Teaching Phonics To Your Own Child

[slippery when wet]

Hello all.

I have a quick question and hope that you can help.

I would like to start teaching phonics to my little one but am a little unsure what system to use.

A lot of my friends say that I should use AYE BEE CEE (ie the adult pronunciation) but as a child I was taught in school by using the baby alphabet a bu cu.

By the way we live in the uk and would like to use the system that is used there otherwise my toddler will get so confused if I teach one method and the nusery teaches another.

Obviously it would be ideal just to phone the nursery but they are all closed for the summer break before my little boy goes for the first time in September.

Thanks slippery

[mrtoad]

I use the latter, both with my children and also with the children that I teach at school. Works fine, and I think you will find most of the phonic charts for kids use the latter as well.

Edited August 10, 2007 by mrtoad

[November Rain]

The first is the alphabet. The second is the phonetic alphabet. If teaching the latter, be careful not to confuse as the vowels all have a long & a short sound - so don't say "aa" is the only "a" sound & then go back on it later by introducing the "ay" sound. Maybe say that a,e,i,o,u can have different sounds, but "these are the ones we'll learn now."

Edit - if you specifically want to teach phonics, it's the second one.

Edited August 10, 2007 by November Rain

[mrtoad]

Which is what I thought he was meaning, hence my slightly vague reply. But, NR you are spot on.

[lannarebirth]

Hello all.

I have a quick question and hope that you can help.

I would like to start teaching phonics to my little one but am a little unsure what system to use.

A lot of my friends say that I should use AYE BEE CEE (ie the adult pronunciation) but as a child I was taught in school by using the baby alphabet a bu cu.

By the way we live in the uk and would like to use the system that is used there otherwise my toddler will get so confused if I teach one method and the nusery teaches another.

Obviously it would be ideal just to phone the nursery but they are all closed for the summer break before my little boy goes for the first time in September.

Thanks slippery

Maybe I'm a little thick, but what would be the value of teaching a child the incorrect pronunciations (your latter version)?

[mrtoad]

Hello all.

I have a quick question and hope that you can help.

I would like to start teaching phonics to my little one but am a little unsure what system to use.

A lot of my friends say that I should use AYE BEE CEE (ie the adult pronunciation) but as a child I was taught in school by using the baby alphabet a bu cu.

By the way we live in the uk and would like to use the system that is used there otherwise my toddler will get so confused if I teach one method and the nusery teaches another.

Obviously it would be ideal just to phone the nursery but they are all closed for the summer break before my little boy goes for the first time in September.

Thanks slippery

Maybe I'm a little thick, but what would be the value of teaching a child the incorrect pronunciations (your latter version)?

It's the phonic method of teaching, which aids pronunciation.

[lannarebirth]

Hello all.

I have a quick question and hope that you can help.

I would like to start teaching phonics to my little one but am a little unsure what system to use.

A lot of my friends say that I should use AYE BEE CEE (ie the adult pronunciation) but as a child I was taught in school by using the baby alphabet a bu cu.

By the way we live in the uk and would like to use the system that is used there otherwise my toddler will get so confused if I teach one method and the nusery teaches another.

Obviously it would be ideal just to phone the nursery but they are all closed for the summer break before my little boy goes for the first time in September.

Thanks slippery

Maybe I'm a little thick, but what would be the value of teaching a child the incorrect pronunciations (your latter version)?

It's the phonic method of teaching, which aids pronunciation.

Yes, I gather that, and I was taught phonetically myself some 45 years ago. But the wrong sounds weren't used. The OP seemed to suggest you could use one set of sounds over another, one being wrong. I was just wondering why anone would use the wrong sounding ones.

[mrtoad]

Hello all.

I have a quick question and hope that you can help.

I would like to start teaching phonics to my little one but am a little unsure what system to use.

A lot of my friends say that I should use AYE BEE CEE (ie the adult pronunciation) but as a child I was taught in school by using the baby alphabet a bu cu.

By the way we live in the uk and would like to use the system that is used there otherwise my toddler will get so confused if I teach one method and the nusery teaches another.

Obviously it would be ideal just to phone the nursery but they are all closed for the summer break before my little boy goes for the first time in September.

Thanks slippery

Maybe I'm a little thick, but what would be the value of teaching a child the incorrect pronunciations (your latter version)?

It's the phonic method of teaching, which aids pronunciation.

Yes, I gather that, and I was taught phonetically myself some 45 years ago. But the wrong sounds weren't used. The OP seemed to suggest you could use one set of sounds over another, one being wrong. I was just wondering why anone would use the wrong sounding ones.

To be honest, who knows? I think it's just one of those developments in teaching methods. My undersdtanding is that there is a bit of a debate about which is the best method between academics. I was taught the old fashioned (same as you) way, but my children have been taught the latter way. I honestly couldn't say which is the best.

[WaiWai]

"AYE BEE CEE ..." ,or the alphabet proper, are the "names" of the letters we use to represent the sounds of English. Your child may already know some of these names & be able to connect them with the 26 letters. Learning these is not a huge challenge for most kids. It's not much different to learning the names of the numbers 1 to 26.

"A, ah, bu, cu, duh..." are the sounds used in English. There are around 42 (depending on your dialect). These are not so much an alphabet the child learns as informal representations of the 42 different sounds.

Phonics helps your child learn the connections between the written letters/words and the sounds. Parents have intuitively been teaching these to their kids for centuries, by reading stories to & with them, with fingers touching the words on the page, letting them hear and say and sound out the words.

There are abundant phonics resources online and in print/CD/DVD. Google "phonics children" or similar and you'll find thousands (not "phonetic alphabet" btw; that's something else). Go to your nearest educational or general bookstore, ask the sales person to recommend a few to you, and make your choice.

Don't force your child if s/he is not ready. Either way keep reading stories together, and making it fun.

Happy reading .

Edited August 10, 2007 by WaiWai

[DurianChips]

Perhaps this phonetic alphabet is a British thing? I've never heard of it here in the States, only A Bee Cee.

[WaiWai]

Perhaps this phonetic alphabet is a British thing? I've never heard of it here in the States, only A Bee Cee.

The international phonetic alphabet (IPA) is what you may see after a word in a dictionary, showing you how to say it.

e.g. cat /kat/ . The part inside the "/ /" is written in the phonetic alphabet. It's not possible to give many more examples with a regular keyboard. Take a look at the chart at http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm . With these symbols you can transcribe anything you hear around the world, whether you understand it or not. Linguists need these, but not kids.

Phonics is simply the sounding out of letters or words. Referring to a phonic "alphabet" is a little confusing. I think it's indeed more helpful to reserve the word alphabet for the symbols on the ABC chart & their names, and not use the word "alphabet" in a phonic context at all; just talk about sounds (though the two are not unrelated, obviously). Parents & teachers in the US use phonics, just as they do in every other English-speaking country. Perhaps in the US they didn't hold up alphabet charts and have the kids say " A, ah, bu ... " - I don't know.

[tuky]

Hello all.

I have a quick question and hope that you can help.

I would like to start teaching phonics to my little one but am a little unsure what system to use.

A lot of my friends say that I should use AYE BEE CEE (ie the adult pronunciation) but as a child I was taught in school by using the baby alphabet a bu cu.

By the way we live in the uk and would like to use the system that is used there otherwise my toddler will get so confused if I teach one method and the nusery teaches another.

Obviously it would be ideal just to phone the nursery but they are all closed for the summer break before my little boy goes for the first time in September.

Thanks slippery

Maybe I'm a little thick, but what would be the value of teaching a child the incorrect pronunciations (your latter version)?

A Korean mate of mine is trying to retrain his tongue to improve his english accent. He says he has found practicing the phonetic alphabet to be a great leap forward in his pronunciation.

[jingjingna]

Start off with ABC...once the child has mastered this then introduce the Phonetic alphabet. A good place to start would be by going to www.starfall.com . This website is free and is a great learning/teaching resource for young ones.

I swear by the phonic alphabet..it allows the child's brain to recognise and decode words by sound and will prove extremely beneficial when the child starts to read..there is logic behind it after all. Sure beats the hel_l out of the Thai learn by rote system! If you need anymore help please post here!

[WaiWai]

www.starfall.com looks like a pretty nice site, jingjingna.

Please let's stop referring to the phonetic alphabet, though. We are talking about phonics here.

(Wonder why I am picky ? I have seen the disastrous consequence of half-baked understanding of what phonics is ( "something good which helps kids learn how to read"; correct) when mixed with this confusion - i.e. children being taught the phonetic alphabet . Totally bewildering for the poor kids , esp. as these kids were non-native English speaking.)

Edited August 11, 2007 by WaiWai

[mellow1]

I downloaded the" Progressive Phonics" books off the Web, when they were still free.It worked great for my son.Not only did he learn how to read English,but it helped a lot with his pronunciation, of the language.Good luck,be patient,don't over do it, and make them hate learning.

[MyPenRye]

As a teacher in Canada, current practice is phonics and phonemic awareness.

The alphabet sounds make up the phonemes (or particular sounds in English), so they are useful: a > cake (of course, a can be short as in cat). For consonants, alphabet bee cee are not that useful because these are not the sound that are used in reading words (but since the initial sound is close enough to some of the the phonemes usedful for reading words (beh, peh,...).

So I agree with most that it is ok to start with alphabet sounds, but if you want to have your child say beh versus bee, linguistically speaking and pedagogically speaking it would be smart because it would be not as confusing for the child. By the way, try not to say beh (the vowel sound should actually be almost non-existent).

Edited August 12, 2007 by MyPenRye

[Neeranam]

Start off with ABC...once the child has mastered this then introduce the Phonetic alphabet. A good place to start would be by going to www.starfall.com . This website is free and is a great learning/teaching resource for young ones.

I swear by the phonic alphabet..it allows the child's brain to recognise and decode words by sound and will prove extremely beneficial when the child starts to read..there is logic behind it after all. Sure beats the hel_l out of the Thai learn by rote system! If you need anymore help please post here!

Good site - thanks.

I highly recommend the following "phonics for beginners"

http://www.discsdirect.co.nz/discs/product...9f96946bb70304e