What order to teach phonics?

[lzp11]

I've been teaching DD since probably 4 months, she is now approaching 3 and is slowly moving towards reading which is fantastic.  We finished the LR semesters 1 and 2 ages ago and since then I've been using Fleshcards on powerpoint plus I am making other powerpoint presentations as well.  I have opted for powerpoint rather than LR as I find it a little quicker to make the presentations (you don't have to save the pictures to file - you can just cut and paste from google images!).  I have found that tailoring the content to her interests is really important for keeping her enthusiasm so it has been more successful to make our own rather than using other people's files.

She does not seem to have intuited phonics from whole words teaching, so we are now working through a type of phonics programme but I also try to use this as a form of EK - so introducing some interesting and useful facts along the way.  I have also tried to bring in the idea of sentences and starting to pick out works, including sight words and she is now able to read a number of simple sentences that she has not seen before.  For example, I will do the word on one slide:  e.g. run and then on the next slide (no picture) we have a sentence with the word on it (look at the rabbit run across the field) with the word run in red.  Finally we have a slide with picture and sentence together (rabbit running etc)

We also do one presentation per week on an EK topic of interest.  Again we do the sentence with no picture first to help with reading and then show the picture.  This week for example we are talking about clouds.  They cannot be too long otherwise she loses interest but again this is working well for us, especially if the content follows something else that is going on in her life (e.g. she is doing a dance about clouds this week at her kindermusic / signing class which is why I made this presentation to go alongside). Last week the dance (and therefore our presentation) was about robins!

Anyway, I have moved through the short sound vowels AEIOU in the middle of words (e.g. run, sun) and at the beginning (umbrella, under).  So now I want to move onto blends.  I am wondering if there is a recommended order for teaching phonics.  I have done many of the fleschcards presentations (up to #19) but I think we need something very systematic to help. 

I was thinking of moving onto Ch and Sh next and then Th and Ng simply because this is the order used in a phonics DVD that we have watched.  But I'm not sure whether this is correct and where to go next.  Also, when to introduce sounds that are spelled differently (e.g. ea / e sound the same in bread and bed)?

All advice hugely appreciated, thanks!

[Maquenzie]

I like "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading" for it's systematic phonics.  Even if it's just used for the word lists/general order.

The phonemes you mentioned above are actually all digraphs, not blends. I have (mostly) done blends first, but I don't see why it'd be a problem to do digraphs first or even at the same time. Depends on the kid, probably.

The book I mentioned above does blends ("bl"), digraphs/trigraphs ("ch" "tch") and digraph blends ("thr), and then long vowel combinations (silent e, "ea").  I'm saying this by memory (and leaving lots out) so you may want to look at it in more depth.

There is likely other books (and maybe even websites) with a thorough systematic phonics progression.  I actually thought the fleschcards were pretty systematic (I didn't get very far...maybe you've reached the end? I remember him mentioning he didn't finish).

Another thing to think about is the books your child may read.  I've run into some problems finding good readers because of the order I've taught. For instance, I'm going through all the consonant rules (blends, digraphs, etc.) before vowel combinations and the readers I've found don't tend to follow this progression. So, if your using books, you could also let that guide you.

Sounds like you guys are already doing great! Have fun!


Some really useful tools for us are the preschool prep phonics DVDs.  I'm not currently using them to teach, really.  I just play them and then when we get to something new in our phonics progression, sometimes the kids will already know that blend/digraph/rule well so it becomes much easier to use right away.

[lzp11]

Thanks very much maquenzie - very helpful.

The phonemes you mentioned above are actually all digraphs, not blends. I have (mostly) done blends first, but I don't see why it'd be a problem to do digraphs first or even at the same time. Depends on the kid, probably.

Ha ha see how little I know!!!   

I think she does know a lot of this already but it is trying to systematize and repeat to build confidence in learning to decode.



If anyone knows of a good internet resource for this too, I'd be really grateful

[Tanikit]

I have used the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading to teach my daughter phonics and like you I started at about age three. She is now 4.5 and we are not yet through the whole book but have got through the long vowels now and I will probably only do the other vowel sounds and the R-controlled vowels further as she seems to have figured out a lot of the phonics for herself anyway.

I would make sure that she can blend first - if you say s-u-n she should be able to say sun in response - you should also be able to check this by saying words that she would not know phonetically yet - like saying t-r-ai-n and getting her to respond with train. You could also use reading bear to get to this point. After that I did do the digraphs you mentioned - sh, th, ch, ng (though I did ng as ong, ing, ang and ung) I was surpised that the book I used did the silent E rule before doing other long vowel combinations but it actually worked very well for my daughter.

So I think then is the order I did it: CK, QU, CH, SH, TH, NG, NK, brief overview of consonant blends - I did NOT teach these as just by sounding them out she automatically got them (eg STR, ST, TR and so on - there are many which is why I left them)
                                                    SILENT E
                                                    LONG A sound - AI, AY
                                                    LONG E - EE, EA, IE
                                                    LONG I - IE, Y
                                                    LONG O - OA, OE, OW
                                              This is where we are up to. I have also done OO and AR, OY and OI with my daughter since she was asking how to spell words with those combinations in them.

I have never done phonics by expecting my daughter to read loads of word-appropriate sentences. I find these sentences so contrived that ir ruins the love of reading - we do 4-8 words on word lists a day and then I point out words with that rule in the books I read to her or the books she is reading to me. The phonics has so far pushed her reading from a grade 1 sight word reading level to a grade 3 read anything level.

Good luck with the teaching.

[nee1]

1) To teach phonics, use  the Flesch word list. The complete Flesch word list can be found FREE on Don Potter's education pages: http://donpotter.net/pdf_files/fleschphonicsexercises.pdf

2).  And FAR BETTER than Flesch words are words in the book called 'Remedial Reading Drills' by Hegge and Kirk published in 1936. Honestly, this is the best list of phonetic words groupings I have ever seen. And this is the EXACT book that Flesch used to teach his Johnny. On page 24 of 'Why Johnny can't Read', Flesch said: ``Fortunately Dr. Harris hit upon a phonics book that was enough in most cases to bring those unhappy children up to par in their reading. (The Hegge-Kirk drills are what I finally used with Johnny. I’ll come back to that book later on.)''
Don Potter has retyped Remedial Reading Drills by Hegge-Kirk and gives it FREE on his website: http://www.donpotter.net/PDF/Remedial%20Reading%20Drills%20-%20Margin.pdf

3). By the way, the website of Don Potter (from which all the above resources are drawn) is EXTREMELY good for all things phonics. It has lots of free phonics resources, lots of materials on Flesch, etc. 
Link: http://donpotter.net/education_pages/
 

[lzp11]

Wow - Nee1 that list of drills by Hegge-Kirk is amazingly comprehensive!  Thank you!  I'm not sure we'll cover ALL those words but it really helps to have an order to follow rather than be making one up!

DD can blend some words, I think, but she HATES HATES testing (and considers being asked to blend s-u-n a test!) plus she does not like slowing down to sound out words - it seems to annoy her!  So it's not easy to do this very often.  However, she is able to read and tell the difference between sun, run, fun etc.  I'm not sure if I can assume this means she can blend or not, or whether they are just memorized.  This is another reason for wanting to go through a comprehensive phonics programme from the start even after doing many fleschcards.  I like these cards very much but I definitely prefer the list provided by Nee1 as it seems to make more sense to me.

I have found that DD does not like easy reader books that contain too many simple words - she finds them boring and I find them a bit contrived.  I have quite a few and she basically refuses to read them all!  She is much more interested to try to read more complex sentences that include a whole range of words on topics that are more interesting.  I don't know if this is a good or bad thing to be combining whole word and phonics in this way but it seems to be the only way to progress for us right now.  When reading books together we share the reading - I'll point out words that she can read and she finds this fun.  At the moment she has a fascination with the word "the" and enjoys picking this out on a page and counting how many there are!  I am hoping this will teach her to look for the gist of meaning in a sentence even if she does not understand every single word.

[Tanikit]

Rather stay away from the testing then and blend for her - I did this with my DD when we were out and about so that it was not formal - if I saw an easy word (we were still doing cvc) in big font then I'd say: Look - that says d-o-g dog. Sometimes I would do it in the books I was reading to her though never more than one word per page else it would interrupt the story too much. I did this for about two months before getting a response from her. These days if she is stuck on a harder word in a book she is reading I do the same thing and just sound it out for her and then she gives me the word itself and I will do the sounding out even if she has not yet covered the phonics rule as sometimes just doing this enough times is enough for her to pick up the phonics rule by herself.

My daughter also expresses extreme frustration sometimes when she does have to slow down to sound out a word. The other day she was sounding out r-i-ch and got to r-i and said: I can't do this! but what she really was saying was that she didn't want to. I just encouraged her and said she was doing well and she got it and we just carried on reading. If I had thought it was phonics she didn't know then I would just have sounded it out for her.

I actually believe that teaching phonics in books that are not phonetically based is better than using basic phonics readers - firstly the text flows more easily and the words make more sense and that is what reading is for - to get meaning. Phonics texts seldom mean very much since the author was so concentrated on getting the correct words in the sentence that he forgot to make the story fun and meaningful. Children learn far more from something they find fun and interesting than something they can do - they would rather learn hard phonics rules to be able to do something meaningful than not battle with something that is boring.

[Maquenzie]

One thing I do with my 2 year old that might help- (sounding out isn't her favorite either, once she learned enough sight words, she knows there's an easier way so she needs more convincing than my older child who learned primarily with phonics)

I put the words we're working on (phonetically) in extra brillkids flap cards.  I flip through a few of them quickly (doman style), and then I put 3-4 out for her and ask her to find one of them. Then we sound out only the last one. After she's good at that, I'll just ask her what each is. (and I do a lot of sounding out aloud similar to what tanikit mentioned).

If she gets stuck, I pull out some letters from a letter puzzle.  All the words are grouped so each group either ends the same way or starts the same way. So I pull out the letters that make the difference. I might, "sun, what does sun start with?" and she'll say "sss" and grab the s.  Then she loves to "match" the letters to the cards.  This really pulls attention to the differences in the words.  Using the letters like this has really made it more interesting for her, I think (which means she'll do it more and longer!).

[Flora]

Hi, I am trying to buy the Usborne phonics series which contain 12 interesting books with phonetic words as main focus of the book. But I can't seem to find them in bookstores or amazon uk(they don't ship to singapore). Has any one bought the books before ?

[sonya_post]

Nee,

I was going to recommend Don Potter, but you beat me to it. It is a wonderful resource. Thank you for posting.

[nee1]

Nee,

I was going to recommend Don Potter, but you beat me to it. It is a wonderful resource. Thank you for posting.

You're very welcome.

[Tanikit]

I also wanted a set of the Usborne Phonics readers but they were out of stock at the only place I could find who would send to us here in South Africa. I have seen them in a grade R (kindergarten) class here in South Africa and they seem like nice books although my daughter is now past them and got past them very rapidly after I had seen them which is half the problem in teaching phonics to children who can already read a lot - it happens MUCH faster than with children who are not reading when they begin.

[lzp11]

How rigidly do you all think it is important to stick to these word lists?  For example, they are all one syllable words which makes it easier to learn the rules of phonics but less interesting in terms of concepts and ideas and general EK.  For example, for ee, I'd quite like to use between as there are some good potential pictures for this.  Does this slow the process overall?  I guess this brings in a bit of whole word teaching rather than pure phonics.  I realise there may not be a definitive answer to this!

[nee1]

How rigidly do you all think it is important to stick to these word lists?  For example, they are all one syllable words which makes it easier to learn the rules of phonics but less interesting in terms of concepts and ideas and general EK.  For example, for ee, I'd quite like to use between as there are some good potential pictures for this.  Does this slow the process overall?  I guess this brings in a bit of whole word teaching rather than pure phonics.  I realise there may not be a definitive answer to this!

1). `Remedial Reading Drills' by Hegge-Kirk (the book whose link I gave above) are not only mono-syllabic words. Check the later drills in the book; they contain interesting words multi-syllabic words.

2). Same thing with the Flesch word list above. Check out the later exercises in the list. Lots of very interesting multi-syllabic words there too.

And I remember reading in DadDude's essay that by going through the Flesch words with his son, his son picked up the rules of phonics so much so that he (DadDude) did not need to complete the entire word list with him. That might be your experience too. (And note that the Flesch word list above is the complete version, DadDude's Fleschcards do not contain all the words in the list above).

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