The Analytic Method of Teaching Phonics

The Analytic Method of Teaching Phonics Are you looking for ideas for teaching phonics to your elementary students? The analytic method is a simple approach that has been around for nearly one hundred years. Here is a quick resource for you to learn about the method, and how to teach it. What Is Analytic Phonics? The Analytic Phonics method teaches children the phonic relationships among words. Children are taught to analyze letter-sound relationships and look to decode words based upon spelling and letter patterns and their sounds. For example, if the child knows bat, cat and hat, then the word mat will be easy to read. What Is the Appropriate Age Range? This method is appropriate for first and second graders and struggling readers. How to Teach It First, the students must know all the letters of the alphabet and their sounds. The child will need to be able to identify the sounds in the beginning, middle and end of a word. Once the students are able to do that, the teacher then selects a text that has a lot of letter sounds.Next, the teacher presents the words to the students (usually site words are selected to start). For example, the teacher places these words on the board: light, bright, night or green, grass, grow.The teacher then asks the students how these words are alike. The student would respond, They all have ight at the end of the word. or They all have gr at the beginning of the word.Next, the teacher focuses on the sound of the words make by saying, How does the ight sound in these words? or How does the gr sound in these words?The teacher picks a text for the students to read that has the sound they are focusing on. For example, choose a text that has the word family, ight (light, might, fight, right) or choose a text that has the word family, gr (green, grass, grow, gray, great, grape). Finally, the teacher reinforces to the students that they just used a decoding strategy to help them read and understand words based upon the relationships letters have with one another. Tips for Success Use books that have predictable, repetitive sentences.Encourage children to use picture clues for any unknown words.Teach students about word families. (now, how cow) (down, frown, brown)Encourage students to look for consonant clusters at the beginning and ends of words. ( bl,fr,st, nd)When teaching analytic phonics, make sure to emphasize  the importance of each sound.