WHAT SHOULD WE BE TEACHING?
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  • Correct pronunciation and articulation.
  • Memory skills.
  • Concepts of Print: words convey a message: letters represent the sounds we say.
  • Phonological awareness: sound discrimination, isolation of sounds, analysis and synthesis, and patterns and rhyme, manipulation of sound (rime & onset), awareness and manipulation of sound
  • Sound/name/symbol relationship: constancy of letter names (cat, chat, race, champagne, choir), letters represent many different sounds (cat, path, station, father), visual discrimination (bdpq), constancy of print and correct letter formation.
  • Phonemic awareness: sound discrimination, isolation of sounds, analysis and synthesis, and patterns and rimes.
  • Information: Sound to letter patterns (frequency of usage and positional frequency in a word eg boil, boy); Use of analogy (“sounds like so probably looks like”); Morphological information (base word, prefixes and suffixes); Families and extensions (verbs, comparatives, superlatives); Rules and generalisations; Origins of words (etymology), and; Grammar (parts of speech).
  • Penmanship: consistent legible, flowing handwriting.
  • Visual Skills: Proofreading.