Working with the basic techniques which I described in the last chapter, a student will learn one-syllable words, and, by means of phonics guidelines, letter sequences for rhymes, and letters for individual speech sounds. Then, at some point, perhaps with a nudge from a tutor, a facilitator, or another student the student will begin to work with pronounceable sequences of letters within words. Tutors and facilitators encourage this work. They also introduce techniques to enhance it, including techniques for finding the recognizable sequences, working with compound words, working with prefixes and suffixes, and working with syllables.
I will close this chapter with two descriptions of how students ant tutors/facilitators can work together to focus a learner’s previous knowledge and experience on developing the skill of sounding out words independently. The first description is from a student’s point of view. The second is from a staff person’s point of view.
I think that once you see a little word like CAN in a word, or RUN in a word, or something like that, then you can sound out the rest of the letters. And then there’s always the meaning. If it’s “We’re all voting for that ...” and then it’s C-A-N, you can figure out that it’s CANDIDATE.
- a student
So you’re looking at PEPPERONI, right? And you can’t read it. You really fell you don’t want to try it. But I’ll say, “Well, try it.” And you’ll try it, and I’ll ask, “Which part of that word do you feel that you’re having trouble with?” and, usually, you’ll know which part of the word you’re having trouble with. “Well, I can get the P-E-P, ‘pep’, but I’m having trouble with the P-E-R-O-N-I.” Okay, so we’ll bring it down to the P-E-R-O-N-I.
- Victor, Staff Person, East Mall Literacy
As these quotes suggest, when a student begins to recognize that he now has knowledge and experience with written language that he can use to sound out words, he enters into a new, dynamic, and progressively equal relationship with his tutor/facilitator.
During the Sounding Out Words Project, a number of tutors and facilitators asked for ideas about ordering their phonics work. What is a good place to start? How can the difficulty of the work be increased incrementally?
These are questions that are difficult to answer in general terms. If, as this book advocates, you are focussing on the student, instead of on Language, you will be creating rhyming word families from the written language that the student is reading and creating, you will be choosing key words based on the student’s interests and goals, and you will be choosing contrastive pairs based on the particular difficulties which the student is encountering. The set of words that you have to work on will not have been chosen for the sole purpose of illustrating phonics guidelines in a logical sequence, but because these words are important to the student.