What Teachers and Prospective Teachers Know about Phonics Generalizations

Abstract

6. When g comes before e, i_, or y_, it usually is soft; otherwise it is hard. 7. sounds of vowels followed by r us ua 1 ly are modified. 8. When a is followed by 1_, the a u s u a 11 y is neither short nor long. These principles are found in most teacher's guidebooks which accompany basal r e aders. This particular listing is based upon those given in a widely used book on the teaching of reading (1). test consisted of 60 multiple-choice, five option items. Nonsense words involving the var ious phonics principles were prepared so that the person taking the test would be forced to put the principles into practice in recognizing unknown words. Nonsense words were used because enough real words unknown to college students and exper ienced teachers could not be found to test knowledge of these principles. An attempt was made to setup a situation for the inexperienced college student and experienced teacher similar to that of the element ary, junior high, or high school pupil who would be using these skills in unlocking new words. An ex ample of one item follows: The i. in stri has the same sound as: (1) i_ in light. (2) i in ill, (3) i in charity. (4) i in fir, (5) none of these. ' ' options on this particular item give a long sound, a short sound, an indeterminate vowel sound, and a sound modified by r. fifth option was placed on all 60 items in order to allow for silent vowels or some sound other than those listed in the previous four possibilities. For every item asking for the identification of an i_ sound, the item was i dentical to the above with the exception of the non sense word. same was true for the other vow el letters?a, e, o, u, and y_-and the soft and hard c and g letters. Samples of the types of items are as follows: 1. a in_has the same sound as: (1) a in arm. (2) a in add. (3) a in all. (4) a in gay. (5) none of these. 2. e in_has the same sound as: (1) e in key, (2) e in end. (3) e in maker. (4) e in e r r. (5) none of these. 3. ? in_has the same sound as: (1) i_ in DESPITE THE widespread agreement that phon ics should be taught as a part of the word recogni tion program in basal reading instruction, questions frequently arise about the extent to which teachers actually do teach these skills. How much teachers know about these skills has bearing upon the extent to which they teach them. Do they know these skills when they enter courses on the teaching of reading, or should the course have as one objective the teach ing of the skills themselves as well as how to teach the skills to children?