Teaching Phonological

Awareness and Phonics for

English
JANUARY 2024

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2

Language Systems:
Orthography

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 The transition from listening and speaking to reading and writing
requires skills and knowledge relating to phonology, orthography,
3 and morphology
Language systems Skills and knowledge

Phonology: “the study of the speech

sound system of any language, including Phonological awareness: ability to recognise and manipulate the different
the rules and patterns by which parts of speech such as words in a sentence, syllables within words, and
phonemes are combined into words and individual sounds (phonemes) within syllables and words.
phrases” (Moats 2020:55)

Orthography: the written language

Phonics: understanding the alphabetic principle - graphemes (letters/letter
system, including direction of writing,
combinations) represent the sounds/phonemes in language. Knowledge of
how meaning and sound are represented
the alphabetic code, that is, phoneme and grapheme correspondence.
in written form, phoneme/grapheme
Ability to decode written words and encode (spell) spoken word, i.e. word
correspondence, and spelling rules.
recognition.

Morphology: the study of morphemes Morphemes: the smallest unit of meaning in a language. May be whole
and how they are combined in words word or part of a word, or a single phoneme.
 Pictographic: image or graphic
Image representation of an object

4 Writing systems
Symbol,
vary according Logographic: symbol, letter or sign
letter or representing a unit of meaning
to the form of sign
representation
… Symbol Phonographic: symbol / letter representing a
/ letter phoneme (alphabetic) or syllable (syllabic)
 5

… and the unit • Meaning itself, that is, an idea

of • Words
representation • Syllables
or what is
• Phonemes (sound)
meant
• Morphemes (meaning)
 Tamil and Sinhala orthography are similar to English in some
6 aspects but different in one important aspect - transparency

Language Form of representation Unit of representation

Tamil Phonographic Phonemes
• Syllabic + alphabetic Morphemes
• Transparent
Sinhala Phonographic Phonemes
• Syllabic + alphabetic Morphemes
• Transparent
English Phonographic Phonemes
• Alphabetic Morphemes
• Semi-transparent
7

In Tamil, each
grapheme represents
one phoneme or
syllable and vice
versa. It is a
transparent
orthography.
 8

Sinhala also
has a
transparent
orthography
9
English orthography is semi-transparent
• There is more than one way to represent a phoneme and a grapheme can be used to represent
multiple phonemes
• 50% of words are directly decodable applying rules of phoneme-grapheme correspondence
• 36% go against at least one correspondence rule OR can be spelt with one error applying the
rules
• 10% can be spelt correctly using knowledge of word meaning, morphology and etymology
(word origin)
• Fewer than 4% of words are truly ‘irregular’!
(Moats 2020:124)
 10

• Throughout history English has appropriated

words from other languages through war, trade,
etc.

How has • Early written forms varied in the way sounds

English (phonemes) were represented (graphemes).

developed these • In addition, while pronunciation has changed,

characteristics? spelling has not.
• This means that English orthography is semi-
transparent.
 Orthography is more than just the alphabet: it is about
11 phoneme/grapheme correspondence and spelling rules.

• Alphabetic writing is a late evolutionary development in written language. It

evolved with the growing awareness of the Alphabetic Principle:
• Words can be broken into sounds (phonemes) which are represented by and
mapped to symbols (graphemes) in a systematic way.
• The exact correspondence between phonemes and graphemes is called the
alphabetic code.
 12

• The 26 letters (symbols) of the English alphabet are

not enough for English spelling.
Graphemes are • Letter combinations are necessary to represent all
symbols/letters phonemes and spelling rules (more later).

or letter • Some phonemes have multiple graphemes and

combinations some graphemes represent multiple phonemes.

that represent a • English therefore uses ~250 graphemes made up

phoneme from 26 letters to represent ~42 phonemes.
13 Phoneme-grapheme mapping in English How do I
say that
word?

• The reading / decoding challenge: sometimes one grapheme is

used to represent multiple phonemes.
• E.g. ‘g’ in good, germ, rouge; ‘ch’ in chop, chemist,
champagne; ‘o’ as in cot, go; ‘i’ as in in, mine

How do I
• The spelling / encoding challenge: sometimes one phoneme may write what
be represented by multiple graphemes. my teacher is
saying?
• E.g. note the 6 different graphemes for the long ‘a’ phoneme
in this sentence:
• “Daisy weighed in on Thursday to make great strides in
horse racing history.”

Students first learn the most common grapheme for a phoneme but to read and spell they must
progress to letter combination graphemes, and meaningful parts of words (morphemes).
 The English alphabetic code consists of 40-44
14 phonemes

• Short vowel sounds x 6

Is there anything here
• Long vowel sounds x 9
that surprises or puzzles
• R-controlled vowel sounds x 6 you?

• Consonant sounds x 24
 The English alphabetic code: short vowel sounds,
15 long vowel sounds and grapheme alternatives

Source: Dyslexia Reading Well (ND)

 The English alphabetic code : ‘r’-controlled vowel
16 sounds and grapheme alternatives

Source: Dyslexia Reading Well (ND)

 The English alphabetic code: consonant sounds and
17 grapheme alternatives

Source: Dyslexia Reading Well (ND)

 The English alphabetic code: consonant sounds and
18 grapheme alternatives cont’d

Source: Dyslexia Reading Well (ND)

19 What is the schwa vowel?

• This is the vowel in an unstressed

syllable.
• If students know about it, it will help
their spelling.
• It can also change the meaning of a
word, e.g.:
• convict vs convict
• invalid vs invalid
• subject vs subject
https://youtu.be/e9YghG6klUk
 As with many languages, in English, there are two
20 main types of graphemes, but also sub-categories

CONSONANT GRAPHEMES VOWEL GRAPHEMES

• Single consonant letters • Single vowel letters
• Consonant digraphs: two letters represent one sound • Vowel-consonant-e
e.g. sh, ch, th
• Vowel teams, also known as:
• Consonant trigraphs: three letters represent one • Vowel digraphs – two letters make one sound e.g.
sound e.g. tch as in match oo in boot, look; ee in knee; ar in arm; ir in bird
• Consonant doubles: ff, ss, ll, zz • Vowel dipthongs – vowel sound with two parts
(gliding vowel in Tamil?). Vowel dithongs are a
• Silent letter or unvoiced sounds e.g. gn in gnome subset of vowel digraphs. E.g. oi in coin, oy in toy,
ou in cloud, ow in cow, ow in arrow
• Consonant blends: two or more graphemes
• Vowel trigraphs – three letters make one sound
representing a cluster of sounds before or after the
e.g. igh in high
vowel in a syllable
• R-controlled vowels: -er, -ar, -ir, -or, -ur
21 Consonant graphemes

Single letters Digraphs Trigraphs Doubles Silent letter Oddities

p, b, t, d ch tch ff -bt qu = /kw/
k, c, g ph ll gn- x= /ks/ or /gz/
f, v, s, z, x sh ss kn- (mix, exact)
(/z/) -gh zz -lk
h th -lm
m, n -ng -mb
w, y wh -mn
r, l -ck ps-
j -ge/-dge rh-
wr-

Source: Moats 2020:107

22 Vowel graphemes
Short vowels, Long vowels, VCe pattern Vowel teams r-controlled
single letters single letters (also known as vowels
vowel dipthongs,
digraphs)
a=mad se-cret theme ee, ea, ei, ie, ey er
e=mess ba-by bide ai, ay, ei, eigh, ey ar
i=bit ta-ble made ea (for /e/) or
o=rob di-graph robe ie, igh ur
u=cut cry cute oa, ow, oe, ough ir
u=put ro-bot rare ue, ui, ew ou, ough
y=gym here au, aw, augh
fire oo (book)
store ou, ow
sure oi, oy
ear, eer, air, oar, our

Source: Moats 2020:108

23

How many How many How many

phoneme/grapheme phoneme/grapheme phoneme/grapheme
combinations in English? combinations in Tamil? combinations in Sinhala?
•Semi-transparent, phonemic •Transparent syllabic and •Transparent syllabic and
orthography phonemic orthography phonemic orthography
•Approximately 250 •? •?

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 24

• The position of the phoneme in the word;

• e.g. the phoneme /k/ is written as ‘c’ when followed by /l/ or /r/
as in clever, crab, cross, cling
In English, there • e.g. the FLOSS rule – double f, l, s: always preceded by a short
vowel e.g. stiff, spell, mess (a few exceptions) because short
are some rules vowels have extra consonant ‘protection’

for phoneme-
• Also applies to ‘tch’ for /ch/ as in fetch and ‘dge’ for /j/ as
in lodge

grapheme • Conventions for allowable grapheme sequences;

correspondence
• e.g. v and j are never final hence the ‘dge’ rule for final /j/
• e.g. we can double ‘f’ but not ‘ph’
based on: • Stress patterns in syllables:
• e.g. when syllables have two consonants between them divide
the consonants e.g. sublet = sub-let
• e.g. do not separate digraphs e.g. ei-ther, spec-trum, se-quin
25 The phoneme/grapheme charts should be displayed in the classroom for
easy reference and for students to mark progress as they learn the English
alphabetic code

• Display the complete phoneme/grapheme

sound chart in the classroom as a reference
for categories of sounds.
• This version of the sound chart also
contains teaching guidelines.
26 Summary

• Orthography is the written language system, including direction of writing, how meaning and sound are represented in
written form, phoneme/grapheme correspondence, and spelling rules. Orthography is more than just the alphabet.
• Graphemes are symbols/letters or letter combinations that represent a phoneme.
• English orthography is semi-transparent because there is more than one way to represent a phoneme and a grapheme can
be used to represent multiple phonemes.
• The English alphabetic code consists of 40-44 phonemes but ~250 phoneme/grapheme pairs.
• As with many languages, in English, there are two main types of graphemes – consonant and vowel - but also sub-
categories.
• Students first learn the most common grapheme for a phoneme but to read and spell they must progress to letter
combination graphemes, and meaningful parts of words (morphemes).
• Phonics is understanding of the alphabetic principle - graphemes (letters/letter combinations) represent the
sounds/phonemes in language, knowledge of the alphabetic code, that is, phoneme and grapheme correspondence, and the
ability to decode written words and encode (spell) spoken word, i.e. word recognition, using the code.