Phonics
What is Phonics?
Phonics is the connection between letters and sounds. Although there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, there are 44 phonemes or sounds! As they progress through Orchard Hill, students learn the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that they make, including consonant sounds, short and long vowels, consonant blends, digraphs and vowel teams. Our young readers then use what they learn about letters and sounds to begin to blend the sounds together to decode words.
Engaging Students
Our phonics curriculum is designed to be fun, developmentally appropriate and engaging for students. Research tells us that if students are not engaged, learning is unlikely to occur. Our Kindergarten through Second Grade classrooms use phonics mascots, Mabel, Rasheed, and Gus, and meaningful activities, such as creating Vowel Town as pictured above, to engage students. Most importantly, there are many opportunities for students to directly transfer their phonics knowledge to authentic reading and writing.
Alphabet Chart
Kindergarten and First Grade students use an alphabet chart to learn consonant sounds and short and long vowel sounds.
Phonics Fun at Home
Click here and here for some fun activities to practice letters and sounds at home. As always, the best way for your child to develop awareness of vocabulary and spoken language is for you to read aloud to him/her. The more words your child is familiar with, the more background knowledge they will have to draw on when decoding tricky words.
