Teaching young kids the fundamentals of reading isn’t as simple as just sounding the words out to them and forcing them to mimic you. There’s a lot of work to be done, for instance, training young learners how to instantly recognize letter combinations, and to associate those letter combinations with the appropriate sounds. And don’t even get me started on teaching young learners how to make those sounds in the first place.
Which is why this book – Reading with Phonics (Hay, Wingo) – is so critical to helping struggling young learners master reading skills.
Because children’s reading development depends largely on their understanding of the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language — phonics instruction focuses on teaching the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. With phonics, students learn that these relationships are repeatable, and predictable, so that they then become able to read both familiar and unfamiliar words. This is the first step towards reading fluency.
Unfortunately, this book is rather expensive, retailing from PHP 180 to PHP 300 with most online sellers. The publisher – Anvil Publishing Inc – sells it for PHP 145, with no bulk discounts. With around 300 struggling readers in Legarda Elementary School’s remedial reading program waiting to have access to this book, we need to raise at least PHP 45,000 pesos, before the end of September.
And this is where Feed/Read/Lead’s September project “Pa-Libre ng Libro, Bro” tries to help by either raising the needed money or gathering 300 Reading with Phonics books, on or before September 27. If you want to help, you can visit our donation site HERE, or drop your contact info below, and we will get in touch with you.
The future of the nation starts with the education of our children, and the education of our children starts with them learning how to read. This is a challenge we can overcome together, and there is no reason why we shouldn’t.