Lessons · Teaching · phonics, where letters map to sounds
Letters map to sounds, and the map is teachable
Phonics is the teaching of which letters and letter groups spell which sounds, in an order, so that a reader can turn print they have never seen before into a spoken word.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
The child who reads horse for house is guessing from the shape and the first letter. That works for about two hundred words and then stops working for ever. The alternative is not memorising more words; it is having the map.
How to think about it
One correspondence at a time. Teach it, practise it inside whole words the same day, then read a text made mostly of correspondences already taught. That last part is what decodable means, and it is why a scheme has an order.
Worked example
Taught today: ai spells the sound in rainOne correspondence, not two.
Words: rain, paid, trail, sailPractised inside whole words the same day, not on flashcards of the letters.
Text: 54 of 60 words use only what has been taughtA text a child can actually read on their own.
Not yet: ay at the end of a wordThe same sound, a different spelling, a different day.
Your turn
A text of 60 words has 51 that use only taught correspondences. Write the line that gives the percentage that is decodable.
51 / 60 × 100 = %
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Teaching the letter name instead of the sound. A child who says see, ay, tee has spelled the word rather than read it; the sounds are k, a, t.