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PHONO-GRAPHIX

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The Child LIstener's original interest in this method stemmed from reading
'Why Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It ' by Diane McGuiness
and reading of her research.

Emma undertook the online Phono-Graphix course, to become a Certified Trainer. Please note that although she advocates the teaching of reading and spelling using Phono-Graphix she does not offer Phono-Graphix training.

To teach children to read and spell using Phonographix™
please order Reading Reflex here

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Research undertaken in a group of UK schools using a variety of teaching methods show that students taught to read using Phono Graphix made more progress than the other children. Significantly, none of the children on the Phono-Graphix required additional literacy support (ALS) in the following year. This included a range of children originally identified as having special educational needs.(SEN)

CLICK HERE to see an overview of lesson objectives when teaching
children to read using Phono-Graphix

Phono-Graphix is a clear method of teaching children to read that actually works.
Not only that, it has been so well designed that both parents and teachers can use it by simply buying the book the Reading Reflex.

Rather than simply teaching phonics (although parents and teachers tend NOT to find phonics easy to teach) this method doesnt teach children that letters 'make sounds' it teaches children that they represent sounds. It takes what children know, the sound of their language, and teaches them about the various sound pictures (ie the code) that represent these sounds.

Basically it is easier for children to learn the 134 sound pictures that represent the various sounds produced in the English language than to memorise the 20,000 or so words used on a day to day basis! There are about 55 words in the English language that do not de-code properly, the others are predictable and de-codable if one knows and uses the English code.


The theoretical underpinnings of Phono-Graphix are remarkably straightforward and sensible, no doubt encouraging its rapid spread and popularity among teachers. It is based simply on the nature of the English code, the three skills needed to access that code, and teaching these in keeping with the way children learn.

The Nature of the Code and the Child as a Learner of the Code

Letters are pictures of sounds, So these are pictures of sounds b oa t

Can children understand this?
--We believe that children can understand this perfectly well. Children have a remarkable ability to assess visual figures. At two days a baby can distinguish his mother's face from any other human face. Children assess visual figures in the world around them every day.

Sound pictures can be one or more letters. The pictures can be made of one b / t or more oa letters. So boat has three sounds, and three sound pictures b oa t

Can children understand this?--We believe children can manage this. They reuse figures in the world around them every day. No rule is needed to recognize a triangle and a square, or that a triangle on a square is a house, so why would they need a rule to recognize oa as 'oe'.

There is variation in the code; most of the sounds can be shown with more than one picture

b oa t s l ow m o s t t oe n o t e th ough

Can children understand this?--We believe that children can easily learn that these oa ow o are all a picture of the same sound. If shown a picture of a daisy, a lilac and a rose, children learn easily enough that they are a picture of the same word... 'flower'.

There is overlap in the code; some of the pictures are used for more than one sound?

ow = sh ow  f r ow n

Can children understand this?--We believe children can manage this as they easily manage that a circle can be a picture of a ball, a circle, a moon, a dot, and more!

The Skills Needed to Use Such a Code

Reading and spelling is also dependent upon expertise at the skills needed
to use such a code.

Segmenting--to use a sound picture code one must be able to access
independent sounds within words.

Blending--to use a sound picture code children must be able to push sounds
together into words.

Phoneme Manipulation--to use a code that contains overlap children must be
able to slide sounds in and out of words that contain overlap spellings such
as the <ow> in 'brown'.

Children Learn Best In Context and Through Active Discovery

Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget said...

"The child only deeply understands that which he has created."

Through directed discovery the Phono-Graphix lessons help the child to create a schema for the code that is based on its true nature and the way children learn.

Click here to read the research on Phono-Graphix

FOR A FULL explanation of how Phono-Graphix is used with school children,
please click here to view a paper first presented to the
Office of Standards in Education, December, 1998.

Source

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Basic difference between using Phono-Graphix and teaching Phonics

Written English Is A Sound Picture Code
The English written language is a phonetic code. This means that each sound in a word is represented by a symbol, or sound picture.

Some Sounds Are Shown With One Letter,
Some Are Shown With Two Or More

The English language contains sound pictures that are made with one letter, such as the sound pictures in the word cat. Each letter represents one sound. Many sound pictures are made with two or more letters, such as the oa in boat and the ou in out. Rules about these sound pictures which are taught in traditional phonics programs do not work and only serve to confuse the new reader. eg: "When two vowels go walkin' the
first one does the talkin'", holds up 40% of the time, failing the new reader in thousands of common words like house, steak, August, bread and eight. In addition to being unreliable, rules tend to distract the reader from
the decoding process and cause him/her to focus on the rule itself.

There Is Variation In The Code
Most sounds can be represented by more than one sound picture. The sound 's' for instance can be represented in these ways: city voice house

There Is Overlap In The Code
The same sound picture that can spell the sound 'ee' in beach, spells the sound 'e' in bread and the sound 'a-e' in steak.

Most Reading Programs Are Developmentally Inappropriate

Phonics programs ask the child to learn the written code backwards. They teach the child that letters 'make' sounds rather than that sounds can be represented with 'sound pictures'. This backwards strategy is developmentally impossible for a young child to understand. Imposing it on him sets him for failure from the
very beginning. Phonics programs also rely on rules to teach children about the code. These rules are based on propositional logic, which we have known since Piaget is beyond the reasoning of a young child. In addition, the rules are erroneous, leaving the message that the code is unreliable. When Phonics was the primary reading method the illiteracy rate was 33% (US Department of Education, 1979).
Whole Language programs ask the child to learn to read by reading. This is illogical. Although Whole Language activities have their place and offer the child a love of literature, they do not teach him to read. When Whole Language has been the primary reading method, the illiteracy rate was 42%
(Report Card on The Nation & States, 1993).

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Overview of lesson objectives when teaching children to read
using Phono-Graphix

Please visit the ReadAmerica.net site for more info and for a list of trainers

Pink Level
Teaching the basic code

Goal One

That the child understands that letters are pictures of sounds

Goal Two

That the child knows the correspondence between all the sounds and
sound pictures that make up the basic code

Goal Three

That the child understands that spoken words and made up of sounds

Goal Four
That the child understands that written words are made up of sound pictures
which represent the sounds in words

Goal Five
That the child understands that sound pictures in written words occur in a
sequence from left to right

Goal Six

That the child is able to segment the sounds in spoken words

Goal Seven
That the child is able to blend the sounds in words

Blue Level
Teaching basic code adjacent consonant sounds

Goal One

To be able to perform the basic reading skills while articulating
adjacent consonant sounds

Goal Two

To be able to recall all the sounds in longer words when blending

Goal Three

To avoid the tendency to add or omit sounds in words

Purple Level
Teaching the Advanced Code

Goal One

Ability to understand that sometimes two or more letters represent a sound

Goal Two

Ability to understand that most sounds can be represented in more than one way

Goal Three

Ability to understand that there is an overlap in the code, that some components of the code can represent more than one sound (eg <o> can spell 'o' as in 'hot or 'oe' as in 'most')

Yellow Level
Multisyllable Management (US spelling)

Goal One

To understand that sometimes words have 'chunks' of blended sounds

Goal Two

To understand that the chunks of sounds in words are detemined by linguistics not orthography

Goal Three

To understand that we can read multisyllable words by blending sounds
into chunks and then chunks into meaningful words

Goal Four

To understand that we can spell multisyllable words by building the sounds
into chunks and then the chunks into words

Goal Five

To understand that multi syllable words contain a dormant chunk

Phono-Graphix - buy Reading Reflex (Carmen and Geoffrey McGuiness) for
full details of how to teach using Phono-Graphix at home or in the classroom

 

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'How to Teach ALL Children to Read, Write and Spell with Confidence' Instructional DVD for sale- $79
Buy DVD Here

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