllables.

Syllabication

• A syllable is a basic unit of pronunciation consisting of a vowel alone or a vowel with one or more consonants. There is one and only one sounded vowel (phoneme) in each syllable. Phonic generalizations pertain to syllables, not words, are initially decoded. Children are commonly introduced to syllabication by getting them to hear syllables in words they already know.
• -The activity of clapping each syllable as children say words is often used at an introductory stage of instruction.

Syllabication Generalizations

• 1. Every syllable contains one and only one vowel sound, but this vowel sound may be graphically represented by more than one vowel grapheme.
• -Provide children with varied opportunities to hear and recognize syllables in spoken words.
• 2. Most affixes are syllables.
• dis- in- non- sub- em- inter- over- un- en- ir- pre- im- mis- re-
• -able -est -ly -y -al -ful -ment -en -ing -ness -er -less -ion
• 3. In a compound word, the syllabic division usually comes between the words of which it is composed.
• 4. When a word ends in -le preceded by a consonant, the consonant plus -le make up a syllable (e.g., mid-gle, ar-ti-cle)
• 5. When two vowel letters appear together, they usually represent one sound and should be viewed as a single grapheme when syllabicating.
• 6.Letters representing consonant digraphs, especially th, ch, and sh, and consonant blends are treated as single consonants and are not separated when words are broken into syllables.
• 7. Although double consonant letters are generally separated when words are broken into syllables via writing, the sound will be represented in only one syllable (common com-mon)
• 8. When two consonant letters are between two vowel letters, a syllabic division often occurs between the consonants.
• 9. When there is one consonant letter between two vowel letters, the consonant often goes with the next syllable. This generalization has less consistency.

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