Fun with Phonics: English Phonics for Beginners

By Moi Hung Ling

Fun with Phonics is a kind of book that will help children or beginners learning English as a second language know how the spelling of the words connected to the specific sounds. For example, the words with vowel and consonant letter cluster ow may have either / ?? / or / a? / as follows:
/ ?? / / a? /
Low brown
glow down
window town
grow clown


This knowledge, no doubt, helps learners know there are fixed patterns of spelling and the related speech sounds associated with them. In this way, learners can pronounce the words in sight without difficulty.


Besides, being able to pronounce the words helps them remember the spelling of the words they have learnt or come across. Do you agree that learning is only considered to take place when you can remember the words and use them in both oral and written communication when required? That means this audio-visual process of learning can transfer the learning of the words into the long-term memory easily.


From my personal experience, I find that knowing how to pronounce the words helps me to retrieve the words easily from memory, even though I have not used them for ages. Hence, I believe the knowledge of phonics enables learners to pronounce the words in sight and facilitate the learning and remembering.


This book has also presented all the twenty vowel phonemes and twenty-four consonant phonemes. So a learner who knows all the English words is bound in these English speech sounds / phonemes. With this insight, a learner will not use the Chinese phonetics or the Malay phonetics to pronounce English words.


I believe this book will prove to be useful and meaningful to those who cares to pronounce English words correctly and will help them remember the words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Aug 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482826593

Moi Hung Ling

I am Mdm Ling Moi Hung. I enjoy reading and writing. I read and write almost every day. You might wonder what inspired me to write the book. Well, I really see the importance of grasping English spellings and the related speech sounds to master the language in the course of time. Thus I set out to compile the book "Sounds and Symbols" first. Based on the words I gathered in this book, I wrote the book "Fun with Phonics" meant for children especially though it is also suitable for adults, no doubt.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Moi Hung Ling.

ISBN:           Softcover           978-1-4828-2658-6

                    eBook               978-1-4828-2659-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Contents

Preface

Vowels

1. / i: /

2. / I /

3. / i: / Vs / I /

4. / eI /

5. / e /

6. /eI/ Vs / e /

7. / æ /

8. /e / Vs / æ /

9. / α: /

10. / ɒ /

11. / ^ /

12. / u: /

13. / ʊ /

14. / u: / ʊ /, / ɒ / ɔ: /and / α: / Λ /

15. / ǝʊ/

16. / ɔ: /

17. / з: /

18. / ǝ /

19. / aI /

20./ aʊ /

21. / ɔI /

22. / Iǝ /

23. / eǝ /

24. / ʊǝ /

25. / ǝʊ / Vs / aʊ /, / Iǝ / Vs / з: /, / α: / Vs / eǝ /

26. Consonant Phonemes

27. / p b /

28. Minimal pairs / p b /

29. / t d /

30. Minimal Pair / t / Vs / d /

31. / k g /

32. Minimal Pairs / k / Vs / g /

33. / ∫ ӡ /

34. / ʧ ʤ /

35. Comparison / ∫ / Vs / ӡ / and / t∫/ Vs / dӡ /

36. / f v /

37. Minimal Pairs / f v /

38. / s z /

39. Minimal Pairs / s z /

40. / θ ð /

41. Consonant / h /

42. Comparisons / h / Vs / θ ð / / t / Vs / θ ð / / θ ð /

43. / l r /

44. minimal pair / l r /

45. / m /

46. / n /

47. / n ŋ /

48. Comparisons / n ŋ /

49. / w /

50. / j /

51. / kw / Vs / k /

52. / ju: /

Preface

It is my belief that small children learn faster through listening / by hearing than reading the text. We all learn our mother tongue mostly through speech sounds. Children with normal hearing faculty learn the language (s) through hearing the speech sounds and connect them to the objects around them and concepts they relate to for meaning. Before they could express themselves to fulfil their needs, they code their language through listening and understanding the meaning.

Thus I see the value of songs, poems, limericks or any texts that provide the source for them to get familiar with the speech sounds. It does not matter if they do not quite understand the meaning of the songs they sing, the poems or limericks they hear. Let them enjoy the songs, poems or limericks for fun of the speech sounds they make and hear.

For older children, you may create the awareness of the letter clusters or the spelling for the specific speech sounds when reading texts are introduced to them. I see great value to teach phonics with some meaningful situations created to learn the regular spelling patterns with the specific speech sounds. This exposure will certainly help our children remember English words easily. When they know the basic letter clusters of the words, for example,

‘ear’, in ‘bear, dear, hear, fear, gear, beard,

pear, pearl, smear, near, spear, ….. ;

‘air in chair, fair, flair, pair, stair, ……’;

‘are’ in ‘care, dare, fare, glare, hare, spare, declare,

prepare…….’

they will find English spelling so easy to master.

Hence phonics help children or adults to see word(s) in a word. However, the same letter clusters may have different speech sounds, for example,

/  Iǝ  /  ear, hear, fear, gear, beard, smear, near, spear

/  eǝ  /  bear, pear, wear

/  з:  /  earl, early, earth

Besides, reading aloud not only helps children become familiar with the speech sounds but also intonation patterns.

Well, I hope this book will prove to be useful to