Khaleef, Phonics Method & Dr. Seuss

read kak arin's entry on phonics method - how her daughter was taught the actual 'ABC' at home, and the sounds 'Aa' 'Beh', 'Ceh' at school, following the phonics method. well, i'm having the same problem - but the other way around! i started khaleef with the phonics method, and now only he's learning the actual ABC!

kak arin puts up some helpful link in the learning of the phonics method, and interactive bits for the kids. click on the link above for more.

Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters (e.g., that the sound /k/ can be represented by c, k, ck or ch spellings) and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations of unknown words.
~ Wikipedia

i was introduced to phonetics (the study of speech sounds) while doing my degree, and was involved more actively in phonics method while i was working at a kids' development center. i implemented the method with khaleef as early as when he was 2+, starting with mere 'sounds', and the pattern of combining the sounds to form a word, regardless whether he can recognize the alphabets.


this is my humble understanding of the phonics method, one that i exposed khaleef with:

1. first flash cards accompanied with pictures to make it easier for him to 'guess' the word - since he's still very young, i just played with sounds - (/keh/ + /et/ = cat), (/deh/ + /og/ = dog), (/ss/ + /neh/ + /ek/ = snake)
   
2. don't worry if he's not familiar yet with the whole A-Z sounds all at one go, because through practice and time, he will slowly pick up the rest of the sounds
3. remember that phonics method is all about the kid listening to the sounds a word makes, and how the sounds combine to make up words
   
4. then he 'graduated' to flash cards that comprise of the 'consonants' and single 'vowels' sounds (/b/ + /e/ = 'be') or (/s/ + /o/ = so)
5. next come the flash cards with more complex combo - (/b/ + /at/ = bat), (/h/ + /is/ = his), (/p/ + /ot/ = pot) - 'ot, at, ee' are the easiest ones to catch on first for khaleef!
6. when he has already mastered the sounds of 'at, ot, ee' and such, i simply changed the 'consonants' - 'p-at, m-at, b-at, s-at, r-at' to get him more familiarize
7. after that he moved on to more difficult combo - (/l/ + /ike/ = like) or (/th/ + /is/ = this)
   
8. at this time he's ready for sentence cards - and learn more about the different sounds that can come from the simple vowel sounds that he already knows like the 'oo' sounds can be 'ook, oop, ool and oot' - (/t/ + /ook/ = took) or (/w/ + /ool/ = wool)
   
9. after he has read a lot of sentence cards and got familiar with the pattern of joining words - like 'I go to..." or "I can see a..." he can move on to short, simple books!
   
10. at the same time, he tried to master words like 'a', 'the' and 'I' where phonics method cannot be applied, but occur frequently in sentences

at the time of writing, he's finishing his first ever ever book that he tries to read on his own - dr. seuss' 'the cat in the hat'. the super-cute 'book cover' above was by my sis syida. i highly recommend this book for the quirkiness of its storyline, it's catchy rhyming words and of course, because it contains a lot of phonics-applicable words.

hey, it's by dr seuss! of course it's awesome!

now that he has started reading an actual book, i can concentrate more on not only learning new sounds, but his pronunciation, and intonation, like in story-telling, instead of reading like a robot.

my understanding of the phonics method and the way i implemented it with khaleef may be off and on the spot here and there - but alhamdulillah, so far so good!

try it!