Introduction

Phonics (Decoding): Single Syllable Words

And Beyond

Phonics is a complicated and tedious process. Few students will use phonics as long as there is another method for determining a new word. Most students will first ask another student, a teacher, or a parent to pronounce a word for them before they ever attempt to decode the word for themselves. Fewer still will ever go to a dictionary to find the pronunciation of a word. Before we move forward, it would help if we can determine just what phonics will and will not do.

First, we need to examine why phonics is important. Phonics is normally used during students’ reading or writing. It is used because a student has encountered an unknown word in reading or is unable to spell a word in writing. At this point students need a system for sounding out a word. For this reason many teachers always work with whole words rather than parts of a word. It is critical that students understand from the beginning that phonics (or sight words) is a part of reading and writing and has real application. Many students, when working with individual sounds and not in the context of a word, are unable to connect these sounds to reading or writing, and thus, cannot see the relevance or need for the practice.

Second, phonics is believed by many to be a cure-all for students with reading problems. This is not true. A phonics system will help students read to the level of their listening vocabulary. If the word is not in the students’ listening vocabulary, phonics will not help. This is one reason why reading to preschool children (and beyond) is so important. The language development process, through preschool reading, greatly enlarges children’s listening vocabulary.

Third, many people believe that phonics is basically a reading tool. This is also not true. Phonics is much easier to teach when writing words that are in the student’s speaking vocabulary and are needed in writing. When teaching phonics, students should have practice in listening to and writing words that are in their listening or speaking vocabularies. This practice ties phonics to reading and writing and enables support for both areas. This is another reason that phonics should always be taught as a part of reading or writing and not taught in isolation.

The next myth relates to phonics being consistent in our language. Again, this is simply not true. There is a rule that, “when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.” Experience shows this rule works just slightly over 50% of the time. An example where the rule works is the word “each.” With the two vowels together the first does the talking and has the sound of long “e” or it says it name. This rule works for “each,” but not for “you” or “could.” In fact the vowel unit “ou” has been found by one researcher to have sixteen different sounds. This causes students great confusion and makes many “ou” words become solely sight words.

Last, phonics works well for slower students. Not true. Phonics does not work as well for slower students because they do not have the ability to generalize information. Slower students tend to learn in very discrete units. Most of us have seen this in relation to spelling lists. A slower student will spell the words correctly on the weekly test, but will misspell the same words when writing a paragraph. (It should be noted this practice is not limited to slower students entirely.) Slower students have a special need for the teacher to continuously make the connection between reading and writing whether the lesson is for sight words or phonics.

No system is perfect as we do not have a perfect language and it is a living language. However, this approach will work about 80% of the time, which seems pretty good to me. With practice, the system will get you close enough to pronounce the word if it is in the children’s listening vocabulary.

Play around with the system for a few weeks before you begin to use it with students. Vowels are the units that give us the best chance at sounding out a word and the study will begin with vowel and consonants that link together to create the sounds in words. Most teachers presently work with consonants first and this causes problems later in learning phonics.

Again, phonics is a complicated and tedious process, but with some work and a lot of humor, it can also become a mystery process or a game process. By and large students will come to like to use the system as it gives them at least a chance of decoding almost any word. Many students will find they can unlock multisyllable words while reading and this is a great ego builder. Try it and see.

You will need to print the next four sheets to have while working with the lesson found on pages 7-10.
Phonics Single Syllable Words and Beyond

Decoding: Beyond Single Syllable Words

Simplified Self‑help Phonics

Step 1: Underline each vowel unit.

The following are common vowel units.

a	e	i	o	u	y
ai	ea		oo
ar	er	ir	or	ur
eigh	eighei	igh	ou
ay	ey		oy
aw	ew		ow

a e i o u y

ai ea oo

ar er ir or ur

eigh igh ou

ay ey oy

aw ew ow

EXAMPLES:

each sleigh they throw note

Step 2: Separate common prefixes and suffixes by a slash line (/ )/).

Common prefixes Common suffixes

ex	un	tion	cious	ant
pre	re	ly	ous	est
pro	non	able	less	ness
dis		ful

Common prefixes Common suffixes

ex‑ un‑ ‑tion ‑cious ‑ant

pre‑ re‑ ‑ -ly ‑ous ‑est

pro‑ non‑ ‑ -able ‑less ‑ness

dis‑ -ful

EXAMPLES: re / fine na / tion

Step 3: Divide the rest of the word into sounds using the following rules.

V = Vowel C = Consonant

V/CV VC/CV VC/CCV

Divide the word using these patterns. If you have a vowel/consonant/vowel patterns divide before the consonant. For vowel/consonant/consonant/vowel you would divide between the consonants. Don’t worry if you find this is not totally accurate for the adult reader.

The following letters should not be divided. and would become a single consonant unit.

ch, sh, th, wh, ph, qu

EXAMPLE: re / fine (a final e is usually silent and makes the vowel before it long).

na / tion (-tion on the end of a word is almost always “shŭn.”)

Step 4: Mark single vowel units as long (‑) or short (˘) using the open or closed rule.

A. Open Rule: A single vowel unit is marked long if the sound ends with a vowel.

B. Closed Rule: A single vowel unit is marked short if the sound ends with a consonant

.

C. Vowel units of more than one letter are circled and the sound of

these units must be learned individually.

EXAMPLES: r ē / f ī n e (Pput a slash / through final e to show it is silent. A final e is usually silent and makes the vowel just before it a long vowel.)

Step 5: Pronounce the word..... Apply what you hear to the printed text.the word to the printed page. THINK!

Phonics Key Words for Learning Vowel Units

Common Errors in Using This Approach

Some think that a phonetic approach will solve all problems. Not true. A phonetic approach will help students read to the level of their listening vocabulary. If the word is not in the student’s listening vocabulary, phonics will not help. The teacher must then provide developmentally appropriate vocabulary lessons .

Phonics is basically a reading approach. Not true. Phonics is more easily taught as a part of written composition as the students will have an immediate practical application for all that is learned. However, it does transfer to reading from writing.

Phonics works well for slower students. Not true. Phonics does not work as well for slower students because they do not have the ability to generalize information. Slower students tend to learn in very discrete units. Most of us have seen this in relation to spelling lists. A slower student will spell the words correctly on the weekly test, but will misspell the same words when writing a paragraph.

Phonics rules are consistent across the language. Not true. Most of the rules that we use in phonics work slightly more than 50% of the time. For example, the ou combination has been found to have sixteen different pronunciations in the English language. Some researcher spent a lot of time finding these 16 sounds. How many can you find?

I love this one. When two vowels go walking the first one does the talking. My experience is that this saying works something less than 50% of the time.

No system is perfect as we do not have a perfect language and it is a living language. However, this approach will work about 80% of the time, which seems pretty good to me. Play around with it for a few weeks before you begin to use it with students.

Sounds like the vowel in the key word.

Short Vowel Sounds ( ˘ ) Long Vowel Sounds ( - )

Key words Key Words

ă t	āt (Ending e is silent)
p ĕ t	P ē t e (Ending e silent)
b ĭ t	b ī t e (Ending e silent)
n ŏ t	n ō t e (Ending e is silent)
c ŭ t	c ū t e (Ending e is silent)

The letter “y” may be a vowel in the middle or end of a word. In the middle of a word it sounds like a short vowel i, as in “gym.” At the end of a word the y usually has a long e sound as in “busy,” but may have a long i sound as in “why” or “by.”

Here are other common sounds for vowel units.

Common Unit	Sound in Words	Common Unit	Sound in words
ai	air or rain	ay	say or way
ea	great or each	ey	They
oo	look, good, too	oy or oi	boy oil
ar	far	or	For
ir, er, ur	her, stir, fur	aw	Claw
ew	dew	eigh