Return-Path: <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov>
Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id j3DMmIG26232; Wed, 13 Apr 2005 18:48:18 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 18:48:18 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <20050413224659.89591.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com>
Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov
Reply-To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
Originator: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
Sender: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov
Precedence: bulk
From: tom zurinskas <tzurinskas@yahoo.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-LD:4702] Re: Synthetic phonics a silver bullet?
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Status: O
Content-Length: 6774
Lines: 179
> Let's not "dis" synthetic phonics! It is a
> necessary piece which IS
> typically left out of many early reading curricula.
Actually as I read how synthetic phonics is taught in
Scotland, it's the same way I was taught to read over
50 years ago. It's a very intuitive and practical
approach (see below). I don't recall any of us not
learning how to read.
tz
Below is how it works. I've lost the source but John
Nissen would have it.
First letters and words
In the Clackmannanshire study, they started with six
letters: 's', 'a', 't', 'p', 'i' and 'n', being the
six letters making the most number of three letter
words.
The first words could include:
it, sit, pit, tit, tin, in, sin, pin, pip, tip, sip,
nip;
at, sat, pat, pan, tan, tap, sap;
as, is (for the voiced 'z' sound);
a, an (for the schwa sound).
The teacher sounds out the word, and, with a pupil (or
with the class), breaks it into constituent phonemes,
for example, 'tap' into a short 'tuh' sound, a short
'a' sound, and a short 'puh' sound. The reverse
process is also tried, asking the pupil what word
results from putting 'ss', a short 'i' and 'nuh'
together, and obtaining 'sin'. Then one can ask
questions such as "What happens if the 'ss' is
replaced by 'puh?"
The pupils must learn the shape of the letters. They
can draw the shapes. It may be useful to have magnetic
letters, from which the pupils can select letters to
form words. It may also be useful to have a computer
to generate large letters on the screen. You can use
WordAloud software for this purpose, see
www.cloudworld.co.uk.
With these first six letters we can put together
phrases such as:
a pin in a tin
a tit sat in a pan
nip tip, tap sap, sit, sip
pat sat in a pit
Next letters
It is help for learning to have "self reference",
where the story is told in the first person. Thus one
of the next letters to learn is 'I'. It is more
memorable to imagine oneself sitting in a pit, than
Pat (unless that happens to be your name).
BTW, a capital letter can be used for 'P' in 'Pat',
but only because the shape is identical to the lower
case 'p'.
We can introduce the other vowels, but only in short
form. Note that we avoid the vowel sound in 'put', and
stick to words such as 'pup', 'but', 'sun'. Also the
'magic e' which elongates vowels (turning 'mad' to
'made', etc) has to be avoided at all costs.
The next consonants can include 'b', 'f', 'h', 'l',
'm' and 'r'. We suggest you do not introduce 'b' and
'd' at the same time, as they are easily confused,
being mirror images of one another. This is a
particular problem for dyslexics.
We suggest the sound /k/ is represented by a 'c', but
this means you have to avoid words with 'k' or 'q'.
Note the hard 'g' (as in 'gap') maps to 'g', so you
should avoid words with a soft 'g' (as in 'gem'). We
suggest you stick to words where the soft 'g' is spelt
with a 'j', as in 'jet'.
It is important at this stage that you only introduce
simple one-syllable words that are spelt according to
the rules you have already introduced. Thus you can
have 'bed' but not 'head' or 'said'; you can have
'fun' but not 'won' or 'done'; etc.
First irregular words
It is suggested you introduce a few of the sort, most
common, words gradually, with lots of examples, so
that they quickly become 'sight' words for immediate
recognition. The first word to introduce is 'the',
which breaks the rule of the letter 'a' representing
the schwa sound. After that, you probably need 'of'
(where the 'v' sound is spelt with an 'f') and 'to'
(where the schwa sound is represented by 'o') in order
to make reasonable stories.
At this stage you can introduce some words to be read,
where the final letter is doubled, such as 'tell'.
Don't worry if the pupils spell such words with a
single letter.
And you can start introducing sounds that are always
represented by a pair of letters: 'th', 'sh', 'ch' and
'ng'.
Longer words
After learning a few simple CVC words (i.e. words in
the form consonant-vowel-consonant), it is possible to
progress to more complex words.
You can introduce some two syllable words, such as
'batman' and 'hatpin'. And you can introduce
'consonant blends'. Even with the six initial letters
we can produce a large number of such blends:
ant, its, sits, pits, spit, spat, span, snip, snap,
snips, snaps (etc.);
pans, tans, pins, tins, sins (for the voiced 'z'
sound);
and (which has the schwa sound when spoken quickly).
Long vowels and diphthongs
The next stage is to introduce the long vowel sounds
and some diphthongs. Finally we should have a complete
mapping as follows.
Complete initial mapping
By the end of the first term, we propose that the
following initial mappings have been taught:
the 'k' sound maps to (i.e. is represented by) the
letter 'c';
both hard and soft 's' sounds map to 's' (so 'z' is
unused);
initial 'y' sound, as for example in 'yes', maps to
'y';
initial 'w' sound, as for example in 'went', maps to
'w';
the 'sh', 'ch', 'th' and 'ng' sounds map to
corresponding letter pairs;
the 'v' sound maps to 'v', except for 'f' in 'of';
other consonant sounds map to their own single
letter;
five short vowels map to five vowel letters ('a' is
in 'cat', 'e' as in 'bet', 'i' as in 'hit', 'o' as in
'pot', and 'u' as in 'but');
the schwa sound (a short 'uh' sound) is represented
by 'a', except for 'e' in 'the';
the long 'ee' sound maps to 'ee';
the long 'oo' sound as in 'moon' maps to 'oo';
the 'ar' sound maps to 'ar';
the 'or' sound maps to 'or';
the 'er' sound maps to 'er';
the 'ay' diphthong maps to 'ay';
the 'oy' diphthong maps to 'oy';
the 'long i' diphthong as in 'pie', maps to 'I' and
is only used for that word;
the 'ow' diphthong as in 'cow' maps to 'ow'.
Certain mappings are left out:
the short 'oo' sound as in 'hood', 'put' and
'could';
the 'ow' diphthong as in 'owe';
the 'ure' diphthong as in 'pure';
the 'ire' diphthong as in 'fire';
the 'our' diphthong as in 'flour'.
The letters 'k', 'q', 'x' and 'z' are left out.
All the letters are kept in lower case except the 'I',
which is exclusively used for the first person (self).
With these mapping rules it is possible to construct
quite elaborate stories for the learner to read by
themselves.
Convert text to truespel USA accent by copy/pasting text at: http://www.foreignword.com/dictionary/truespel/transpel.htm
For truespel discussion and phoneme frequency files go to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/truespel/ or truespel.com
Read Truespel Book One: Analysis of the Sounds (Phonemes)
of USA English (Authorhouse.com)
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Oct 31 2005 - 09:49:48 EST