Knowing all the different ways to represent phonemes is the first step to reading and spelling more complex words. This is why you should teach phonics lessons every day so that reading becomes automatic and increasingly fluent. It is just as important for children to apply this new knowledge; that’s why Get Reading Right is so committed to guided reading and having children experience success by reading their very first words and sentences in real books. The Get Reading Right Practice Books have been designed to help children practise their new skills by reading fully decodable sentences with no picture support. Other reading objectives such as fluency, reading with expression and simple comprehension can also be taught in guided reading sessions using these Practice Books. For more details about exactly how to do this, go to the guided reading section in this book. What is a little more challenging, is to teach children how to choose the correct spelling when faced with a choice of letter(s) that represent the same phoneme, e.g. to spell the word ‘ dolphin’ correctly rather than ‘ dolffin’ or ‘ dolfin’. That’s why we have tried to support you with detailed lesson plans and rules for the games that we have found work well when teaching children how to make spelling choices. Children also need plenty of fun, multi-sensory activities so that they can practise their new reading and spelling skills; so do play as many of the Get Reading Right games as you can. We have designed some of our games to reinforce children’s knowledge of the many graphemephoneme representations and some to train visual memory. Games like Looking Good and Switcheroo are excellent ways to train children to look at words and ask themselves if the word ‘looks right’. After all, the words - dolphin, dolffin and dolfin can all be decoded or sounded out to make the word ‘ dolphin’’, but the English speaking world has all agreed on only one spelling…’ dolphin’ . When a child tries to spell a new word, it is important to check whether the attempt is phonetically plausible. If it is, but is spelled incorrectly, ask the child if there is another way to spell the word. Ask the child to continue to try different representations until one “looks right”. It is important that children are encouraged and feel able to ‘have a go’ at all stages of spelling development. We think you should just ‘jump in’ and give teaching the alternative spellings a try by following the lessons and games from the Toolkit. We have taught these lessons for many years so we feel confident that your class will enjoy the thrill of learning to read and spell. We are also certain that you will experience the satisfaction of a job well done too! www.getreadingright.com © Get Reading Right 2011 4 Part Three - Complete the Code
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMxOTk0OQ==