Literacy Articles

Teaching reading to Young Learners

For the teaching of early reading to be successful, it is necessary to apply a balanced and creative systematic approach. This can be done by applying an effective synthetic phonics programme.

What is synthetic phonics? It is is a method of teaching reading the sounds (phonemes) associated with the letters (graphemes).  This develops the learner’s phonemic awareness, ie.the ability to hear and manipulate individual phonemes.

When teaching very young learners, the Reading skill is often set aside because learning the alphabetic code in English can be very difficult for many children as there are 42 sounds represented by 26 letters. But this can be done in a creative and fun way considering the fact that young learners are motivated by game-like activities.

These first 42 sounds can be taught by following any of the synthetic phonics programmes available in the different English-speaking countries. Of all these programmes, Jolly Phonics and Phonics International are the most widely used to teach English as a Foreign language. Sounds are introduced in groups so that from the very beginning children are able to “decode” (read) and “encode” (write) simple words.

How can you start?

It would be ideal to start teaching phonics from the very beginning, when the child is 5 or 6 years old but older learners can profit from this approach too in the form of incidental teaching.

There should be a variety of activities for the learners to feel at ease while learning phonics. The use of stories, songs, rhymes and games is essential to achieve this purpose.

Games like “Letter Race”, “Point to the sound you hear”, “Cross the river”, “Run to the …” are just some examples that you can use to practice the sounds.

There are many resources on the web to teach and practise phonics but it is important to follow and stick to one or two programmes so as not to mix up the different techniques each programme suggests.

“Teaching phonics ensures a systematic approach to pronunciation and lays the foundation for confident readers in English”. (Tracey Chapelton)

STELLA MARIS MARTINO