phonics
noun
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How Do You Teach phonics?
In the field of beginning reading, there are two basic schools of thought in the U.S. today. One emphasizes "whole language" teaching, which relies on teaching a lot of reading; the other emphasizes phonics, teaching how letters and syllables correspond to sounds. Phonics instruction may be especially difficult in English, since English has the most difficult spelling of any Western language. Consider the various ways we create the f *sound in *cough, photo, *and *giraffe, or the sh sound in special, issue, vicious, *and *portion, or the k sound in tack, quite, and shellac, and how we pronounce the o in do, core, lock, *and *bone, or the ea in lead, ocean, idea, and early. Teaching phonics obviously isn't an easy job, but it's probably an important one.
Example Sentences
Lelah Byron And Aimee Galaszewski, Journal Sentinel, 8 Sep. 2022 Children need opportunities practice phonics skills — which emphasize the relationship between sounds and letters — to be successful readers. Lauren Lumpkin, Washington Post, 5 Sep. 2022 Fairfield’s camps focus on a structured reading program that covers phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, fluency and vocabulary. al, 16 June 2022 The small group of first-graders are part of Robinson Elementary’s second summer learning camp, and White, a pre-K teacher, signed up to spend her break helping the students brush up on their phonics skills. al, 16 June 2022 Several states are in the process of retraining teachers in the more phonics-heavy methods. Sara Randazzo, WSJ, 7 Aug. 2022 Green said interventions can include phonics lessons in which teachers explain, for example, how two letters in a word can produce two separate sounds. Bob Sandrick, cleveland, 28 June 2022 Some experts argue teaching early readers foundational skills, including how to sound out words using phonics is best. Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 June 2022 Is the charter using a program that teaches phonics and other foundational reading skills in a systematic way? Natalie Wexler, Forbes, 19 May 2022 See More Word History
New Latin phōnicus phonic + -ics
Note: The word was most likely reformed on several occasions. Its earliest use appears to be in an essay by the English-born Church of Ireland cleric Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713) ("An introductory Essay to the Doctrine of Sounds, containing some proposals for the improvement of Acousticks," Philosophical Transactions [of the Royal Society], vol. 14, no. 156, February 20, 1684, p. 473): "In like manner Hearing may be divided into Direct, Refracted, and Reflex'd; whereto answer three parts of our doctrine of Acousticks; which are yet nameless, unless we call them Acousticks, Diacousticks, and Catacousticks, or (in another sense, but to as good purpose) Phonicks, Diaphonicks, and Cataphonicks." The application of phonics to a method of teaching reading appears to date from the first half of the nineteenth century; see the anonymous review of the phonic reading books sponsored by the British educator Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth in The Quarterly Review, vol. 74 (June & October, 1844), pp. 26-38, in which the reviewer refers contemptuously to a sound-based teaching system as "Shuttleworth's phonics."
circa 1684, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Kids Definition
phonics
noun
Medical Definition
phonics