I enjoy watching European films on a government sponsored television channel here in Australia. Fortunately for me, the other than English programs, all have subtitles so I at least know what is going on. Unfortunately I miss all the nuances and colloquial expressions that express layers of meaning.

I have to admit I use English to try and work out the other languages. I believe this is called language transference. I use my knowledge of the structure of my mother tongue to work out how another language works.

This gets me to the point of this article.

Human beings can imitate sounds. Notice how young babies practice and try to reproduce the sounds they hear.

This aural/oral mimicking skill is a vital living skill. The speech of our fellow humans is what we work hard at understanding.

The ability to acquire fluency in a language is developed by infants in a few short years.

Humans are genetically endowed to first mimic, comprehend and then speak (articulate) words in the language spoken in our family and culture.

Competence in speaking a language is hopefully established before a child begins formal schooling. Called linguistic competency this ability is the foundation for learning to read and write.

The purpose of formal schooling is to introduce children to a broad range of texts to enable them to broaden their vocabulary and to develop and refine their grammar.

It is very important for parents to be aware that competency in spoken language does not automatically mean ease in learning to read and write.

The idea that children become literate in the same way as they learned to speak was put forward a few years ago. The idea was that if children were just immersed in the written word they will become literate through osmosis.

This doesn’t work when it comes to reading and writing. Using written symbols to represent speech sounds is recent in human development. The facility of decoding words from symbols is not innate.

How do we know this?

Well most humans can speak but not all can read and write despite being surrounded by visual symbols.

This is why phonics skill development must be part of early reading programs and also

monitored as students move through school.

If a student is conscious of the common ways of writing English from their early school years they will be able to cope with the sometimes notoriously inconsistent English spelling.

An excellent reading program that incorporates all essential skills needed to develop reading fluency is the Fitzroy Readers.

If you want to read more about helping your child develop as a fluent reader go to: http://www.fitzprog.com.au/

    This informative site will give you lots of information and testimonials from satisfied users.

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Tags: kids learning, learning phonics, reading phonics

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Posted in phonics for kids by Marilyn Martyn No Comments Yet