Vvvvvvvvv ... van

Haptic Phonics: taking the TPD back to the classroom

Haptic is a word shared by educationalists and touch screen developers; it means the same as 'tactile' or 'kinesthetic'.  

The day after the March TPD workshop, I was at SK Pulau Mansok and teacher Noriza Bt Ibrahim told me that she enjoyed the phonics workshop that the SK Bukit Nikmat mentor, Melissa, and teacher Norakesumawati Bt Yusof led to show us the value of attaching phonic sounds to both meaning and gesture:

• Sound: the pure sound of the phoneme
• Gesture: a hand or body movement that accompanies the sound
• Meaning: the association between the sound and the meanning (e.g. Vvvv is the first sound of 'van' so pupils mimic a steering wheel action when they sound 'v')

Teacher Noriza wanted to teach her Year 3 class the phonic sounds and gestures, and she asked me if I could remember all the gestures. I couldn't remember all the gestures, but I did remember that Mel said that if you couldn't remember a particular gesture, just make up a new one. Teacher Noriza and I decided to let the class choose all their own gestures.

We spent time practising the sounds of the pure phonemes (no 'uh' sounds after consonants e.g. B'uh, D'uh, K'uh etc are NOT pure sounds of /b/, /d/ and /k/) before we introduced the idea of accompanying gestures. The pupils took to it like fish to water, and we had a lot of fun playing with the meanings between the sounds and movements.

Lll ... look!

Vvv ... van

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)