Teaching Reading to young children. Understanding the two main methods - phonetic approach and sight reading.

1. By Rachel Aird
The Family Africa
Teaching Reading :
The two main methods

2. Children learn more in the
first five years of life than in
the rest of their lives.

3. Believe it or not……….
Children can learn to read
more easily than learning to
write.
It is very difficult for a child to
write when they are under 4
years old because they have
not yet developed the
necessary hand eye

4. Pencils can seem very big and
difficult to use to a small child!

5. Read to your children

6. Reading to your children
 What ever method you choose to teach
reading, reading to the children is
extremely important.
 Also encourage parents to read to their
children.
 It inspires children to want to read,
teaches them reading left to right as you
point to words and they may even
learning some words as you read when
there is a lot of repetition in the story.

7. Treat books with care
Always teach children that
books are special and should be
treated with care.
Teach them how to look after
them and how to turn pages
without ripping them.
Teach children a love of books

8. Two main methods of teaching
Reading
1.Using phonetics ; the sound
of the letters not the names.
Building up words from the
sounds

9. 2. Sight reading Look/ say
or whole word method
Using Flash cards with the
whole words as English is
not a very phonetic language
e.g. try reading
rough cough bough
Or: here they whether

10. Or they can be combined
It is also possible to teach
children to read combining
phonetics for simple words
and “Look, Say” (reading
whole words ) for the non
phonetic words.e.g.
C a t cat phonetic

11. Sight reading /Look Say
method
As I said it is easier for
a child to read than it is
to write.
It is about recognising
shapes and lots of
repetition.

12. Young children can
memorise hundreds of words
from the shapes of the
words. I have used this
method for over 40 years
with my children,
grandchildren and groups of

13. But I will always teach
them phonetics as well in
the end because it is
useful for building new
words and for spelling.

14.  Meaning and context
are very important to a
small child.
Don’t make it more
difficult by giving them
boring things to read!

15. When using sight reading or look
say method
Meaning and context are very
important.
Pictures are helpful because they add
meaning and context.
Lots of repetition
Make it fun. Keep them motivated
Use games.
Never spend too long on reading new
words when they are small children..

16. Children love to read!

17. A child wants to learn
and they are in fact
learning all the time and
they become bored
when there is nothing to
learn.

18. Learning to read their name
Write the children’s names on
cards and stick them on the
tables and get the children to
find their name. When they are
good at it. Move the tables
around and get them to find
their name again.
You will see it is much easier to

19. Look at the outline of the
shape of the word.

20. Why use flash cards?
You are teaching them the
shape of the word.
Look at these two words
Hippopotamus dog

21. The words look very different
and children can learn to
recognise them.
Easiest words to teach are nouns
e.g. names of animals,
Names of things in the classroom,
colours.

22. What is a noun?
A person, place or
thing.

23. Examples of nouns?
dog
cat
horse
Or
 table, chair, window

24. If you choose animals you can
show a picture of the animal
with the word.
Show them two animals with the
corresponding words
Then ask one of the children to
put the right word with the
animal.

25. Or verbs (action words)
jump
sit
hop

26. Teaching children whose first
language is not English
 To begin make BIG flash cards which can
be used in a group.
 Use action words and have the children
look at the cards and act it out eg,
 jump
 sit
 stand
 go
 hop

27. Write to lower case
(small) not capitals.
Write clearly and
evenly.

28. Say the words as you
show the cards
Then act them out
Do this several times for
each new word
 .

29. When you have shown the
children two words indivudally,
then show them together and
act out each one.
Then say to individual children
Which one says e.g. jump and
let them point to it.
Which one says : sit and let

30. Then just show the
card without saying
the word and see if
the children can do it

31. If they can’t……..
Don’t get angry, just
show them again
until they get it.
Use lots of praise.

32. Next use nouns (things)
Children find it easier to learn
words like table , chair ,dog, cat,
horse
 than words like
 is, the, this,
Label things in the classroom
Show pictures with the words so
the children understand them.

33. Using the Early Bird Readers
Only use with the older children (4-
6)
Have small group facing you who
can see the flash cards clearly
Teach the words in order
Each card has a number on it which
goes with the book number
Teach all the words which go along
with Book one first and then have

34. Using other sight reading books
You will find simple sight
reading (Look say method) on
the resource kit both in the
original kit and in part 2. There
are books you can print out and
make or show to a group on a
TV screen.

35. How to use the flash cards
Take two cards e.g. Tom and Meg
Show each card and same the name
and get the children to repeat
Jumble up the cards and put them on
the table
 Then ask them to pick up “Tom” or
pick up “Meg”
Don’t test them until you are sure they
know the difference between the two

36. The next day
Introduce two more cards and do
the same
Then include the cards from the day
before as well so they can choose
from 4 cards.
Again help them by saying “Pick
up... and you say the word.
Always make it fun and always help
the child to succeed.

37. Give lots of praise.
Children love praise
and it works much
better than getting
angry when the child

38. Read, read, read
Children will love to read if
you read to them and if
you make it lots of fun.
If the child is tired or bored
...
 Stop!

39. When the children know 30 or more
sight words
You can continue with more
sight words if they are really
enjoying them
 0r you can start with
individual sounds and teach
them to build them into
words.

40. Teaching to read phonetically
Building words from
individual sounds

41. Every letter has a name and a
sound. Most people teach the
names of the letters A B C etc.
But it is more important for them to
learn the sounds and to use lower
case letters which is how most
words are written.
So they need to learn the phonetic
alphabet
a, b. c
E.g. a is for apple ( the first sound

42. Most of the sounds are the
same in Zulu because Zulu
was written down
phonetically but English
often is not phonetic
E.g. though, trough, tough,
bough

43. If you have forgotten them…….
Just think of the first sound of
the most common nouns used
to teach the alphabet
a is for apple
b is for ball
c is for cat
d is for dog.

44. Once they know their sounds
You can introduce the idea of
building words
E.g
c a t spells cat
b a t spells bat
r a t spell rat.

45. Words which go together
It is good to use nouns
especially if you have
pictures to go with them and
also words which go together
in a pattern (these can be
found on the resource kit)
Like cat , mat, hat,

46. Just use phonetic words for
sound building.
The words which are not
phonetic and easy to be built
from the individual sounds
can be taught by sight
reading the whole words.

47. For teaching reading phonetically
I am now going to show
the book series on your
resource kit which shows
you exactly how to do it.
Introducing the Alphabetti
Books……..

48. We love books!

49. Just try this Test to see if you
have understood the main points
before taking the google form test
which will be more detailed. The
answers follow the questions.
1. When a child is small, it is easier
to for them to read words than to
write them;
True or False

50. 2. There are two main methods
of teaching reading : the
phonetic method and the sight
reading or Look/Say whole
words method.
True or False

51. 3. With the phonetic method
we only teach whole words
not sounds.
True or False

52. 4. With the whole word, Look
Say method we teach using
sounds and build up the
sounds to make the word.
True or False

53.  5. Which words are the easiest to teach
children to read with the sight reading or
look/say method?
 Choose two correct answers:
 A) Nouns like dog, cat, table
 B) words like: this the a
 C) verbs like : jump, hop, stand
 D) all words are too difficult to learn until
you are 7 years old

54. 6) It is not important to read books
to children
True or False
7) It is Ok for children to throw
books around, after all we cannot
expect them to look after them.
True or False

55. 8)The letters of the alphabet have a
name and a sound.
True or false.
9) For building words we should
teach children
a) The names
b) The sounds

56. 10) Which language is more
phonetic:
A) English
B) Zulu

57. 11.The two methods of
teaching reading can be
combined.
True or False

58. 12. What is a noun?
A) A person, place or thing
B) An action word
13. What is a verb?
A) A person, place of thing
B) An action word.

59.  14. Why is it best to teach nouns and verbs
when starting to use the sight reading
method
A) Because nouns and verbs can be easily
visualised, understood by a child and are
more interesting to them than words like
“are”, “they” or “here”
 B) It really doesn’t matter because all words
are too difficult for children under 7 to learn.

60. 15. Whatever method of teaching
you use if the child gets something
wrong you should:
A) Shout at them
B) Make fun of them in front of the
whole class
C) Be patient, let them try again and
when they get it right praise them.
D) Tell the child he is stupid and will

61. Answers

62. Thank you!

63. Test
1. When a child is small, it is easier
to for them to read words than to
write them;
True

64. 2. There are two main methods
of teaching reading : the
phonetic method and the sight
reading or Look/Say whole
words method.
True

65. 3. With the phonetic method
we only teach whole words
not sounds.
 False

66. 4. With the sight reading
whole word, Look Say
method we teach using
sounds and build up the
sounds to make the word.
False

67.  5. Which words are the easiest to teach
children to read with the sight reading or
Look say method?
 Choose two correct answers:
 A) Nouns like dog, cat, table
 C) verbs like : jump, hop, stand

68. 6) It is not important to read books
to children
False
7) It is Ok for children to throw
books around, after all we cannot
expect them to look after them.
 False

69. 8)The letters of the alphabet have a
name and a sound.
True .
9) For building words we should
teach children
b) The sounds

70. 10) Which language is more
phonetic:
B) Zulu

71. 11.The two methods of
teaching reading can be
combined.
True

72.  12. What is a noun?
 A) A person, place or thing
 13. What is a verb?
 B) An action word.

73.  14. Why is it best to teach nouns and
verbs when starting to use the whole
word method ?
A) Because nouns and verbs can be
easily visualised, understood by a child
and are more interesting to them than
words like “are”, “they” or “here”

74. 15. Whatever method of teaching
you use if the child gets something
wrong you should:
C) Be patient, let them try again
and when they get it right praise the
child.

75. Congratulations you have
finished the workshop on
The two main methods of
teaching reading.