Unable to find suitable books to teach my so-called dyslexic
students, I decided to print my own material for teaching kids using phonics
created with family words picked up from the internet.
Then I incorporated sight words for them to memorise so that
reading will be fluent.
While teaching I kept pointing to new phonemes represented by letters as
explained in my book ‘Shut down kids’.
Do read the unsolicited book reviews of my book on Amazon at
I made notes for parents to explain why sight words are
important to be taught.
I also recommended for parents to teach context clues/cues.
If a child has learned the basic phonemes and has been taught the correct pronunciation of those phonemes he will not disengage from learning to read.
Other matters I teach for additional understanding are just
extras without which the child will not shut down from learning to read.
Some of them are detailed below.
There are words that you need context clues/cues in addition
to phonics to be able to read the words. For instance, we need context clues to
read the following sentence: On a windy day, I drove down a windy road. Both
words ‘windy’ can be read using phonics but which is the correct pronunciation
depends on the context.
I also explain to them that there are silent letters as in
the words island, plumber, debtor etc.
There are also sounds in words that there are no letters to
represent them. There is a Y sound in the words new and few. There is a ‘w’
sound in the word one but the letter ‘w’ is missing.
The main idea is to ensure kids do not disengage from learning
to read. When we teach phonics correctly kids begin to read much earlier and
then the teachers can concentrate on teaching vocabulary, comprehension and
fluency.
I repeat, teach kids the correct pronunciation of phonemes
and we will reduce illiteracy.
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