Year 1 teachers have a very hard job teaching the sounds of the English alphabet (phonics) when the children are still processing their alphabet with the BM teacher (syllabic focus, but also phonics). Phonics can be a little bit confusing for young learners learning two similar (but different) systems at the same time, and the first steps can be daunting. I went to a Y1 phonics class at SK Kuala Tembeling this week, and the teacher was using 'synthetic phonics' from the very first class; this is the best thing we can do to help the young learners blend the separate phonics into English-sounding words.
Synthetic phonics is a way to make the consonant sounds without an accompanying vowel; so, instead of sounding the letter 'b' (phonic /b/) as buh...buh, we sound it as b' ... b' (try it: say 'b', but don't make an 'uh' sound after it). If we don't make the sounds of English consonants in a 'synthetic' way, but with an accompanying vowel, it sounds like this:
/b/ buh
/ɪ/ ih
/g/ guh
We don't get /bɪg/, we get buh-i-guh.
We also need to remember to leave off the ehh sound at the beginning of /s/, /f/, /l/, /m/ and /n/.
What vowel sounds should we leave off /b/, /g/, /k/, /v/, /z/, /p/, /d/ and /dʒ/?
Check out this video and listen to synthetic phonics
Phonics as a foundation for reading: I also spent time with the Y3 reading teacher at SKKT. We talked about strategies for advancing reading skills beyond sounding out words and toward reading for meaning. We bounced around a lot of interesting ideas, and I'm looking forward to visiting the next reading class.
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Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)
Congratulations to SK Pulau Mansok, too. The Year 1 teacher there has been using synthetic phonics with the students. We had fun in class today, practising phonic sounds, cutting out pictures and saying and writing the words.
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