E-Course - Part 3
The First Letters

Phonics systems are built on the sounds the letters make. At its simplest, you learn the basic letter sounds, run them together, and voila, you have a word like c-a-t (c for cat, a for apple, t for tap).

Not surprisingly, a lot of the initial emphasis goes on learning the basic letter sounds, because once you master them you are well on your way towards learning to read.

Names and Sounds of Letters

Many children get confused, however, when they are first told about letter sounds. After all, many of them have watched TV shows like Sesame Street and been taught to recite the letter names (Ay, Bee, See, Dee, etc.); so it comes as a surprise to suddenly find that there are letter sounds as well. In fact, it can be downright confusing. So how can we teach children the difference between the two in a way that they will understand?

The Miaow Game

The easiest way to teach children the difference is to ask them if anyone has, say, a cat. If they do, you can ask what the name of the cat is. After getting an answer (e.g. Sarah, or Sun Drops or Puss Puss) you then ask what sound the cat makes. Most likely you will get a response like miaow, which shows you the difference. The animal’s name is Puss Puss (or whatever it is) and the sound it makes is miaow. If you repeat this exercise with other things (like dogs or pet birds) then the point is bound to become clear.

Making Learning Fun

Little children get restless easily, so it’s important to make learning fun. If they enjoy what they are doing then they are more likely to pay attention. One way to do this is to showcase the letter you are teaching with an illustrative story.

Imagine, for instance, you have decided to teach your son the letter p. After teaching him the sound it makes you could then read him a story like The Three Little Pigs. Here the letter p comes up several times, so you have the chance to emphasize it each time it does (e.g. The three little p-igs).

The great thing about teaching like this is that you not only get the chance to show how fun learning the letters can be, you also get to show how useful it is. Soon children will want to learn all of the letters so they can read more great stories. This is a powerful motivator.

Letter Writing

Along with teaching the letter sounds, you will soon want to teach your child to write letters. As we said in part 2 of this course, this can be quite difficult initially – especially for younger children who haven’t yet fine-tuned their hand-pen coordination (fine motor skills).

The best way to overcome this difficulty is by practicing pre-writing skills. All good phonics courses should have them, but if they don’t you can simply invent ways to get your child to practise the two basic letter strokes that all (basic) English printed letters have: straight lines and circles.

Letters that are built from straight lines include: l, i, t and even w; letters that are built from circles (or parts of circles) include: o, c and s; and letters that are built from a combination of straight lines and circles include: b, d and h.

One way to practice these letter strokes might be to get your child to join dots that you have drawn on a page to form circular and straight-lined shapes. Another might be to get them to draw pictures using only straight lines and circles (or parts of circles). The options are endless, so if your phonics course doesn’t give your child any exercises to do then you will need to be creative.

Letter Learning Order

In the previous section we explained why students should start to write with the letters l, i and t. After that the next letters to learn will depend on the requirements of the reading program; but as we have already suggested, one thing should be kept in mind: It is not a good idea to teach lots of letters without showing children a practical reason for doing so.

In other words, learning should always be made meaningful - not abstract. If you teach children a letter, show them it in use. Then they will be encouraged to learn more. If they don’t know what they are learning the letters for, they are unlikely to be highly motivated.

Not surprisingly, good courses teach letters on a need-to-know basis. In other words, they introduce them in stages, only teaching students particular letters when they need to know them (e.g. just before a reader that introduces them).

Conclusion

There is a lot more to learning the letters than we have outlined here; but if you remember the following you will be well on your way to overcoming the main difficulties your child is likely to encounter:

• Teach children the difference between letter names and letter sounds
• Make learning fun and meaningful
• Help children develop better fine motor skills (coordination) through pre-writing exercises
• Pay attention to the order in which letters are taught.

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