By Deviyani Pathak

Phonics- involves teaching sounds of words, to associate them with alphabets for the purpose of reading and writing. Each alphabet has a sound associated to it known as phoneme. Reading words is an otherwise automated process can be a cumbersome task for children with learning difficulties. The process of teaching phonics allows them to read words by breaking them down as per the sounds of the words. There are some words which are exceptions to the rule and cannot be spelt phonetically like sight words which need to be learnt through sight reading.

All the consonants have individual sound, i.e. the sound of the alphabet so b says b as in b/a/t. However, the five vowels have two sounds a long and a short. The long vowels are sounds of those alphabets themselves. On the other hand a short vowel has the following sounds;

A as in c/a/t

E as in p/e/n

I as in p/i/g

O as in h/o/t

U as in h/u/g

There are different sounds for different combinations of words which are spelt as per their phonetic sounds, the blending of two alphabets wherein both individual sounds are blended for a third sound are known as blends like sl, bl, cl and so on. In such a case the individual sounds of s and l are combined to get a third sound which retain the individual sound of both the alphabet and sounds like sl as in slap. Although, there are some words which when blended together produces a third sound which sounds different like sh, ch, th, wh these are known as diagraphs. There are other sounds which are created using various vowel-vowel or vowel-consonant combinations.

Introduction to phonics and awareness of the various phonetic rules can help develop skills in the area of spellings. The basic purpose of understanding vowels is to aid the process of reading and writing. When children experiencing certain difficulties are introduced to certain rules of phonics and basic phonic sounds, it develops skills in the areas of reading and spelling.