Triveni Goswami Vernal
(Registered Special Educator A64010)

In the previous blog (https://specialsaathi.com/2024/10/10/sight-reading-as-a-strategy-to-teach-reading-to-individuals-on-the-autism-spectrum/), I had written about Sight Reading as a strategy to teach Reading skills to individuals on the Autism Spectrum. In this blog, I will be writing about the use of Phonics as a strategy to teach Reading skills.

The focus of Phonics is to help individuals understand how each letter has a specific sound (phoneme) and how the letter-sound relationship helps in the process of spelling. The process involved is Decoding the written text, by listening, identifying and using the sounds to make words.

When adopting the Phonics strategy,
a) One can begin with a focus on Vowel sounds (both short and long vowel sounds).
b) And then move on to CVC (Consonant Vowel Consonant words).
c) Subsequently, one can introduce Word families (words that have similar patterns with the same ending such as ack (Pack, Lack, Back), ale (Pale, Male), in (Bin, Din, Fin, Tin), at (Bat, Mat, Cat, Rat, Hat) etc.

ROLE OF AUDITORY AND VISUAL PROCESSING SKILLS

Both Auditory as well as Visual Processing skills are essential for being able to decode (understanding that the written symbols i.e. each of the letters of the alphabet have a corresponding sound) as well as encode (writing down a symbol i.e., the letter of the alphabet, for the sound one hears when it is spoken out). Visual Processing is associated with the process of decoding and Auditory Processing is associated with the process of encoding. Therefore, as a pre-requisite to Reading and Writing, both Visual and Auditory Processing are essential.

TEACHING PHONICS THROUGH APPS AND GAMES
One can use various apps and adopt various games as a tool to teach Phonics, to children. There are several websites that have wonderful ideas to work on Phonics.

Sharing a list of websites that have fun activities to teach Phonics –
https://www.weareteachers.com/phonics-activities/
https://readingeggs.com/articles/phonics-activities/
https://www.literacyplanet.com/blog/fun-phonics-games-for-kids/
https://www.twinkl.co.in/blog/18-phonics-games
https://www.splashlearn.com/ela/phonics-games
https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/education/blog/phonics-activities-for-preschoolers/
https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/full-phonics.html
https://www.k5learning.com/free-preschool-kindergarten-worksheets/phonics
https://www.education.com/worksheets/phonics/

Sharing a list of Apps/websites that can help to teach Phonics:
1) Starfall ABCs (Available for Android and Apple devices)
2) Starfall Learn to Read (Available for Android and Apple devices)
3) Jolly Phonics (https://jollyreading.in/)
4) Teach your Monster to Read

There are tons of resources available online, these days. One needs to ensure that as a caregiver and/or an educator, one makes learning as fun as possible for the child. Bring the elements of enthusiasm and excitement to the child, so that the child can learn through fun and games and is less stressed about “performance” and what is expected of them, at all times.

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Author Triveni Goswami Vernal

Triveni Goswami Vernal is an Autism advocate, registered Special Educator (CRR A64010) and an Independent Researcher. Her areas of interest include Autism, Disability Rights, Gender, Art and Northeast studies. She is a mum to an 12 year old on the Autism Spectrum.

Artwork- “Colours and Patterns”
Acrylic Painting on Watercolour Paper
Artist- Kabir Vernal