Suggestions+for+Teaching+Phonics

=Strategies for teaching phonics=

When teaching phonics it is essential to make it fun and enjoyable to keep the children interested and involved. The best way to do this is to give the children with activites that encourage investigation and exploration.


 * Synthetic phonics:** children blend individual letters to make words


 * VAKT phonics:** VAKT stands for visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and tactile senses which are used to directly teach the individuals letters and sounds. This may include an activity that children are asked to first look at the word closely, then to sound out the word and identify different letters and sounds. The child may then have a turn at writing the word, an emphasis could be put on neat handwriting and letter formation at this point. Finally ask the child to read the word back and allow them to check and see if it is right.


 * Analytic phonics:** This activity helps to teach children to break the words down into either smaller words or syllables. The teacher may write a word that the children already know on the board and then precede to ask them to break it down. If a child achieves this with ease then maybe ask them to find other words that may be made from these smaller words, effectively creating words patterns and allowing the child to discover for themselves these patterns. This helps to create a sense of achievement for the child.


 * Whole-Part phonics:** As the teacher and children progress through various readers and texts read aloud create a list of words form these books which the students are familiar with. Write these words of cards highlighting the letters which represent the onset and the rime and tell the children. Place these cards aorund the walls in the classroom and as time goes by keep adding to the wall. This teaches children to analyse and decode the words they dont know based on words they do know.