What is the importance of phonics in decoding?
Our English-speaking alphabet is made up of consonants and vowels. Of our 26 letter alphabet, 21 of the letters are consonants. The remaining five are the vowels a, e, I, o and u, and sometimes y. There are approximately 44 sounds (phonemes) in English and only 26 letters (graphemes) to represent them. It stands to reason, then, that some of the letters of the alphabet (graphemes) are going to have to combine to represent more than one sound (phoneme). This is the job of the vowels, which change sound and meaning by being long (“cake”), short (“cat”) or irregular, as in vowels that follow an r (“star”). Phonics instruction help students to gain the repertory code of consonant, vowels and their various combinations that represent language in print.
