Controversial Phonics Questions Answered

AN E-BOOK
ON CONTROVERSIAL FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PHONICS

ANSWERED
Phonics – Your
Questions Answered
By EFRE , SAMUEL TOM
FAQ ON
PHONICS
TOMPHONICS ACADEMY
03
Introduction
04
What are the
components of
reading?
05 06
What is Phonics? Is Phonics Diction?
07 08
What is the What is a good
correlation between phonics program for
phonics & your school?
Montessori?
09 10
What are phonics Tips on teaching
skills? phonics
11 12
What should What to do to help
students be taught children
at each age level? struggling with
reading?
FAQ ON
PHONICS
03 INTRODUCTION
There are five essential elements to high quality,
comprehensive initial reading instruction.
These five elements are phonemic awareness, phonics,
fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
Reading is such a complex process that an estimated number

of children struggle with learning to read. The good news is
that most of these children, given the proper instruction under
the five elements of reading, will progress out and become
strong and avid readers. One component, proven to have a
severe impact on reading success, is phonics.
The first goal:

automatic
word
recognition
TOMPHONICS ACADEMY is an academy that seeks to address the

issues surrounding the application on the subject “phonics”. We are
set to “change the narrative’’, go as far as to answer some frequently
asked questions that have been answered erroneously.
FAQ ON 3
PHONICS
04
WHAT ARE THE
COMPONENTS OF
READING?
Phonemic awareness –
the ability to hear and identify
phonemes, the smallest units
of sound
phonics – the
sound/grapheme relationship
of letters and combinations
make words and meaning
fluency – the ability to
read with ease, to read
accurately, quickly and
expressively
vocabulary – the
knowledge of word meaning
comprehension – using
the four other components to
conjure meaning in a written
passage
4
FAQ ON
PHONICS
EXAMPLES
OF
PHONICS
05
WHAT IS PHONICS?
 /i:/
ee,ea,e
 /æ/
Phonics is the relationship
between sounds (phonemes) and the a
letter combinations (graphemes)

that represent those sounds. In  /ʌ/
phonics-based instruction, the goal u, o, ou
is to teach children to read and write
the most common sound-spelling
relationships so that they can easily
say the words independently.
FAQ ON 5
PHONICS
06 IS PHONICS DICTION?
NO! PHONICS IS NOT DICTION. Phonics is one of the
elements of reading. Its sole purpose is to teach the
correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns
(graphemes) that represent them). While on the other hand
DICTION is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary
choices and style of expression. It is also the distinctiveness
of speech, the art of speaking so that each word is clearly heard
and understood to its fullest complexity and extremity.
6
FAQ ON
PHONICS
WHAT IS THE CORRELATION
BETWEEN PHONICS & MONTESSORI
07
Many are confused to the point they liken Phonics to be
Montessori. Actually, this short article on Montessori should
help in getting to know their correlation.
“Montessori refers to a mode of education and learning which
was developed by Maria Montessori in the year 1897. This
learning approach focuses on each child’s independence and
within reasonable limits, an acceptable degree of freedom.”
Montessori did not write a lot about phonics per se, she
tended to treat it as part-and-parcel of discussing reading and
writing, which she believed must be fused at the very
beginning. In line with her approach of always finding links
between the brain and the hands, her belief was that before
the child starts to read, he or she should learn to write!.
PHONICS IS NOT MONTESSORI

7
FAQ ON
PHONICS
WHAT IS A GOOD PHONICS
PROGRAM FOR YOUR SCHOOL?
08
It is also important that phonics programs be evidence-based; that is:
to have been proven to be effective using rigorous scientific research
methods.
At present the model known as systematic synthetic phonics has the
strongest research support. In synthetic phonics, teachers build up
phonic skills from their smallest unit (graphemes). The processes of
blending and segmenting are also taught. Three of the key elements of
a good phonics program are: the sequence in which letters and sounds
are taught; early introduction of blending and segmenting; and use of
decodable text. In a good phonics program, blending is taught shortly
after sounds are introduced.
There are many programs, (Tomphonics, Jolly phonics, Montessori
phonics, Zoophonics, Letter Land, Reading Egg,etc).
YOU JUST HAVE TO PICK ONE OR USE VARIETIES FOR YOUR

CHILD OR SCHOOL. THE FACT THAT ONE PROGRAM WORKS
IN ANOTHER PLACE DOES NOT NECESSARY MEAN IT MAY
WORK FOR YOU. FIND WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU.
FAQ ON 8
PHONICS
09
WHAT ARE PHONICS SKILLS?
 Letter sounds – to generate the appropriate sound for
individual letters
 Letter identification – to recognize letters and name
them
 Rhyming words – to identify and generate words
that have the same endings (and are often in the same
spelling family)
 Syllables – to identify the number of syllables in a
word
 Blending – to read individual sounds within in a word
and blend them together to read fluently. 9
FAQ ON
PHONICS
10 TIPS ON TEACHING
PHONICS
Teach short and long sounds
Vowels in syllables
Silent ‘e’
Consonant digraphs and blends
Vowel digraphs and diphthongs
R-controlled vowels
The ‘schwa’ sound
10
FAQ ON
PHONICS
WHAT SHOULD STUDENTS BE
11
TAUGHT AT EACH GRADE
LEVEL?
The expectations keep rising for our students. Our program
begins with teaching the letter sounds and then moving up to
reading simple CVC words, such as cat and ran in their word
families. And then, the letter names (long sounds) and digraphs
(phonograms). In addition, I recommend teaching at least 20 to
30 sight words for each year.
In the primary, the majority of the phonics skills should be
formally taught. In the lower primary, I recommend that
teachers focus on teaching their students the alphabet and the
most common sound-spelling for each letter This includes short
vowels, consonant blends, consonant digraphs, final e, long
vowels, r-controlled vowels, and diphthongs. The focus of
instruction in primary 2 and 3 is to consolidate students'
phonics skills. That includes attention to fluency with basic
sound-spellings taught in primary 1, formal lessons on
decoding two- and three-syllable words, and work with larger
word chunks. Above primary 3, the focus of instruction should
be on multisyllabic words. It's essential for children to have
formal instruction on the 6-syllable types, prefixes, suffixes, and
Greek and Latin roots.
FAQ ON 11
PHONICS
WHAT TO DO TO HELP
CHILDREN STRUGGLING
WITH READING?
11
For students who struggle with decoding, often
too much is taught too fast. It is important to find out
what phonics skills the student possesses. Then
begin instruction at a comfortable starting point.
Using a phonics survey. Re-teach those skills that
students struggle with. Work at a pace that allows
students to achieve mastery. Remember, the goal is
teaching to mastery rather than just exposure. And
provide loads of decodable text reading practice.
Students can never get enough opportunities
reading easy texts that contain many words with
newly taught sound-spellings. Repeated readings
of these texts will also be helpful.
12
FAQ ON
PHONICS
CONNECT WITH US & CHECK OUT OUR SERVICES
www.facebook.com/groups/tomphonicsacademy
08084909405
TOMPHONICS ACADEMY
13
FAQ ON
PHONICS
14

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AN E-BOOK

ON CONTROVERSIAL FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PHONICS

Reading is such a complex process that an estimated number

The first goal:

TOMPHONICS ACADEMY is an academy that seeks to address the

letter combinations (graphemes)

PHONICS IS NOT MONTESSORI

YOU JUST HAVE TO PICK ONE OR USE VARIETIES FOR YOUR

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