授業に取り入れるシンセティック・フォニックス（2/3）
シンセティック・フォニックスは、単語を音素に分解して再びつなぐことで、子どもたちの読み書き能力を効率的に育てる教育法として注目されています。本記事では、Alexis先生が授業での活用方法を紹介します。基本概念や効果、教室で実践できる具体例をわかりやすく示し、日本の英語教育現場でも役立つポイントをまとめています。
本記事は全3回の連載の第2回です。続編とあわせてぜひご覧ください。
Applying Synthetic Phonics in the Classroom (2/3)
Phonics Phases
When teaching synthetic phonics, there are six phases (stages). Phase 1 focuses on key listening and vocabulary skills, with emphasis on rhyming, vocabulary games, modeling and environmental sounds. Subsequent phases focus on sounds (phonemes) and their corresponding graphemes. They are not taught in alphabetical order: instead, they are taught in order of the most commonly used sounds first. As they are learned, students learn to segment and blend words, starting with consonant-vowel (CV), vowel-consonant (VC) and consonant-vowel-consonant constructions (CVC).
Phase 2: Nineteen sounds are introduced, usually beginning with <s>, <a>, <t>, <p>, <i>, <n>. Once students have learnt these, more are taught. <m>, <d>, <g>, <o>, <c>, <k>, <e>, <u>, <r>, <h>, <b>, <f>, and <l>. Some “tricky” words (words that are memorized, not sounded out) are taught, such as “I” and “go”.
Phase 3: Graphemes <j>, <v>, <w>, <x>, <y>, <z> and <qu> are taught, as well as digraphs and trigraphs <ch>, <sh>, <th>, <ng>, <ai>, <ee>, <ie>, <igh>, <oa>, <oo>, <ar>, <or>, <ur>, <er>, <ou>, <oi>, <ear>, <air>, and <ure>. More “tricky” words are also taught.
Phase 4: New graphemes are not taught. At this stage, more complex words are blended and segmented, as well as new tricky words.
Phase 5: Alternative grapheme-sound correspondences are taught for sounds and graphemes already covered. Examples include the different pronunciations of <ch>, or the different ways the phoneme /iː/ may be written. This is also when split digraphs are taught.
Phase 6: At this stage, the focus is on improving spelling accuracy and reading fluency.
In-Class Games and Activities
The cornerstone of synthetic phonics is the process of segmenting and blending words, but before that, it is necessary to teach basic phonological awareness, followed by individual graphemes.
Teaching phonological awareness may be achieved through rhyming songs, simple tongue twisters, and even games involving the recognition of environmental (such as the sound of rain falling, a bird tweeting, or a phone ringing). Segmenting sentences into words using chants is another technique. For example, have students clap their hands after every word in the tongue twister “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream”. But rather than discuss this stage further, I would like to focus on later stages.
Teaching Graphemes
This is where flashcards come in extremely useful. I have found that flashcards with a grapheme on one side, and a word containing the highlighted (in bold and/or underlined) grapheme on the other side together with a picture are effective. Students learn to associate the image in a way that makes it far easier to remember a grapheme if they are stuck. For example, a flashcard for <ai> may have a picture of rain, a word that children learn early on. This way, if they have trouble remembering the phoneme, you simply show them the image to jog their memories. – they may be inclined to pronounce it as /aɪ/ instead of /eɪ/, for example. Having the grapheme highlighted within the word makes it easier to draw attention to, which is especially helpful when teaching how digraphs and trigraphs may be used.
When introducing a grapheme for the first time, first show the picture side and elicit the word. Then highlight the grapheme you are teaching, e.g. “Dog. <d>. <d>. Dog”. Show the grapheme side and say the associated sound three times before drilling it with the students. After that, simply show them the grapheme side to elicit the phoneme. If they struggle, flip the card over to the picture and say the word, then repeat the grapheme. After a while, flipping the card will generally suffice to elicit the grapheme.
One game to reinforce memorization consists of posting stickers with graphemes on them around the room, then calling out specific graphemes for them to “catch” and bring back to you.
One final note on teaching graphemes. Be sure to check the correct sounds before teaching them. It is a common mistake, for example, to say “duh, duh, duh” instead of simply “<d>, <d>, <d>”, and once students have integrated that hanging vowel “uh” sound, it will cause problems when blending words. This can be a bit tricky with some consonants, but it is important to minimize any hanging vowel sound. Avoid the temptation to overemphasize sounds.
◀ 初回から読む 次回（3）へ続く▷