Friday, November 13, 2009

The next step in teaching phonological awareness after the child has mastered letter sounds is to read sight words. For example, simple words like 'cat','bat',mat' etc.. and once the child is able to read these sight words correctly,keep increasing the difficulty level of the words appropriate to his/her age and class.

Ask the child to write clearly the letters of the alphabet in order, starting with lower case letters and then with capital letters.
Score the number of correct letters written and also note whether the child has put any letters in the wrong order.

Where it is required to teach a child letters, always start with the lower case and once he/she has mastered all the letters in the lower case, then start with the capital letters.

Spelling nonsense words:
Present some nonsense words to the child and ask him/hher to read them. For example words like 'wat', 'ket', 'tas', 'serk','twemple','hosjer' and so on.. and see whether the child is able to pronounce them correctly. Also ask the child to spell these nonsense words. Minor errors like spelling the word 'hosjer' as 'hosger'or 'housjar' can be acceptable but not 'hasjeer' or something that sounds very much deviant from the actual sound.

Now ask the child to say some words backwards- where the first and the last letter sounds have to be swapped. For example, you say 'pat' and the child has to say 'tap'.
Try some more words like, brush and the child has to say 'shrub', pool-loop, 'pan-nap','shop-posh' etc...
Gradually increase the difficulty level by presenting some harder words such as 'eem' and the child has to say 'me', 'keal' and the child says 'leak' etc...

Rhyming words:

Present to the child a set of words like 'cat', 'mat', 'big','rat' and ask the child to identify a word that does not rhyme with the other words. Continue this activity until the child has learnt to pick up the word that does not rhyme with the words in that set.

Blends and diagraphs:

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