Monday, July 20, 2020

The 44 phonemes




This is a follow up of my previous post. I got the idea for this post from a debate I heard a few days ago where Jonathan Solity said that 10 single graphene phoneme correspondences represent 70% of words in children’s books.

When I see the 44 phonemes in the chart above I ask myself if this is one of the problems faced by students as well as teachers who stubbornly stick by it.


The grapheme A is used to represent the word ant. What about all the other phonemes of the letter ‘A’ which I referred to on my previous post?


If we say that the grapheme 'A’ as in the word aim is represented by the phoneme ‘ai’ as in the word rain then how do I explain to my students when I teach them the words able, alien and ace.


Will a kid not be confused when I ask him to read the word ‘paper’? Where in the chart above is the phoneme for the letter ‘a’ in paper? 

    
The SSP proponents will probably explain it by saying the ‘a’ in the word paper is long; it is at the end of a one vowel syllable. Do I want to teach my students all these rules when I myself forget most of these rules? By the way, I learned these rules only after I started teaching and did not learn this at school.


Similarly, with the letter ‘a’ in the word erase. 


I find that teaching the sounds represented by vowels as in my previous post to be easy for my students. When they have the requisite vocabulary they will automatically know which sound symbol to use. 


They will know instinctively which one of the ‘sounds’ to use when reading the word ‘paper’.


How do we teach a kid to read the words all, always, although? 


This post is written off the cuff.
Your input will be appreciated.

I saw the following quote in our Daily Express this morning.


You must be bold, brave, courageous to find a way... to get in the way.
John Lewis





4 comments:

Rick D6 said...

In my opinion Dyslexia is one of the most hidden issues teachers have to deal with and one of the ones the profession deals with the poorest.
In my experience there was little direct attention paid to it during the training of teachers (if any) and yet in my years of teaching it is one of the most prevalent reasons people find it difficult to read. Being able to recognize it (in reading or math) takes a lot is skill on the part of the teacher and yet the seem to be on their own to develop those skills.

Luqman Michel said...

Thank you Rick D 6.
I have written several posts here on why kids are unable to read.
A majority of kids are instructional casualties and wrongly classified as dyslexic.

Anonymous said...

Not knowing how to use phonemes properly leads to dyslexia. The reason dyslexia occurs is because the child had not learned how to read “properly” through the phonics system. I’m not pulling your chain. There are studies in this, the channels in our brains get confused when the child was never taught how English actually works. So we misplace the letters and literally switch them around as we read. Look it up. The Phonics system is literally in stages. Don’t advance into one stage when the one prior has not been fully learned. If the child is reading or pronouncing letters based on memory and not having actually learned it l, they are most likely going to run into dyslexia in their future.

Luqman Michel said...

I started teaching 'dyslexic' kids to understand why many intelligent kids can't read in English but could read in Malay and Pinyin. I discovered that they can't read because of being taught letter sounds wrongly. Correct those and they become good readers.