Art Of Teaching

I have had the good fortune to meet Mrs. Vibha Gupta, the chairperson of Kofalt Global and went through the books designed by her for Phonics, English Viva – Voce, Abacus and Vedic Math which she supplies in different schools all over India and after going through the contents I feel it is necessary for every Management, Principal and parents to understand the importance of introducing the subjects either in combination or singly in schools.

 I loved the tag line of ‘KOFALT’ which means Kidz are Ours For A Limited Time.

My School, Shreerang Vidyalaya had Abacus but it was not properly introduced nor its importance understood to dispel the fear of Mathematics within the children.  

Also, I feel if the school teachers are trained for the same and paid extra by the Company, they will happily impart the courses during school hours. Otherwise Kofalt Global can send teachers trained by them to the schools to impart training to the children.

I also investigated and found that presently the programmes are being marketed by individuals at very fantastic rates whereas if I go to the basics of expenditure under Kofalt it is to a maximum of 115/- Rupees per child per month (x12 months) with teacher back up and a maximum of 100/- Rupees per month (x12 months) without teacher backup.

Nowadays a child spends much much more on trivial. Also, after introduction it is the duty of the schools to see that it is taken seriously by students, so ideally the school can allot 5 marks for the same during Semesters. Of course, the Kofalt Group have their own set of markers, to see where the child stands, but school can get them serious to the subject as in today’s scenario marks, even 5 for that matter plays a very important part in the overall results of a child.   I shall break the Blog into 4 Sections.

The First Section is PHONICS

Phonics is a technique used for reading that concentrates on the relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language.

It is used as a basis for teaching children how to read. It helps them to comprehend how letters and groups of letters characterize precise sounds, thereafter how those sounds can be combined to form words.

If your child is beginning to learn to read then, phonics courses is a great way to introduce her to the basics of the English language and to help her shape a solid groundwork for reading.

Phonics is an arrangement of association between sound and letter in a language. If we will learn the sound of each letter, then it becomes very easy to understand phonics. By knowledge of sound of letters, word formation becomes very easy for children. English speaking and writing become easy. Kindergarten is therefore the right age to introduce phonics and can go up to standard I.

The English language had 26 letters, but over 40 different sounds or phonemes and tons of consistent spelling exceptions. It systematically teaches children to interpret the written language.

 Why Phonics? When students develop phonemic awareness, it dramatically enhances their reading fluency, allowing students to read with speed, accuracy and expression. Reading fluency dramatically enhances students’ ability to read with intonation and energy that translates into expressive writing skills.

Students do not need to know the names of the letters first (which they often do.)

Knowing the name of the letter H is not very useful in reading the word Hat.

 We need to focus on patterns:

AT

BAT

CAT

FAT

HAT

MAT

PAT

RAT

SAT

THAT

VAT

Then make sentences using these words, so that you get to meaning as quickly as possible:

 For Example:

The FAT CAT SAT on the MAT. Is THAT a RAT? A RAT with a HAT? BAT the RAT!

Then teach to contrast MAT and MAD. PAT and PAD. BAT and BAD.

The children should not be afraid of the fact that many of the most common words are irregular.

Just teach that w-a-s- spells was, and that is the way it is.  We need not make it seem like a problem.

Now look at another example:

If you are working on IT, BIT, FIT, MITT, HIT, SIT, take a moment to reflect on a word like CITY. We do not exactly say it like SIT ee. But it is sort of.  So let the child or person know that there are some changes that happen to sounds in words, and that also is a part of how English works.

The more you involve your child, the more language she will learn. When you exaggerate the “buh” of bat and compare it to the “puh” of pat, you are teaching phonics in an organic way. Of course, you can also name the letter. Point out to your child she needs to p-p-p-pat the cat. That’s the letter P! You can even make a joke. You can say, “Don’t b-b-b-bat the cat with a B! Cats like p-p-p-pats with a P!”

For example, when a child is taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, they can start to build up the words: “tap”, “taps”, “pat”, “pats” and “sat”.

1] You need to start with two letter words ending with ‘e’ – sound of ‘ee’.

Eg: He-We-Be- Me

2] Three Letter words ending with ‘AT’ and ‘AB’

Eg:Pat-Bat-Cat-Fat-Hat-Mat-Sat-Rat

      Cab-Fab-Gab-Jab

2] Three Letter words ending with ‘AN’ and ‘AD’

Eg: Ban-Can-Man-Tan-Pan-Fan-Van-Ran

       Bad-Cad-Dad-Fad-Had-Lad-Mad-Pad-Sad

Following is the list of Phonic Words:

1. Vowels:

Vowel Pattern	Word Examples
Short “a”	fan, man, mat
Short “e”	pen, ten
Short “i”	bit, pit

2. Diphthong:

Diphthong	Word Examples
“oy”/ “oi”	boy, toy
“ow”/ “ou”	howl, plough

3. Digraph:

Digraph	Consonant Digraph or Vowel Digraph	Word Examples
“ch”	Consonant Digraph	chose, chair
“sh”	Consonant Digraph	shout, she

4. Consonant Blends:

Blend	Initial or Final Consonant Blend	Word Examples
“bl-”	Initial Blend	blend, blind
“cl-”	Initial Blend	climb, cloud

5. Syllables:

Monosyllabic Words	cat; sun; act; bus;
Disyllabic Words	issue (is-sue); party (par-ty)
Trisyllabic Words	magical (ma-gi-cal); energy (e-ner-gy)

Phonics Patterns List

The following are the phonics patterns list:

• Decoding

Decoding involves teaching kids to imagine how a letter sounds by looking at it and saying it out loud.

• Examples of decoding and letter patterns

Vowel, consonant, and consonant words, such as o, a, and e: d-o-g, c-a-t…

Consonants in a cluster are those without a vowel in between, such as st, tr, cr, and sk in the words street and tree.

Vowel digraphs and trigraphs are combinations of vowel sounds that produce a single sound, such as the words “book” and “meet.”

Consonant digraphs and trigraphs are combinations of two or three characters that produce a single sound. Such as chat, shoe, that; ch, sh, th, w…

R-controlled vowels are those in which the sound of the vowel is altered by the presence of a r, as in car, fur, and horn.

C and K sound: They can be recognised from one another more easily if they are referred to as “curly c” and “kicking k,” respectively.

• Blending

Once kids are able to recognise individual letter sounds and groups of letters, they can go on to learn how to mix the sounds and pronounce the whole word.

Practising Phonic Words

           Here are some other techniques for enhancing phonics practice:

• Partner with the teacher – Inquire about ways to reinforce reading and phonics outside of the classroom, and express any worries you may have.
• Every day, read aloud to your child- Encourage your child to sound out words if they get stuck on one. 
• Increase understanding- What do you think will happen next? What did he mean when he said that? etc. Here are some more excellent queries for Storytime.
• Revisit well-known literature- It’s acceptable if your child wants to read old favourites again. Actually, it’s advantageous!

Phonic Sounds List

The following is the phonic sounds list:

1. Notation for Constant Sounds

1. /b/ as in bet

2. /c/ as in cot

3. /d/ as in dip

4. /f/ as in fan

5. /g/ as in got

2. Notation for Vowel Sounds

1. /a/ as in cat

2. /e/ as in bet

3. /i/ as in kid

4. /o/ as in hot

5. /u/ as in nut

Children can learn to read and write using phonics. It helps kids with understanding, identifying, and using many sounds that separate one word from another in the English language.

 Knowing the sounds of the individual letters and how those letters sound together may help youngsters decode words as they read since written language can be compared to a code.

 Also, there are some misconceptions which need to be done away with

PHONICS Vs PHONETICS

PHONICS	PHONETICS
A way of teaching how to pronounce words.	A way of writing down pronunciation of words.
Breaking up of words into pronunciation units	Use of IPA ( International Phonetic Alphabet)
Example of basic letter sound relationships:  Cash, Chip	Example of phonetic transcriptions : I:

HOW CAN WE TEACH READING USING PHONICS

1] SEGMENTING AND BLENDING

We take letters of a word and segment it into component sounds and later blend these words back together to read the entire word.

For example: The word ‘CAT’ make the initial /k/ sound, then /a/, and, finally, /t/.

Once they have successfully segmented these individual sounds, they then blend them together to say the word /kat/.

2] DECODING AND ENCODING: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN READING AND WRITING

First, we introduce passive skill of reading. This is Decoding. Later, the student’s knowledge of phonics develops the active skill of writing. This is encoding.

 Teachers therefore need to interlace up-and-coming writing skills, such as letter formation, into their phonics lessons to take advantage of the opportunity to bridge this gap between reading and writing skills.

3] SIGHT WORDS ARE VERY IMPORTANT

 Over the centuries, English Language has been influenced by the German, Latin, French, Greek, and Celtic languages, among others.

This circumstance has led to many discrepancies in spellings remaining in the modern language. Phonics will not seem to be enough to decode these words.  Students need to learn to read some words by sight alone.

Sight words, also known as high-frequency words are extremely common words used time and again in most texts. Many of them are phonetically asymmetrical and follow no conformist spelling rules. For children’s reading books, sight words can account for up to 75% of the words in the text.

Therefore, it is best for the teacher to combine the study of phonics with the learning of these sight words for maximum effectiveness.

WHAT ARE THE STAGES OF PHONICS TEACHING

1. THE PRE-PHONICS STAGE

Before beginning to learn phonics  certain prerequisite skills need to be developed, like Listening, Sound Reproduction,Sequencing, etc.

LISTENING SKILLS:

Children must be able to listen carefully to the sounds of speech. They must study to filter speech sounds from other unrelated environmental sounds. This is usually best achieved by playing various listening games. When children have developed good auditory understanding, the game Simon Says is a fun way to further develop listening skills.

SOUND REPRODUCTION SKILLS:

Once the children have learned to single out between various sounds, they should learn to replicate these themselves. This is usually achieved by modelling the sounds carefully for the children and encouraging them to copy these with particular attention paid to the shape of the mouth when making each sound. The popular fun game Telephone is excellent for this.

SEQUENCING SKILLS:

It is essential for children who are learning to read to be able to sequence not only the events of a story but the individual sounds of the words they hear. They must be able to recognize which sound comes before or after another. They should also be familiar with sequencing language such as first, second, before, after, then etc.

2. SOUNDS AND ACTION

With young kids you have to give them an anchor to ‘hold on to the sounds of language.

To help build such an anchor to these sounds, you need to link sounds to written letters. Actions are often linked to each sound to help in remembering them. This is especially useful in the early stages as it works well for the most basic of sounds.

For example, when making the /m/ sound, children could be taught to rub their tummies as if they have eaten something delicious while saying “mmmmm”.

Or, they could open their mouths wide as if they were eating an apple while saying the /a/ sound.

It is necessary to plan made-to-order activities to go along with the various sounds of English and then teach these to your class.  You need to ensure that you use the same actions every time for a specific sound to avoid confusion.

Later, when students come to segment words into their individual sounds, they can use these actions to help recall them.

HOW DO WE PLAN A PHONICS LESSON FOR OUR CLASS

The feature and assignment of your phonics lessons will depend greatly on the precise condition of your students. However,  here are some general points to consider when planning a phonics lesson for your class.

●        Keep Phonics Lessons Short and Sweet

 Do not bore the Kids at any stage. So keep phonics lessons short. In and around 10 to 15 minutes is ideal and no more than 20 minutes. Remember, we want our kids to be lifelong readers, and that means they need to enjoy it!

●       Be Consistent

Consistency is key to your success. If your students are learning to read, they’ll need to practice and study their phonics every day – preferably at the same time each day.

●       Keep on Revisiting the Learnt Material

A lot of reinforcement will be required over the course of the year. Research has shown that keeping a brisk pace through a phonics program achieves the best results. You have to keep revisiting the material again and again.

●       Keep Things Fun!

Learning to read should be a positive experience. It is acquiring one of the most empowering skills a child will ever have. To keep things fun, be sure to incorporate lots of enjoyable activities and games into your phonics lessons.

KOFALT GLOBAL has developed a unique approach to teach Phonics.

1] Projector Education Programme where you bring Letters to Life in your Classroom and explain their sounds and word Formation in a Fun manner.

2] Glide and Slide Trick

3]Elastic Band Trick

4]Story Based Single Letter and Double Letter Flash cards are used to teach Children.

Source – Google – https://literacyideas.com/how-to-teach-phonics/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics, https://www.twinkl.co.in/teaching-wiki/phonics

https://kofalt.in/courses/phonetics-reading-is-fun/8