Over 70% of English words are phonetic. The Story Jungle phonics programme aims to equip students with this key tool to help them read independently, fluently, purposefully and confidently. Our programme is divided into three levels, covering the alphabetic principle, letters and sounds, blending and segmenting. We focus on phonemic awareness in our lessons, and we pair concepts with practices in reading, rhyming, songs and games to help students master the skill.
In our first level phonics programme, children learn the name and sound of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet and practice their writing of upper and lower-case letters. Phonemic awareness activities and sound drills are incorporated into every lesson to strengthen students’ understanding of letter-sound relationships. With more alphabets and sounds under their belt, students are then encouraged to identify the initial sounds in words and blend CVC words, with special focus on differentiating the five vowel sounds.
With the foundation they have built in our level 1 phonics programme, level 2 students continue to practice blending with the help of vowel focus and more challenging phonemic awareness exercises. They also learn more complex sound combinations, including L-blends, R-blends, digraphs and special word endings. Students also have ample opportunities to apply concepts into reading and spelling decodable words.
Level 3 students learn challenging combinations in this level, such as trigraphs, r-controlled and long vowel sounds. They learn to integrate phonemic awareness and vowel focus lessons into blending and segmenting multi-syllable words. They practice to master the reading of decodable stories and writing phonics sentences, thus preparing them for primary school English usage.
Phonics is the most useful tool in reading. When children master phonics, they will be able to read words automatically, allowing them to concentrate on comprehension and analysis of text for deeper meaning and reflection. They will be able to use reading as a tool for self-learning and thus acquire new knowledge from textbooks and stories, newspapers and magazines. They will have the key to ideas, inspirations and advancements. Phonics is the key to reading, and reading is the key to English and learning.