Why teach phonics/ the sound-spelling link explicitly?
“Phonics consists of the skills of segmentation and blending, knowledge of the
alphabetic code and understanding of the principles which underpin how the code is
used in reading and spelling.”
Progression in Phonics
DFEE - 1999
Phonics is taught regularly and systematically in KS1. In this way, children are
armed with strategies to help them to learn to read and write in their mother tongue.
This resource has since been revised and replaced by Playing with Sounds, and
more recently, Letter and Sounds. The principles of phonics teaching, however,
remain the same.
Underpinning principles of Phonics Teaching
Regular and effective phonics teaching enables pupils:
• to be able to discriminate between the separate sounds in words.
• to learn the letters and letter combinations most commonly used to represent
these sounds.
• to read words by sounding out and blending the separate sounds.
• to spell word by segmenting the sounds and using their knowledge of lettersound correspondences to represent the sounds.
• to spell word by segmenting the sounds and using their knowledge of lettersound correspondences to represent the sounds.
• to read the letters that represent each sound in the language being learnt.
• to write each letter in response to each sound.
If children are left to invent or to guess the alphabetic code without direct and
systematic teaching, their progress is likely to be inhibited and the likelihood of failure
for a substantial number of children is increased.
A further major benefit of phonics teaching is that is releases mental capacity for
attention to higher order skills of comprehension and composition with consequences
for the early growth of competence.
Why teach phonics explicitly in modern languages?
1. Gifted learners will learn more independently if they can sound out correctly
any new words they come across
We do our learners a disservice if we fail to give them a solid grounding of the
sound/spelling system of their new language. Indeed, we are condemning them to
being quasi-dyslexic in the foreign language.
2. Struggling learners acquire a range of strategies to help them in their
learning
3. Visual learners are disadvantaged if they are not given the opportunity to
see the written word
The systematic teaching of phonics in primary languages provides opportunities to
strengthen pupils’ understanding of the sound/ spelling system in their own language.
It enables them to build on their existing knowledge and to transfer what they already
know to the acquisition of their new language. It is, therefore, important to use the
terminology that the pupils are familiar with.
Terminology
A grapheme is a letter or group of letters that represent one sound e.g. in English sh,
igh, c
A phoneme is the smallest single identifiable unit of sound
A digraph is two letters that make one sound e.g. oi, ch, in, on in French
‘To segment’ means to split a word up into its individual phonemes in order to spell
it.
“To blend” means to draw individual phonemes together to pronounce a word.
Some of the most difficult Phonemes and rules of Pronunciation in
French
oi, r, ch, in, un, on, en/an, eu, qu, é, è, th, u, ou, I, silent ‘h’, silent consonants at the
end of words
Some of the most difficult Phonemes and rules of Pronunciation in
Spanish
r, i, e, a, u, z, ci, ce, co, cu, ca, h, ñ, ll, go, gui, ga, ge, gi, j, qu, stress on the syllable
with an accent
Some of the most difficult Phonemes and rules of Pronunciation in
German
r, ei, ie, ä, ü, ö, sch, sp, st, ch, qu, -d, w, v, z, th
A Methodology for teaching Phonics explicitly
1. Focus on a particular sound that pupils struggle with.
2. Ask pupils which words they know with the sound in. Write these on board
3. Show ppt of objects with the sound and you hear pronunciation (words come on
after)
4. Listen to song/ rhyme/ tongue twister with the sound in – stand up, sit down or do
a tally when hear sound.
5. Watch and listen to a simple rhyme – timer – 3 minutes to practice in pairs. Some
pupils perform it.
6. Practice : phonics drag and drop activity
7. Practice: read a series of new words, sight unseen (build up – a mixture of
words with the new sound in and some with previous sounds) – or multiple
choice – decide if a new word has the new sound in or not.
Watching and mimicking a native speaker’s facial movements
 Show the relevant clip to your class
 Ask them to practice it and mimic the facial movements
 Use mirrors for further practice
Other useful Lesson ideas:
Listen and Read the Transcript
Give pupils the transcript of a sound file, play it and ask them to underline or highlight
all the instances where what is written looks different from what they expected. Go
though this afterwards (projected on the screen) and discuss the correct
pronunciation of each word of phoneme.
Just a Minute Game
This game is to encourage spontaneous recall of numbers and encourage good
pronunciation. Pupils come to front in pairs, one to face the board, the other to face
the class. The pupil facing the board reads out the number in English on the left and
the pupil facing the class has to correctly pronounce the number in French and
without hesitation. If there is hesitation or bad pronunciation they are replaced by
another pair who try to get further down the list of numbers. This game can be
played rapidly and involve several pairs of pupils.
Sounds like:
This is a sorting and classifying activity.
Objective: To assess pupils’ understanding of the link between the way in which
words are written and pronounced in French and to encourage pupils to transfer the
skills that they have previously acquired in order to correctly pronounce words that
they have not previously encountered.
Necessary prior learning: The words in italics should be familiar to the pupils.
1. Sounds like hay or may but a shorter sound:
les,
des,
j’ai,
voudrais,
c’est
2. Sounds like eat or seat:
il,
huit,
six,
dix,
merci,
Paris
3. Sounds like know or blow:
jaune,
château,
novembre
4. Sounds like cat or kick:
quinze,
quand,
quel,
quatre
5. Sounds like ‘wa’
trois,
au revoir,
soir,
moi
Running dictation
Divide pupils into groups of approximately 6. Give each group a full copy of a text
without dividing lines and allow them a few minutes to read this as a group and plan
their strategies. e.g. deciding the order, who will go first, who will scribe etc. Take this
text away. Place the texts with dividing lines in several corners of the classroom and
one at the front one at the back. This text should have been marked clearly with
gaps. There should be around 12 sections. If you have mixed ability groups it may be
wise to encourage pupils to discuss who in their should try to memorise the sections .
With strict time limits (use a timer with a clear sound) pupils should run to the text, be
given time to memorise their section, run back to group and dictate the section to the
scribe to re-create the text. After all sections complete, groups should be given two
minutes to check through their text before handing it on to the next group for peer
marking. Mistakes should be deducted from a working total of /50. Clear marking
criteria should be shared with the class as they will be competitive! Disastrous
spelling errors a whole mark, one letter missing or accent missing ½ mark only.
Pupils learn a lot from marking the work of another group and realise the importance
of accurate spelling and good handwriting/presentation. A prize could be awarded to
the winning group.
Mystery cards
Give each pair a card and tell them to work out what the pictures have in common.
Each card represents a certain sound in the Target Language. They’ll need to use
dictionaries and after a while they’ll need a clue that they shouldn’t be thinking about
what the pictures are, but what the French words for them are.
Songs e.g. Bisous d’Eskimo (Pigloo)
As songs usually have rhyming words, these are a great way of focusing on a
particular phoneme.
Project the first two verses of the song on the screen & ask them to find all the words
they can that have oi, au/eau/o, ui, ou and eu in them. Ask pupils to come to the
board and underline them, then get people to have a go at saying the unfamiliar
words, using the sound patterns that they have underlined. Try reading the verses
out together, then listen to the song and do a certain action each time they hear one
of these phonemes.
Download song videos from Youtube using www.zamzar.com (a free, web-based
way of downloading songs, which are then emailed to you).
Find the lyrics of songs by googling the title of the song ‘+ lyrics’ or in French the
excellent site www.paroles.net.
Sound islands
On the board, have pictures of 3 islands which each represent a different grapheme
(if you use this activity early on, use graphemes that are very different from each
other, e.g. oi, ch, in). When they have had more practice, use it for recognising the
difference between very similar sounds, e.g. ou and u, oi and ui, etc. In the centre,
put pictures of items which have those sounds in the word. One pupil from each team
takes turns to choose a picture, then you say the word in French and they come up
and move the picture to the island they think it goes on.
Other Useful Resources and Websites
Les Planètes Phoniques, los Planetas Fonéticos, die Phonetikplaneten – a CDROM and DVD pack, £49 each, available from www.trainingforlearning.co.uk –
download a free lesson activity and lesson plan to trial it with your
students
French
http://phonetique.free.fr
www.facilecture.fr/ A website to help young French readers and their teachers with
sound-spelling correspondence.
http://facilalire.fr/ A tool kit containing all you and your pupils need to know about
how to read French words correctly.
German
A Guide to German pronunciation from the University of Portsmouth:
http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/abinitio/pronounce/
www.specialeducationalneeds.com/mfl/Year7German/spelling/
Generic
Acapela Text to speech free website - www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speechinteractive-demo.html best used with individual words or short sentences
www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php – similar to Acapela, but you can
download the recordings to keep
Vocaroo Record and send voice emails www.vocaroo.com
Mailvu similar to vocaroo, but allows video www.mailvu.com
www.fonetiks.org An online pronunciation guide which includes different French
accents, Spanish, English and many other languages.
Voice Recording Hardware
Easispeak microphones available from www.easi-speak.co.uk from £19.99 to
£22.25 or www.tts-group.co.uk, which has a variety of other voice recording devices
CPC http://cpc.farnell.com for cheap headsets with microphones attached (from
£2.25 each when 25+ bought – the Pro-signal PSG03466, order code CS16146).
Wendy Adeniji MFL Consultant
February 2011