Phonograms

Phonograms: an example of a phonics teaching strategy
There are many regularities of English spelling that phonics presents to the learner; for detail, the reader may want to look at the books on phonics listed at the end of this text. One interesting regularity that phonics exploits is the notion phonogram, that is, a sequence of letters at the end of a word that occurs with high frequency and relatively consistent pronunciation. Two examples are <ill> and <ack>. Many words contain these letter sequences with the same pronunciation as in these words: <bill, pill, dill, till, gill, kill, chill, Jill, fill, sill, shill, hill, mill, rill, will, quill, spill, skill, still>, etc.; <back, pack, tack, Jack, sack, shack, hack, Zack, lack, knack, rack, wack, stack, flack, smack, snack, black>, etc. Teaching phonograms as wholes to children makes sense: children have more difficulty with individual sounds at the middle and especially ends of words than at the beginning; but children do have the capability to learn and process holistically, that is, treating the phonogram as an undivided 'chunk' rather than a sequence of several letters. Combining this holistic ability to learn phonograms with their facility in recognizing individual sounds at the beginnings of words should ease children's mastery in spelling and recognizing large numbers of words. Games in which children supply different beginning sounds for given phonograms, for example, will allow them to use their knowledge of the spoken word to 'create' and then spell and recognize many commonly occurring words.

DOWNLOAD IN HERE