Reading and Fast For Word

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Phonics approaches focus on helping a person understand that words

can be broken down into smaller units or sounds and it is these

sounds that need to be attached to letters and then combined again to

pronounce a word. The best approach to helping a person understand

this (called phonological awareness) can be done by simply playing a

few simple word games. The first is to recognize the sound (NOT the

letter name) at the beginning of a word, and then to think of other

words that begin with that same sound. The problem with teaching the

letter names rather than the sounds in words is that the letter NAME

may not actually occur in a word that includes that letter. For

example, the letter name for B does occur in the word before, but not

in the word balloon, even though both begin with the same letter.

However, both begin with the letter sound " bah " as do all other words

that include this letter. So it is much better to teach a person the

letter sounds first rather than the letter name and then to play word

games that help them find a particular sound in spoken words. After

working on initial letter sounds, see if the person can say whether

that sounds is inside or at the end of spoken words. Do not introduce

the actual written letter until this skill is well mastered. Once the

letter sounds can be recognized within words, it is usually easy to

learn which letter(s) goes with each sound. Start with consonants and

do vowels after consonants are mastered.

Another game is to say what a word would sound like without the first

sound. For example, ask " how would you say the word STOP without the

first SOUND (s) ? Play this game orally, do not use letters or

writing. Answer: The word STOP without the first sound (s) is the

word TOP. You can also move on to final sounds once the person can

master the initial sound deletion task. For example : " How do you say

the word PLATE without the last sound (t)? " Answer: PLAY. If someone

has trouble doing these games you can start with compound words to

give them the idea. Example: " How would you say the word COWBOY

without the COW ? Answer: BOY.

Another good word game is rhyming. Begin by pronouncing a word like

HAT and ask the person to say a word that rhymes with HAT, such as

CAT, MAT, SAT etc. Think of words that have lots of rhymes. Play this

game orally at first. Then you can show the person how rhymes work by

making up a card that just has the rhyme part on it, like AT and then

thinking up new first SOUNDS that when attached to AT will make up a

word. Then using a series of cards with single letters on them, find

the letter that goes with that first sound and put it in front of the

AT showing how sounds/letters can be combined to make new words.

All of these games are designed to get the idea across that words can

be broken up into sounds and that it is these sounds that must be

attached to letters in order to learn how to read.

Whole language does not teach these phonological awareness skills.

Although many people will just intuit them without explicit

instruction, many do not and will then struggle to learn to read and

will alway just rely on memorized letter patterns and the words they

represent, but will not be able to figure out new words.

To learn more about how the brain learns language and reading skills,

see the website www.brainconnection.com. Also check out the Fast

ForWord training programs that train phonological and other language

skills necessary for learning to read and become a good reader. To

find out more about Fast ForWord see the website

www.scientificlearning.com

> Carolyn,

>

> I was wondering if you could explain your understanding of phonics

based

> reading vs whole language. I'm wondering because I belive

the " whole

> language " approached was used with our son (not good). He is in

his first

> year of college. Our youngest attends Montessori where they

approach

> reading from a phonics based direction (excellent so far). In

between, we

> have a daughter with significant special needs that I am considering

> homeschool beginning next year....

>

> Your input is greatly appreciated!

>

> Dana in Michigan

> rodgers@i...