Cheryl Paton shares tips about literacy, mainly helping adult reading students.
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My college age daughter was doing some research on literacy and found out that boys weren't doing as well in reading. It was reported that the problem was that the reading materials that were presented to them in school wasn't that interesting to them.
Yes, I know that reading materials in the schools may not be all that interesting to anyone. The key is that we want to keep our kids learning and reading; it will help them to become literate adults.
If the school isn't providing interesting reading materials, find out what your kids are interested in, and provide them with some books that are appealing to them. If they aren't really interested in "books", check out comic books and/or song lyrics. Perhaps they'll want to sing along to their favorite artists. A karaoke machine can be used for learning activities and birthdays too!
Have them dictate a story to you, write their words down, and then read it back to them. Then have them read their story back to you.
If they are also writing, reverse the roles, and dictate a story to them and have them write it down and then read it back to you. It can be a made up story, and or an experience story, or about something that they would like to do have or do.
Change things up a bit by having them write with a paint brush. Get some poster board or larger paper so that they can write l a r g e.
You don't have to do all of the above; the idea is to provide some fun reading activities that are outside of the school environment that is just for fun.
If you have any other ideas, please share in a comment below.
I was a literacy tutor for adults for twelve plus years and I'll be sharing some some of my tips for both literacy tutors and students. May you find something helpful and useful here.
Literacy and phonics go together. Although many words cannot be decoded using phonics alone, most words can.
Knowing common sight words lays a great foundation and should be included in any literacy program.
Knowing common rules for letter sounds and common letter patterns is a good basis for sounding out new words.
Most letters only represent one sound. Some letters represent two or more sounds. For example, the letter X represents four sounds. Sometimes a letter is actually silent, or changes the sound it represents when it's combined with different letters. The letter C represents the hard sound in the word car, and the soft sound in the word cent. Here is some basic info to help you out.
It's okay to start with little words.
Small words, such as cat, may be considered baby words by some people. However, by understanding that the letters CA in cat represent the same sound that starts the word Cathy can be a big help in sounding out the word Cathy.
Also knowing that the letter C, when immediately followed by the letter A in the same syllable, will represent the same sound that the letter K represents, is an extra plus.
Whereas the letter C immediately followed by the letter I in the same syllable, as in city, represents the same sound as the letter S does in the word silly.
Any size word is made up of common letter combinations. Multiple letter groups added together make bigger words, called multi-syllable words.
Understanding and recognizing smaller letter patterns can be helpful in decoding and sounding out larger multi-syllable words.
Some basics on vowels and syllables and when W and Y act like vowels:
There are five letters in the English language that are always vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. Vowels can be long, which means that they say their name; be short and represent a more breathy sound; or they can be paired with other vowels to represent a new sound.
The letters W and Y can also act like vowels depending on the word that they are in, and their location in the word. Y acts like a silent E in the word play; like a long E, as in the word silly; and as a long I, as in the word byte. W acts like a silent E, as in the word grow.
In the English language, the majority of syllables, at least 99.9% of them, have a vowel in them. One exception that I know of is the word rhythm, in which there are two syllables and only one vowel.
Other than the word rhythm, there will normally be at least one vowel in each syllable and up to three. Your jaw will drop with the voicing of each new syllable. (Place your hand under your chin and say a word. How many times did your jaw lower? That will tell you how many syllables are in that word.)
Some Basics on Consonants:
There are 19 letters that are always consonants, B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, and Z. There are 21 when counting the letters W and Y, which sometimes act like consonants and sometimes act like vowels.
Most consonants are usually known for a specific sound: B, D, F, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, T, V, and Z, with only a few exceptions.
Three consonants can also represent a hard or soft sound; they are C, G, and S. The C can be hard as in the word cat or soft as in the word city. The G can represent its hard sound as in the word go, or its' soft sound as in the word gel. The S can represent its hard sound as in the word seal, or its soft sound as in the word rise, in which the S sounds like the Z sound. See more below under General Spelling/Phonics Rules.
The X represents four sounds. X sometimes represents the Z sound as in xylophone, says its name as in x-ray, sounds like the K sound as in tuxedo, or the CKS sound as in fox.
B, K, and W are also sometimes silent, like in the words: climb, knew, and wrap.
Alphabet Sounds:
Here are the basic consonant and short vowel sounds. Please note that some of the consonant sounds here include a short vowel sound after the consonant sound. As best you can, leave the vowel sound off when making the consonant sound by itself. The vowel sound will change depending on the actual vowel that follows the consonant in a word. For example, the vowel sound in the word cup sounds different than in the word cap. But they both start with the sound of /k/.
I do think that it is easier to learn phonics when you have something or someone to listen to as the various sounds are given when the letter is being shown.
If you are a tutor, or a literacy student who already knows quite a bit of the basics, then I recommend The Phonics Guide: A Guide to Reading and Spelling Patterns, to use as a reference book. Any letter and or letter pattern can be looked up alphabetically, and examples and rules are given for each one.
No matter the age of your student, it's fun to intermix playing games with other literacy activities.
Bananagrams is a spelling game featuring a banana shaped zippered pouch and Scrabble type alphabet letter tiles. It is easy and convenient to carry along.
The basic game is to place letter tiles face down and participants pick a number of tiles and they take turns adding to the crossword puzzle that they are making. The instructions will give more details and various options for ways to play the game.
With the letter tiles, you can also come up with your own variations. For instance, you could have your student practice making words that start with a certain blend, or make rhyming words that have the same spelling on the end of the word.
I am sure that you can come up with other ideas as well.
Some ideas are:
1. Scramble the letters of a particular word, say the word, then have the student rearrange the letters to spell the word correctly.
2. Lay a variety of letter tiles to choose from, then start the word with a letter blend, say the word, then have the student complete the spelling of the word.
3. Lay the letter tiles out to represent various blends, i.e. bl, cl, fl, etc. Say a word and have the student select the correct spelling for the beginning blend.
4. Lay the letter tiles out to represent various blends, i.e. br, cr, dr, etc. Place letter tiles in place to spell the remainder of a word. Have the student select the correct blend and have them place the correct tiles in front of the letters that make a word.
A small set is plenty enough tiles for a couple of people to play a variety of spelling games.
5. Make a crossword puzzle. Lay various letter tiles out, and spell a word with the tiles. Have the student think of a word that includes a letter that you have already used, and they can add their tiles to the crossword puzzle. Alternating turns, keep using letters that are already in the puzzle to be part of the new word.
As you can see, there are a variety of ways to use letter tiles to help reinforce learning.
If you don't already have letter tiles from an old Scrabble game, then I recommend Bananagrams; it comes with a storage bag to easily carry your letters and it's small enough to fit in a purse or backpack.
If you have other spelling ideas to use letter tiles, please share them with us below.
Cheryl Paton
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