From PHONICS to reading: Practice in Taiwan,US and UK Hintat Cheung

Outline Phonics: A tale of three countries  US – reading skills  UK – Searchlight Model/analytic versus synthetic phonics  Taiwan – listening/speaking/reading?

 U.S. National Institute for Literacy National Reading Panel

Definition of Reading  the skills and knowledge to understand how phonemes, or speech sounds, are connected to print;  the ability to decode unfamiliar words;  the ability to read fluently;  sufficient background information and vocabulary to foster reading comprehension;  the development of appropriate active strategies to construct meaning from print;  the development and maintenance of a motivation to read.

Bridging the 5 Elements of Reading  Phonemic Awareness  Phonics  Vocabulary  Fluency  Comprehension

A Simple View of Reading

National Reading Panel reports: Phoneme Awareness measured at the beginning of kindergarten is one of the two best predictors of how well children will learn to read.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonological Awareness  Phonological awareness includes phonemic awareness  In addition to phonemes, phonological awareness activities can involve work with rhymes, words, syllables, and onsets and rimes.

Phoneme & Phonemic Awareness Phoneme: The smallest part of spoken language that makes a difference in the meaning of words Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds – phonemes – in spoken words

Phoneme  貪 /tan/ 單 /dan/ ( t ~ d )  湯 /ta ŋ/ 當 / daŋ/ ( t ~ d )  貪 /tan/ 湯 /ta ŋ/ (n ~ ŋ)  單 /dan/ 湯 /ta ŋ/ ( t ~ d ) + (n ~ ŋ)

Syllable structure - big nucleus syllable onsetrhyme coda c vc B I G

Syllable structure - basket nucleus syllable onsetrhyme coda c vc nucleus syllable onsetrhyme coda c vc Word b a s k e t

Rhyme nucleus syllable onsetrhyme coda c vc nucleus syllable onsetrhyme coda c vc t a nd a n 貪 單

PA Tasks  Isolation  Identify  Categorization  Blending  Segmentation  Deletion  Addition  Substitution

Phoneme Isolation Children recognize individual sounds in a word. What is the first sound in fan? The first sound in fan is /f/.

Phoneme Isolation What is the first sound in:  tape  get  song  fish What is the last sound in:

Phoneme Identity Children recognize the same sounds in different words What sound is the same in fix, fall, and fun? The first sound /f/ is the same.

Phoneme Identity Which sound is the same in … ?  satsistersand  rosericeriver  bikebake bottle

Phoneme Categorization Children recognize the word in a set of three or four words that has the “ odd ” sound. Which word doesn ’ t belong? bus, bun, rig Rig does not belong. It doesn ’ t begin with /b/

Phoneme Categorization  Shakeice shave  Milkbutter bug  Candlecookie gutter

Phoneme Blending Children listen to a sequence of separately spoken phonemes, and then combine the phonemes to form a word. Then they write and read the word. What word is /b/ /i/ /g/? /b/ /i/ /g/ is big.

Types of Blending What word is /_/ /_/ /_/?  /h/ /ou/ /s/  /p/ /i/ /t/  /f/ /o/ /k/ /s/

Phoneme Segmentation Children break a word into its separate sounds, saying each sound as they tap out or count it. Then they write and read the sounds. How many sounds are in great? /g/ /r/ /e/ /t/. Four sounds.

Segmentation Levels  Counting words in a sentence  Counting syllables in words  Compound words  Counting phonemes in words

Phoneme Deletion Children recognize the word that remains when a phoneme is removed from another word. What is smile without the /s/? Smile without the /s/ is mile.

Phoneme Deletion What is ___ without the /_/?  Ball without /b/  Fly without /f/  Rent without /r/  Eight without /t/

Phoneme Addition Children make a new word by adding a phoneme to an existing word. What word do you have if you add /s/ to the beginning of park? Spark.

Phoneme Addition What word do you have if you add /_/ to the beginning of ____?  /s/ to the beginning of mile  /k/ to the beginning of lock  /g/ to the beginning of lad  /t/ to the end of pass

Phoneme Substitution Children substitute one phoneme for another to make a new word. The word is bug. Change /g/ to /n/. What ’ s the new word? Bun

Phoneme Substitution The word is ___. Change /_/ to /_/. What ’ s the new word?  tight/t/ to /l/  bet /b/ to /w/  mud /d/ to /g/  cot /o/ to /a/

Age 3  Recitation of rhymes  Rhyming by pattern  Alliteration Age 4  Syllable counting (50% of children by age 4) Age 5  Syllable counting (90% of children by age 5) PA Development

Age 6  Initial consonant matching  Blending 2-3 phonemes  Counting phonemes ( 70% of children by age 6 )  Rhyme identification  Onset-rime division Age 7  Blending 3 phonemes  Segmentation of 3-4 phonemes (blends)  Phonetic spelling  Phoneme deletion Age 8  Consonant cluster segmentation  Deletion within clusters

PA instruction  Requires explicit teaching  Highly structured practice  Independent practice

Which methods have the greatest impact?  Blending and Segmenting It is most effective when it focuses on only one or two types of manipulation.

Reading Research Panel concludes:  Phonemic awareness can be taught and learned.  Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read.  Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to spell. Direct instruction in phonemic awareness, especially in how to segment words into phonemes, helps children relate the sounds to letters as they spell words.  Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when children are taught to manipulate phonemes by using the letters of the alphabet.

 Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when it focuses on only one or two types of phoneme manipulation, rather than several types.  Phonemic awareness instruction can help all types of students learn to read, including preschoolers, kindergartners, first graders who are just starting to read, and older, less able readers.  Approximately 20 hours of class time over the school year should suffice for phonemic awareness instruction.  In general, small group instruction is more effective when helping students acquire phonemic awareness and learn to read, compared to individual or whole class instruction.

Summary  Phoneme awareness is necessary, but not sufficient.  Phoneme awareness can be directly taught.  Phoneme awareness does not require extensive teaching time.  Phoneme awareness should be assessed in kindergarten.  Focus majority of instruction on blending and segmenting sounds.

Goal of Phonics  The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn and use the alphabetic principle — the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds. letter-sound correspondences

Basic conditions for doing PHONICS  understand 100 English words  Can repeat 'Sam is going to the cinema. ’  Can tell if two sounds are the same  Can tell if two sounds rhyme

The Two-Dimension Model

A. Phonics B. Sight vocabulary C. Oral vocabulary D. Self-teaching A B C D

Turkeltaub et al. Neurological bases of reading  Left inferior frontal gyrus  Left temporo-parietal cortex  Left infero-temporal cortex

 Left inferior frontal gyrus  Left temporo- parietal cortex  Left infero- temporal cortex Orthography Direct Lexical Access

 Left inferior frontal gyrus  Left temporo- parietal cortex  Left infero- temporal cortex Cross-modal integration Phonological and Semantics assembly

 Left inferior frontal gyrus  Left temporo- parietal cortex  Left infero- temporal cortex Semantics/Phonological assembly

Best practice  it is replicable across the broad range of settings and schools  It can be resourced and sustained at reasonable cost  The knowledge, skills and understanding needed are readily available to practitioners, teachers and other professionals.

How phonics to be taught  relatively short, discrete daily sessions  progress from simple elements to the more complex aspects  engage children in multi-sensory activities  embedded within a rich language curriculum

Phonics: Key Features  to arrange grapheme/phoneme correspondences in a clearly defined incremental sequence  to apply blending skill  to apply segmenting skills

Approaches of phonics  All ‘ phonics ’ involves teaching letter-sound correspondences. The adjective ‘ synthetic ’ refers to the fact that children are taught to synthesize/blend pronunciations for unfamiliar written words by translating letters into sounds and blending the sounds together  ‘ Analytic ’ phonics focuses more on the analysis of words after they have been identified in some other way – for example by being supplied by the teacher, recognised as 'sight-words' or guessed from pictures or context.

Synthetic Phonics  Synthetic phonics is particularly appropriate at the very beginning of children ’ s schooling, when virtually all written words are unfamiliar and the children need a simple and clear introduction to the underlying principle of alphabetic writing: written symbols represent individual speech-sounds.  It is in the very first term or so that the differences between synthetic phonics and other approaches are clearest – note that the synthetic phonics programme in Clackmannanshire lasted just 16 weeks. Some key differences can be considered under the headings below.

Approaches of phonics  Analytic phonics is good but synthetic phonics is better  Question of ‘ barking at print ’

The use of PHONICS in English-speaking countries  Know the correspondence between letter and sound  Understand the systematicity between the two  Enhance word recognition and word learning skills  A part of reading development  Articulation/pronunciation  Vocabulary teaching

The Use of Phonics in Taiwan

臺北市國民小學各年級英語學習能力指標  L-1-2 能知覺 26 個字母和發 音的對應關係。  S-3-7 能說出字母在字詞中 所對應的子音發音。  S-3-8 能說出字母在字詞中 所對應的短母音發音。  R-3-1 能使用字母拼讀法 (phonics) 中基本常用的規 則讀出單字。  L-4-1 能聽辨字母在字詞中 所對應的複合子音發音。  L-4-2 能聽辨字母在字詞中 對應的長母音。  S-4-3 能說出字母在單字中 對應的長母音。  S-4-8 能說出字母在字詞中 所對應的複合子音發音。  I-4-5 能活用字母拼讀法了解 英語拼字與發音間規則的對 應關係。

 L-5-2 能聽辨字母在字詞中所對應的混合子音發音。  S-5-6 能說出字母在字詞中所對應的混合子音發音。  R-5-4 能活用字母拼讀法 (phonics) 的規則讀出單字。  L-6-2 能聽辨所有 300 個精熟字彙在子音和母音的對應關係。  S-6-5 能說出所有 26 個字母在子音和母音的對應關係。  I-6-3 能活用字母拼讀法 (phonics) 了解英語拼字與發音間規 則的對應關係，並能嘗試看字發音，聽音拼字。

Problems  Phonics is not about speaking  What are listed are activities in Phonics/PA  Syllable structure is underspecified  Segmenting is not stated

I. (isolation) (identity) (categorization) II. (segmentation) (blending) III (deletion) (addition) (substitution) A syllable Recognizing Rhyme and Alliteration Detecting and Counting Syllables -- B Onset /rhyme Identifying the Initial Sound (Phoneme) Identify Onset and Rime Segmenting Onset and Rime Blending Onset and Rime Deleting the Initial Sound Substituting the Initial Sound C Phoneme Identify the Ending Sound (Phoneme) Segmenting phoneme Blending phoneme Deleting the ending Sound Substituting the ending Sound

Problems when PHONICS is used for pronunciation practice

English Phonological Development  Around age three  republication ─ water /wawa/; baby /bibi/; candy /k a ki/  Syllable final omission ─ bottle /baba/; basket /b aki/  Consonant cluster simplication ─ stop /t a p/ ;tree /ti/

Non-native English sounds  Syllable initial ： th- v- z- ch- sh-...  Syllable final ： -p –t –k –b –d –g –m –th – f –v –s –z –ch –sh...  Consonant cluster ： p/b/t/d/k/g/th + l/r/j s + p/t/k/l/w s + p/t/k + l/r/j/w Syllable structure ： C 0-3 – V – C 0-4

When a sound symbol is involved in pronunciation Sound assimilation ： key / cat Variations between phonemes of the same type: sand / 三 Inducing analogy : [g ~ ㄍ ] [s ~ ㄙ ] Syllable simplication ： dog /dogə/, basket /basike/ small /sima/ Over-practice of single sound ： this /lis/ Irregularity in grapheme-phoneme conversion rule (GPC)

Fun Reading  We eat in the music room.  We read in the swimming pool.  We learn vocabulary with phonics

What can be done?  Should we introduce synthetic phonics?  How should we organize our reading program?  Can we identify the three different groups of children who do not do well in reading and provide extra help?

Sources  U.K  U.S. --

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