Phonics
What is phonics?
Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (the sounds of spoken language) and graphemes (the letters that represent them in written language).
Dr Deslea Konza explains that phonics is the relationship between phonemes and graphemes and the importance of this component in learning to read.
As soon as you put letters into the equation, we're talking about phonics, but phonics obviously depends on phonemic awareness.
If a child cannot perceive a separate sound, how can they relate a letter to that sound? If they can't do that, an alphabetic language is going to be extraordinarily difficult, isn't it?
So once we are adding phonics, well, once we're adding letters to a teaching situation, we are talking about phonics, not just phonemic awareness, but as you teach individual letter sounds, you're obviously reinforcing phonemic awareness.
If they can't hear that sound, they're going to have a, a lot of trouble attaching some representation to it and learning how to map, blah blah. this onto paper it is another closed set, but it's very large.
Phonics is the decoding part of the written part of our, our language. It's the letter sound relationships. In the literature, it's often called the alphabetic principle.
So the way we translate this or map this onto paper is via an alphabetic code. As soon as you start relating some of those sounds to graphemes or letters, we're talking about phonics.
So there's a strong sound component in phonics, but it is about relating the sound to a letter or letters.
And sometimes a single sound or phoneme can be one letter. It can be two letters. It can be three letters, it can be four letters. It can be, it can be a ‘t’ it can be a ‘ch’ a ‘tch’ T C H or it can even be O U G H, four letters.
I don't think there are any that are five letters. So even, uh, representing a single phone name is complex. Before we go, any, even any further than that,
it, it's a complex code too. It's not a simple code. Some languages like Spanish have quite a, um, almost a, a direct one-to-one correspondence between a letter and the sound that it makes.
Ours is much, much more complex than that. So for that reason, uh, some kind of a random, um, uh, way of teaching, it doesn't work either because you can easily miss things.
Um, if, if people are only using things that might come up in the particular story they're reading or, or something, um, very, very easy to miss. Some more unusual or less common bits of, of the code.
So if there's a code, teach the code.
We do need to teach kids explicitly and systematically. Some little kids have very good visual memories, and they, they learn many, many words by sight. Many, many words by sight.
And everyone thinks they're reading because they're reading the kind of material that has lots of visual supports, lots of common language patterns, and everyone thinks they're reading. But if they're not learning the letter sound combinations, they'll get to a point where there's not many pictures anymore. There's so much content. The print gets smaller, there's much more print on a page, and suddenly that little kid who could read in kindy in year one suddenly isn't reading anymore because their short term memory is just, … And they just can't, they just, they have never actually learnt that all of the different combinations and there are gaps all over the place, and they come increasingly upon them, and they're actually limited to only being able to read a word if someone tells them what it is, because they don't have any independent decoding strategies.
We have lots of kids like that who slip through the system appearing to learn to read, but actually not learning to read.
There's a lot of things that kids have to learn. They have to learn the individual letter sounds, the, all of those combinations, those two consonants that go together to form one sound like the digraphs. The vowel digraphs are the most difficult part of the English language because they just, there are so many of them, they're so complex, so many different ways they can be pronounced common letter groups like T I O N, S I O N, A T I O N, B L E, O U G H
These are really worth teaching kids so that they, they have a fighting chance when they come across these combinations in multi syllabic words.
Morphemes, the prefixes, the suffixes, the common Greek and Latin roots. And of course, sight words are an important part of number three of, of the letter sound, part of the big six because many of the, of the words that kids want to learn or want to write quite early in the piece, like ‘was’, and ‘the’, and saw Are side words, aren't they?
The code helps us read and it helps us write, but it's certainly not all there is about teaching reading. And uh, a very, uh, common expression is, it is necessary but not sufficient.
I don't know anyone who would say that's all you have to do. Although people who have some kind of resistance to teaching phonics, every time you mention that F word, people say, but it's not all about phonics. No, it's not all about phonics. No one's ever said that if they have any understanding of the process at all. But it is a critical part of it.
How phonics instruction supports the development of reading skills
This series of videos explains the role of phonics in developing reading skills and provides classroom examples.
The Big Six
Where does phonics fit in the syllabus?
Explicit phonics lesson – whole class
Explicit phonics lesson – small group
Video: The Big Six
Oral language and early literacy experiences provide the underlying foundation for all literacy.
Phonological awareness depends on the young child tuning into the sounds of the English language. Once children are aware of the separate sounds and can manipulate the phonemes,no further development in this area is required.
Letter sound knowledge allows the developing reader to relate letters to sounds.There are nearly 80 letters or letter combinations that commonly represent the 44 phonemes of Australian English and over 1000 if all combinations are included.
Vocabulary is part of oral language and contributes greatly to reading comprehension. Vocabulary can continue to develop throughout our lives. It is not a closed set.
Fluency requires accurate reading at a relatively rapid rate and expression to help the writer's message come alive.
It can also continue to develop as we learn more vocabulary and read more complex and sophisticated text.
Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal, but depends on the development of all the previous elements
Video: Explicit phonics lesson – whole class
Teacher: Alright now, boys and girls who can tell me what sound this is right here. What sound do these two letters make? Marie?
Class: Ah,
Teacher: Can everybody say Ah?
Class: ah!
Teacher: And when we say, Ah, our action is we are opening our mouth and we are saying, Ah, everybody have a turn. Ready.
Class: Ah,
Teacher: Now the doctor is going to look inside when we say
Class: Ah
Teacher: Beautiful. I'd like you to turn to the person that is right beside you or the people that are near you and think of one or two words that you heard that has the Ah in it. Get your bubble gum ready. Ah m. How many lines would I write on my board right now? Scarlett Dawn.
Child: Two
Teacher: Two. So nobody pick up your texta. Let me just do my two. Ok, now I'd like you to help me. What's this sound going to be at the end? Addison, What was that one? Sorry sweetheart.
Child: Mm.
Teacher: Good girl. Everybody say Mm.
Class: Mm
Teacher: Now, what's this action for? Mm.
Teacher: What's our action? Show me. Mum makes many meals, so let's put our two lines on your board. Off you go. Fantastic. And I'd like you to fill in your mm. Your last sound. Mm. OK, Now who can, who thinks they might know what might be the first sound on the first line. Bead?
Child: Ah!
Teacher: Ah. And how do we do an Ah? What two letters make Ah. Henry.
Child: A and R
Teacher: Fantastic. Good boy. Let's fill in your AR on your first line. Wonderful. Now, what word have we just made?
Arm. beautiful. Let's rub that out.
Video: Where does phonics fit in the syllabus?
How does explicit phonics instruction support reading? Well, actually it's straight out of the syllabus. If you have a look at the syllabus under reading and viewing one, all of the phonics stuff that we do, it comes straight out of that.
All that phonemic awareness, that phonemic knowledge comes straight out of that syllabus and we teach the kids when we're doing phonics that when you read there is more than one job that the kids do when they read.
So they've got to get the words off the page. They've got to read nice and fluently. They've got to understand what the words mean and they've also got to understand the whole text, and so we say to them when we do it that the phonics part of it, it’s what we need to know to do that first part of reading to get those words off the page and into their brains. So we make that quite clear. So that's how it helps with the teaching of reading.
It's a basic building block. If we don’t have that basic building block, then they’re not going to learn to read. And if you look at the research, I think it was the Rose Report in England, and National Reading Review, I think they called it in America… All of those reports -and they were done years ago - say that strong systematic phonics program is a key indicator of reading success in later years. So all of that stuff is placed on NESA or based on research.
Explicit phonics lesson small group
Teacher: Star, snake , snake, Star, Snake, Snake.
Student: They're bad.
Teacher: Oh are they? Sun. And a strawberry. What do you notice about all of those?
Students: They live in the bush. They live in the bush. They live in the bush. They live in the bush. They live in the snow. And they live in the cupboard. They live in the sun.
Teacher: That is all true but I want to listen to the first sound that they all make. Ready?
Sun. Snake. Snake. Strawberry. What's that first sound we're making each time? 's'
Look at my lips. Look at my lips.
In unison: 'S'.
Teacher: Beautiful. 'S'. See our tongue stays behind doesn't it, it doesn't come out it just 's'. These all start with the 's' sound. Let's say them, ready? Let's go.
In unison: Snake. Snake. Sun. Swing. Strawberry. Snowman. Star. Scissors.
Teacher: Is that how, is that how we show a 's'?
Students: Yeah.
Teacher: is it?
Students: No!
Teacher: Do we show it like that?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: Yeah that's how we show our 'S' that's our S isn't it?
Teacher: On you piece of little desk, make a little 's'. Start at the top. Make your 's'. Start at the top. 's'. Beautiful. Can you make me a 's' on here? 's'.
Where's yours gone?
Student: Sorry.
Teacher: Make your 's'. Start at the top. Beautiful. Can you draw a bigger one?
Let's go again ready? Starting at the top. And round 's'. One more time. 's'.
Beautiful. Do another one by yourself. 's' I love yours. Beautiful. One more with me. 's'
Good job.
Systematic and explicit phonics instruction
Anne Castles podcast on systematic and explicit instruction of phonics.
Classroom resources
Resources developed to support teachers implement evidence-based practices in the classroom.
- Phonics sample sequence of phonemes (staff only) provides guidance on when to introduce phonemes and their corresponding graphemes.
Lessons to introduce the phonemes
A series of evidence-based phonics MS PowerPoint lessons (staff only) for teachers to introduce the phonemes.
- s a t p learning sequence
- i n m d learning sequence
- g o c k ck learning sequence
- e u r learning sequence
- h b f ff learning sequence
- l ll ss z zz learning sequence
- sh ch th th learning sequence
- ng y y learning sequence
- j v ve learning sequence
- w wh x q/qu learning sequence
- i_e a_e learning sequence
- o_e e_e u_e learning sequence
- oi oy learning sequence
- ow ou ow oa learning sequence
- ay ai learning sequence
- e ee ea learning sequence
- ar a learning sequence
- or ore aw au learning sequence
Independent practice sheets for students, (staff only).
- s a t p practice sheet
- i n m d practice sheet
- g o c k ck practice sheet
- e u r practice sheet
- h b f ff practice sheet
- l ll ss z zz practice sheet
- sh ch th th practice sheet
- ng y y practice sheet
- j v ve practice sheet
- w wh x q/qu practice sheet
- i_e a_e practice sheet
- o_e e_e u_e practice sheet
- oi oy practice sheet
- ow ou ow oa practice sheet
- ay ai l practice sheet
- e ee ea practice sheet
- ar a practice sheet
- or ore aw au practice sheet
Other resources available on the Universal Resources Hub include decodable texts and handwriting sheets to practice the formation of graphemes.