Introduction

Reading can be taught through whole language approach or phonics.

In Whole language approach, children are taught to learn the various words as they
come across them. This method has the advantage of learning the language
contextually. But children will have to make the connections between letters and their
sounds implicitly.

Phonics is simply the system of relationships between letters and sounds in a

language. The systematic and explicit instruction of the letters and their sounds will
help in a child reading and writing much better and easier. But Phonics has its own
problems. In this approach, children will be learning words out of context, which
could be dry. Another problem, the phonic rules have so many exceptions, it could
be confusing.

The experts say that a combination of the two approaches will be the best approach.
Research shows that systematic phonics instruction produces higher achievement
for beginning readers. Using whole-language activities to supplement phonics
instruction can help make reading fun. “Recent work has indicated– and many
teachers have discovered—that the combination of literature-based instruction and
phonics is more powerful than either method alone”

We use Synthetic phonics (UK) or blended phonics (US) in this instruction booklet
and it is a method of teaching reading which first teaches the letter sounds and then
builds up to blending these sounds together to achieve full pronunciation of whole
words. Synthetic phonics teaches the phonemes (sounds) associated with
the graphemes (letters) at the rate of about six sounds per week. The sounds are
taught in isolation then blended together (i.e. synthesised), all-through-the-word. For
example, children might be taught a short vowel sound (e.g. /a/) in addition to
some consonant sounds (e.g. /s/, /t/, /p/). Then the children are taught words with
these sounds (e.g. sat, pat, tap, at). They are taught to pronounce each phoneme in
a word, then to blend the phonemes together to form the word (e.g. /s/ - /a/ - /t/;
"sat"). Sounds are taught in all positions of the words, but the emphasis is on all-
through-the-word segmenting and blending from week one.

A note of caution, before we start. Most of the phonic rules have exceptions, ie, have
words that do not follow the rules.

To teach popular words that do not follow phonics, we have included ‘Tricky word
list’. These need to be taught to children through rote-learning.
 Steps
Step 1: Letters have names and sounds
Step 2: Two letter words with short vowels
Step 3: Three letter words with short vowels
Tricky words (list 1)
Step 4: Four letter words with consonant blends
Step 5: Consonant Diagraphs
Tricky words (list 2)
Step 6: sounds ‘oo’, ‘ee’
Step 7: sounds ‘ar’, ‘or’, ‘er’, ‘ir’, ‘ur’
Step 8: long vowel sounds
Step 9: Magic ‘e’ words
Tricky words (list 3)
Step 10: Soft ‘c’ & ‘g’ and ‘y’

We will be covering only until step 10 in UKG. Further studies include the
following steps.

Step 11: Long vowel sounds with other vowel diagraphs

Step 12: au, aw
Tricky words (list 4)
Step 13: ou, ow
Step 14: oi, oy
Step 15: kn, wr, gn, mb, mn, gu
Step 16: tion, ture
Step 17: be-re-de

Use the accompanying videos for clarification and better learning.

Step 1: Letters have names and sounds

Mastering the sound of each letter is very important to grasp phonics and learn to
read.
In some systems they teach only the sound of the letter first, name comes later. In
others they teach name first and sound comes later. But in my opinion, both the
name and sound can be introduced together. Children are smart. They know the
difference between the name of the animal (cat) and the sound it makes (meahhhw).
So introduce the sounds of the alphabets as you teach them to write. By the time
children can write lowercase letters comfortably, they should have mastered phonic
sounds of 26 letters.

Correct pronunciation is very important. Listen to this song to make sure your
pronunciation is correct before teaching children.

Another point to note, the vowels have two or more sounds. Right here, we are
introducing only short vowel sound.

Introduce one sound at a time. Speak clearly and slowly.

1. a as in apple
2. b as in bat
3. c as in cat
4. d as in dog
5. e as in egg
6. f as in fish
7. g as in got
8. h as in hat
9. i as in ink
10. j as in job
11. k as in kite
12. l as in lap
13. m as in Mom
14. n as in nap
15. o as in orange
16. p as in pat
17. q as in queen
18. r as in rug
19. s as in Sam
20. t as in Tom
21. u as in umbrella
22. v as in van
23. w as in win
24. x as in xerox
25. y as in yes
26. z as in zoo
 Tips to practice:

1. Make a sound box (small carton/plastic box). Add the sounds on small slips of
paper as the children master them.
2. Every day, practice sounds by getting one slip of paper from the box and
asking the children to identify the sound.
3. Sound out a letter/s and ask the children to identify/write the letter.
4. Give dictation. Dictate the sound, ask the children to write the letter. After all
children write, teacher writes the correct letter on the board and asks the
children to put a tick mark if they are correct.
5. Flashcards work well too.

Step 2: Two letter words with short vowels

For any language, vowel sounds are very important. The inability to make words
without them and their frequency merit their importance.

Emphasise the vowel sounds. Make sure each and every child gets the sound of
each vowel properly.

Then introduce the following words/sounds.

at, an, ap, am

et, en, el, ed
ip, in, id, im
ot, on, op
un, um, ut

How to teach: Say the sound of each letter separately with some time gap, the first
time. Then say the sounds by reducing the time gap and then again with much less
gap. Finally say the two sounds together. If you have magnetic letters they can be
placed on the board and the letters can be moved as you reduce the time gap, finally
having them together and make the word. In the absence of magnetic letters, card
boards letters can be made and used for the same purpose.

a...............................................n
a........................n
an
Encourage the children to make the sounds individually and then together to
make words.

i p a

Step 3: Three letter words with short vowels

Continue the step 2, now with 3 letters. Two consonants with an vowel in the middle.

p. . . . . . .a. . . . . . .n
pan

p. . . . . . .e. . . . . . .n
pen

p. . . . . . .i. . . . . . .n
pin

p. . . . . . .o. . . . . . .n
pon

p. . . . . . .u. . . . . . .n
pun

How many real words can the student make and write?
 1. Make as many words as possible.
2. Make a word box (a plastic box, where the teacher keeps the words the
students have mastered, and then uses for daily revision). This technique is
similar to the sound box described in step 1.
3. Mastering this step is really crucial for successful reading through phonics.
Give as much practice as possible. Ask them to both code (write based on the
sound) and decode (read the word written using the sounds known).

Tricky words (List 1)

Not all words in English follow the phonic rules. The following words are
better learnt as sight words. Remember the spelling of the following words
without thinking about phonics.

I me to
the we do
he be of
she was

Step 4: Four letter words with consonant blends

Consonant Blends

A consonant blend is when two or more consonants are blended together, but each
sound may be heard in the blend. The most common beginning consonant blends
include: bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fr, tr, fl, gl, gr, pl, pr, sl, sm, sp and st. Blends can also occur
at the end of words as in the word “last”. There are also blends which contain three
consonants. Common three consonant blends include: str, spl, and spr. When
teaching blends, most teachers introduced them in groups. For example, a teacher
may choose to introduce the l-blends first (bl, cl, fl, gl, pl and sl) followed by the r-
blends.

Top + s = stop.

Fog + r = frog.

Pat + s = past or pats.

Time spent at this level promotes fluency, self-confidence and automaticity, and
helps to prevent guessing. I believe fluency just creeps up, and time spent focussed
on fluency as such can be better used.
Step 5: Consonant Diagraphs

A consonant digraph is made up from two consonants which join together to produce
a single sound. The most common consonant digraphs are ch-, sh-, th-, ph- , wh-,
ck-, ng-.

h is “the blowy letter.” If you hold your hand in front of your mouth and say "hat”, you
feel the blow. It is the same for sh,th,ch, as in: ship push think path chop
rich what phone.

The diagraph ‘ng’ is important. Stress on this diagraph and teach word ‘ing’.

Tricky words (List 2)

are come there

all some they
you said
your here
Step 6: sounds ‘oo’, ‘ee’

ee is the last sound in tree

oo the long sound is in cool, the short sound in good.

There is no aa (except aardvark and salaam).

We do not have ii, except in ski-ing (from Norway), or uu, except in vacuum.

ee words: bee, see, seed, need, feet, deep, heel, beef, jeep, peep, keep, meet,
feed, keen, leek, feel, keep, seen, been, beep, sleep, green, free, creep, street,
speed, steep, bleed, indeed, toffee, teeth, coffee, deer, beer, steer, agree, asleep,
geese, settee, sneeze, beetle, needle

oo (short) words: good, wood, wool, soot, foot, hood, book, took, look, rook, cook,
hook, woof, stood, footsteps, scrapbook

oo (long) words: zoo, moo, cool, fool, hoof, mood, pool, food, moon, loop, root,
soon, boot, hoop, roof, room, tool, zoom, toot, spoon, broom, stool, bedroom,
broomstick, toadstool, goose, loose.

Step 7: sounds ‘ar’, ‘or’, ‘er’, ‘ir’, ‘ur’

There is often a pattern with vowels. There are five r-modified vowels: ar as
in car and or as in fork, and the other three: er ir ur all make the same sound, as
in term, third, burst. In American speech you can hear the r sound. This helps with
spelling.

park fork / term skirt hurt

sharp storm / butter first turn

farm morning / faster girl spurt

ar words: arm, car, far, art, jar, hard, farm, barn, card, park, dart, mark, dark, bark,
part, harm, march, sharp, charm, star, start, smart, spark

or words: cord, fork, born, horn, corn, fort, port, sport

ir words: bird, girl, dirt, firm, first, shirt, third, skirt

ur words: turn, burn, fur, hurt, curl, purr, burnt, burst, church, churn
er words: her, sister, kerb, herd, mister, silver, litter, pepper, letter, better, winter,
never, butter, fatter, supper, hotter, summer, river
Step 8: long vowel sounds

Short vowel sounds have already been introduced in step 1 and practiced until now.
In this step, students will learn that vowels have more than one sound. They will
learn the long sounds and they will begin to distinguish between the short
sounds and the long sounds.

Short vowels are marked with a symbol called ‘breve’.

Now we will introduce long vowel sounds. Long vowels are marked with sound called
‘macron’. In the beginning, mark the vowels with breve or macron, to make it easy for
the children to decode.

They sound as their name.

A says ā, ā acorn
E says ē, ē eagle
I says ī, ī ice cream
O says ō, ō open
U says ū, ū uniform

Note: With letter Q, U is always long and ‘Qu’ sounds like ‘/kvi/’ as in Queen,
Quick, Quilt.
Step 9: Magic ‘e’ words

This extends the pattern of the words where a vowel says its name. This can be a
vowel and e together as in toe or a split digraph, where the oe becomes o-e as in
home. It is useful at this point to learn that "e at the end of English words is always
silent." Also note that there should only be one consonant between the vowel and ‘e’.

This rule can also be stated this way; If you have vowel-consonant-vowel pattern,
the first vowel says its name (the first vowel is long). If you have vowel-consonant-
consonant-vowel pattern then, the first vowel is short.

But to teach small children, go with Magic ‘e’ rule.

wine snake globe cube these bone game plate slide tune
Peter theme advise remote excuse.

Also give them lot of practice with letter groups ‘ate’, ‘ake’, ’ide’, ‘ike’, ‘ine’,
’one’, ’ome’.

-ve ( -ave -ive -ove)

Because English words do not end with a v we have to add an e on the end.
Sometimes this coincides with magic e as in: save behave drive stove. Other
times the e is not magic as in: have love glove give active impressive
collective. There are many words like this.

Tricky/Sight words (List 3)

go old what
no like when
so have why
My live where
one give who
By little which
only down
Step 10: Soft ‘c’ & ‘g’ and ‘y’

c and g say the sound in their name (c:see g:jee) if followed by e, i. or y. They are
then called "soft c and g." The other sound as in cat and dog, is "hard c and g."

ce ci cy: centre success fence city accident recite cycle fancy.

ge gi gy: gentle badge danger giraffe agitate gymnastics Egypt

energy.

Exceptions: get give.

Where there are two c’s, the sound is like x: success accident. It can be
explained that In success the c before e says s, but the first c is not any of ce ci cy
so it says hard c. In accord there is no ce ci cy, so there is only the k sound.

Where there are two g’s, the sound is j: suggest exaggerate.

Y can be a consonant or a vowel. The consonant is at the beginning of a syllable

and is not that common: yes yesterday yawn yield yo-yo yacht
beyond. This sound has already been introduced.

The long and short vowel y is very common indeed. Some short sound examples
are: funny myth mystery happily (There are scores of adverbs ending in ly.)

For long sounds try: my sky reply dynamo python defy magnify
multiply. In one syllable words the ‘y’ sound is usually long.