Section 5: Teaching Skills

Chapter 29: Teaching Phonics

Phonics teaching is most commonly needed when teaching children, as they will not know their letters or the sounds that they make. When it comes to teaching phonics you should work to get the kids to know each letter and its sound from A to Z. A good way to do this is by showing them letter videos (to be put in the resource section) and by doing repetition with them. In addition, you should also be doing chants in order to give the students a way to keep it in their head for example: “ah ah, A says ah, ah ah, A says ah.” or “The A says ah, the A says ah, every letter makes a sound the A says ah.” By doing each letter this way and constantly building up your student’s phonics skills you can eventually help segway them into reading. Phonics practice will also give students the ability to pronounce harder words as time goes on. Making sure you build a strong foundation for phonics with your students is absolutely crucial, because if your student does not know the sounds of each letter well, they will not be able to read at all no matter how much you try it with them. When it comes to phonics you should focus on playing games and constant repetition for the students to learn each letter and their associated sounds. Once you finish with the phonics sounds for each letter you can move into reading and then teaching more complex rules when it comes to phonics pronunciation. In addition, you should start with simple 3 letter words and slowly move your way into longer words and different sounds. Reading is not a skill that can be easily developed overnight and it will take a lot of time and effort in order for your students to start reading. So, with everything that has been said, keep in mind that the key for students to learn phonics is both repetition and chanting in a fun and exciting way to keep your student’s attention and interest.