INTRODUCTION TO PHONICS

• Meaning
• Types
• Characteristics of a good phonics program.
 Relating Jolly and Floppy phonics.

What is phonics?
This means the sound that letters make. Phonics represents
the manner in which we use letters to represent speech
sound.
A phonics program teaches us the methodology of teaching
the letter sounds so that children learn how to use the letter
sounds to read and write words.
In English Language, there are only 26 letters that are used to
represent over 40 sounds in over 70 different ways.
Therefore, phonics is a body of knowledge that
shows how this is done.
 Types of phonics
There are majorly 2 kinds of phonics, namely:
• Synthetic phonics
• Analytic phonics
These two shall be explained briefly.
Synthetic phonics

 This is also known as build-up phonics.

 Here phonics is taught in a systematic way beginning
with teaching of the sounds and then reading words by
synthesizing or blending the sounds together.
 This type allows children to work out unknown words by
themselves rather than being asked to memorize.

Analytic phonics

• This is also known as break apart.

• Here phonics is not taught systematically, sounds are not
taught first but, the name of the letters and the whole
word is also taught.
 Children find it difficult to work out unknown words by
themselves because it encourages them to memorize.
 Characteristics of a good phonics program.

Any good phonics program must have the following

qualities.
• It should be started early by teaching the sounds first.
• It must have been tested and confirmed to be effective
i.e. research based.
• It must be systematic, progressive and well structured.
• It must be simple to use and learn.
• It should be multisensory i.e. using the senses.
It should be fun and child – focused.

Relating jolly and floppy phonics

• Both programs fall under the synthetic phonics.

• They possess all the qualities of a good phonics program
mentioned earlier.
• They are unique in the way they allow the teacher to
enter the world of the children through storytelling,
rhymes and actions.
 They have range of resources to make learning and
teaching fun and easier for both the children and
teachers, such as: handbooks for teachers, phonics soft-
 ware program, story books, sound activity books,
posters, flash cards, reading assessment sheets etc.

IN CONCLUSION

• In NTIC, we incorporate both the use of jolly and floppy

phonics so as to lay a good literacy foundation in the
children.
• In Nursery 1, 2nd term we begin with the introduction of
jolly phonics according to the order of the arrangement
of the sounds but only the single sounds are taught all
through the remaining part of the session.
Floppy phonics begins in Nursery 2.

THE FIVE BASIC SKILLS FOR READING AND WRITING.

1. Learning the letter sounds

2. Learning letter formation
3. Blending
4. Identifying sounds in words
5. Tricky words.

 The key to ‘cracking the code’ of the English language lies

in five key skills.
 The first four skills are taught together every day, right
from the beginning.
 ‘Tricky words’, however, are introduced systematically.
By then, most of the children can work out simple,
regular words for reading and writing and are ready to
learn more difficult or ‘tricky’ words.

Let’s look at these five skills in more detail.

SOME TIPS FOR LEARNING THE LETTER SOUNDS

• The first step in learning to read and write is to learn the

letter sounds. These are the building blocks for making
words, both written and spoken.
• The children are taught the letter sounds, rather than the
letter names to prevent them from getting confused.
Once their letter sounds are secure, they can be
introduced to the letter names and capital letters.
• The children are introduced to each letter sound through
a story and an associated action. For example, a boy and
his dog are out on a walk when the dog begins to bark. In
front of them, a snake rears up out of the grass and
hisses ‘ssssssss’. The hissing snake is making a ‘s’ shape.
Ask the children to make the same shape, saying /sssss/.
 This is how they learn their first sound, /s/.* The children
can also sing the song for each sound, which is available
on CD.
• Children love the stories, actions and songs, all of which
help them to remember the letter sounds more easily.
But some children will have a poor memory for learning
the sounds and they will need lots of practice. There are
several ways to make this fun for the children and
playing games is one of them. With one or more sets of
letter sound cards they can play simple but effective
games like Snap or Pairs, for example

LETTER SOUNDS
 DIGRAPHS
Digraphs are two letters that make one sound.

2. Letter Formation
Before the children are ready to write words, they must first
be able to form the letters correctly. A multi-sensory
approach is used here too. From the very beginning, the
children are encouraged to feel the shape of each cut-out
letter in the book; see each letter written on the board and
write each letter in the air with their finger.
They are also encouraged to think how the letters fall into
different ‘types’ of formation. For example, some letters are
short(s, a, I, n, c, e, r, m, o, u, z, w, v, x); some are tall letters
(b, d, f, h, k, l, t); some have tails that go below the line (g, j,
p, q, y, f); and some look rather similar and can be confused,
particularly ‘b’ and‘d’. Here it helps the children to use the
descriptions ‘first the bat and then the ball’ (for ‘b’) and ‘up
the doggy’s tail and down’ (to describe the last part of
forming‘d’).
Getting the formation correct from the very beginning will
help the children when they write with a pencil and help
prevent any bad habits forming (these are much harder to
correct later on).

PENCIL HOLD
• To encourage correct letter formation and enable neat
handwriting, it is important for children to learn how to
hold their pencil properly.
• The ‘tripod’ grip produces the best results for both right-
and left-handed children.
• The pencil goes between the thumb and first (index)
finger.
• The next (middle) finger helps support the pencil.
• The other two fingers should be tucked away.
• The children move the pencil forwards and backwards by
moving their knuckles in and out.
 It helps the children remember how to do this if you tell
them it looks like ‘froggy legs’.

3. Blending Skills

• Blending is another of the 5 basic skills. Blending is the

ability to run sounds together to hear a word and is
essential for reading. This skill can be encouraged from
the earliest stages by asking the children, for example,
“Can you see the s-u-n?”
• There will be some children who can hear the word ‘sun’
straight away. They have a naturally good ear for sounds
and will rarely have problems with learning to blend
sounds by themselves.
• But for the majority, a little practice every day will be
needed for their blending to become fluent. For those
children who find learning to read and write more
difficult, it will take longer and they will need more
individual practice.
 A technique that helps all children at the beginning is to
say the first sound in a word slightly louder, and then say
the other sounds quickly afterwards. If you say the
sounds too slowly, the children will have forgotten them
by the time you finish. Don’t worry if you are almost
 saying the word initially, as the children need more
support to begin with.

4. Phonological Awareness
 As well as learning the skills for reading, the children
must learn the skills for writing. In order to write down a
regular word correctly, the children must listen to a
word, identify the sounds in it and choose the letters to
represent them.
 The ability to hear the sounds in a word is called
‘phonological awareness’ and can be encouraged from
the very first lesson. When the children are being
introduced to the sound /s/, for example, they can be
asked “Is there a /s/ in ‘sun’?”, “Is there a /s/ in ‘snake’?
“Is there a /s/ in ‘mouse’?” “Is there a /s/ in ‘dog’?”
 Most children find it difficult to hear the sounds at first
and will often give the wrong answer; gradually, with
practice, they will start to hear them. Those children who
can hear the sounds will find it easier to hear the /s/ in
‘sun’ and ‘snake’ than in ‘mouse’ because it is the initial
sound. ‘I-Spy’ is a good game to play with the children to
help them hear the initial sound in words.
• Over time it is important that the children learn to
identify all the sounds in a word and this can be
encouraged roughly once the children know the first six
sounds.
• The main way to encourage this skill is to call out a word
and then sound it out with the children: for example,
“hat, h-a-t”. The children are encouraged to say it again,
holding up a finger for each sound. In time, most children
will be able to do this for themselves. Those who are the
last to acquire this skill are generally the children who
have the greatest problems in learning to read and write.
• Other ways to encourage the children to listen for
sounds is to look at word families (eg cat, hat, bat, fat,
rat) or play games that require losing one or more
sounds in a word.
• Call out ‘pink’ for example and the children should
respond with ‘ink’; ‘mice’ with ‘ice’; ‘stop’ with ‘top’.
Or call out a whole word and ask the children to take
away one sound at a time, until only one sound is left: for
example, ‘splash, plash, lash, ash, sh’. This is called the
‘chopping game’.
5. TRICKY WORDS
 Not all words in English can be written successfully by
listening for the sounds, as some words have irregular
spellings or use alternative spellings that the children
haven’t learnt yet.
 Some of these words, like ‘I, the, he, she, me, we, be,
was, to, do, are, all’ are words that the children need to
know if they are going to read and write sentences.
 These words are called ‘tricky’ words because they are
inclined to trick you!
 Not all of the word will be tricky, and the children find it
amusing to blend it and work out which bit is the tricky
part.
 Analyzing the words and having regular practice with
flashcards is the best way for children to learn to read
the tricky words.
• The children find it easier to read the tricky words than
to spell them, so a range of techniques can be employed
to help the children learn the spellings.
• The main method is called ‘Look, Copy, Cover, Write and
Check’. First of all, the children look at the word and
think about how it is spelt. They could analyze the word
as they did for reading, or repeat the letter names
several times, or even form each letter in the air as they
 say its name. Then they copy the word, cover it up and
try writing it on their own. Finally they check what they
have written against the tricky word and have one more
go.
• Another effective technique is to say the tricky word as it
sounds. So the word ‘Monday’, for example, would be
remembered as ‘MON-day’, and ‘Wednesday’ as ‘Wed-
NES-day’ to help the children remember the spelling.
• For words that are much harder to spell, mnemonics are
very useful. “People’ can be remembered as ‘people eat
omelettes, people like eggs”; ‘because’ by ‘big elephants
catch ants under small elephants’. The ‘ould’ in words
like ‘could, should, would’ can be remembered as ‘o u
lucky duck’.
 It is also helpful to link tricky words to their word
families. For example, once the children have learned the
tricky word ‘all’, they should find it easier to spell words
like ‘call, fall, ball, hall, tall, wall’.