Three different methods
Method 1: Sounds, letters and syllables
The phonics method is based on the relationship between individual letters and sounds. Children learn to match letters and sounds, such as ‘c–a–t, cat’ (English) or ‘u–b–a–b–a, ubaba’ (‘father’ in isiZulu). This method is sometimes called ‘the bottom-up-approach’ because it starts with small units and builds towards a bigger picture of reading. It involves children becoming aware of the sounds that letters or pairs of letters make (phonics) and appreciating how these fit together to make sounds within words (phonemic awareness).
This method is important because it enables young children to ‘sound out’ written words that they don’t recognise – even if they don’t understand the meaning of the word. As a teacher you need to know which sounds are represented by the letters in the language you are teaching. These combinations are not the same in all languages. The phonics method requires a child to learn what sounds are represented by individual letters (such as ‘a’ and ‘b’) and combinations of letters (such as ‘th’ or ‘ngq’) in order to read words. Teachers usually begin by teaching single sounds and simple words.
This approach can be useful – and fun – when it is embedded in rhyming. Hearing and predicting rhyming words and syllables is a strong predictor of reading ability.
For instance, if a child sees that certain words sound similar and have similar spellings, she or he does not have to sound each one out:
sad, mad, bad, glad dad, had
end, lend, send, spend, friend
bona, lona, zona, wona (isiZulu)
Groups of words like this are called ‘word families’. Once the children have discovered a word family, you can write it on chart paper and put it on the wall. As time goes on, you can add to the word families on your wall.
Many African languages have long words that are made up from syllables, such as ‘Siyahamba’ – some can be almost like sentences. Children can learn to clap out the syllables of any language to help them distinguish the individual sounds and hear how the word is put together. Words of many syllables often occur in African languages. Children can learn to recognise and read syllables, and then put them together to make words.
Word families and words with repeated sounds and syllables are often found in songs, chants, rhymes and riddles familiar to children. The rhythms and up-and-down tones in songs and chants can help children to remember words, and to read them more easily when they are written down.
Now read Case Study 4.1 and answer the questions that follow in Activity 4.1.
Case Study 4.1: Mrs Mogale’s English class
Mrs Mogale is teaching Grade 1 in a school in the urban township of Soweto. English has been chosen as the medium instruction because the class is made up of children from many different home language groups. Most of the children have some familiarity with English from advertising boards, packaging and television. However, it is still an additional language to most of them.
Mrs Mogale teaches them a rhyme. She read the poem aloud once and then asked two children to come to the front and act the parts. Once the children were familiar with the rhythm of the rhyme, she writes it on the board:
A fat cat sat on the mat.
The fat cat saw a rat.
The fat cat jumped for the rat.
The rat ran away.
She uses the letters, sounds and syllables approach to help them read the first few words.
Pointing to the ‘c’, she asks what sound it makes. Working with one child who raises their hand, she asks them to sound out the rest of the word: ‘C–a–t, cat’. Then she moves on to the next word, asking one child to sound it out and say it: ‘F–a–t, fat’. She then asks if anyone can tell her what the next word says. A child volunteers: ‘Sat’. She then points to ‘mat’ and ‘rat’, and different children read the words. She asks the class what is the same about these words, writing them in a column on the board, one under the other. Children respond that they all end with ‘–at’.
She points to the word ‘saw’ and helps them to sound it out (‘s–aw’), and asks someone to mime its meaning. She points to the word ‘jumped’ and claps its sounds (‘j–u–m–p–ed’), and asks someone to mime its meaning.
Mrs Mogale then reads the rhyme with the whole class, in chorus. They do this a few times. Now she asks two children to dramatise the rhyme while a volunteer recites it. One plays the part of the cat, the other the rat. In this way the able readers get the chance to read it on their own. She allows several pairs of children to do this.
Mrs Mogale has placed letter cards in packets. Some of the letters are single letters (‘b’, ‘c’, ‘f’, ‘h’, ‘m’, ‘p’, ‘r’, ‘s’), and one card has ‘at’ on it. She asks the children to work in pairs. They take it in turns to draw out a letter and put it in front of ‘at’. The person drawing out the letter reads the word and then puts the letter back. The other partner has a turn. When they have been playing this game for 5 minutes, she lets one pair show the class how they do it.
After the lesson, she makes a wall chart for the word family of ‘at’.
This case study is also available to download. [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]
Activity 4.1: Thinking about using the letters and sounds approach
Having read Case Study 4.1, talk to a colleague or a friend about the following questions. Write your ideas in your study notebook.
- Why did Mrs Mogale use the letters, sounds and syllables approach to help her class to read the rhyme?
- How did she use the similarities between some of the word-sounds to help the children sound out the word more quickly?
- Are there similar word families in your language?
- Could you use this idea in your class?
- Did the children in Mrs Mogale’s class learn with bodies as well as minds? How do you think this helped them?
- How did Mrs Mogale make her classroom more print-rich during this lesson?
Plan a lesson like Mrs Mogale’s and try it out in your class, or with a group of neighbours’ children, colleagues or friends.
Phonemic awareness
In Case Study 4.1 Mrs Mogale helped the children in her class to decode the words in the rhyme by sounding out the letters – ‘c–a–t’, ‘f–a–t’, and so on. She also helped them to understand the meaning behind the rhyme by asking them to dramatise it. The activity that she gave them helped the children to hear the rhyming sound ‘at’ in all the words in that family.
In all of these activities she is helping the children to understand that words are made up of basic speech sounds, and to play with these sounds. This is called ‘phonemic awareness’. When children can hear and understand these sounds they know when spoken words rhyme, and they know when words begin or end with the same sound. For example, they may learn ‘away’, ‘play’, ‘stay’ and ‘stray’ – and be able to recognise ‘–ay’. Once they are familiar with initial strings such as ‘st’, ‘str’ or ‘pl’, they can begin to put them together and decode new words.
The following video, which was created by World Vision International (2017b), looks at phonemic awareness:
Phonemic awareness is very important for learning to read, but it is not enough. Children also have to recognise the letters of the alphabet (alphabetic knowledge), and the sounds that those letters represent (phonics). Mrs Mogale gave the children opportunities to recognise the letters and sounds by giving them letters to make new words ending with ‘–at’. By doing this, the children understood the relationship between spoken sounds and the letters of written language. This helps children to read and write words.
So phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge and phonetic knowledge (knowledge of individual sounds) are all necessary for children to become literate – but they are not sufficient. The main goal is reading with understanding. Other methods such as ‘look and say’ and ‘learning experience’ are ways of helping children to make meaning of words.
Something to think about: Think of any chanting rhymes in your language that could help develop awareness of rhymes and letter strings. How could you use these in your class?
Introduction
