Learning+to+read+and+Phonics

=__**Learning to Read and Phonics **__=

Children learn to read through recognizing letters and sound relationships. This method could be described as using **Phonics**. This method is used in both learning how to read and write with children. **Phonics ** is a method that helps children learn the sounds( or otherwise referred to as phonemes) and pronunciations of a letter in a word which they therefore can then make up a sentence. It is said that in, "...the English alphabetic code is an amazing set of 26 letters that represent approximately 44 sounds or phones"(Hill, 2006,p. 208) This refers to the difficulty that kids might undertake when approaching phonics and their phonemes and pronunciations. Even though there are 26 letters in the alphabet, it is saying there are 44 different ways in pronouncing these letters. This may become confusing for children so a method referred to as mapping is then taught. Mapping  refers to the way in which teachers provide a n instructional approach to helping children sound out letters when formed together which may appear to be a different phoneme. For example **rh ** in the word rhyme or **ri** in the word rice. Both these combinations represent the same phonemes, however both have different letters. In mapping they then build a list of words that represent those sounds for example r**hyme, rice, rivet, river** or we may want to use a different word in which the first letter sounds the same, for example **j** and **g** both with words such as **jack or gem**, both have the same phonemes but both start with different letters.

 **Phonics** provides many instructional methods to help children to learn to read such as:- __**Alphabetic principal**__- which is what i had explained earlier when the 26 letters actually represent 44 different sounds. __**Mapping sounds**__- as above when different letters are written together such as rh or ri to pronounce the same combination but are made up of different letters. __**Consonant sounds**__- are the sounds from a letter that are usually the same and are found "...at the beginning or end of a word, and may also occur within words"(Hill, 2006, pg.213). Consonant sounds use the tongue to sound out the letters, so in young children they may find this hard to use their tongue in that way.

Below is a video of phonemes. It is a form of mapping to represent the same sounds in different words. It also shows how other letter such as "oo"an "ew"make the same phoneme such as in moose, goose, school and in stew, chew, blew crew etc. It has a fun approach through music to demonstrate the technique.

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