As an ESL teacher, I have to teach explicit phonics. When I teach phonics I use a variety of activities that include phonemic awareness, segmenting and blending, elokin boxes (misspelled) making words, reading words in context, decodable readers, writing words, poems/chants with the vowel sound, rhyming words, hunting for words in our literature and working with word families. My students do require tags and I do teach /e/ says egg, elephant and elbow. I over emphasize the sounds until they hear it! Sound discrimination for some can take a long time! If they are not hearing it; I know they need lots of repetition and practice. I also play phonic games on the computer and use www.starfall.com. Finally for my non speaking beginners I do use the Pearson Leveled Phonics Books because they also include great vocabulary and high frequency words.
I was a child who struggled with phonics and wish someone would have provided me with more experiences. For years I struggled with decoding and spelling. Since becoming an ESL teacher, and teaching phonics, my own spelling and decoding have immensely improved. I know phonics can be a controversial issue; however, never in the ESL arena. When children have a first language that doesn't include sounds from the English language, they require lots of practice and intervention! Donna ESL teacher _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
