Phonics to Spellings

Mastering spelling has become a fundamental skill for a child’s language development. However, parents are struggling to help their children learn spelling these days. Here are a few challenges faced by the parents.

“My child is facing difficulty in learning spellings with the similar sounds c and k, v and w.” He is confused about when to use c and k in words as both have the same sound. I am a Doctor by profession. I lost touch with the English language long ago. I am re-learning spelling, and grammar rules once again for my kid. So, during this journey, I am on the lookout for understanding the concepts and also teaching in a simplified and fun way.”– Keerthi, Parent

“My child is in second grade now. Earlier she used to spell words according to letter names. So, this led to spelling errors. However, after joining a phonics class, she is much better now as she is learning to spell the CVC words as per the sounds. Now, I am looking forward to knowing how she will learn complex spellings.” – Ramya, Parent

“My children have difficulty with silent letters in words.” For example- Knife. In the word, Knife, the letter ‘k’ is silent. Teaching silent letters is hard as I do not have the right technique or tip to teach them.”– Sravani, Parent

Hence, this article guides curious parents with the basic phonics concepts, which helps them to build strong foundational skills, for their children, to master the advanced spellings. 

Here are the phonics concepts to master the spellings:

1. Phonetic Sounds & Phonemic Awareness 

Teaching phonetic sounds /a/ /b/ /c/ instead of the letter names of the alphabet like ‘Bee,’ ‘See,’ and ‘Dee,’ helps a child to read and spell faster than the latter. A teacher can teach sounds in a more fun and interactive way like showing actions for each sound. This association of sound with action helps the children to retain the sounds in their minds easily.

Traditionally, we follow the ABC order to teach the alphabet which should be learnt for dictionary skills

However, there are many ways to introduce the alphabet. Here is one simple way to introduce the alphabet. Start with short vowels first and then introduce continuous sounds (m, n, l, f, s, r, v, z), and lastly, stop sounds (b, d, g, k, p, t) as it becomes easy to blend words. 

Simultaneously, the teacher can focus on the phonemic awareness of the sounds i.e. to identify the beginning, middle, and ending sounds of the words. This, in turn, helps in blending and segmenting the words.

2. CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words

Blending helps to read the CVC words. There are different types of blending in phonics:

1. Continuous Blending

In Continuous Blending, stretch the sounds out to decode the word. For example: ‘mmmaaaap’ for the word map. 

2. Successive Blending

In Successive Blending, introduce the first sound, then the second sound, immediately blend those two sounds and after introducing the third sound, blend those three sounds. For example: ‘S – Sa – Sat’

3. Whole Word Blending

In Whole Word Blending, children will sound out individual sounds and make a sweeping motion to decode the word. For example: ‘m a t-mat’.

Of all three, starting with continuous blending is very effective for young children as it becomes easy to stretch the sounds out. 

Segmenting is breaking down words into individual sounds. It helps children with phonemic awareness i.e. identifying the beginning, middle, and ending sounds of the word. 

3. Digraph

A digraph is a combination of two letters representing one sound. One can teach digraphs in a fun way, like saying, that two best friends (letters) come together to make a new sound. And, then, give examples starting with each digraph. 

There are two types of digraphs. First is the Consonant Digraph and the second is the Vowel Digraph.

1. Consonant Digraph

It is a combination of two consonants that produces one sound. Example: ch, ck, sh, ph, ng,  qu, th, wh

2. Vowel Digraph

It is a combination of two vowels that represent a new sound. For example: ee, ea, oo, ow, oa, oe, ai, ue. Vowel graphs are also the alternatives to long vowels. 

4. Consonant Blends

Consonant Blends are two or three consonant sounds that combine and make two new individual sounds. For example- b + l = bl. They appear at the beginning, middle, and end of words. The most common consonant blends that are found in the beginning are L-blends, R-blends, and S-blends. The final consonant blends are T-blends, L-blends, -mp, -ng, -nk, -sh, -sk. 

To learn consonant blends, children need to know how to blend the individual sounds in a word. For example: /c/ /a/ /t/. 

When teaching Consonant blend BL, a teacher can show separate flashcards of two letters and then put those cards side by side and tell the students, that when the b and l are together, they make a new sound, but each sound is pronounceable. 

Initially, let children work on matching initial and final blends with respective pictures. Later, draw a sound box and tap the individual sounds imaginatively in the box when a word is said. Using a sound box will help children realize the number of sounds in a word. Even if they miss out on a sound, we can remind them about the number of boxes drawn on the board or book. For example: the word Blob

Bl

o

b

5. Long Vowels and Its Alternatives

The long vowel sounds are long when it sounds like the letter name of the vowel. For example: A, E, I, O, U as in the words – cake, eat, ice cream, rose, huge. You can ask kids to make a hand having short vowels on the fingertips and long vowels on the palm for reference.

For young children, introduce long vowel alternatives one by one with lots of examples and activities. Here are alternative sounds under each long vowel. 

Alternatives of long /a/ – ai, ay, a_e

Alternatives of long /e/ – ea, ee, y, 

Alternatives of long /i/ – ie, y, igh, i_e

Alternatives of long /o/ – oa, ow, o_e

Alternatives of long /u/ – ue, ew, u_e

Apart from long vowel alternatives, we have Diphthongs. They are also called gliding vowels where one vowel sound glides into the next. Examples: oi/oy – oil/toy, ou/ow – hound/crown. You can show how the mouth changes its position from one sound to the next and ask them to check in the mirror. Next, show them the examples of ‘oi’ that comes at the beginning or middle of the word and, ‘oy’ that comes at the end of the word. And then use blending and segmenting for phonemic awareness. For example: Say a word out such as ‘boil’, and ask to segment the word into individual sounds using a sound box to find out the position of ‘oi’ in the word. 

6. Bossy R 

R-controlled vowel words are also called Bossy R. They are ar, er, ir, or, ur as in car, germ, bird, horse, and hurt. The vowel changes its sound as it is controlled by R. There are three sounds that make the same sounds. They are er, ir, ur. 

Here is an example of ‘ar’ for teaching the Bossy R concept. First introduce the CVC word, ‘cat’ and ask children to segment the word into individual sounds, /c/ /a/ /t/. Later, introduce the word, ‘car’, and ask them to segment again. Here, the child will make a short vowel ‘a’ sound. Then, you can say that the ‘a’ sound is different here because it is controlled by r. Finally, give them more words for practice. 

 Final Thoughts 

To master advanced spellings, a child needs to know his/her basic phonics concepts thoroughly. Learning phonics concepts will help a child to read and write effectively. Lastly, consistency is the key to becoming a good speller, reader, and writer. 

-Haritha Atluri is an educator in phonics, and language, and a passionate education writer with 9 years’ experience. She specializes in adult communication and children’s phonics.