For parents, how to teach phonics at home...
(or for teachers who want results in just 5 minutes per lesson...)
This is the method that was researched by Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Here are the printable 90 page pdf A4 phonics posters from the video:
+ NEW: Whether its "Fip and Fop the fit and fat Frogs" or "Wild West Will with his Wig in a Well" there are now over 20 original, super fun Phonics stories included with the pdf posters!
These posters are fully guaranteed. If they don't help your child/children to read,
just send me an email and I'll give you a full refund! Yes, I'm that confident in how well they work! :)
And this is the video for teachers to teach phonics in longer lessons,
it works great in
You can also purchase the 90 page pdf phonics workbook which features more
writing practice:
As with the posters above, these workbooks too are fully guaranteed.
If they don't help your child/children to read,
just send me an email and I'll give you a full refund!
The idea of phonics is that you teach your students the various English
sounds, then the letters they correspond to. The advantage of this over
simply teaching the alphabet is that once they have mastered the main sounds,
they can then read many English words.
On this page kids will find enough material to cover all the basics. So
tell your students about the page so they can practise at home, it's a
great way to show parents how well you are teaching them in class!
The problem with traditional phonics is that if you have a printed
book, you can't hear the sounds, similarly if you have an audio cassette,
you cannot see the letters. So that's why I came up with this page, where
you can hear the sounds, see the letters and have full control over which
ones to study.
In the table above you have the vowels, the consonants and several "blend"
and "combination" sounds where consonants are used together.
Move your mouse over the sounds to hear them pronounced, or click on the
pictures to hear them.
Most areas of the World pronounce consonants in the same way, however regional
accents appear in the vowel sounds. New Yorkers have different vowels from
Texans, Londoners are different from Glaswegians. Here I've presented two
variations. When you teach, choose one, but make sure the kids know there
are many variations.
The games on here are great as the time limits really make sure the kids
start listening and not just looking at the letters (hence why kids will
always beat adults!). The pronunciation has no strange accents and above
all they are fiendishly addictive games!
Here are a few extra tips and tricks:
@
How to use this page
At Home: First of all the parent and child should play around with the talking
phonics table at the top of this page. When that gets a little boring,
have a try at one of the games. Take it in turns to see who can get the
highest score! Then play around a little more, then try the next game.
Then you can work through the workbook.
Private English Classes: Most private English classroom tend not to have computers. So what I would
recommend is to do the normal Phonics Course (see the video above) during
the lessons, and then give this page as homework. The kids can play their
games at their own pace, record their best times and then compare them
in the next lesson. And remember the golden rule "Losing doesn't mean
losing. It's just another chance to try again!"
Elementary School: According to the Ministry of Education the main aim in Elementary School
should be for the kids to develop a love for English and be able to communicate
in it. Hence have a look at my curriculum page. But if you have the time then phonics can be a fantastic way to get the
kids used to English sounds. The best way to do this is to use the books
as in the above and the school's computer room. Ideally it would be one
kid per computer, but obviously this depends on how many machines you have!
First of all show the students this page, and let them play around on the
talking part at the top. Then after a few minutes let then try the first
game on their own. After a couple of tries, have a class competition! This
is where the games really work! The teacher says "Go!" and the
kids all press start at the same time. Who's the quickest? It's a great
motivation builder and as the tiles come up randomly it gives kids who
are maybe weaker at English just as much chance to win! Once you've done
that a couple of times, let the kids play freely on the next game, and
then do another class challenge. And of course this page is great as homework.
The kids can do some great English practise at home and their parents can
see the progress they are making. That's the reason why instead of making
these games into a CD, I put them on the site for free, so that anyone
can freely use them and get the basic English sounds sorted! So tell everyone
you know about the page and let's get everyone genki about English!
Junior High School: Teaching the first year junior high students phonics makes a huge difference.
It is actually one of the methods recommended by the Ministry of Education
and the influence phonics has on the kids ability to read cannot be underestimated.
Adults: Kids will always be better than adults at these games, but if you are
studying English then this page can be really useful too! Just one thing
to watch out for is not to start saying the letters in your native language
(such as "bu", "da" etc. for Japanese speakers), but
to really try with the real English sounds. If you try really hard then
most of the English sounds are presented in these games, which means by
using this page you should be able to read almost any English!!
Let your students have a go and see how they get on!
If you have any comments or questions I'd like to hear them, please get in touch!
And if you have any friends who you think would like this page, please
tell them about www.GenkiEnglish.com !!
I got the inspiration for this from working
on a similar page for learning Japanese "hiragana"
and "katakana" - you can have a
look on the Genki Japan Page!
Or if you teach math, have a look my fun math games!
