Phonics

Phonics ...

There are a ton of materials out there to teach children phonics... and some are rather expensive. However, any person who knows how to read knows the letter sounds... and so, I provide those I used for Zachary so that you don't have to spend a bundle on phonics materials. Teaching the concept of "letters having sounds" is all that I wanted to... and that I could do without a book.

Below, I provide each basic letter sound for you as well as consonant blends and digraphs most often used. These provide more than enough to get you started. For vowels... I did not provide the "label" of short verses long until much later... I ended up trying to do that later on... although I found that once Zachary knew the sounds, it really didn't matter if he knew "this is a long a or a short a"... most adults don't even know that. :o) The key to the difference is that the letter sound sounds "like itself" for the "long vowel"... the "other vowel sound" is the short vowel... not a "biggy" in my book as far as having to teach that right away... doing that later on, in my opinion, is fine since the concept of labels comes so easily to autistic children.

Basic letter sounds are as follows - remember, I would not "say out loud" anything I provide in brackets.... just the letter and the sound was all I provided... with a "sometimes" if there was more than one sound. This, in my opinion, was key to Zachary quickly picking up the concept of phonics. Also important is to note that for Zachary, I taught phonics "by ear" not "by sight". By that I mean that I did not use flash cards or other materials (paper, blackboards, etc.) of any type... I SOUNDED out each letter sound(s) for him. The reason I believe you have to "sound" out the phonics is because, again, flash cards, pictures, associations, etc. bring "partiality" into the situation whereas letter sounds are just that... basic sounds!

Also, keep in mind that most phonics materials out there may not teach phonics "in order of the alphabet"... taking each letter, in the order it appears in the alphabet, and providing that letter's sound(s) one at a time - in the correct order. Doing phonics the way I did them below provided for Zachary that continuation of the part making the whole... the alphabet letters making a sound... later on, I could easily "mix them up" for him.

After sounding them out myself a few times, I then started to ask him to tell me the sound... and he could! He could do so even when I "mixed them up"... he had learned the lesson... each letter has specific sounds associated with it... that was all that mattered.

What you want to know to say before you say it for the child...	How it should come out when you say it for the child... make the appropriate letter sound based on the example to the left!
A says "a" (as in apple), sometimes "ay" (as in day)	A says "a", sometimes "ay"
B says "b" (as in bat)	B says "b"
C says "k" (as in car), sometimes "s" (as in city)	C says "k", sometimes "sss"
D says "d" (as in drum)	D says "d"
E says "e" (as in egg), sometimes "e" (as in bee)	E says "e", sometimes "ee"
F says "f" (as in fish)	F says "f"
G says "g" (as in girl), sometimes "g" (as in George)	G says "g", sometimes "j"
H says "h" (as in hat)	H says "h"
I says "i" (as in pig), sometimes "i" (as in I)	I says "i", sometimes "I"
J says "j" (as in jump)	J says "j"
K says "k" (as in kite)	K says "k"
L says "l" (as in lip)	L says "l"
M says "m" (as in man)	M says "m"
N says "n" (as in nest)	N says "n"
O says "o" (as in off), sometimes "o" (as in open)	O says "o", sometimes "oh"
P says "p" (as in pig)	P says "p"
Q says "q" (as in quack)	Q says "qu"
R says "r" (as in rat)	R says "r"
S says "s" (as in snake) sometimes "z" (as in because)	S says "s", sometimes "z"
T says "t" (as in top)	T says "t"
U says "u" (as in up), sometimes "u" (as in you)	U says "u", sometimes "you"
V says "v" (as in van)	V says "v"
W says "w" (as in water)	W says "w"
X says "x" (as in fox)	X says "x"
Y says "y" (as in yellow), sometimes "y" (as in sky)	Y says "y", sometimes "i"
Z says "z" (as in zebra)	Z says "z"

Once the child understands and knows the basic letter sounds, more sounds can then be added. Some basic ones are provided below. Again, I taught these sound in the same manner as shown above.

The next step now involved teaching consonant blends and digraphs. Once Zachary knew his basic letter sounds, these came easily. The basics under this category include:

bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, pr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, ch, sh, th, wh, kn

So, for all of these, I proceeded just as I had with the letters... For example, I'd say:

K N says N (as in knee)

Note: I could easily use the concept of equations to teach this same thing, but I saw a problem with that. For example, if I said:

K + N = N

Zachary would catch on to that too... but, the more I thought about that, the more I thought equations should be kept for learning math as much as possible... for me to introduce the concept of an equation here may confuse him down the road... that's still too far ahead for me... but, something I did want to mention. So, my preference is to use: KN says N.

Then there are a few more complicated sounds to learn.

What you want to know to say before you say it for the child...	How it should come out when you say it for the child... make the appropriate letter sound based on the example to the left!
AR says "ar" (as in car)	AR says "ar"
CH says "ch" (as in chair)	CH says "ch"
EA says "ea" (as in read -past tense), sometimes "ea" (as in pea) - basically the same two sounds as the letter "e" above	EA says "ea", sometimes "e"
EE says "ee" (as in bee)	EE says "ee"
ER says "er" (as in her)	ER says "er"
IE says "ie" (as in pie)	IE says "aye"
OA says "oh" (as in goat)	OA says "oh"
OI says "oi" (as in coin)	OI says "oi"
OO says "oo" (as in foot), sometimes "oo" (as in moon) (both a short and a long to this one)	OO says "oo", sometimes "oo"
OR says "or" (as in for)	OR says "or"
OU says "ou" (as in ouch)	OU says "ou"
NG says "ng" (as in song)	NG says "ng"
QU says "qu" (as in quack)	QU says "qu"
SH says "sh" (as in ship)	SH says "sh"
TH says "th" (as in that)	TH says "th"
UE says "ue" (as in cue)	UE says "you"

Finally, certain sounds can be written in more than one way:

For example, for each of the ways in which the sound can be written, I'd say to Zachary:

ER says "er".

IR says "er".

UR says "ur".

So as to not confuse him too much, however, I introduced these on separate days, fairly far apart.

SOUND	CAN BE WRITTEN AS
ER	ER, IR, or UR (as in never, bird, fur)
AW	AW, AU, AL (as in jaw, August, talk)
OI	OI, OY (as in coin, boy)
OU	OU OW (as in loud, cow)

This should provide enough on "phonics" to get all parents started on the task of teaching phonics to a child.

The one thing I did forget to mention in my first book, that I also used was a video called: Learn To Read With Phonics/Mrs. Phipps and Snoothy. The web site that sells this video is http://www.videolearning.com/S0702.HTM. If you scroll down, you'll see the one I'm talking about...item 10-7060. This is an absolutely excellent video for teaching letters and phonics. Letters are written out carefully to show the child exactly how the letter is made and each letter's sound is clearly given. Zachary did watch this a few times, but he really got the idea behind phonics simply by my calling out the letter sounds as done above. The video was simply something I used to reinforce while I got to relax a little. The video costs $30.00. You may want to check with your local library ... or local schools. If they don't have these same products, they probably have at least something similar.

Finally, once your child knows these sounds, you can then move on to the next step... WORDS!

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