RHYME, rhyme and more rhyme is the key to helping children succeed in literacy, says phonic consultant Yolanda Soryl.
Ms Soryl was in Wanganui to speak to teachers and parents last week about literacy, and how phonics helped children.
The former literacy consultant was responsible for phonics development in the London borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End, which was in the bottom three boroughs of social deprivation, but above average in literacy results in the UK.
Phonics is compulsory in the UK, but a controversial word in education in New Zealand, Ms Soryl said.
"But research and common sense tells us that children need to know their sounds. The problem is that for the last 30 years, New Zealand teachers have not been trained in how to teach them."
"The importance of rhyme, and teaching children how to hear and discriminate sounds cannot be overestimated. We also need to explicitly teach children how to hear, read and write the sounds in the English language, and how to use them to sound out words as one of a range of strategies to make them successful readers and writers."
She said, as a teacher, she asked a new class of children to clap their name. If the child clapped their name in syllables, she knew they could discriminate sound.
But if the child had syllables and clapped their name only once, she knew there was a problem.
Another test was to ask the children what their favourite nursery rhyme was if they did not have one, then it was another indicator of a phonics issue that had greater implications in literacy.
"Children can rhyme at the age of two, but if children can't recite a nursery rhyme at age three, then by the time a child is five it's too late to teach them to rhyme."
Children learned rhyme through a story or a song and the benefit of a nursery rhyme was that everybody knew one, she said, despite them being old fashioned as reported by one mother who did not know the importance of a simple rhyme.
"It's important that children learned rhythm and language because it set them for success early, and the ages from three to seven were crucial before they thought they were failing."
"Early intervention is absolutely crucial if you know at age three, why wait until children are nine? When you are 12 and have a reading age of a six-year-old, school is not fun." "It's a massive shadow over their lives because they're not functioning literate."
Ms Soryl knows what illiteracy is she grew up with parents who were illiterate.
"It's a very limited life, and never has it been so important. Why should we expect low results from a low-decile school? All children can be empowered with the skills and confidence they need to enjoy early independence in their reading and writing."
However, Ms Soryl said, phonics was one of six key skills, but just as important as the rest.
Hairy McLeary, Dr Seuss, and Going on a Bear Hunt were well-known rhyming books.
"Rhyming is fun because children can see the humour in it, which means they have heard the sounds."
Phonetics not a dirty word:specialist
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