c, ck or k at the End of a Word

Garden Girl enjoys writing stories and she uses her knowledge of phonics to spell words, so when it came to the 'c' sound she was using any of the options based on what she fancied using at that time. She had no system for distinguishing which type of 'c' to use, so I suggested this rule to her. The rule is to help her choose which 'c' to use at the end of a word. As with most rules, there are exceptions but if she follows these rules, most of the time she will spell a word correctly and on the few occcassions when it doesn't work she will have to learn that word on its own.

1) Always use 'k' or 'ck' at the end of a word. There are a few words that use 'c' at the end, such as 'torc' but these are so rare you can just learn the words as you come across them.

2) Use 'ck' if a single vowel comes before it eg, back, flock, click, whack

2) Use 'k' if two vowels come before it eg. cook, cloak, oak, beak, break

3) Use 'k' if a consonant comes before it eg, bark, work, folk, bank, ask

Garden Girl is still at the stage of having to be prompted with these rules, but when she asks how to spell a word with a 'c' sound at the end or has got it wrong, I ask her to think through the rules. Is it a consonant or vowel before the sound? Is it one vowel or two? The more frequently she works it out for herself the more confident she gets with the rule and eventually she will be able to work it out herself without a prompt.

Graphemes With Two Or More Letters

Once your child has become confident with single letter phonemes, they will start to learn sounds that are made up of two or more letters. At this stage I became a bit confused by all the different words I came across that were being used to describe different aspects of phonics. There were phonemes, graphemes, digraphs and trigraphs and I had no idea what the difference was, so I thought a definition of each would be useful.

A phoneme, as we have already discovered, is an individual sound. When phonemes are put together in the right order they will blend to make a word. For instance, the phonemes 'c', 'a' and 't' can be blended together to make the word cat. Phonemes can contain one, two or three letters. For instance, the sounds 'qu', 'ee' and 'n' are blended together to make the word queen, and the phonemes 'l', 'igh' and 't' are blended together to make the word light.

A grapheme is essentially a phoneme written down. That is, the letters and letter combinations that are used to spell a phoneme.

Although a grapheme refers to a phoneme with one, two or three letters, a grapheme with two letters is usually referred to as a digraph and a grapheme with three letters is usually referred to as a trigraph. Although digraphs and trigraphs are written down with more than one letter, the letters combine to make a single sound.

Below is a list of all the graphemes with more than one letter, in the order that your child is likely to learn them at school.

ck as in kick
ll as in hill
ff as in toffee
ss as in hiss

Children are often taught the above sounds with their single letter counterparts, so 'ck' is often taught at the same time as 'c' and 'k', 'll' at the same time as 'l', 'ff' at the same time as 'f'' and 'ss' at the same time as 's'. The remainder will be taught once your child is able to recognise all the single letter phonemes.

zz as in buzz
qu as in queen
ch as in chin
sh as in hush
th as in thing and that (the 'th' in 'thing' is slightly softer sounding than the 'th' in 'that' but your child will learn them both at the same time.)
ng as in song
ai as in rain
ee as in seen
igh as in light
oa as in boat 
oo as in boot and cook (this digraph can be sounded in either of these ways and your child will learn both at the same time.)
ar as in car
or as in corn
ur as in turn
ow as in cow
oi as in coin
ear as in clear
air as in fair
ure as in sure (This one threw me a little because I know that a lot of the words with this grapheme can be pronounced in different ways. The pronunciation is more like 'or'.)
er as in flower
ay as in day
ou as in shout
ie as in tie
ea as in eat
oy as in toy
ir as in bird
ue as in blue
aw as in crawl
wh as in when
ph as in phone
ew as in grew
oe as in toe
au as in caught
ey as in grey
 
If you are unsure how to pronounce any of these phonemes there is a brilliant tool on the Usborne Very First Reading website which lets you listen to some of these sounds. You will find it here. I really recommend listening to this so you can be confident you are helping your child learn the correct sounds.

Help Your Child Learn Single Letter Phonemes

Here are some things I am doing with Garden Boy and did with Garden Girl, to familiarise them with the single letter phonemes. Getting them to practice saying, writing and recognising the sounds when they don't even realise they are doing work is the best way of getting them to learn them.

• Teach them to write their name. Start with the first letter. But don't get them to write it over and over again for no reason. When they write thank you cards for Christmas or birthday gifts get them to write the first letter of their name inside the card. You can finish the name off for them so they start to recognise what their name looks like written down. Ask them to write their name on any drawings or paintings they do at home, so everyone who looks at it will know who made the brilliant picture. Again, start with the first letter and then when they are confident with that, add more letters.
• Add letters which are special to them. After learning the first letter of his name, Garden Boy learned to write 'W' and 'B' because he wanted to be able to write 'Woody' and 'Buzz'. If they draw pictures of the same things over and over again teach them the letters of those words. For example, Garden Girl drew endless pictures of butterflies and Tinkerbell, so 'B' and 'T' were two of the first letters she learned. You can probably make any letter special to your child by picking the right word for them.
• If your children like a particular kind of food get them to add it to the shopping list themselves. Initially you will have to tell them the letters and show them how to the draw the letters, but if they copy it enough times they will soon learn. It is a great incentive to write letters and words, if by doing so you will remember to buy those ice lollies, lemon cakes, meatballs or strawberries. Again, start with the first letter and over time, move them on to writing the full word.
• Get them to write letters and words during general play. For instance, if you are playing cafe's get them to be the waitor/waitress. They should write a T for every tea order, a C for every coffee order, a J for a juice order, a B for every biscuit order and a S for a slice of cake. You can have all the letters written nearby for them to copy if they need it and as they become proficient writers change it to the full word.
• When you are reading books with your children get them to look for things in the pictures and then find the word in the text yourself and sound it out to them. Show them, with your finger, the sounds as you are saying them. It will help them get used to how sounds are blended together to make words.
• Get older siblings or friends to read to younger ones if they are willing. Garden Girl loves reading to Garden Boy and Garden Lass, and Garden Boy picked up the phonic method of sounding out and blending this way. He also learned most of the single letter phonemes this way. This worked well for Garden Boy because Garden Girl is just one year ahead so was still at the stage of sounding out and blending every word, but even if the gap is bigger, this sharing of books with other children is a great way of developing an interest in and love of books.
• Play phonic i-spy. Using the phonic sound of objects, rather than the letter name is a great way of getting them to think of things beginning with that sound.
• When we are out for long walks and I want to keep them interested we will often play 'Spot the...' We take it in turns to spot a tree, or a red car, or a yellow flower etc but I always throw some letters and numbers in. It only really works on urban walks but with all the street signs, road signs, posters, bill boards, shop signs etc, there are plenty of opportunities around to spot letters and numbers.

Are there any games or activities you do that get your children reading or writing words and letters?

Single Letter Phonemes

A Phoneme is an individual sound. When phonemes are put together in the right order they will blend to make a word. For instance, the phonemes 'c', 'a' and 't' can be blended together to make the word cat.

When children use Phonics to learn reading and writing they will first learn the phonic sound that is associated with a letter, or particular group of letters. At a later stage they will learn the letter names, or alphabet. Thus, they will learn that 'a' is pronounced like 'a' in cat and not 'a' in late.

Single letter phonemes are the easiest for children to learn and recognise and are the first ones they will learn. The following is a list of all the single letter phonemes, with an accompanying word representing the phonic sound the letter represents. I have listed them in the order your child is likely to learn them, rather than the order they appear in the alphabet.

s as in sock
a as in cat
t as in pit
p as in pot
i as in ink
n as in pan
m as in man
d as in dog
g as in goat
o as in pot
c as in cat
k as in kitten 
e as in egg
u as in umbrella
r as in rabbit
h as in hat
b as in bag
f as in fan
l as in long
j as in jump
v as in van
w as in wig
x as in six
y as in yell
z as in zip

Most of these phonemes sound exactly as you would expect them to but the one I hadn't fully grasped until Garden Girl said the sound, was 'x' which sounds exactly as it does in the word 'six'. If I had to write the pronunciation of this sound down I would suggest it was something like 'cs'.