What is Phonics? Why is it important for your child? How to do it?
Speaking & reading have become a part of us. We do them almost all the time. But, have you ever wondered that how many sounds we use while speaking or reading? Approximately 42 sounds!! The sounds used are represented by the letters of the alphabet. Associating sounds with the letters of the alphabet is called “Phonics”. It is a method that teaches children to decode words required for reading, comprehension & writing.
What is further interesting to know is that there are two approaches. The first one is the “Analytical Approach”. This approach expects children to read the whole word by memorizing it. Example: the word “Sun” is introduced to the children to memorize the look of it. The second approach is the “Synthetic Approach” that focuses on producing sound of individual letter or group of letters, which are put together for blending, thereby helping children to read successfully. Example: the same word “Sun” is segmented into individual sounds as “s-u-n” for children to effectively read or spell the word, instead of just guessing it.
Did you know that learning to read is a challenge for almost 40 percent of kids? The good news is that with early help, most reading problems can be prevented. The bad news is that 44 percent of parents who notice their child having trouble wait for a year or more before getting help thinking that he/she will overcome on his/her own. Moreover, with an increased expectation to excel in academics, child often succumbs to pressure. And we know that pressure & fear do not gel with learning.
Another survey shows that, only 25 percent of students in class can handle reading & writing effectively. Rest 75 percent needs additional help to acquire these skills. Every child is different and with reading & writing, we just can’t adopt the “One size fits all” approach. Therefore, a structured plan to introduce the language, patience to carry it forward & discipline to do it on a daily basis is a must. And, Phonics (Synthetic Phonics) provides you all.
A question which bothers most of the parents is “When we went to school, we never learned through Phonics & yet we know the language well, so why should I unnecessarily introduce this to my child?” Times have changed. So should we. We used to spend, rather enjoy our summer vacations by daily playing ludo or cards and never used to get bored. Children of this century are born “Gadgety”. They are used to or are fond of change or variety & can do so, so easily with just swiping their finger. For them, life span of anything & everything is just “couple of minutes”. They don’t have that focus or the attention span, the way we had. In our times, Phonics was taught by a process of correction through repetitive imitation. A teacher would point out to student’s incorrect way of pronouncing a word & then say out loud the word in correct fashion and expect the student to repeat it many times until the proper pronunciations is grasped. This was indeed a lengthy, boring & tiresome approach. Now, imagine your child learning the basics of language in the above manner. Do you think your child will be happy learning it? Before that, will you be happy in providing your child such a non stimulating environment?
Phonics is a multisensory, fun based approach to understand the correct pronunciation of consonants & vowels which are the building blocks of English language. It empowers parents & teachers with tools & techniques to help their child in learning the language (in that short attention span) without the child even knowing that learning is actually happening.
Other advantages of Phonics are:
It teaches children to decipher words on their own, which means they ultimately need less help to read making them fast, fluent & independent readers.
It gives children a foundation for learning new words thereby building vocabulary.
It helps in writing as the child learns to segment the word, decode sounds and then write.
We all want our children to be “Intellectual” often restricting it to “academic intelligence” without realizing that as parents, our job is to assist our child’s learning potential. Remember, that it is learning that facilitates intelligence and not vice versa. Therefore, to raise your child’s learning potential, inculcate the love for books by making a habit of respectfully reading them daily.
In Tomie dePaola words, “Reading is important, because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything & everything about anything”.
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