Learn to Read with Clayphonics : Phonics and Reading

Clayphonics is a reading program that gets results! It has been used successfully with preschoolers, kindergarten and grade one students, students who learning to read who require learning support, and adults who speak English as another language.

Learning to read with Clayphonics makes use of mnemonic devices (memory tools) shaped into clay figurines, along with storytelling and integrated movement to teach reading and writing. Beginning readers of all ages can use the system to learn to read with ease.

Phonics

Phonetic elements are introduced to new readers to strengthen their developing reading skills. A phonetic element is a group of letters that can be found in hundreds of other words.

Once a solid phonics base has been developed using the Clayphonics approach, beginning readers are prepared for further study.

Beginning readers also need to develop "sight word" vocabularies to increase their reading fluency and move beyond sounding out words phonetically (letter by letter).

Sight words with strong meaning form the foundation of a sight word collection. But high-frequency words such as and, but, they, want, and where, are also indispensable.

The purpose of reading is to get meaning from written words. As a general rule, beginning readers should understand at least seventy-five percent of the important ideas in the text they have read.

Out of respect for older beginning readers (those beyond the primary grades) who require a teaching approach in keeping with their level of maturity, the Clayphonics images are presented as mnemonics - memory tools. A useful technique for sharing the Clayphonics approach with this category of beginning readers involves sketching the Clayphonics images on paper while telling the stories as opposed to reading them. In this way, the stories can be modified; details can be added or be left out, and more complex language can be used. The new readers can participate in the sketching