DO's and DON'Ts

Do

• Read to children and talk about the stories (oral comprehension)

• Teach the 42 letter sounds first and fast: 

- blending all-through-the-word for reading
- segmenting all-through-the-word for spelling

• Teach blending and segmenting of regular words only (for at least the first two months, depending on the level of the students, their grade...)

• Teach "Tricky words" systematically (blending first for reading and then learning the correct pronunciation)

• Teach identification of sounds in words (all-through-the-word from left to right), and the main ways of writing the letters for the sounds. Later on we can start teaching alternative spellings)

• Use reading books with controlled texts and decodable words initially. Free choice can start when there is fluency in the reading and unknown words can be quicklly worked out.

• Integrate the phonics programme within any English Textbook. At the beginning only focus on the words that students can already decode and introduce new sounds and alternative spellings as they appear.

• Teach syllabication rules in order to decode multisyllabic words.

• Make students aware that they are learning to read and write in English. They need to know what we expect from them (only for students who are already literate in their L1)

Don't

• Teach sight words (words than can only be memorised by the shape of the word because the letter sound have not been taught yet)

• Use letter names (NOOO Alphabet)
• Use phonetic symbols.