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Sounds Alive |
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"Sounds Alive" is a supplement to "contextual reading". Some may consider it 'the opposite'.
But it hits a spot in literacy learning that contextual reading can fail to find. The lists of one syllable words in this booklet pick up on a single vowel sound which is repeated in a list of the one syllable words that have the same vowel sound. Quite often in English a vowel is given a different sound from what is expected e.g. in "sort". "Sounds Alive" gathers such exceptions together into the same word lists. Once a student knows which 'exception' applies to a list they can easily read all the other words in the same list. By sheer repetition the student learns which words come under which exceptions. By working through the lists in this way the student learns the art of sounding out a word then listening to what they are saying in order to recognise what the word is. "Sounds Alive" restricts its lists to one syllable words. But when confident in reading these words the student can see how the same sounds are to be found in longer words that can be broken up into more than one syllable. For instance when they know the sound of "be" and they know the sound for "long" they can put the two together in the word "be-long". True the sounds of the vowels in these words may follow other patterns. But "Sounds Alive" equips the student with a definite number of vowel sounds that they can try out. Because the booklet groups together the same sounds, a student (and teacher) may find the meanings of the words 'jump around'. But the repeated vowel sound in a list of words does not jump around. In this sense the lists provide a more coherant exercise in reading and spelling than contextual reading does. |
The method of learning presented in "Sounds Alive" parallels the way in which children learn to
speak. After all children learn to speak before they see what various words look like.
They do this because they recognise sounds. Odd as it may sound, a "chook" can follow one around, chatting away to itself and whoever or whatever else is close by. At times it "speaks" directly to the person who is about to feed it, frustrate it, please it, frighten it etc. The mood of the chook and the meaning of its language is easily recognisable by the intonations that it uses. Dogs don't talk incessantly. But chooks do. Chook intonations parallel the intonations of human language so closely they provide an eerie reminder of where language came from in the first place. And, their communication is all about sound. Try spending a week building a dog kennel in a backyard with some former battery hens. One does not need to know "chook language" to understand that life cramped in an A4-sized space is anything but miserable. The chooks can spend the week 'talking' about it. Or try listening to a chook that whinges on a hot day. No need for word meanings here. At another level, one does not need to understand a foreign language when a speaker is shouting and waving his hands around, speaking gently and smiling etc. Perhaps the meaning of words can be over-rated as compared with what they sound like. By its focus on sound rather than contextual meanings "Sounds Alive" also helps to teach the power of the individual word. True, words are usually understood in the context of other words. But each word exists in its own right, with its own power and with its own sound. Otherwise it would not exist at all! |
Have a look at sample pages |
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"Sounds Alive" p5 |
"Sounds Alive" p25 |
"Sounds Alive" p45 |
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Consider a Download |
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Project Employment Inc McLeod St, Sunshine Melbourne Australia 3020 ABN 39 566 577 931 |
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tel 03 9311 5352 fax 03 9352 6763 email: admin@phonicsalive.com.au |