phonemic awareness directly at an early age (kindergarten); teaching each sound - spelling correspondence explicitly; teaching frequent, highly regular sound - spelling relation ships [r]
(1)Contents
Part 1: Introduction
I Background information:
1 Vocabulary as a language element:
2 Vocabulary in language teaching and learning: 3 Some features of English word's form
II Reality III The need IV The aim V Methods Part 2: The content
I Theoretical bases: 1 Transcription:
2 Phonics method:
3 Whole language method 4 Sound beginnings
5 “Reading Transcription” a necessary skill for learners I Examples of the presenting procedure
1 Hello
2 Good afternoon III Conclusion
(2)Part 1: Introduction I Background information:
1 Vocabulary as a language element:
Vocabulary is the total number of words in a language, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 1995 It may be single words, but may also be phrases, idioms or multi words that consist of these concepts such as form, meaning, part of speech, collocation, grammar
Vocabulary plays an important role in any language because it is the main component expressing meaning of communication Talking about that, Harmer (1991:24) asserts, "Without the lexical knowledge, they (learners) would not be able to use grammar to generate sentences with meaning" He still reemphasizes this idea later in that book (page 53) that if language structures make up the skeleton of language then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organ and the flesh An ability to manipulate grammatical structures does not have any potential for expressing meaning unless words are used" Scrievener (1994:73) also has the same point of view on the importance of vocabulary as Harmer, and especially he adds "Beginners often manage to communicate in English by using the
accumulative effects of individual words ) It is obvious that vocabulary is very important
Though all of the experts have their own ways to express the important roles of vocabulary in a language, the common point among them is that they are all positive that vocabulary is a necessary language element that can never be ignored
2 Vocabulary in language teaching and learning:
(3)Firstly, in language classroom learners have to master a certain number of vocabularies to understand what the teacher says, because in second language lesson, as Baker (1996: 278) says, “Language is the subject matter In second language classroom, the second language is often used for classroom management This makes second language teaching different from other curriculum areas where the language of control is separated from the subject matter taught" Scrievener (1996:278) also states, "Vocabulary is very important and need to be dealt with systematically in its all right It is not simply an addition to grammar skill lessons Our job does not finish as soon as a learner has first met some new vocabulary; we need to help them practice, learn, store recall, and use it item" Besides, learners of a language often have to oral activities through pair works, or group pairs, so it is necessary to master a certain amount of vocabulary in the target language in order that they can get instructions from others, and especially they can express their own thoughts
(4)3 Some features of English word's form:
Like any other language, English has two forms, and as the result, English words have these forms They are spoken form and written form (sound and letter) The first one is made up by the 44 phonemes (which are some times called the 44 basic sounds), and it includes stress, sound ending, sound linking, rhythm and intonation The second one is represented by the 26 letters, called the alphabet The two forms have correspondence in most cases, however there are many
exception existing between them such as these following features:
First, different letter may represent the same sound, or in other word, one sound may be described by more than one letter For example, the sound / u:/ can be written by " wo" in "two"; "o" in "to"; "oo" in ''too"
Second, Same letter can be pronounced with different sounds It also means that one letter may represent more than one sounds To make it clear, we look into an examples; letter "a" in "man" is pronounced / /, but in "make" is /ei / , and in " call" is /: /
Third, letters appear within a word, but are not pronounced We usually call them the silent letter For instance, letter "h" in "hour", "honest"; letter "b" in "bomb ", "comb"
II Reality:
Vietnamese pupils start learning English at sixth or tenth grade at schools They have to cope with many problems when learning English especially in
English form In the spoken form, the main problem is that they usually "create" a new one For example, they usually read out the word "interesting" /'int6restiỵ /which should be pronounced as/'intrsti / "Hour"/h / which should be
(5)accurately, misunderstandings happen Though the up to now misunderstanding have been only funny and forgivable they are out of expectation or in other words Vietnamese pupils have not succeeded in expressing their own thought in those situations What is about written form of English? Is it much better? It is the fact that Vietnamese pupils are quite good at spelling they are usually able to write the correct form of English words and remember their meaning However, the
beginners are sometimes confused in writing English words For example, they write 'he" "hi"; "mother" "mather"; "have" "heve" The fact that Vietnamese pupils usually have difficulty in English form can be explain by many reasonable causes The first one I want to mention is the feature of English form, which I proved above (see I.3) The second one is the habit of our own language
(6)Vietnamese That is why there is no stress, no sound ending, no sounds linking in English spoken by Vietnamese pupils
III The need:
The target of English teaching at school in our country is giving the pupils a basic knowledge of everyday English so that they can communicate with
foreigners after leaving school It means that they can speak, listen, read, and write in English about the life around and they can make foreigners understand In order to so, we have to pay attention to the two main noticed things below:
The first more important one as Harmer said is that our pupils are to say what they want to say This means that their pronunciation should be at least adequate for that purpose In our teaching, we will want to be sure that the students can make the various sounds that occur in English We will help them to
differentiate between these sounds especially where such distinction change
meaning, for example, "live" /i/ and /i: /, and help them understand and use certain sound rules For instance the different pronunciation of the "-ed" past tense ending Besides, the pupils need to use rhythm and stress correctly if they are to be
understood We will make sure that when they learn new words they know where are stressed and we will make sure that they are able to say etc with appropriate stress, and we will show them how stress can be used to change the meaning of question sentences and phrase In addition, our pupils need to recognize
intonation At very least, they need to recognize whether the tune of someone's voice suggests that the speaker is sure, or uncertain When we teach language, we will try to ensure that pupils use it with intonation, which is appropriate In short, “our aim should be to make sure that students can always be understood to say what they want to say They will need good pronunciation for this though they may need not to have perfect accent”
(7)in English are written ones That is why the pupils usually pay more attention to how to write the words correctly in order that they can get good marks However, they still have to cope with many problems, such as those spelling mistakes
mentioned above In conclusion, we need to help our pupils master the form of English in order that they can communicate with foreigners in everyday life English after having school It means that can, at least, say what they want to say, and write they want to write with the least misunderstanding caused by the form of English
IV The aim:
Because of the reality and the need mentioned above, I am doing a research to contribute something for schoolteachers of English in Vietnam and in my teaching career at Luong Ngoc Quyen school as well I cannot assert that my research is good, but I think it may be a bit useful for conscious teachers That is why I suggest that we should help our pupils acquire a reading transcription skill (phonemic transcription) to help them study English on their own more effectively while surrounded by Vietnamese It is only a small technique but it is very useful
V Methods:
(8)Part 2: The content I Theoretical bases:
The research bases mainly on four language-teaching methods They are transcription, phonics method, whole language method, and sound beginnings
1 Transcription:
Transcription is a written or printed copy of spoken words, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 1995 The one mentioned in the research is the phonemic transcription or the broad transcription, which uses only phonemic symbols, and it is widely used in the glossary at the end of pupil's textbooks, or in many current English dictionaries in Vietnam It is convenient for teaching a language, especially English because it has fixed symbols, includes sound ending, word stress, and above all, it represents the international Standard English
The first useful point of the transcription is that it has fixed symbols, so it seems to be quite easy to learn To make it clear, Peter Roach (1990:38) says, “The most
important point to remember is the rather obvious - seeming fact that the number of phonemic symbols must be exactly the same as the numbers of phonemes we decide exist in a language It is rather like writing with a type writer - There is a fixed number of keys that you can express" In addition to this, he also points out in this that “In
phonemic transcription every speech sound must be identified as one of the phonemes and written with the appropriate symbols and only phonemic symbols may be used" This means that in phonemic transcription each sound is represented by one or a set of the symbols Therefore, there is a correspondence between them in which there is only one way to pronounce these symbols As a result, we can avoid wrong pronunciation of the English words if we look into their transcription and know how to read them
(9)interactive nature of communication, then we will automatically have to take into
account these features" Therefore, learning English through the transcription, pupils can step by step get used to stress, sound ending, sound linking, intonation to be master them
Another important point is that the transcription itself can represent the international standard we are looking for If we adopt the transcription itself as the standard, then we can avoid most of the problems of models, standard, and target of the language we are studying As a result, if we use transcription for speaking English, we may have a good pronunciation, or at least, our pronunciation may be accurate enough to communicate with foreigners; make them understand what we mean
2 Phonics method:
Phonics method, which sometimes called phonetic method, or phonic, is a method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by having them relate letters to sounds It is generally thought of as the traditional method of teaching children how to read In my research, I only mention the way of incorporating phonics into reading curriculum, or in other words, it own approaches, and the teaching procedure following this method
Phonics method has two ways of incorporating phonics into reading curriculum They are synthetic approach and analytic approach With the synthetic one, children learn the 44 basic sounds that can be produced by the 26 letters of English alphabet, and vocabulary words are only introduced when all the letter sounds have been master Students are taught to sound out unfamiliar words one letter at a time based on their sounds With the analytic one, students first acquire a basic vocabulary of words they know by sight and then study the relationships of letters and sounds by analyzing how they operate within these words
According to the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development in its report for The Future of Teaching and Learning, major implications and key
principles of effective reading instruction identified in the research along with concrete examples of the principles were sighted to " prevent reading problems" They
(10)phonemic awareness directly at an early age (kindergarten); teaching each sound - spelling correspondence explicitly; teaching frequent, highly regular sound - spelling relation ships systematically; showing children exactly how to sound out words; using connected, decodable texts for children to practise the sound - spelling relationships they learn; and using interesting stories to develop language comprehension
The first step of the procedure is to begin teaching phonemic awareness directly at an early age The teacher teaches the children how to recognize the individual sounds in words and phonemic awareness with listening and oral reproduction task such as word to word matching; phoneme deletion; blending; sound isolation; phoneme segmentation; phoneme counting; deleting phonemes; and sound to word matching
The second step is teaching each sound - spelling correspondence explicitly Explicit instruction means that a phoneme is isolated for children and has a specific sound associated with it This is taught in practice session about minutes long The rest of the lesson involves using same phonemes in the context of words and stories composed of only the letter phoneme relationships the children know at that point
Teaching frequent, highly regular sound - spelling relation ships systematically is another step of the procedure The most effective instruction programs teach children how to read successfully with only 40 to 50 sound - spelling relationships Writing can require up to 70 sounds - spelling ones To teach systematically means to coordinate the instruction of the sound - spelling with the materials which children are asked to read The older of the introduction of this relationship should be planned to allow reading material composed of meaningful words and stories as soon as possible
The next step is to show how children exactly how to sound out words After children have learnt two or three sound - spelling correspondences, teacher begins teaching them how to blend the sounds into words Show them how to move
(11)Using connected, decodable texts for children to practise the sound -spelling relationships they learn is another step The findings of the NKHD research emphasize that children need extensive practice applying their knowledge of sound - spelling
relationship to task of reading as they are learning them This integration of phonics and reading can only occur with the use of decodable texts Decodable text is composed of words that use the sound - spelling correspondences which children have been
systematically taught Only decodable texts provide the children the opportunities to practise their knowledge of sound - letter relationships in the context of connected reading
The last step of the teaching procedure is the use interesting stories to develop language comprehension The use of interesting stories and great literature to develop language comprehension is not ruled out by this research Only the use of stories as reading materials for none reader is ruled out The reading stories of the teacher can play an important role in building the children's oral language comprehension, which
ultimately affects their reading comprehension The story - based activities should be structured to build comprehension skills, not decoding skills However, using real story to develop comprehension should be balanced with decoding instruction because they are separated from each other, While children are learning to decode, both activities will occur Therefore, comprehension and decoding instruction should be balanced
Phonics method is generally followed by doing dictation and by testing students on their ability to spell individual words accurately It relies on both visual and auditory memory, independence of meaning (which is used as one of the chief arguments against this method) Because auditory discrimination is so important in phonics program, ear training, often in the form of listening game, is general parts The various phonetic elements such as long vowels and short vowels are introduced once at a time, often accompanied by key words that reinforce memorization of each sound, for example "apple" for the short a
(12)In conclusion, phonics method is direct, explicit, systematic instruction in which children are taught the sound - spelling correspondence at the beginning
3 Whole language method:
Whole language method refers to a method of literacy instruction which is based on the theory that children can learn written language (reading and writing) as
effortlessly as they learn spoken language Whole language method is widely used in United States, and considered the diversity of the traditional method, phonics method In this research, I focus on only some mainly noticeable points such as it approaches, the factors, and some techniques
First, proponents of whole language believe that, if children are immersed in a print-rich environment from an early age, reading and writing skills will develop naturally This hands-off philosophy is in direct opposition to traditional language instruction programs that teach children to associate sounds with the individual letters that make up words In such traditional phonics-based programs, children are taught to "decode" unfamiliar words by sounding them out Some pure-phonics programs (such as the widely advertised commercial product "Hooked on Phonics") go so far as to teach letter-sound associations completely separate from a context On the contrary, the language method emphasizes word recognition skills Teachers in whole-language kindergarten classrooms often read aloud to children from "big books"
(oversized versions of children's books), pointing to each printed word as it is spoken Rather than using basal reading texts with limited vocabularies, reading selections come from the canon of "authentic" children's literature After several readings of the same big book, a child might begin to recite the words along with the teacher In this way, according to the whole-language theorists, children learn to recognize whole words in context
(13)full of books in the classroom about bats, including current fiction titles such as Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
To make it more specific, Halcyon points out that Whole language is based on two factors They are teaching beginners to read the whole word, and after they have read enough times, teaching them to recognize words and read themselves
The first one is that, researchers learned that experienced readers grasp the meaning of entire words all at the same time Further, when children talk they use
complete words without conscious attention to the individual sounds that make up those words Why, therefore should children be taught to read as was the norm at the time- by teaching them the component sounds of words? Whole language "founders" believe that children should, then, be taught from the beginning to read whole words
The second one is that, whole language is said to be "literature based" because students are expected to learn these words by "reading" them as their teacher reads stories aloud After they have thus "read" them enough times they will recognize them and be able to read themselves "This sounds much more compassionate than the drill and repetition necessary to intensive phonics instruction."
One of the central beliefs of whole language is that "language should be learned from "whole to part", with word recognition skills being picked up by the child in the context of actual reading, writing and "immersion" in a print-rich classroom." says Art Levine in his article( The Great Debate Revisited from the Atlantic Monthly ,December 1994)
According to Wendy Hopkin, whole language supports the following techniques:
1 The child learns the concept of a story by being surrounded by language
2 Unfamiliar words should be skipped or guessed at according to context clues like pictures or by using prior information
(14)4 "The teacher should intrude only minimally into the process of discovery when a child is "reading" at most waiting for the occasional "teachable moment" to pass along reading tips, because according to Goodman" One cannot reconcile direct instruction with natural learning."
5 "The need for any explicit, systematic phonics instruction is a myth," according to Marie Carbo the president of the National Reading Styles Institute in Syosset, New York
6 Students may substitute their own words in a story as long as the concept is approximately the same meaning without "fear" of correction
7 The child's self-esteem is built by not criticizing them in reading instruction but by guiding them through the maze of language and supporting their efforts in
discovering how to read until one day it just "clicks" and they can read
8 Reading is almost an instinctive, natural process Explicit instruction in
phonemic awareness, phonics, structural analysis, and reading comprehension strategies is unnecessary because oral language skills provide the reader with a meaning based structure for the decoding and recognition of unfamiliar words (Edelsky etal 1991, Goodman 1996)
9 Spelling correctly is not important; it is the thoughts and concepts that children know that count
"The Whole language approach is favored by most teachers' colleges and university-level education programs according to a survey in 1987 where forty three texts used to train teachers of reading found that none advocated systematic phonics instruction and only nine even mentioned that there was a debate on the issue."
according to Levine Whole language proponents denounce basal readers, the McGuffy Reader, Dick and Jane ,reading groups, and the phonics first approach of teaching the alphabetic code, which is the translation of abstract letters into sounds and words in order to give students the tools to read Private schools, have taken the opposite
(15)public school teachers as proof that the private sector had inferior and outdated teaching methods"
In conclusion, whole language is a child centered philosophy of learning and instruction offering a risk-free, supportive language -rich, ever changing environment where students are given a wide variety of opportunities to read, write ,learn, construct meaning with meaningful context It is interactive and student friendly, with a goal to instill the desire for life-long learners The teacher is the facilitator Read aloud, shared, guided and independent reading, and response to literature with learning centers,
curriculum integration, portfolio assessment, writing, spelling and phonics tips (in teachable moments) in context occur throughout the day
4 Sound beginnings:
Sound beginnings is generally known as a reading program designed for teachers and home schooling parents to teach English as the first language However, there is a great number adopting its techniques in teaching English as the second language because of many useful suggestions In this research, we first discuss some of its main point of view, and then mention some noticeable notes on its teaching procedure
First of all, Sound beginnings is said to be a reading program in which the author has explored and used a number of different methods for teaching language art It also point out that we must begin teaching a language with "its sounds" Is is beneficial because " the old age saying about killing two birds with one stone" according to Julia M.Fogassy, " applies here – only the count is five not two" It means that " when
properly done, this method covers five curriculum areas: reading, spelling, hand writing, listening, and phonics"
The way this method works is quite impressive
(16)words that he is able to write The initial result of such an approach is that the child learns to write and spell at a slightly faster pace than he learns to read This is desirable The excitement of writing new words and of reading what he has written provides enough motivation for the child to labor faithfully over forming the letters carefully and learning all the sounds of the common phonograms By late first grade, all normal children using this approach will have better developed word attack skills than students using a sight or whole-word method, plus they will be better spellers, better listeners, and have better handwriting, moreover, each lesson asks that the parent work right along with the child in writing and saying the sounds and repeating the rules
Another interesting point of this program is that this program was designed to meet the needs of the average nonprofessional The beginning lessons are written out step-by-step Nothing is left to guess work or imagination Specific directions for
preparation are listed in the Instruction Schedule Some lessons require several minutes to read through Several more minutes may be required to listen to the audio tape and practice repeating the sounds, writing the phonograms or repeating the spelling rules
In addition to this, letters are refers to as phonogram in this program A letter is any one of the twenty-six characters, which make up the Roman alphabet We identify letters by their names A phonogram is any letter, or combination of letters, which represents a single speech sound Letters have names, phonograms have sounds For example, the letter o stands for the last sound in the word 'go.' It is a single-letter phonogram The letters “ough” stand for the last sound in the word “dough” They constitute a four-letter phonogram There are five letters in the word “dough”, but only two phonograms It is critical that the reader learn to recognize and read these various combinations of letters as single sounds Knowledge of the names of letters merely allows a person to recite the alphabet Knowledge of all the phonograms and their sounds enables a person to read and write the English language
(17)and it seems unfamiliar to Vietnamese teaching English program, is is still useful for us, and it is one of the sources supporting this research
5 “Reading Transcription” – a necessary skill for learners
Through all the things mentioned above, I suggest that we should teach Vietnamese pupils how to read transcription" to help them master the form of English, or at least, help them avoid making foolish misunderstanding caused by the spoken form This technique supports these ideas, such as helping pupils understand the form of English, or in other words help pupils develop their awareness of the English form; presenting it in suitable ways; using the phonemic transcription system reasonably
First of all, we should help our pupils aware of the features of the English form, and especially understand its importance roles in communication with foreigners There are many ways to archive this For example, we can tell them many stories about funny and dangerous things caused by incorrect form, which leads to many misunderstandings The stories about "crab" and "crap" in a meal, and “no idea" with” no eyed deer" are good illustrations
Second, we should present the spoken form first, because “language starts with the ears", according to J.D O'connor (1990:1) and theories of phonics method with sound beginnings mentioned above Therefore, when we start presenting any language also including English with the sounds pupils naturally pay more attention to the spoken form That can help our pupils get accuracy in it, because after listening to the modal sounds (of native speakers or of the teacher) pupils can imitate to make the sounds It is rather like a child learning to speak, however, our pupils learn more effectively than children because they are grown enough to understand both the sound and meaning We only guide them to the written form when the can make the correct sounds, or in other word, they have already mastered the spoken form
(18)very reasonable, because it may be too difficult for the pupils to learn and it can lead to a great deal of confusion when they find that the sounds and the spellings of English are not correspondent all the time, I think
Then, we should use the phonemic transcription to describe the spoken form of difficult (easily wrong pronunciation) words, because the transcription, as said before, has fixed phonetic rules, which can be read out in the same way as we with
Vietnamese Therefore, using the transcription, pupils can, of course, reach the correct spoken form though it is difficult to be as good as native speaker, but at least people can understand
Next, we should analyze the whole words into individual sounds or combination of sounds; point out how the sounds are represented by a symbol or a set of symbols At the time, it is a good chance to for teacher to help the pupils to get a good pronunciation The reason for this can be explained according to the way the pupils are taught to learn
Vietnamese They have already been taught how to combine the individual sounds to make the Vietnamese word, so it is easy for them to divide a completely English word sound in to individual sounds, because it is the same as Vietnamese Moreover, the teacher can also show the pupils some rules if necessary, however, he should make sure that the pupils have enough "knowledge" to understand and to put them into practice In addition to this, he should remember that "phonic instruction must be meaningful, lively engaging; it should not follow repetitious drills or the mindless completion of
worksheet"(http://eduplace.com/lds/article/phonic.html )
After that, we should present the written form of the words in conformity with the spoken form, or in other word, we should show our pupils how the sounds are
represented by the letters Doing this, pupils will naturally be aware of the
correspondence between the sound and the letter Even they can find their own rules helping them learn more effectively than the rules given by the teacher
(19)useful, and reading the transcription of the word Especially completely new words in dictionary or in glossary exercises are available
I Examples of the presenting procedure and results:
1 Hello:
In order to present this word, we can follow these steps:
- Use a tape recorder or the teacher's own voice as the standard sound
- Help the pupils pronounce this word correctly
- Ask them how many sounds are there in that word they can hear
- Tell them how these sounds are presented by phonemic transcription It is /h’l/
There fore, /h/ is similar to /h/ of Vietnamese
// is similar to/ơ/
/l / is the same as l/
// resembles /âu/
Doing that, we have introduced the four sounds in the 44 basic phonemes of English
- Helping pupils to practise reading the possible combination of the symbol they have just learn For example, read these words: /l’h/, and /’hl/
2 Good afternoon:
The presenting procedure is similar to the one of “hello " There fore, we only pay attention to step d) to the last step
(20)There are nine new symbols, we should help the pupils to pronounce them and practice reading some combinations of these symbols
3 Results
With the same procedure, I helped the pupils of class 11 A13, which I was teaching and in charge of, how to read the transcription of the glossary at the end of the book They were quite good at learning English and the Textbook used for them was the Advanced Textbook At first I taught them how to red some key words of the lesson correctly, then I showed them the transcription form to analyze the sound symbols For example in unit language focus, I give the transcription form of these word graphics, forward, insert, hook … After that I asked them to look through the glossary to find out some difficult symbols and help them pronounce them correctly Since then, my pupils have been able to cope with the pronunciation of new words by themselves
To make sure of the usefulness of the techniques, I applied to class 11A1, 11A2, 11A6, which are much worse at English than class 11A13 and required Standard Textbook The results were very positive though it was a bit more time-consuming
III Conclusion:
Before using this technique, please pay attention to these things
First, making the pupils transcribe the words is unnecessary, because we focus only on the pupil's ability to read out the phonemic transcription correctly, and
transcribing English words is too difficult for advanced student of English
Second, we can use this technique for not only the form of vocabulary, but also the form of sentence if we pay more attention to the accuracy on speaking, such as sound ending, sound linking stress, assimilation, rhythm, and intonation For example,
/ wats jo: neim / = What's your name?
(21)/ am ten jiz ldz / = I am ten years olds
Third, after the pupils can read the transcription fluently, we use this technique for only words which are often incorrectly pronounced by Vietnamese learners, such as bury, chaos, deny, interesting, literature, wary and so on We not use this technique for every word at every time
Fourth, when the pupils pronounce English words incorrectly, teacher can tell them to look up at dictionary or glossary
Last, dictation exercises should be frequently provided to help the pupils master the words they have been taught
(22)Reference materials Books
Dang Ngoc Huong, An English teaching guide for Vietnamese teachers, Hanoi open university faculty of English 1998
Jeremy Harmer, the practice of English language Teaching, Longman 1994
Jd o’connor, Better English pronunciation Cambridge university press
Peter Roach, English phonetic and phonology a practical course, Cambridge university press
Websites
http://education.leed.ac.uk/~dts/intedplace.htm http://www.eduplace.com/lds/articles/phonics.html
http://www.fis.edu/esl.web/esl/help/helpfile/fcontent.html http://www.manateemmidle.org/phonic/newpage13.htm http://www.miningco.com
(http://eduplace.com/lds/article/phonic.html ) http://education.leed.ac.uk/~dts/intedplace.htm http://www.eduplace.com/lds/articles/phonics.html http://www.fis.edu/esl.web/esl/help/helpfile/fcontent.html http://www.manateemmidle.org/phonic/newpage13.htm http://www.miningco.com http://www.ourfathershouse.com http://www.soon.org.uk/page17.html