I’m going to reprint a page from the TRT manual – simply because it’s a sunny Saturday and I’d rather be sipping wine in the back garden.

Saying Sounds Clearly

From this point on, I want you to think in sounds rather than letter names. Most of us are used to spelling in letter names.  How do you spell “stop”?  ‘ess tee oh pee’
Instead, I want you to get used to thinking of the sounds in the words and how you spell those sounds. So the question becomes, what are the sounds in “stop”?
Answer: (say it) “sss” (like a snake) “t” (touch you tongue to the front of your mouth) “o” (as in top) “p” (like you’re blowing out a candle). For the first while, it might help to whisper these sounds so that they are as clean and clear as possible.

“ay bee see dee ee eff gee”

This is the traditional alphabet that most adults use to refer to the symbols that we write to represent sounds. Older students use them naturally so it’s up to you to make sure they are not thinking in letter names as they write. If they are thinking in letter names then they are not learning to use sounds but relying on their faulty memory strategies. memory = ‘Goat is spelt gee oe ay tee’ Sound strategy = ‘The sounds in “goat” are “g” “oe” “t”. We spell it (writing & saying the sounds) g oa t’

“a buh cuh duh e fuh guh huh”

This alphabet is meant to help small children “sound out” simple words. However, the added “uh” sound can be very confusing.
Say: suh tuh o puh Now say the sounds clearly like you did at the top of the page. Which one sounds more like the real word, ‘stop’?

The other problem with this system is that it is only useful for very simple words.
My son came home from his first day in an English school and said, ’I can spell my name the English way! cuh huh a ruh luh e suh’

He was very excited but I was dismayed. What’s his name and what are the sounds?

Clear sounds

As far as possible, leave off the “uh” from the sounds.

Sometimes it’s easy: “m” (humm) “n” (nno!) “s” (hiss) “z” (buzz)

Sometimes it’s difficult: “l” “r” “w” and “y” require a little sound either before or after.

In all of these, keep the “uh” as short as possible.
For all the rest, cut off the “uh” sound for easier blending and segmenting.

Keep asking yourself, “Does that sound like the word?”

The one thing that I would never say to a struggling reader in the face of an unfamiliar word is, “Sound it out”.

Why?  Because that command doesn’t provide enough information to get from looking at print to hearing a word and being able to say it aloud.

So what would I say?

• Say the sounds and tell me what you hear.
• Say the sounds clearly and tell me what you hear. (for the person who adds “uh” after every consonant so that “try” sounds like “tuh” “ruh” “eye”, a three syllable word.)
• Say the sounds as you see them and tell me what you hear. (for a person who isn’t in the habit of moving from left to right all through the word bcause they see each word as a whole object that they either recognise or they don’t)

As long as you keep in mind The Deal and Decodability, these are specific instructions which will usually get a result.

What might go wrong?

• The student might not be good at blending the sounds to hear a word though I find it quite rare amongst older strugglers.
• They might only be able to hear the word when someone else says the sounds.  This is usually temporary until they get confidence and understand what it is they’re listening for.
• They might have a memory problem which prevents them from remembering the first sound by the time they’ve got to the last.  I’ve only encountered this with one person who didn’t have serious substance misuse issues.  Alcohol and cannabis are terrible memory destroyers and I’m very upfront about this with my students.

The Deal

Students never have to know anything that you haven’t learned together.

If they haven’t encountered th then they aren’t expected to know the word the.  But they almost always do know that word and they constantly exceed your expectations and their own.

The flip-side is that they are expected to know what you have done together.  By building level on level, this is manageable and the phonics lesson becomes a place where success is always achievable.  I once sat in a meeting where a prospective trainee asked a TRT volunteer if ThatReadingThing is fun.  The answer was, “No, it’s really hard work, but it’s so satisfying that they always want more.”

This goes along with the idea of Decodability.

I know I said that all this information would be generic but I do have one major request. Please USE phonics as a tool rather than TEACH it as a subject.

On the “Teaching Phonics” side, you could start by telling your students that letters are how we write the sounds that we say then give them the example that “l” “a” “g” is the word “lag”. Then give them a list of words and get them to figure out the sounds.

On the “Using Phonics as a Tool” side, you could give your students a small whiteboard each and say, “We’re going to build the word ‘lag’. What’s the first sound you hear when I say ‘lag’?” (see individual lessons for how that’s going to progress.) At the end, your students will have built the word and will have discovered for themselves that letters are how we write the sounds that we say. By the end of that first lesson, many will be able to read, write and spell every CVC (one sound to one symbol) word in the language – whether they’ve heard of them or not. (There will be exceptions which we’ll talk about in the “Challenges” category.

I decided to make this site because ThatReadingThing was created to be delivered one-to-one by people with no teaching background. PfAL (nice eh?) is for people are confident in their teaching style but want to incorporate some phonics into their classrooms.  I’ll try to keep the information as generic as possible, adding in tips about things that have worked for me.

We need to start with the questions: What is phonics? and “What does phonics for adults look like?”

What is phonics?

Primarily we’re talking about matching up the symbols of written English with the sounds of spoken English and vice versa. I often start training sessions with extracts from four texts, starting with CVC words and getting progressively more challenging. I haven’t yet met anyone who could read fluently through the last bit of text without working very slowly through several of the words. This exercise is to illustrate that some people will use obvious phonic strategies to read “that fat man at the pub” and others will use it read words like “eleemosynary”. Phonics isn’t limited to “c-a-t says cat.”  Phonics embraces all of English – it’s riches and it’s complications.

Please have a look at this presentation to see what Linguistic Phonics – suitable for adults – is all about.