Australia teaches children sounds first, letters later

Dr. Nguyen The Duong (Institute of Linguistics) shared an article about teaching sounds, letters, and reading in Australia, after debates about the educational method of teaching children to spell according to the Vietnamese Grade 1 document Educational Technology.

Australian educational philosophy

Like many other countries, the path to finding and building an educational philosophy in Australia has not always been smooth. There was a time when teaching letters in this country was quite conservative, constrained by rigid patterns. Australians used to teach children sounds and letters by trying to force those sounds into a system of color words. For example, when teaching the sound /a/, they would associate it with the word aquamarine, the sound /b/ with the word brown...

However, it is not easy for students to memorize this complex color-letter chart. Some children cannot fully distinguish colors and find it extremely difficult to learn letters.

Over time, the perception of teaching sounds and letters to children in Australia gradually changed. A humane, child-friendly approach gradually took shape and received great support from society, parents, teachers and students themselves.

Australia’s current educational philosophy places the learner at the centre of the learning process. Children are seen as capable and creative, not as immature, incompetent or ignorant. Teachers, parents and the community treat children with respect, equality and are encouraged to realise their potential in play, life and learning.

Australian education places great importance on the development of the individual. Each student is seen as a microcosm, each with their own strengths. Therefore, the goal of education is to encourage and develop those individual strengths in the most natural way.

For example, in teaching reading, Australians acknowledge the fact that each student has a different reading ability. Teachers typically divide the class into reading groups, based on reading level, and are not overly concerned about the differences in reading ability between students. Children are allowed to choose learning materials that suit their abilities and interests, without being dictated by teachers.

In addition, Australian education also emphasizes practicality, conciseness and modernity. Therefore, in primary education, they do not pay attention to issues such as practicing beautiful handwriting, practicing model essays, or practicing reading and pronunciation in unison.

Phonetics first, letters later

With the view that children are subjects with language capacity, Australian educators believe that children develop reading and writing skills before they are taught these skills. From a young age, children have formed certain knowledge of phonetics, such as the ability to detect sounds in speech, memorize and read letters encountered in daily life... From there, children are familiarized with letters and reading from a very early age.

When they attend kindergarten, Australian children are introduced to reading through storytimes by their teachers. At age 5, they enter the first year of primary school, called Prep, which is one year earlier than in Vietnam.

According to the Australian education program, Prep students need to distinguish between sounds and letters. After completing the first year of school, they must be able to recognize all the letters in the English alphabet and distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters.

Although the requirement for Prep students is to be able to distinguish between sounds and letters, Australian students are taught sounds first. Phonics is taught through the Jolly Phonics program with cute, easy-to-understand songs. These are melodies from familiar children's songs but with new lyrics to help with learning sounds. For example, the sound /k/ is taught to the melody of the song.She'll be coming round the mountainwith words like:

Kites are flying in the sky
Kites are flying in the sky
Kites are flying in the sky
... flying in the sky
... kites are flying in the sky

When singing, children raise their hands high, making movements as if they are flying a kite. From there, they will grasp words with the "flag" sound /k/ such as kites, sky... and at the same time grasp the pronunciation of the sound /k/.

The sound /a/ is taught according to the lyrics of the song:

Ants on my arms
ants on my arms
ants on my arms
They're causing me alarm.

It can be seen that in this first stage of learning sounds, people do not teach the name of the letter A (ay) but teach the sound /a/ like the song above. In the Prep class, the name of the letter is only taught when children have mastered the sound/letter compatibility and how to combine sounds to read. Usually, the name of the letter is introduced through a very famous song about the alphabet.ABC song.

After mastering the principles of sound, each week the teacher will give students a list of 10 sight words. These are basic vocabulary, often used with high frequency and can be memorized by sight without separating sounds or rhymes, such as: I, you, we, in... By the end of Prep, students are taught 200 sight words.

Australian education forms reading habits for children from an early age

With sight vocabulary and knowledge of sounds and rhymes as a foundation, Prep students also begin to learn to read.

Australian education places great importance on and encourages children to read. Even in kindergarten (ages 3-5), children are allowed to borrow 3 books each week to read at home with their parents. In Prep, students are also allowed to take a book home each day to read at home. The school encourages parents to read with their children.

In my child’s Prep class, the teacher shared with the students 10 tips for reading: Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read and read. It turns out, the 10 tips can be summed up in one word. Only daily reading practice can help children develop a love for books and knowledge and help them improve their reading every day.

Children in Australia have a reading ability of 30 levels from easy to difficult. The education program of this country expects students to complete 30 reading levels by the end of Year 2. After studying Prep, students are expected to achieve reading level 6.

With such early reading habits, most students complete 30 reading levels by the end of second grade.

Australia has no textbooks to teach reading and spelling.

In Australia, there are no textbooks to teach letters and spelling to children in early primary school, but in return, they have built a very elaborate system of reference and supplementary books. This system of books, in the view of many education experts, is a massive, systematic, very useful and convenient work.

They include thousands of books of all genres and topics, from literature, history to science, nature, and environment. At each reading level, students can freely choose suitable and favorite books for themselves. This book system has contributed effectively to the realization of reading and writing goals.

In addition, it is impossible not to mention the system of songs designed specifically for learning sounds and letters. The attractive, simple and extremely familiar melodies help children easily grasp seemingly extremely complex language issues.

Research on age psychology and child sociology to build programs

From building a philosophy to implementing education in Australia is not a path of roses. Just talking about teaching reading, phonics and letters in Prep class, to implement a complete and modern program like today, educators in this country have done a lot of work.

Firstly, Australia has conducted extensive research into the psychology, abilities and sociology of children. This research is extremely important in helping educators understand children better, especially in Australia's multicultural environment.

Second, to effectively implement the above method of teaching reading, Australian teachers are carefully and systematically trained to master the objectives, requirements, methods and ways of implementing the program. On the other hand, teachers need to be proactive and creative in the teaching process. They must design their own lessons and create their own teaching materials based on the framework program.

In recent years, in the general development trend of the 4.0 era, Australian educators continue to develop and introduce into schools many applications running on Android and iOS platforms to help students, teachers and parents have more choices in teaching and learning.

Dr. Nguyen The Duong
Institute of Linguistics