What are some common misconceptions?
- When a child encounters an unfamiliar word, the teacher/parent commonly tells him or her to just take a guess and continue on or to skip the word and come back to it, or to look at the pictures. These techniques all teach the student to rely on the syntax, meaning, and context to guess words rather than teaching them how to actually decode unfamiliar words.
What should teachers and parents be doing instead?
- Have the student work through the word himself/herself. Some teachers get frustrated and try to decode the word themselves, keeping the student from learning how to deal with these difficult words by himself/herself.
- Teachers should provide prompts to help children internalize the logic of the written code. For example, some phonics programs introduce and reinforce the application of spelling patterns.
- The first step is to determine how the word the child said differs from the printed word. This provides insight into why he/she might be mispronouncing it. Then, the teacher should use a prompt for the correction. - An example of a prompt: If the child is mispronouncing a word with short vowels, such as saying “cat” instead of cut, the teacher should tell the child that the part of the word is pronounced like /ŭ/. Then, the child should repeat it and then try pronouncing the word again. - For a full chart of prompts for each kind of error, visit the original source listed below.
- Ultimately, teachers should prioritize teaching spelling patterns with the help of systematic, explicit, and sequential instruction in phonics.
