step027.htm/10NOV2001

Step 27‑30

"Step 27" is not hard and fast. This programme merely sets out one version of teaching phonics, and a good phonic programme will not vary too far from it. We have had so much of "All children are different" without the other half of the truth, "All children have common needs"; we have had "Don't worry; he'll catch on" and "Reading to your child is the best help you can give", so that by now many parents and teachers either do not know how to set about teaching letters, etc., or are afraid to do so.

This programme is SAFE, safe for all ages including adults, safe for pre‑schoolers, dyslexics, gipsies, people in prison, everyone. Just use your common sense as to how long to take over each step. All I provide is a bit of an idea how long it should take, but learning to read should not take more than two years for ANYBODY (if they are ever going to learn to read) except the very, very severely dyslexic, who need to attend a residential school such as that run by Martin Phillips (Old Brettenham, Suffolk) for one, or two years. Such people are about .3% (point three per cent, a third of 1%) of the population.

When a child can read and spell 3‑letter words, work with 4‑letter words, but again only words that have 4 sounds, i.e. not 'ship' where the sh is one sound, not 'rake' where the e is silent. In schools that can do classwork and other work, and with variety can easily spend 1.5 to 3 hours a day on reading and spelling (just for one or two terms, at the beginning), three days may be enough time for the 4‑letter stage.

Use (Make?) a dice‑game of s/ladders, bingo, pack of cards for Pairs, and an "Is It?" booklet. In other workbooks, avoid exercises that use words involving letter‑groups not yet taught. ("Fork" cannot be used until you have done OR.)

Many teachers and some schemes spend time working on what they call consonant blends, st, sp, tr, or " letterstrings" like str, spl. I believe that if someone really grasps how to read 3‑ and 4‑letter words, and knows s and t, we do not need to spend extra time learning ST. ST is just two ordinary letters one after the other. Why make it seem difficult, why provide something extra to learn when we do not need it?

When we come, soon, to what I call letter‑groups, where two letters must be read together to make one sound, like sh, then is the time to have the pupil notice two letters together, but when reading vest, flat, flag, it is enough to go through the sequence of letters, sound them out and LISTEN.

The words I use for 4‑letter bingo are: camp fast flag hand rang sack sand rest send sent vest went drip fist lick limp list wink pink ring spin wind wing cost drop lock song stop lump must jump just.

The learner could listen to some of these words, spoken, choose the right column according to the vowel sound, and write them in the columns of a printed out copy of this web page or the Vowel Chart page (See Contents).

a	e	i	o	u

You are given the first letter of a word. Can you write the word to match the picture?(Click here.)