Purpose Uses of The Phonics Guide

When I was a literacy tutor for adults, I had wanted a go to phonics guide that I could easily refer to - to find out what the common letter patterns for any certain letter sound. I had wanted to know what all the different patterns were that I should cover for my students. My students that were advancing also started asking about particular letter patterns and in which cases did they applied. There wasn't any book like it around at the time, so I started writing it all down, alphabetically.

After I wrote it, I realized that it could be a resource book for literacy students as well as a reference book for tutors. Students could look up letter patterns and combinations, alphabetically, to help them review what they were learning. Tutors could look up common patterns to make sure that they covered them all in their lessons.

For both the tutor and the student, it serves as a reference guide, though it may be used differently by both.

For the tutor:
It serves as a teaching resource or reference guide. For instance; how many l blends are there and what are they. They can easily find this under the letter L. The same goes for R blends, etc.? Many teachers may already know this, but for a literacy tutor that did not have a teaching background, this could be a great help. I had started out as a Literacy Volunteer, and this type of training was not given.

For the student:
It serves as reinforcement, like a dictionary would. It is there as a resource for students not sure of a particular pattern; they can easily find it alphabetically. The illustrations will help to them jog their memory. They can also use the book to help them review. They can refer to a particular section, and create words and or sentences based on a particular blend, etc. They can also start to create new words, on their own, that aren't listed in the book.

This is a resource that can be used by both.



Cheryl Paton

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What are some different ways of spelling the long sound of A?

There are several ways of spelling the long sound of A.

The letter A is a vowel. A by itself can be pronounced as long a, such as, I will go on a hike. The letter a is also a word. The only other letter that is also a vowel and a word, is the letter i.

AI
A common letter pattern for long a, is the letter a, followed by a consonant, followed by a silent e; such as cake, made, grapes, and mate.

The letter pattern AI is also another common spelling for long A; such as train, aim, paid, and grain.

The AI pattern is found in the middle of the syllable or single syllable word.

An exception for the sound is found in the word said, the AI pattern represents the sound of short E in the word said.

Keep in mind that when the AI pattern is immediately followed by the letter R, that the sound is R-controlled. The pattern AIR is also a word when used by itself. It also represents the same sound when used as part of other AIR words, as in hair and fair.

AY
AY is another long A pattern, as in lay, play, stay. and gray.

AY is used mainly at the end of the word or syllable. An exception to this is the word crayon where the A is actually at the end of the first syllable and the Y is the first letter of the next syllable.

EA
EA represents a variety of sounds, one of them is long A, as in break, steak, and great. The EA pattern for long A is found in the middle of the syllable.

EI
The letters EI also represent the sound of long A, as in vein, weigh, weight, and neighbor.

The EI pattern is found in the middle of the syllable

EY
EY can also represent the sound of long A, as in prey and they. EY also represents long E, as in the word, key.

The EY pattern for long A is found at the end of the word or syllable.

You can find this type of information, and more, in The Phonics Guide. If you have found this information helpful, or know someone who would, then you and/or they would probably benefit from reading The Phonics Guide: A guide to reading and spelling patterns. The text link will take you to Amazon where you can order it.

It is not a lesson book, but a reference book, guide, that one can refer to, to look up common spelling patterns, alphabetically.

Cheryl Paton

Cheryl Paton was a literacy tutor for over 12 years. She wrote The Phonics Guide based on the types of questions her adult literacy students were asking her. Cheryl receives income for qualifying items purchased through links on this page.