I have been giving some thought about subject matter for up coming posts, and it occurred to me that I have very little when it comes to phonics. I think this is largely due to the fact that this is such a difficult subject, and there seems to be a great deal of debate amongst educators when it comes to the proper method of teaching reading. Reading is the basic foundation for all other subject matters. Strong readers are better speakers, have greater self confidence, and out perform their less proficient classmates in other subjects such as math and science. So it is of the utmost importance that you explore what method of teaching works best for your child and you provide your child the opportunity to engage in various reading exercises on a regular basis.
When my son began reading I started looking for a site that could lay down some ground rules when it came to vowel combinations. I found several good resources, but what I found to be most helpful were various phonics phrases that assisted my son in remembering long and short vowel sounds. You might be familiar with these phrases.
“When two vowels going walking , the first one does the talking” or “when two vowels walk side by side the first vowel says his name with pride.”
This worked well until we came across words which do not follow this rule such as cloud, bread or sleigh.
I then would be expected to give an explanation as to why these words do not follow that rule. To be perfectly honest I had none. I started searching the internet for guidance on how to teach the various letter combinations that do not follow phonetic rules. I found that there are several different camps when it comes to teaching reading. Before phonics a whole language learning method was used within our school system. Over the course of time the whole language method began to lose favor to phonics and now many educators are leaning towards a “balanced literacy” program. As it stands many educators advocate using phonics to immerse students in basic reading skills, but to acquire more advanced reading skills curriculum needs to be geared towards whole language methods. Blending these two methods in a very organized and deliberate fashion creates a system of balanced literacy.
Visiting the resources below will help outline your own system.
Here are some resources I found on Don Potter’s website. If you decide to visit you will find a wealth of very interesting materials. Below are links to two very informative PDF documents I found on Mr. Potter’s site.
Word Mastery- A course in Phonics for the First Three Grades
How to Teach Phonics
As far as an interactive site is concerned, Starfall is still my favorite. If you go to the homeschooling section you will have access to worksheets and printable books that correspond with the Learn to Read sequence of books. These activities are very engaging and went a long way towards providing my son with basic reading skills. Another interesting site I recently stumbled upon is The Phonics Page. The Phonics Page offers free phonics video delivered via Quicktime Player. Spelling.org also offers multiple resources. One I find exceptionally helpful is grouping Dolch Sight Words in word family groups. Good balanced literacy resources to visit are Literacy Connections and 4 Blocks of Literacy.
I have removed the blogroll section that was previously in the sidebar and I am working on replacing it with a links page. Hopefully, I will have this task completed in the next week. As I come across resources reading or otherwise, I will add them to the links page. I hope you find this information helpful. If you have your own reading resource favorites, please feel free to put your information in the comments section.
Filed under: Phonics, Reading on June 4th, 2007 | No Comments »
