# data[].attributes.body
Refers to the words we need to know to understand what we hear.

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Vocabulary refers to the words we must understand to communicate effectively. Educators often consider four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening vocabulary refers to the words we need to know to understand what we hear. Speaking vocabulary consists of the words w…

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word part that can form the basis of new words

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a morpheme added at the end of a word to form a derivative.

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a specific problem with word recognition and spelling in the presence of normal to good oral language comprehension.

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Children must listen carefully to the sounds of speech. Must learn to filter speech sounds from other unrelated environment sounds.

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An Introduction to Phonics and learning to read

Throughout this article, I aim to provide you with a clear understanding of teaching phonics effectively in the classroom and offer a variety of strategies and proven ideas to teach phonics.

WHAT IS PHONICS? A DEFINITION FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS.

Phonics can be defined as a body of knowledge and skills regarding how the alphabet works.

In the context of this article, phonics refers to the method of teaching a student to read by developing their phonemic awareness and an understanding of the links between these sounds and how we use the letters of the alphabet to represent them.

This understanding is essential not only to read well but to bridge the gap between reading and writing.

With a good foundation of phonics knowledge, students can quickly become confident readers and independent solid writers.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS IMPROVES READING FLUENCY

When students develop phonemic awareness, it dramatically enhances their reading fluency which is a reading "superpower", allowing students to read with speed, accuracy and expression. Reading fluency dramatically enhances students' ability to read with intonation and energy that translates into expressive writing skills.

A COMPLETE DIGITAL READING UNIT FOR STUDENTS

How To Teach Reading Using Phonics

The use of phonics, or synthetic phonics as this method is technically known, is an effective and efficient means of teaching young students how to read. For this reason, phonics is the primary methodology for teaching reading in the school systems of many English-speaking countries.

In English, there are around 44 sounds or phonemes. Given that there are only 26 letters used in the language and that many sounds have more than one possible spelling, it is helpful that students learn the relationships between the letters and sounds in a straightforward and explicit manner.

To achieve this, phonics centers on the relationship between sounds and how they can be spelled.

It focuses on the letter and sound correspondences to enable students to break written words down into their component sounds before later recombining them to read the whole word. This process is known as segmenting and blending.

SEGMENTING AND BLENDING

Rather than allowing students to struggle to recognize complete words, as in the whole word method, or to look for contextual clues to figure out what is being said in a text, phonics teaches students to look at the letters of a word and segment it into its component sounds, before blending these sounds back together to read the entire word.

For example, when faced with the word cat, a student might run their finger under the first letter and make the initial /k/ sound, then /a/, and, finally, /t/.

Once they have successfully segmented these individual sounds, they then blend them together to say the word /kat/.

With practice, the speed with which students can look at a word, segment the sounds, and then blend these sounds together to read the word rapidly increases. This makes learning to read through the phonics method the most efficient way for most children to learn not just to read but to write too.

DECODING AND ENCODING: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN READING AND WRITING

Initially, phonics reaps rich rewards for students in terms of the passive skill of reading. This is also known as decoding.

Later, the student's knowledge of phonics can help them develop the active skill of writing or encoding.

For this reason, teachers will often weave emergent writing skills, such as letter formation, into their phonics lessons to take advantage of the opportunity to bridge this gap between reading and writing skills.

WHAT ABOUT SIGHT WORDS?

As effective as synthetic phonics are in teaching students to read, they won't be enough on their own to unravel all the opaque mysteries of English orthography.

English is something of a mongrel language. Over the centuries, it has been influenced by the German, Latin, French, Greek, and Celtic languages, among others.

This fact has led to many inconsistencies in spelling surviving in the modern language. Sometimes phonics won't be enough to decode these words. That's why students need to learn to read some words by sight alone.

Sight words, or high-frequency words as they are also known, are those extremely common words used time and again in most texts. Many of them are phonetically irregular and follow no conventional spelling rules. For children's reading books, sight words can account for up to 75% of the words in the text.

Therefore, it's best to combine the study of phonics with the learning of these sight words for maximum effectiveness. This is something to consider when engaged in your long-term planning.

The most effective strategy for learning these sight words is for discussion another day; for the remainder of this article, we will focus exclusively on the teaching of phonics.

THE STAGES OF PHONICS TEACHING

Before beginning to teach phonics, it is helpful to have a broad overview of the various stages that comprise a comprehensive synthetic phonics program. The following outline can serve as a practical general guide.

1. THE PRE-PHONICS STAGE

Before beginning to learn phonics in earnest (e.g. sound/letter correspondences), certain prerequisite skills need to be developed, including:

LISTENING SKILLS:

Children must be able to listen carefully to the sounds of speech. They must learn to filter speech sounds from other unrelated environmental sounds. This is usually best achieved by playing various listening games. When children have developed good aural comprehension, the game Simon Says is a fun way to further develop listening skills.

SOUND REPRODUCTION SKILLS:

Once the children have learned to discriminate between various sounds, they should learn to reproduce these themselves. This is usually achieved by modelling the sounds carefully for the children and encouraging them to copy these with particular attention paid to the shape of the mouth when making each sound. The popular fun game Telephone is excellent for this.

SEQUENCING SKILLS:

It is essential for children learning to read to be able to sequence not only the events of a story but the individual sounds of the words they hear. They must be able to recognize which sound comes before or after another. They should also be familiar with sequencing language such as first, second, before, after, then etc.

We have a complete guide to sequencing for teachers and students here.

2. SOUNDS AND ACTIONS

With our younger kids, it can be challenging to give them an anchor to 'hold on to the sounds of language.

To help build such an anchor to these sounds, which will later help link sounds to written letters, actions are often connected to each sound to aid in memorizing them. This is especially useful in the early stages as it works well for the most basic of sounds.

For example, when making the /m/ sound, children could be taught to rub their tummies as if they have eaten something delicious while saying " mmmmm ".

Or, they could open their mouths wide as if they were eating an apple while saying the /a/ sound.

It is easy to devise customized actions to go along with the various sounds of English and then teach these to your class. Ensure you consistently use the same actions every time for a specific sound to avoid confusion.

Later, when students come to segment words into their individual sounds, they can use these actions to help recall them.

3. THE LETTER AND SOUNDS CORRESPONDENCES

Explicitly teaching the letter and sound correspondences lie at the heart of good phonics teaching.

It is essential to understand a little of the theory of synthetic phonics to be effective here. Here are a few important points to consider:

● Letter Names vs. Letter Sounds

It is crucial that children understand the difference between the names of the letters of the English alphabet and the sounds, as these are two very different things. For example, the letter c is called / see/ but the letter itself usually denotes either a /k/ or /s/ sound. It may seem obvious, but many teachers not trained in the teaching of phonics overlook this distinction and unwittingly make learning to read much more difficult for their students as a result.

● Letters Don't Make The Sounds

As the limited letters used in English are needed to represent many different sounds, it's important to point out to students that letters don't make the sounds; they are simply an option for showing the sound. Often there will be more than one way to show the same sound; for example, the sound /s/ can be encoded in several different ways, including as s, c, and ps. When you are asking your students to write something, you can make the sound and ask them what letter they could use to show this sound. This type of phrasing reinforces the correct relationship between the letters and sounds.

● Avoid The Lazy Vowels

It is also important to remember that when teaching the letters and sounds to avoid making the lazy vowel or schwa sound at the end of a sound. For example, when pronouncing the /k/ sound, make it crisp and short, rather than adding in an extra -uh sound at the end. This will make it much easier for the students to blend sounds together later.

HOW TO PLAN A PHONICS LESSON FOR YOUR CLASS

The detail and delivery of your phonics lessons will depend greatly on the specific situation of your students. However, some general points will be helpful to consider when planning a phonics lesson for your class.

● Keep Phonics Lessons Short and Sweet

To avoid getting bogged down and boring your kids, keep phonics lessons short. In and around 10 to 15 minutes is ideal and no more than 20 minutes. Remember, we want our kids to be lifelong readers, and that means they need to enjoy it!

● Be Consistent

There is a lot of ground to cover here, and consistency is key. If your students are learning to read, they'll need to practice and study their phonics every day - preferably at the same time each day too.

● Keep on Moving

While a lot of reinforcement will be required over the course of the year, research has shown that keeping a brisk pace through a phonics program achieves the best results. Don't get bogged down waiting for everyone to get everything before moving on. You will be revisiting the material.

● Keep Things Fun!

Learning to read should be a positive experience, particularly as learning to read means acquiring one of the most empowering skills a child will ever have. To keep things fun, be sure to incorporate lots of enjoyable activities and games into your phonics lessons.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES FOR ANY TEXT - GREAT FOR GUIDED READING

Phonics Games and Activities
I Spy
This perennial classic is a fun way to get some phonics practice in. You can adapt it to say, "I spy with my little eye something beginning with..." and say a sound rather than a letter. If you wish to work on letter recognition rather than sound, simply hold up the letter itself quietly.
Sorting Activities
Sorting activities are a great way for students to practice their phonics knowledge and can take on an almost infinite number of variations. For example, younger kids may enjoy sorting objects into two hula hoops on the floor, which are labelled with their initial consonant sounds, while older kids might work on consonant blends.
Bingo
Bingo is another very versatile game that can be used to practice sound and letter recognition. Simply decide what you want to work on and place those into suitably sized grids (9×9 works well). These could be initial consonants, vowel digraphs, or pictures of nouns. If you set up some blank grids on laminated sheets, you can save yourself a lot of prep time too. Simply write a broad selection of sounds you are working on onto the whiteboard. Students can select 9 of them to fill in their laminated grid. Now each student will have their own unique bingo card!
Partner Reading
Partner reading is a great way to practice listening skills, as well as reading. Organize students into pairs and provide them each with a copy of the same text. One partner reads the text while the other follows closely with their own copy. The listening partner helps the reader decode difficult words when they have trouble. After a time, partners switch roles. This usually works best when partners are of a similar ability. You can further differentiate here by choosing different texts to suit the abilities of each pair.
Shared Writing
Shared writing is an effective means of introducing independent writing activities. For beginning students, it may take the form of simply spelling a basic CVC word together. For example, to work on the spelling of the word cat, you could draw three cradles on the whiteboard and say each sound; in turn, challenge the students to come up and write the corresponding letter in the cradle until they have written the word - -.

As we can see, the teaching of phonics is a highly efficient and effective means of teaching our children to read and, ultimately, write. It works on training students to be able to hear the various sounds of English, identify these sounds, and link these sounds to the symbols we call letters.

While there are other methods of learning to read employed with emergent readers in the classroom, in two decades of teaching, I've never seen another methodology come anywhere close to phonics for overall effectiveness.

And, best of all, phonics can be a lot of fun to learn and teach too!

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO PHONICS

The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh. A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane's latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing, can be found here. Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.

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Teaching Phonics: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers

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A guide to teaching phonics to students including phonemic awareness, reading fluency, phonics sounds for reading and, phonics games and activities. Teach kids to read through a logical research based method.

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By modeling the sounds carefully for the children and encouraging the students to copy these with particular attention paid to the shape of the mouth when making each sound.

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An Introduction to Phonics and learning to read

Throughout this article, I aim to provide you with a clear understanding of teaching phonics effectively in the classroom and offer a variety of strategies and proven ideas to teach phonics.

WHAT IS PHONICS? A DEFINITION FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS.

Phonics can be defined as a body of knowledge and skills regarding how the alphabet works.

In the context of this article, phonics refers to the method of teaching a student to read by developing their phonemic awareness and an understanding of the links between these sounds and how we use the letters of the alphabet to represent them.

This understanding is essential not only to read well but to bridge the gap between reading and writing.

With a good foundation of phonics knowledge, students can quickly become confident readers and independent solid writers.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS IMPROVES READING FLUENCY

When students develop phonemic awareness, it dramatically enhances their reading fluency which is a reading "superpower", allowing students to read with speed, accuracy and expression. Reading fluency dramatically enhances students' ability to read with intonation and energy that translates into expressive writing skills.

A COMPLETE DIGITAL READING UNIT FOR STUDENTS

How To Teach Reading Using Phonics

The use of phonics, or synthetic phonics as this method is technically known, is an effective and efficient means of teaching young students how to read. For this reason, phonics is the primary methodology for teaching reading in the school systems of many English-speaking countries.

In English, there are around 44 sounds or phonemes. Given that there are only 26 letters used in the language and that many sounds have more than one possible spelling, it is helpful that students learn the relationships between the letters and sounds in a straightforward and explicit manner.

To achieve this, phonics centers on the relationship between sounds and how they can be spelled.

It focuses on the letter and sound correspondences to enable students to break written words down into their component sounds before later recombining them to read the whole word. This process is known as segmenting and blending.

SEGMENTING AND BLENDING

Rather than allowing students to struggle to recognize complete words, as in the whole word method, or to look for contextual clues to figure out what is being said in a text, phonics teaches students to look at the letters of a word and segment it into its component sounds, before blending these sounds back together to read the entire word.

For example, when faced with the word cat, a student might run their finger under the first letter and make the initial /k/ sound, then /a/, and, finally, /t/.

Once they have successfully segmented these individual sounds, they then blend them together to say the word /kat/.

With practice, the speed with which students can look at a word, segment the sounds, and then blend these sounds together to read the word rapidly increases. This makes learning to read through the phonics method the most efficient way for most children to learn not just to read but to write too.

DECODING AND ENCODING: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN READING AND WRITING

Initially, phonics reaps rich rewards for students in terms of the passive skill of reading. This is also known as decoding.

Later, the student's knowledge of phonics can help them develop the active skill of writing or encoding.

For this reason, teachers will often weave emergent writing skills, such as letter formation, into their phonics lessons to take advantage of the opportunity to bridge this gap between reading and writing skills.

WHAT ABOUT SIGHT WORDS?

As effective as synthetic phonics are in teaching students to read, they won't be enough on their own to unravel all the opaque mysteries of English orthography.

English is something of a mongrel language. Over the centuries, it has been influenced by the German, Latin, French, Greek, and Celtic languages, among others.

This fact has led to many inconsistencies in spelling surviving in the modern language. Sometimes phonics won't be enough to decode these words. That's why students need to learn to read some words by sight alone.

Sight words, or high-frequency words as they are also known, are those extremely common words used time and again in most texts. Many of them are phonetically irregular and follow no conventional spelling rules. For children's reading books, sight words can account for up to 75% of the words in the text.

Therefore, it's best to combine the study of phonics with the learning of these sight words for maximum effectiveness. This is something to consider when engaged in your long-term planning.

The most effective strategy for learning these sight words is for discussion another day; for the remainder of this article, we will focus exclusively on the teaching of phonics.

THE STAGES OF PHONICS TEACHING

Before beginning to teach phonics, it is helpful to have a broad overview of the various stages that comprise a comprehensive synthetic phonics program. The following outline can serve as a practical general guide.

1. THE PRE-PHONICS STAGE

Before beginning to learn phonics in earnest (e.g. sound/letter correspondences), certain prerequisite skills need to be developed, including:

LISTENING SKILLS:

Children must be able to listen carefully to the sounds of speech. They must learn to filter speech sounds from other unrelated environmental sounds. This is usually best achieved by playing various listening games. When children have developed good aural comprehension, the game Simon Says is a fun way to further develop listening skills.

SOUND REPRODUCTION SKILLS:

Once the children have learned to discriminate between various sounds, they should learn to reproduce these themselves. This is usually achieved by modelling the sounds carefully for the children and encouraging them to copy these with particular attention paid to the shape of the mouth when making each sound. The popular fun game Telephone is excellent for this.

SEQUENCING SKILLS:

It is essential for children learning to read to be able to sequence not only the events of a story but the individual sounds of the words they hear. They must be able to recognize which sound comes before or after another. They should also be familiar with sequencing language such as first, second, before, after, then etc.

We have a complete guide to sequencing for teachers and students here.

2. SOUNDS AND ACTIONS

With our younger kids, it can be challenging to give them an anchor to 'hold on to the sounds of language.

To help build such an anchor to these sounds, which will later help link sounds to written letters, actions are often connected to each sound to aid in memorizing them. This is especially useful in the early stages as it works well for the most basic of sounds.

For example, when making the /m/ sound, children could be taught to rub their tummies as if they have eaten something delicious while saying " mmmmm ".

Or, they could open their mouths wide as if they were eating an apple while saying the /a/ sound.

It is easy to devise customized actions to go along with the various sounds of English and then teach these to your class. Ensure you consistently use the same actions every time for a specific sound to avoid confusion.

Later, when students come to segment words into their individual sounds, they can use these actions to help recall them.

3. THE LETTER AND SOUNDS CORRESPONDENCES

Explicitly teaching the letter and sound correspondences lie at the heart of good phonics teaching.

It is essential to understand a little of the theory of synthetic phonics to be effective here. Here are a few important points to consider:

● Letter Names vs. Letter Sounds

It is crucial that children understand the difference between the names of the letters of the English alphabet and the sounds, as these are two very different things. For example, the letter c is called / see/ but the letter itself usually denotes either a /k/ or /s/ sound. It may seem obvious, but many teachers not trained in the teaching of phonics overlook this distinction and unwittingly make learning to read much more difficult for their students as a result.

● Letters Don't Make The Sounds

As the limited letters used in English are needed to represent many different sounds, it's important to point out to students that letters don't make the sounds; they are simply an option for showing the sound. Often there will be more than one way to show the same sound; for example, the sound /s/ can be encoded in several different ways, including as s, c, and ps. When you are asking your students to write something, you can make the sound and ask them what letter they could use to show this sound. This type of phrasing reinforces the correct relationship between the letters and sounds.

● Avoid The Lazy Vowels

It is also important to remember that when teaching the letters and sounds to avoid making the lazy vowel or schwa sound at the end of a sound. For example, when pronouncing the /k/ sound, make it crisp and short, rather than adding in an extra -uh sound at the end. This will make it much easier for the students to blend sounds together later.

HOW TO PLAN A PHONICS LESSON FOR YOUR CLASS

The detail and delivery of your phonics lessons will depend greatly on the specific situation of your students. However, some general points will be helpful to consider when planning a phonics lesson for your class.

● Keep Phonics Lessons Short and Sweet

To avoid getting bogged down and boring your kids, keep phonics lessons short. In and around 10 to 15 minutes is ideal and no more than 20 minutes. Remember, we want our kids to be lifelong readers, and that means they need to enjoy it!

● Be Consistent

There is a lot of ground to cover here, and consistency is key. If your students are learning to read, they'll need to practice and study their phonics every day - preferably at the same time each day too.

● Keep on Moving

While a lot of reinforcement will be required over the course of the year, research has shown that keeping a brisk pace through a phonics program achieves the best results. Don't get bogged down waiting for everyone to get everything before moving on. You will be revisiting the material.

● Keep Things Fun!

Learning to read should be a positive experience, particularly as learning to read means acquiring one of the most empowering skills a child will ever have. To keep things fun, be sure to incorporate lots of enjoyable activities and games into your phonics lessons.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES FOR ANY TEXT - GREAT FOR GUIDED READING

Phonics Games and Activities
I Spy
This perennial classic is a fun way to get some phonics practice in. You can adapt it to say, "I spy with my little eye something beginning with..." and say a sound rather than a letter. If you wish to work on letter recognition rather than sound, simply hold up the letter itself quietly.
Sorting Activities
Sorting activities are a great way for students to practice their phonics knowledge and can take on an almost infinite number of variations. For example, younger kids may enjoy sorting objects into two hula hoops on the floor, which are labelled with their initial consonant sounds, while older kids might work on consonant blends.
Bingo
Bingo is another very versatile game that can be used to practice sound and letter recognition. Simply decide what you want to work on and place those into suitably sized grids (9×9 works well). These could be initial consonants, vowel digraphs, or pictures of nouns. If you set up some blank grids on laminated sheets, you can save yourself a lot of prep time too. Simply write a broad selection of sounds you are working on onto the whiteboard. Students can select 9 of them to fill in their laminated grid. Now each student will have their own unique bingo card!
Partner Reading
Partner reading is a great way to practice listening skills, as well as reading. Organize students into pairs and provide them each with a copy of the same text. One partner reads the text while the other follows closely with their own copy. The listening partner helps the reader decode difficult words when they have trouble. After a time, partners switch roles. This usually works best when partners are of a similar ability. You can further differentiate here by choosing different texts to suit the abilities of each pair.
Shared Writing
Shared writing is an effective means of introducing independent writing activities. For beginning students, it may take the form of simply spelling a basic CVC word together. For example, to work on the spelling of the word cat, you could draw three cradles on the whiteboard and say each sound; in turn, challenge the students to come up and write the corresponding letter in the cradle until they have written the word - -.

As we can see, the teaching of phonics is a highly efficient and effective means of teaching our children to read and, ultimately, write. It works on training students to be able to hear the various sounds of English, identify these sounds, and link these sounds to the symbols we call letters.

While there are other methods of learning to read employed with emergent readers in the classroom, in two decades of teaching, I've never seen another methodology come anywhere close to phonics for overall effectiveness.

And, best of all, phonics can be a lot of fun to learn and teach too!

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO PHONICS

The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh. A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane's latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing, can be found here. Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.

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Teaching Phonics: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A guide to teaching phonics to students including phonemic awareness, reading fluency, phonics sounds for reading and, phonics games and activities. Teach kids to read through a logical research based method.

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when oral language comprehension problems occur in children whose word recognition is relatively strong.

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If your very young child has an unusually advanced reading ability, your child may be gifted or may have a disorder called hyperlexia. "Hyper" means above or better than, while "lexia" refers to reading.

Hyperlexia is defined as exceptional reading ability at an early age without age-appropriate language and speech skills. It is a learning disability accompanied by language deficits.﻿﻿

While precocious reading may seem like it can't be a bad thing, hyperlexia can be a sign of autism or an autism-like syndrome when it is accompanied by a delay in communication abilities.﻿﻿ Early and accurate identification of hyperlexia can benefit your child.

Characteristics of Hyperlexia

Hyperlexia is a syndrome characterized by an intense fascination with letters or numbers and an advanced reading ability. Children who have hyperlexia read at levels far beyond what is expected at their age. They often begin reading when they are very young, sometimes as early as age two, and without reading instruction.

Children who have hyperlexia have excellent visual and auditory memories, and they have a tendency to remember what they see and hear with little if any, effort. They will often exhibit echolalia, which is the repetition of phrases and sentences without understanding the meaning.

Yet this exceptional memory does not help with speaking or with understanding language. While hyperlexic children have advanced reading skills, they generally have a limited vocabulary and communication difficulties.﻿﻿

Learning to Speak

Children who exhibit hyperlexia don't learn to speak the way most children do. Most children develop language skills by learning how to make sounds while trying to understanding their meanings. Children then typically advance to using words, and then sentences.

Communication

Children who have hyperlexia rarely initiate or take part in interactive conversations. To express an idea, a child with hyperlexia must be able to dissect what they have memorized to create original expressions, which is something they usually have a very hard time with.

Hyperlexia and Autism

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by behavioral problems and difficulty communicating. Sometimes, children with autism may exhibit above-average abilities in one or two specific aspects of learning.

Hyperlexia may be present with autism, and it can be one of the first signs of autism that parents notice. Autism is a clinical diagnosis, meaning that there is no single diagnostic test that confirms or excludes the condition. Common characteristics of autism include:﻿﻿

Self-stimulatory behavior

Ritualistic behavior

Concrete and literal thinking

Difficulty with abstract concepts

Usually normal development until 18-24 months of age, followed by regression

Need to keep routines

Difficulty transitioning from one activity to another

Sensitivity to sounds, smells, and touch

Unusual fears

Selective listening (may appear to be deaf)

How to Spot Hyperlexia in Your Child

If your child is an early reader, you may wonder whether your child has hyperlexia. Not all early readers are not hyperlexic. Some, in fact, are simply gifted. It can be difficult for parents and teachers to recognize the difference between a gifted early reader, a child who is hyperlexic, and a child who is hyperlexic with autism.

They also exhibit problems with spoken language, often unable to put words together to express their ideas or understand the spoken language of others.﻿﻿ There are several challenges in distinguishing whether a child who is an early reader has a disability or not, and a few helpful strategies can help you recognize the difference.

While most children have a limited vocabulary, gifted children may be more interested in understanding the meanings of the words and phrases they use than children with hyperlexia.

Children who are gifted can be guided more easily to other challenges, such as reading a different book or trying to learn words in a different language. Children who have hyperlexia are more likely to resist different types of tasks.

All young children display immaturity and frustration. Children who are gifted may act out, have temper tantrums, and behave in a way that is self-centered. Children who are autistic may display less sensitivity to other's feelings in these situations than typical children.

If your child has some symptoms of hyperlexia, it may make sense to ask your child's pediatrician for a referral for an evaluation. If your child is simply an early reader, though, your best option is to encourage plenty of opportunities to enjoy it!

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Does Your Toddler Have Hyperlexia If He Is Reading at an Early Age?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If your very young child has an unusually advanced reading ability, your child may be gifted or may have a disorder called hyperlexia. "Hyper" means above or better than, while "lexia" refers to reading. Hyperlexia is defined as exceptional reading ability at an early age without age-appropriate language and speech skills.

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refers to metalinguistic facility with spoken-word analysis

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is now the referred term for awareness of linguistic units larger than individual phonemes, including words in phrases, syllables, onsets and rimes.

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Abstract

Phonological sensitivity is an important causal variable in reading acquisition; however, there is controversy concerning its nature. One view holds that sensitivity to various linguistic units reflects independent abilities, whereas another holds sensitivity to these units reflects one ability. We examined relations among sensitivity to words, syllables, rhymes, and phonemes in 149 older preschool children (4- and 5-year-olds) and 109 younger preschool children (2- and 3-year-olds) who completed eight measures of phonological sensitivity and measures of print knowledge. Confirmatory factor analyses of all combinations of word, syllable, rhyme, and phoneme factors found that a one-factor model best explained the data from both groups of children (CFIs >.98). Only variance common to all phonological sensitivity skills was related to print knowledge and rudimentary decoding. Findings support a developmental conceptualization of phonological sensitivity.

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Vazeux M, Doignon-Camus N, Bosse ML, Mahé G, Guo T, Zagar D. Vazeux M, et al. Sci Rep. 2020 Dec 17;10(1):22130. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79240-y. Sci Rep. 2020. PMID: 33335219 Free PMC article.

Rethinking Emergent Literacy in Children With Hearing Loss.

Ingvalson EM, Grieco-Calub TM, Perry LK, VanDam M. Ingvalson EM, et al. Front Psychol. 2020 Jan 31;11:39. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00039. eCollection 2020. Front Psychol. 2020. PMID: 32082217 Free PMC article. Review.

Rhyme Production Strategies Distinguish Stuttering Recovery and Persistence.

Gerwin K, Brosseau-Lapré F, Brown B, Christ S, Weber C. Gerwin K, et al. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2019 Sep 20;62(9):3302-3319. doi: 10.1044/2019_JSLHR-S-18-0294. Epub 2019 Sep 15. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2019. PMID: 31525133 Free PMC article.

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national center for biotechnology information

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Structure of preschool phonological sensitivity: overlapping sensitivity to rhyme, words, syllables, and phonemes - PubMed

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Phonological sensitivity is an important causal variable in reading acquisition; however, there is controversy concerning its nature. One view holds that sensitivity to various linguistic units reflects independent abilities, whereas another holds sensitivity to these units reflects one ability. We ...

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an additional element placed a the beginning or end of a root, stem, or word, or in the body of a word to modify is meaning.

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an addition at the beginning of a word.

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it is a word or a part of a word that has meaning. it cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments without changing its meaning or leaving a meaningless remainder.

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A "morpheme" is a short segment of language that meets three basic criteria:

1. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning.

2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments without changing its meaning or leaving a meaningless remainder.

3. It has relatively the same stable meaning in different verbal environments.

Free and Bound Morphemes
There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound morphemes. "Free morphemes" can stand alone with a specific meaning, for example, eat, date, weak. "Bound morphemes" cannot stand alone with meaning. Morphemes are comprised of two separate classes called (a) bases (or roots) and (b) affixes.

A "base," or "root" is a morpheme in a word that gives the word its principle meaning. An example of a "free base" morpheme is woman in the word womanly. An example of a "bound base" morpheme is -sent in the word dissent.
Affixes
An "affix" is a bound morpheme that occurs before or after a base. An affix that comes before a base is called a "prefix." Some examples of prefixes are ante-, pre-, un-, and dis-, as in the following words:

An affix that comes after a base is called a "suffix." Some examples of suffixes are -ly, -er, -ism, and -ness, as in the following words:
Derivational Affixes
An affix can be either derivational or inflectional. "Derivational affixes" serve to alter the meaning of a word by building on a base. In the examples of words with prefixes and suffixes above, the addition of the prefix un- to healthy alters the meaning of healthy. The resulting word means "not healthy." The addition of the suffix -er to garden changes the meaning of garden, which is a place where plants, flowers, etc., grow, to a word that refers to 'a person who tends a garden.' It should be noted that all prefixes in English are derivational. However, suffixes may be either derivational or inflectional.
Inflectional Affixes
There are a large number of derivational affixes in English. In contrast, there are only eight "inflectional affixes" in English, and these are all suffixes. English has the following inflectional suffixes, which serve a variety of grammatical functions when added to specific types of words. These grammatical functions are shown to the right of each suffix.

-s noun plural
-'s noun possessive
-s verb present tense third person singular
-ing verb present participle/gerund
-ed verb simple past tense
-en verb past perfect participle
-er adjective comparative
-est adjective superlative

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Definition A "morpheme" is a short segment of language that meets three basic criteria: 1. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning. 2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments without changing its meaning or leaving a meaningless remainder. 3.

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is demonstrated by any oral language task that requires attention to, thinking about, or intentionally manipulating the individual phonemes in spoken words and syllables.

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest units of sounds (phonemes) in words. Many students with learning differences like dyslexia struggle with phonemic awareness. Because phonemic awareness is a foundational literacy skill, students who have trouble with this skill often have difficulty with reading.

Elkonin sound boxes can help students develop phonemic awareness by focusing on segmenting and blending the sounds in words. Segmenting is breaking a word apart into its individual sounds. Blending is putting the individual sounds together to say the word. Read on to learn how to use Elkonin sound boxes to teach these important skills.

Scroll down for tips on adapting this strategy for distance learning.

K (Common Core ELA Literacy RF.K.2: Understand spoken words, syllables, and sounds)

1 (Common Core ELA Literacy RF.1.2: Understand spoken words, syllables, and sounds)

Gather materials. Give each student an Elkonin sound boxes printable and five counters, coins, tiles, or other small objects. For students who struggle with fine motor skills, consider using larger objects that are easier to handle.

Words with two sounds and two letters: it, no

Words with three sounds and three letters or with three sounds and four letters ending in a 'silent e': hop, cat, game

Words with three sounds and one or more digraphs (two letters that make one sound): fish, tooth, chime

Words with four phonemes and blends (two or more letters that blend together but that have separate sounds): crab, skip, trade

Words with five phonemes and blends: street, crust, blend

2. Model. Point to the set of boxes that has two squares. Explain that students will move one counter into one square for each sound they hear. Model how you'll do that by lining up two counters above the squares. Say the word it. Pull down one tile into the first square as you say /ĭ/ and the second tile as you say /t/. Then run your finger along the arrow underneath the box to blend the sounds back together: it.

3. Practice and give feedback. Invite students to practice another word with you. Depending on your students' needs, you might use the sound box with three squares and the word hit. Support students as they pull down one tile for /h/, one for /ĭ/, and another for /t/. Then blend the sounds back together to make hit.

Repeat the activity with several words that have two, three, four, or five sounds (as appropriate for your students). Provide feedback as students segment and blend the sounds.

For English language learners (ELLs): Hold up a picture of the word you are asking students to segment. Say the word and have students repeat it. (If the word is a cognate, say the word both in English and in the student's home language.) After students say the word in English, segment the sounds and then blend them together. By doing so, you'll help students build vocabulary by connecting the word with its meaning.

All students - and particularly students who learn and think differently - benefit from explicit instruction in literacy. The visual element of the sound boxes helps students to segment each sound separately. Similarly, moving the tiles and dragging their finger along the word helps to engage students in multisensory learning .

Elkonin sounds boxes are especially useful for ELLs. Learning English can be difficult for some students because there are sounds in English that may not exist in their home language. For instance, English has many more vowel sounds than Spanish. Elkonin sound boxes give students repeated practice with hearing unfamiliar sounds.

Share this resource with families to help them understand the importance of phonemic awareness and other phonological skills.

Partner with your students' families. Find out what resources they have available and what they might need to support learning at home.

Guide an individual student or a small group of students through the steps (including how to draw the sound boxes) in a synchronous online lesson. Use UDL as you're planning the lesson.

Make sure your modeling is easy for students to see. Position your camera to show how you move the counters into the sound boxes. Or create slides that show the sound boxes and use animation to fade in the counters.

Give ideas for manipulatives that students might be able to find at home, like crayons, small game pieces, cotton balls, or coins.

About the Author

About the Author

Kim Greene, MA is a managing editor at Understood. A former elementary teacher and a certified reading specialist, she has a passion for developing resources for educators.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Margie B. Gillis, EdD is the founder and president of Literacy How, which provides professional development for teachers on research-based reading practices in the classroom.

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Elkonin sound boxes: An evidence-based literacy strategy

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Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest units of sounds (phonemes) in words. Many students with learning differences like dyslexia struggle with phonemic awareness. Because phonemic awareness is a foundational literacy skill, students who have trouble with this skill often have difficulty with reading.

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is two words that differ only in one speech sound; all of the other sounds in the two words are identical.

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are phonetic variations that are still perceived as part of the same category of sound (phoneme)

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it is driven by a set of unconscious phonological rules for the production of sounds in words.

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Allophonic variation in English consonants

express context-dependent variation in the narrow phonetic transcription associated with a phonetic unit

Same word may have different pronunciation

in different styles (e.g., careful vs. casual ).

in different phonetic environments

We would like to uncover general principles about how gestures are organized in a particular language (e.g., English), from which these specific rules follow as particular instances.

Ladefoged's rules related to consonant sequences:

(*)

/s/at the end of a word is sounds like when the next word begins with [j]

These are all special cases of a general gestural principle of organization in English:

Within a phonological phrase, oral constriction gestures for successive consonants overlap substantially. see example

Click number in left column of above table for analysis in terms of gestural scores.

Ladefoged's rules related to voicing

(2)

Voiceless stops are aspirated when syllable initial.

(7)

Approximants are at least partially voiceless following initial voiceless stops.

(5)

Voiceless stops are unaspirated following /s/ at the beginning of a syllable.

These are all special cases of two gestural principles:

At most one laryngeal abduction gesture may occur in word-initial position in English

Peak laryngeal opening is coordinated with:
the midpoint of a fricative gesture (if any)
the release of a stop gesture

See gestural scores

Ladefoged's rules relating to consonant-vowels interactions

(18) Velar stops become more front as the following vowel in the same syllable becomes more front.

Gestural principle:
Consonant gestures overlap with following vowel gesture.
If consonant and vowel are specified for the same constrictor, then the effect of overlap must be blending of the targets of the two gestures.

Top of Page |Linguistics 120 Home page

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Allophonic variation in English consonants express context-dependent variation in the narrow phonetic transcription associated with a phonetic unit Same word may have different pronunciation in different styles (e.g., careful vs. casual ). in different phonetic environments We would like to uncover general principles about how gestures are organized in a particular language (e.g., English), from which these specific rules follow as particular instances.

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which is knowledge of specific spellings and patters in the spelling system, develops as the student internalizes awareness of he sounds, morphemes, and syntactic roles that written symbols represent and can use that knowledge efficiently.

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Purpose

Orthographic knowledge refers to the information that is stored in memory that tells us how to represent spoken language in written form. Unfortunately, terms used to talk about orthographic knowledge and the two individual components that contribute to it have varied widely in the literature. Thus, consensus on the term, its meaning, and the tasks used to assess orthographic knowledge is needed.

Method

In this tutorial, the problems and inconsistencies in terms and tasks used to define and measure orthographic knowledge are reviewed, and suggestions for using specific terms are offered. Additionally, orthographic knowledge development, considerations of its role in literacy development, and its independence from other factors that contribute to literacy development are discussed. Finally, ideas for overcoming current obstacles in discussions of orthographic knowledge and suggestions for future research endeavors are offered.

Conclusion

With consensus on what orthographic knowledge is and how it should be measured, practitioners should be better prepared for assessing orthographic knowledge and implementing instructional practices accordingly.

REFERENCES

American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (1983). Definition of language. 25, 44Asha, Rockville, MD: Author.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2001). Roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists with respect to reading and writing in children and adolescents [Technical report]. Available from www.asha.org/policy

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2007). Scope of practice in speech-language pathology. Available from www.asha.org/policy

Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Brimo, D. (in press). Spelling assessment and intervention: A multiple linguistic approach to improving literacy outcomes. InKamhi, A. G., & Catts, H. W. (Eds.), Language and reading disabilities (3rd ed.).

Apel, K., Thomas-Tate, S., Wilson-Fowler, E. B., & Brimo, D. (in press). Acquisition of initial mental graphemic representations by children at risk for literacy development.Applied Psycholinguistics.

Apel, K., Wilson-Fowler, E. B., Brimo, D., & Perrin, N. (2010). Linguistic contributions to reading and spelling in second and third grade students. Manuscript submitted for review.

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Purpose Orthographic knowledge refers to the information that is stored in memory that tells us how to represent spoken language in written form. Unfortunately, terms used to talk about orthographic knowledge and the two individual components that contribute to it have varied widely in the literature.

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is the process underlying this remarkable achievement.

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Orthographic mapping (OM) involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory. It explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print. This development is portrayed as a sequence of overlapping phases, each characterized by the predominant type of connection linking spellings of words to their pronunciations in memory. During development, the connections improve in quality and word-learning value, from visual nonalphabetic, to partial alphabetic, to full grapho-phonemic, to consolidated grapho-syllabic and grapho-morphemic. OM is enabled by phonemic awareness and grapheme-phoneme knowledge. Recent findings indicate that OM to support sight word reading is facilitated when beginners are taught about articulatory features of phonemes and when grapheme-phoneme relations are taught with letter-embedded picture mnemonics. Vocabulary learning is facilitated when spellings accompany pronunciations and meanings of new words to activate OM. Teaching students the strategy of pronouncing novel words aloud as they read text silently activates OM and helps them build their vocabularies. Because spelling-sound connections are retained in memory, they impact the processing of phonological constituents and phonological memory for words.

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Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning

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Orthographic mapping (OM) involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory. It explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print.

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is the study of the physical production and perception of speech sounds that occur in each language and in all languages.

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involves thinking about and reflecting on the structure, form, and use of language.

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Metalinguistic skills involve the awareness and control of linguistic components of language. Simply put, it implies the ability to think

and discuss language. These skills require an awareness of others as listeners and an ability to recognize significant details that indicate changes in speech. For example, you do not usually speak to a teacher in the same way you would speak to a friend. In addition, you do not typically speak in a restaurant the same way in which you speak in a museum. Noticing what kind of speech is appropriate in various environments with various speakers is also reflective of metalinguistic skills.

These metalinguistic skills start to develop as early as one year as your child learns to monitor their own utterances and begin to repair their breakdowns in communication when they are misheard. Before the age of two, children typically learn how to adjust their speaking to different listeners: louder vs. softer, simpler vs. complex, demanding vs. requesting and peer vs. adult. Before the age of four, children should know how to recognize signals indicating that their listener understood the message spoken (i.e., such as a nod for assent and a frown signifying confusion). Children also learn to correct their own speech as well as their conversation partners' speech. At this age, children spend a significant amount of time exploring new sounds, new words and new speech styles. As they reach their academic years, metalinguistic development continues to improve as children gain an understanding of the specific meaningful units that are associated with language (i.e., sounds, syllables, words, sentences). As a child's mastery of language components grows, they learn to play with humor by telling jokes, riddles and puns (e.g., "What's black and white and red (read) all over? A newspaper!"). This indicates a desire to control the use of language that was not present in the early language of children. This manipulation of language is significantly correlated to the development of pragmatic skills or the use of language.

Development of these metalinguistic skills are essential to a child's ability to be successful in creating enlightening conversations that will serve as foundations for further learning in their lives.

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What are Metalinguistic Skills and What Do They Look Like in My Child? - North Shore Pediatric Therapy

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Metalinguistic skills involve the awareness and control of linguistic components of language. Simply put, it implies the ability to think and discuss language. These skills require an awareness of others as listeners and an ability to recognize significant details that indicate changes in speech. For example, you do not usually speak to a teacher in [...]

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is that sounds within words are slightly changed by the sounds that come before and after them.

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What is coarticulation? Coarticulation is the way the brain organizes sequences of vowels and consonants, interweaving the individual movements necessary for each into one smooth whole. In fact, the process applies to all body movement, not just speech, and is part of how homo sapiens works.

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in which each sound can be represented by a single symbol.

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The International Phonetic Alphabet chart with sounds lets you listen to each of the sounds from the IPA. The interactive IPA chart can be found at the bottom of this page.

International Phonetic Alphabet, also called IPA, is an international alphabet used by linguists to accurately represent the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) in human speech. A phoneme is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a given language. For example, the English words "sit", "bit", and "kit" can be distinguished by the sounds, or phonemes, that are created by each of their first letters.

A phoneme chart is a table that displays the IPA symbol for each of the IPA phonemes of the international alphabet. A phoneme chart can be organized in different ways based on the characteristics of the different IPA phonemes and the relationships between them. For example, in the IPA vowel chart at the bottom of this page, the IPA phonemes that are generated in the same part of the mouth are listed in the same column, and those that are generated with the same amount of mouth opening or closing are listed in the same row. In addition, the IPA vowel chart and other interactive IPA charts below include audio recordings of the individual phonemes in order to help students, non-native speakers of the language, and others, to learn IPA pronunciation of particular sounds.

Who Uses the International Phonetic Alphabet?

An essential function of the IPA is to provide a standard for labeling these phonemes so that linguists can discuss any sound without ambiguity.

In 1886 a group of French and British language teachers teamed up to create a new organization for linguists. The teachers were headed by the French linguist Paul Passy. The International Phonetic Association was formed by formed in1897 (in French, l'Association phonétique internationale).

The latest version, IPA chart number 122, was published by the International Phonetic Association in 2005. Since then, IPA linguistics have played an important role in both the study and use of language worldwide.
IPA linguistics provide students with a greater understanding of language by accurately and uniquely representing the sounds of oral speech. The IPA is used by:

Lexicographers

Foreign Language Students

Teachers

Linguists

Speech-Language Pathologists

Singers

Actors

Constructed Language Creators

Translators

Many American linguists have found that using a combination of IPA and Americanist phonetic notation is an effective way to standardize transcriptions. An extended set of IPA symbols represent different qualities of speech, such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft palate.

How Many International Phonetic Alphabets Are There?

While this IPA is the most commonly used and well-known international phonetic alphabet, it is not the only one. Other alphabets include the Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Alphabet (CASA), the Swahili Phonetic Alphabet (SWA), and the Thai Phonetic Alphabet (TPA). Each international alphabet has its own set of symbols and phonemes to represent the sounds of oral language.

The IPA linguistics are based on the Latin alphabet in order to correspond to an international standard. This IPA is also the standard that the United Nations uses to represent sounds in all languages that use a writing system.

Are There Free IPA Translators?

Yes! We have automatic IPA translation tools available in English, Spanish, French and other languages. All of our IPA translators are available for free. Please visit our IPA translators section to see a complete list and use the translators for your own linguistic needs.

How to Use the IPA Chart

The interactive IPA chart helps you identify the sounds of language. To use the phoneme chart, first familiarize yourself with each IPA symbol and the corresponding IPA pronunciation of the sound. For example, in the IPA vowel chart, click on each symbol to hear the corresponding vowel sound, and begin practicing pronouncing the sounds yourself. Finally, start using the IPA in your own speech and writing.

Click on an IPA Symbol to Hear the Associated IPA Pronunciation of the Sound

Our interactive IPA chart is responsive, this means it adjusts to any screen size. If part of the chart is not visible, please click the red and green arrows to see the additional symbols.

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IPA Chart with Sounds - International Phonetic Alphabet Sounds

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The interactive International Phonetic Alphabet chart and online resource. Listen to each of the sounds from the International Phonetic Alphabet. IPA chart sounds and symbols.

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Birth to Age 6: children grow in their control over various aspects of language syntax and words. they gain some insights into the nature of words: some sound the same at their ends or parts, and parts can e put together to form whole words.

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is learning the arbitrary set of letters and associating these with the corresponding parts of spoken words. Children and adults interiorize cognitive knowledge about reading, such as what the letter are for.

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children are developing the ability to read familiar text with increasing fluency (accuracy, rate, and expression) with their sight word vocabulary. Children use their decoding language, and the redundancies of the stories read.

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Children have developed the ability to decode words and read text fluently. They start on the long course of reading to "learn the new" new knowledge, information, thoughts and experiences.

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It involves dealing with more than one point of view. Reading may essentially involve an ability to deal with layers of facts and concepts added on to those acquired earlier.

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Stage 5: Construction and Reconstruction

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Stage 5: Construction and Reconstruction

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the student had learned to read certain books and articles in the degree of detail and completeness that one needs for one's purpose, starting at the end, the middle, or the beginning. Readers know what not to read as well as what to read.

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Reading words easily without having to stop and decode them by sounding them out or breaking them into chucks.

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The student reads at an efficient rate, reading quickly. Rate needs to be combined with accuracy, expression and comprehension to produce fluent reading.

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The ability to read in a way that sounds like spoken language. Using appropriate emotion to read aloud, pauses for periods and commas and emphasizes important words.

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Reading with ease so that students focus on understanding what they read.

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A vital step in the reading process. Connecting individual sounds to letters.

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Learn the basics of reading comprehension. Here are 6 skills kids need for reading comprehension, and how to help kids build them.

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Instantly recognize words, including words students cant sound out. The rate at which students can read and understand text. Fluent readers read smoothly at a good pace.

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Understand what we are reading, need to understand most of the words in the text. Strong vocabulary is a key component of reading comprehension.

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Understanding how sentences are built. Knowing how ideas link up at the sentence level helps students get meaning from passages and entire text.

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It's important for students to have background or prior knowledge about for kids to have background or prior knowledge about the world when they read.

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Both abilities known as executive function. Working memory allows them to hold on to that information and use it to gain meaning and build knowledge from what they're reading.

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Does the job of breaking a written word into its sounds.

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Reading is a relatively new cultural development. While there were some people who could read dating back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC, it was not until after the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's that large numbers of the population in many countries learned to read. The human brain did not evolve to be able to read the way it did for spoken language. In order to read, the brain has to learn to re-purpose brain functions that were developed over thousands of years for other, more basic needs. Dehaene (2009) describes it this way:

"The brain circuitry inherited from our primate evolution is co-opted to the task of recognizing printed words - the brain's existing neural networks are "recycled" for reading. Because of something called brain plasticity, during brain development a range of brain circuits can adapt for new uses. When we learn a new skill such as reading, we recycle some of our old brain circuits."
What parts of the brain are involved in reading?
There is no specific place in the brain that we use to read. Reading involves multiple processes that tap into different regions of the brain. Advances in neuroscience since the 1980's have enabled scientists to unravel the principles underlying the brain's reading circuits. Brain imaging using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) enables researchers to create images that reveal information about brain anatomy and activity while reading. It reveals the parts of the brain that activate when we read.

People who become experienced readers use and integrate several regions of their brain, primarily in the left hemisphere including (Cunningham & Rose; Eden; Hudson et al., 2016):

The parietal-temporal region (towards the back) which does the job of breaking a written word into its sounds (i.e., word analysis, sounding out words).

The occipital-temporal region (at the back) where the brain stores the appearance and meaning of words (i.e., letter-word recognition, automaticity, and language comprehension). This is critical for automatic, fluent reading so that a reader can quickly identify words without having to sound each one out.

The frontal region (at the front) which allows a person to speak (i.e., processing speech sounds as we listen and speak).

It is important to remember that while different regions can be identified in terms of playing certain roles in the reading process, multiple parts of the brain during reading are in constant collaboration. Seidenberg (2018) notes that some scientists hold the view that "each major type of information during reading is supported by a network of brain structures rather than localized to a single area and that each brain area is responsive to and participates in the processing of multiple types of information." (p. 204)
The Brain Changes as We Learn to Read
Every child's brain has to change the way it functions as the child learns to read. For most students, instruction and practice during the primary grades is sufficient to "train" the regions in the brain to learn to read. Brain imaging research has revealed anatomical and functional changes in typically developing readers as they learn to read (Turkeltaub et al., 2003 as cited in Eden). Cunningham and Rose note that activation patterns in areas of the brain will be different depending on a student's reading ability.

"For example, beginning readers show more activity in the parietal-temporal (word analysis) region while more experienced readers become increasingly active in the occipital-temporal (word recognition) region. Rich language experiences early in life contribute to making the brain more receptive to the acquisition of reading skills (skills such as phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition)."
What does brain imaging reveal about struggling readers?
Cunningham and Rose point out that the brain scans of struggling readers show that the patterns of activity are notably different (more scattered than those of strong readers). The pathways for language and cognition are not as efficient and established, so the work of reading is harder for the child even though he or she is trying just as hard.

For children with dyslexia, their brains often do not develop in a way that makes them efficient readers. Brain imaging studies have found that the reading process works differently in the brains of dyslexics because there is a neurological cause of dyslexia. Dyslexic readers show under-activation in areas where they are weaker and over-activation in other areas in order to compensate. Instead of using the parts of the brain in the left hemisphere (which is designed to process language), dyslexics who struggle to read use different parts of the right hemisphere which is not efficient (Hudson, High, Otaiba, 2007; Eden, 2016).

Shaywitz et al. (2002) found that children who were good decoders had more activation in the areas important for reading in the left hemisphere and less in the right hemisphere than children with dyslexia. Furthermore, many people with dyslexia often show greater activation in the lower frontal areas of the brain, possibly because their frontal regions may compensate for problems in the regions in the back of the brain (Shaywitz, 2003). The visual above illustrates how the dyslexic brain is activated more in the frontal region, while the non-dyslexic brain is activated in several parts of the left hemisphere.
Can we rewire the brain through instruction?
The good news for people with dyslexia is that their brains will "rewire" themselves if reading instruction is provided that explicitly teaches phonological awareness and decoding skills. The brain has plasticity through our lifetime which means our brains are able to change in order to learn new things. Cunningham and Rose suggest that two variables contribute to strengthening neural pathways that allow students to become strong and successful readers:

Deliberate practice. Students need to hear and read many different kinds of texts as often as possible.

Intense instruction. In order to prepare the brain for the increasingly complex texts they will encounter in school, most students need intense instruction toward early mastery of core reading skills - like phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension.

Brain imaging studies have shown that when dyslexics are taught to read (and given sufficient practice to become automatic with decoding), their brains create new circuits that connect the language processing parts of the brain with the visual processing part - the same as brains of non-dyslexics. Neuroscientist Guinevere Eden (2016) notes that difficulty mapping language to print is at the heart of dyslexia, and if that skill is addressed through intervention, it gives students the key they need to read. She notes that imaging studies have shown a change in the brain after intervention that targets these skills has occurred and reading is improved. This is not only true for young students, but also for adult dyslexic non-readers. Brain plasticity allows the brain to learn and change even as we get older. The big difference is that the older the student, the more intense the instruction and practice needs to be. The sooner that intervention can be provided, the better.

References

Cunningham, A. & Rose, D. This is your brain on reading. Retrieved from https://www.hmhco.com/products/iread/pdfs/EdWeek_OpEd5_brain_on_reading.pdf

Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the brain. New York, Penguin Group.

Eden, G.F. Dyslexia and the brain. International Dyslexia Society. Retrieved from https://app.box.com/s/q2cjihwikwncohy3vmv747h04md6eevn

Eden, G.F. (2016). Dyslexia and the brain. YouTube video. Posted by Understood, Oct 14, 2016. Retrieve from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrF6m1mRsCQ

Hudson,
N., Scheff, J., Tarsha, M., & Cutting, L.E. (2016). Reading comprehension
and executive function: Neurobiological findings. Perspectives on Language
and Literacy, Spring 2016.

Hudson, R.F., High, L. Al Otaiba, S. (2007). Dyslexia and the brain: What does current research tell us? The Reading Teacher, 60(6), 506-515.

Seidenberg, M. (2018). Language at the speed of sight. New
York: Basic Books.

Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming
dyslexia. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Shaywitz, B.A., Shaywitz,
S.E., Pugh, K.R., Mencl, W.E., Fulbright, R.K., Skudlarksi, P., et al. (2002).
Disruption of posterior brain systems for reading in children with
developmental dyslexia. Biological
Psychiatry, 52, 101-110.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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How the Brain Learns to Read - Keys to Literacy

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Reading is a relatively new cultural development. While there were some people who could read dating back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC, it was not until after the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's that large numbers of the population in many countries learned to read.

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Where the brain stores the appearance and meaning of words. This is critical for automatic, fluent reading so that a reader can quickly identify words without having to sound each one out.

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Allows a person to speak.

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Associated with processing auditory information and with the encoding of memory.

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For most students, instruction and practice during the primary grades is sufficient to train the regions in the brain to learn to read.

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Their brains often do not develop in way that makes them efficient readers. Brain imaging studies have of dyslexia because there is a neurological cause of dyslexia. Dyslexia readers show under-activation in areas where they are weaker and over-activation.

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Involves breaking words down into individual sounds or syllables.

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Involves pulling together individual sounds or syllables within words.

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or high frequency words, are those extremely common words used time and again in most text. many of them are phonetically irregular and follow no conventional spelling rules.

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Students learn to sequence not only the event of a story, but the individual sounds of the words they hear. Must be able to recognize which sound comes before or after another.

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An Introduction to Phonics and learning to read

Throughout this article, I aim to provide you with a clear understanding of teaching phonics effectively in the classroom and offer a variety of strategies and proven ideas to teach phonics.

WHAT IS PHONICS? A DEFINITION FOR TEACHERS AND PARENTS.

Phonics can be defined as a body of knowledge and skills regarding how the alphabet works.

In the context of this article, phonics refers to the method of teaching a student to read by developing their phonemic awareness and an understanding of the links between these sounds and how we use the letters of the alphabet to represent them.

This understanding is essential not only to read well but to bridge the gap between reading and writing.

With a good foundation of phonics knowledge, students can quickly become confident readers and independent solid writers.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS IMPROVES READING FLUENCY

When students develop phonemic awareness, it dramatically enhances their reading fluency which is a reading "superpower", allowing students to read with speed, accuracy and expression. Reading fluency dramatically enhances students' ability to read with intonation and energy that translates into expressive writing skills.

A COMPLETE DIGITAL READING UNIT FOR STUDENTS

How To Teach Reading Using Phonics

The use of phonics, or synthetic phonics as this method is technically known, is an effective and efficient means of teaching young students how to read. For this reason, phonics is the primary methodology for teaching reading in the school systems of many English-speaking countries.

In English, there are around 44 sounds or phonemes. Given that there are only 26 letters used in the language and that many sounds have more than one possible spelling, it is helpful that students learn the relationships between the letters and sounds in a straightforward and explicit manner.

To achieve this, phonics centers on the relationship between sounds and how they can be spelled.

It focuses on the letter and sound correspondences to enable students to break written words down into their component sounds before later recombining them to read the whole word. This process is known as segmenting and blending.

SEGMENTING AND BLENDING

Rather than allowing students to struggle to recognize complete words, as in the whole word method, or to look for contextual clues to figure out what is being said in a text, phonics teaches students to look at the letters of a word and segment it into its component sounds, before blending these sounds back together to read the entire word.

For example, when faced with the word cat, a student might run their finger under the first letter and make the initial /k/ sound, then /a/, and, finally, /t/.

Once they have successfully segmented these individual sounds, they then blend them together to say the word /kat/.

With practice, the speed with which students can look at a word, segment the sounds, and then blend these sounds together to read the word rapidly increases. This makes learning to read through the phonics method the most efficient way for most children to learn not just to read but to write too.

DECODING AND ENCODING: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN READING AND WRITING

Initially, phonics reaps rich rewards for students in terms of the passive skill of reading. This is also known as decoding.

Later, the student's knowledge of phonics can help them develop the active skill of writing or encoding.

For this reason, teachers will often weave emergent writing skills, such as letter formation, into their phonics lessons to take advantage of the opportunity to bridge this gap between reading and writing skills.

WHAT ABOUT SIGHT WORDS?

As effective as synthetic phonics are in teaching students to read, they won't be enough on their own to unravel all the opaque mysteries of English orthography.

English is something of a mongrel language. Over the centuries, it has been influenced by the German, Latin, French, Greek, and Celtic languages, among others.

This fact has led to many inconsistencies in spelling surviving in the modern language. Sometimes phonics won't be enough to decode these words. That's why students need to learn to read some words by sight alone.

Sight words, or high-frequency words as they are also known, are those extremely common words used time and again in most texts. Many of them are phonetically irregular and follow no conventional spelling rules. For children's reading books, sight words can account for up to 75% of the words in the text.

Therefore, it's best to combine the study of phonics with the learning of these sight words for maximum effectiveness. This is something to consider when engaged in your long-term planning.

The most effective strategy for learning these sight words is for discussion another day; for the remainder of this article, we will focus exclusively on the teaching of phonics.

THE STAGES OF PHONICS TEACHING

Before beginning to teach phonics, it is helpful to have a broad overview of the various stages that comprise a comprehensive synthetic phonics program. The following outline can serve as a practical general guide.

1. THE PRE-PHONICS STAGE

Before beginning to learn phonics in earnest (e.g. sound/letter correspondences), certain prerequisite skills need to be developed, including:

LISTENING SKILLS:

Children must be able to listen carefully to the sounds of speech. They must learn to filter speech sounds from other unrelated environmental sounds. This is usually best achieved by playing various listening games. When children have developed good aural comprehension, the game Simon Says is a fun way to further develop listening skills.

SOUND REPRODUCTION SKILLS:

Once the children have learned to discriminate between various sounds, they should learn to reproduce these themselves. This is usually achieved by modelling the sounds carefully for the children and encouraging them to copy these with particular attention paid to the shape of the mouth when making each sound. The popular fun game Telephone is excellent for this.

SEQUENCING SKILLS:

It is essential for children learning to read to be able to sequence not only the events of a story but the individual sounds of the words they hear. They must be able to recognize which sound comes before or after another. They should also be familiar with sequencing language such as first, second, before, after, then etc.

We have a complete guide to sequencing for teachers and students here.

2. SOUNDS AND ACTIONS

With our younger kids, it can be challenging to give them an anchor to 'hold on to the sounds of language.

To help build such an anchor to these sounds, which will later help link sounds to written letters, actions are often connected to each sound to aid in memorizing them. This is especially useful in the early stages as it works well for the most basic of sounds.

For example, when making the /m/ sound, children could be taught to rub their tummies as if they have eaten something delicious while saying " mmmmm ".

Or, they could open their mouths wide as if they were eating an apple while saying the /a/ sound.

It is easy to devise customized actions to go along with the various sounds of English and then teach these to your class. Ensure you consistently use the same actions every time for a specific sound to avoid confusion.

Later, when students come to segment words into their individual sounds, they can use these actions to help recall them.

3. THE LETTER AND SOUNDS CORRESPONDENCES

Explicitly teaching the letter and sound correspondences lie at the heart of good phonics teaching.

It is essential to understand a little of the theory of synthetic phonics to be effective here. Here are a few important points to consider:

● Letter Names vs. Letter Sounds

It is crucial that children understand the difference between the names of the letters of the English alphabet and the sounds, as these are two very different things. For example, the letter c is called / see/ but the letter itself usually denotes either a /k/ or /s/ sound. It may seem obvious, but many teachers not trained in the teaching of phonics overlook this distinction and unwittingly make learning to read much more difficult for their students as a result.

● Letters Don't Make The Sounds

As the limited letters used in English are needed to represent many different sounds, it's important to point out to students that letters don't make the sounds; they are simply an option for showing the sound. Often there will be more than one way to show the same sound; for example, the sound /s/ can be encoded in several different ways, including as s, c, and ps. When you are asking your students to write something, you can make the sound and ask them what letter they could use to show this sound. This type of phrasing reinforces the correct relationship between the letters and sounds.

● Avoid The Lazy Vowels

It is also important to remember that when teaching the letters and sounds to avoid making the lazy vowel or schwa sound at the end of a sound. For example, when pronouncing the /k/ sound, make it crisp and short, rather than adding in an extra -uh sound at the end. This will make it much easier for the students to blend sounds together later.

HOW TO PLAN A PHONICS LESSON FOR YOUR CLASS

The detail and delivery of your phonics lessons will depend greatly on the specific situation of your students. However, some general points will be helpful to consider when planning a phonics lesson for your class.

● Keep Phonics Lessons Short and Sweet

To avoid getting bogged down and boring your kids, keep phonics lessons short. In and around 10 to 15 minutes is ideal and no more than 20 minutes. Remember, we want our kids to be lifelong readers, and that means they need to enjoy it!

● Be Consistent

There is a lot of ground to cover here, and consistency is key. If your students are learning to read, they'll need to practice and study their phonics every day - preferably at the same time each day too.

● Keep on Moving

While a lot of reinforcement will be required over the course of the year, research has shown that keeping a brisk pace through a phonics program achieves the best results. Don't get bogged down waiting for everyone to get everything before moving on. You will be revisiting the material.

● Keep Things Fun!

Learning to read should be a positive experience, particularly as learning to read means acquiring one of the most empowering skills a child will ever have. To keep things fun, be sure to incorporate lots of enjoyable activities and games into your phonics lessons.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES FOR ANY TEXT - GREAT FOR GUIDED READING

Phonics Games and Activities
I Spy
This perennial classic is a fun way to get some phonics practice in. You can adapt it to say, "I spy with my little eye something beginning with..." and say a sound rather than a letter. If you wish to work on letter recognition rather than sound, simply hold up the letter itself quietly.
Sorting Activities
Sorting activities are a great way for students to practice their phonics knowledge and can take on an almost infinite number of variations. For example, younger kids may enjoy sorting objects into two hula hoops on the floor, which are labelled with their initial consonant sounds, while older kids might work on consonant blends.
Bingo
Bingo is another very versatile game that can be used to practice sound and letter recognition. Simply decide what you want to work on and place those into suitably sized grids (9×9 works well). These could be initial consonants, vowel digraphs, or pictures of nouns. If you set up some blank grids on laminated sheets, you can save yourself a lot of prep time too. Simply write a broad selection of sounds you are working on onto the whiteboard. Students can select 9 of them to fill in their laminated grid. Now each student will have their own unique bingo card!
Partner Reading
Partner reading is a great way to practice listening skills, as well as reading. Organize students into pairs and provide them each with a copy of the same text. One partner reads the text while the other follows closely with their own copy. The listening partner helps the reader decode difficult words when they have trouble. After a time, partners switch roles. This usually works best when partners are of a similar ability. You can further differentiate here by choosing different texts to suit the abilities of each pair.
Shared Writing
Shared writing is an effective means of introducing independent writing activities. For beginning students, it may take the form of simply spelling a basic CVC word together. For example, to work on the spelling of the word cat, you could draw three cradles on the whiteboard and say each sound; in turn, challenge the students to come up and write the corresponding letter in the cradle until they have written the word - -.

As we can see, the teaching of phonics is a highly efficient and effective means of teaching our children to read and, ultimately, write. It works on training students to be able to hear the various sounds of English, identify these sounds, and link these sounds to the symbols we call letters.

While there are other methods of learning to read employed with emergent readers in the classroom, in two decades of teaching, I've never seen another methodology come anywhere close to phonics for overall effectiveness.

And, best of all, phonics can be a lot of fun to learn and teach too!

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO PHONICS

The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh. A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane's latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing, can be found here. Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.

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Teaching Phonics: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers

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A guide to teaching phonics to students including phonemic awareness, reading fluency, phonics sounds for reading and, phonics games and activities. Teach kids to read through a logical research based method.

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actions are often connected to each sound to aid in memorizing them.

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students can find books to read on their own. the more they read the more new words they see. Keep a list of key vocabulary and transition words. Practice telling a story using the words first, then, and finally.

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Vocabulary refers to the words we must understand to communicate effectively. Educators often consider four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening vocabulary refers to the words we need to know to understand what we hear. Speaking vocabulary consists of the words w…