Teaching Your Child How to Read using The Whatley Reading Method

El Duane, the old retired Educator

Teaching Your Child How to Read
using
The Whatley Reading Method
Created 1998

Reading is an easy skill for a child to learn. We modern-day educators make reading a lot more difficult than it ought to be. Perhaps there is some self-serving interest among the educational establishment to keep the public caught up in the idea that the teaching of reading is a hard thing to do. There is much disagreement about how to teach reading, and experts differ about all parts of the reading process. But, I believe, along with many other educators, that probably ninety percent of all children can be reading by the end of the second grade. Parents and church people have been teaching reading for hundreds of years so that their children could read the Bible and learn their articles of faith.

What is reading?

Speech is sound. Speech is made up of sounds, which we interpret as words, or parts of words. Writing human speech on clay tablets thousands of years ago was made possible by creating certain symbols that stood for certain sounds of human speech. This process may have taken 1000's of years to create the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. The results are amazingly simple.

The English-speaking peoples, beginning with the British Isles, with their free spirit, industry and commerce, have popularized and spread the Roman alphabet all over the world. The invention of the personal computer, and American free-enterprise have made these 26 letters, and possibly the English language itself, candidates for the universal language of the planet Earth.

Displaying the Sound Symbols of the English Language

The vowels: a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y.

The diphthongs: (a diphthong is a single separate sound made by two vowels) au, aw, eu, ew, oi, oy, oo, ou, ow.

The blends: (a blend is a separate sound made by two consonants) th, ng, ph, ch, sh (bl and br do not make separate sounds from their parts)

The consonants: (all letters that are not vowels) b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z (nearly all the alphabet)

Special considerations of the English language sound symbols: ai, ae, ay, ee, ea, ei, ey, ie, ue, and oo, (sometimes have their own sound rules),
augh, ough, (sometimes have their own sound rules. They are not logical!)

A List of All the Sound Symbols of the English Language
(Note: Exceptions should be dealt with after "regular" sounds are learned.)
(Foreign language students: I cannot keep the translating facility from translating the illustration words into the receiving language. A person needs to see the English word in order to determine the sound of the vowel in the illustrations Lo siente.)

2.    e, as in "Pete" (Pete) (long e)
3.    i, as in "high" (high) (long i)
4.    o, as in "boat" (boat) (long o)
5.    u, as in "due" (due) (long u)
6.    a, as in "father" or "fat" (short a; don't make a big deal about the variations)
7.    e, as in "pet" (pet) (short e)
8.    i, as in "pit" (pit) (short i)
9.    o, as in "pot" (pot) (short o)
10. u, as in "us" (us) (short u)
11.   au, as in "taught" (taught)
12.   aw, as in "saw" (saw)
13. eu, as in "Eunice" (Eunice)
14. ew, as in "few" (few)
15. oi, as in "poise" (poise)
16. oy, as in "boy" (boy)
17. oo, as in "cool," "look," "flood," "floor," "brood"   (Note: the oo sounds different in each word, and have to be learned by hearing and saying them separately. As:
        "cool" sounds like "kule,"
        "flood" sounds like "flud,"
        "look" has its own variation of short "u" sound, but is different than   "luck,"
        "floor" sounds like "flore,"
        "brood" is the common "oo" sound, and many words have this sound, as "food."
18. ou, as in "ouch" (ouch)
19. ow, as in "cow" (cow)
20. th, as in "thing" (thing)
21. ng, as in "thing" (thing)
22. ph, as in "phone" (phone)
23. ch, as in "child" (child)
24. sh, as in "shall" (shall)
25. b, as in "boy" (boy)
26. c, as in "cat" (c, as in "cent" must be learned later)
27. d, as in "date" (date)
28. f, as in "fat" (fat)
29. g, as in "get" (the soft g, as in "George" must be learned later)
30. h, as in "hat" (hat)
31. j, as in "join" (joint)
32. k, as in "kit" (kit)
33. l, as in "long" (long)
34. m, as in "man" (man)
35. n, as in "not" (not)
36. p, as in "pet" (pet)
37. q, as in "quick" (q is always seen with u, as in quick, in English)
38. r, as in "run" (run)
39. s, as in "sit" (sit)
40. t, as in "tar" (tar)
41. v, as in "vat" (vat)
42. w, as in "wet" (wet)
43. x, as in "box" (box) (the letter x almost never begins an English word)
44. y, as in "yes" (yes)
45. z, as in "zeal" (zeal)
46. ough, as in "tough" (tuff), "enough" (enuff), "cough" (coff), "though" (tho)
47. augh, as in "naught," and "taught"
48. tion, as in "nation" (sounds like "shun")

There are no other sounds that your child needs to learn to start reading. There are many exceptional cases that the speakers of English use, but the new reader must first learn the 85 or 90 percent of the regular sounds for the symbols. It appears obvious that a child can learn 48 letter combinations much easier than trying to memorize thousands of words in "word lists." Mastering these sounds, the child has the ability to read 2,000,000 English words. This system of teaching to read is sometimes called "the phonics method." It makes sense to teach a new reader the symbols which form written language.

Learning to read is an activity full of fun and discovery. Every letter (and letter- combination) has meaning. There is no other purpose for reading than to learn the meaning of what the writer intends to say. The reader is very powerful. She has in her presence millions of "speakers" from everywhere, and from many times.

HINTS IN TEACHING YOUR CHILD TO READ

Examples: Teach the group, a, n, e, r, t, one letter at a time. Many one-syllable words can be made from these letters. You can spend many days with a child, teaching him or her to print-and-say as he practices these letters and combinations of letters. Stay with one-syllable words at first. Some are: an, ant, tan, ten, tar, rat, rate, net, eat, neat, ate, tear, tare, and so forth.

Examples: in "eat" and "neat" the vowel combination "ea" has the "e" pronounced long, and the "a" is silent. This is a universal rule, at least for the present. Don't dwell on any exceptions; these will come later, after the learning of the regular rules. In "tar" and "tare" the "r" sound influences the pronunciation of the vowel in front of it. This is another universal rule with the letter "r." In "rate" there is another universal rule in English: a silent "e" almost always has a long vowel preceeding it, with a consonant betweeen the vowels. Or, as elementary teachers will say, "The silent "e" in "rate" makes the vowel before it LONG. This is universal in reading English. You can think of hundreds of examples of this single rule of reading English.

Examples: the consonants "s" and "m" might be the next added letters you introduce. Choose letters that help you form many new words. Make a huge deal out of the fact that the child can read actual words that have real meanings. Make written words which the child uses every day. With a, n, e, r, t, s, and m, you give the child the ability to read hundreds of words. He does not have to memorize even one word. But he does have to remember some of what I am calling "universal rules of English." And he or she can write hundreds of words, also. This is where the "fun" comes into learning to read. You may let the child draw and illustrate some of the words he has learned. draw a picture for the word "eat." How about "seat?"

Examples: The word "introduce" has three syllables: in-tro-duce. The child can hear these and say them separately. The child does not have to learn to spell "introduce" but three stand-alone syllables: "in" and "tro" and "duce." That spells "introduce."

Examples: I remember running across the word "says" when I first started to read. Logically, this should rhyme with "pays." But it doesn't. It sounds like "sez." But I had to learn this exception once, and the word "says" has said "sez" everytime I have seen it in the last 50 years. It is a consistent inconsistency, if there is such a thing. These are easy to learn. There are many other examples. "Said" should rhyme with "paid" but it actually says "sed." But it never changes after we learn to say it right.

I love to read, and to teach reading.

Some Common Rules of Reading and Writing English that Work
(Or, that work most of the time)

2.   "I" before "e" except after the letter "c." (believe, receive). Many exceptions!
3.   A silent "e" at the end of a word makes the vowel before it LONG. (fate, tote)
4.   Two consonants between silent "e" and a vowel before it make the vowel SHORT.
      Examples: fat, fatter, fate, hat, hate, hatter, mat, mate, matter, bit, bite, bitter, bat, batter, etc.< br> 5.   Words ending in "y" require dropping the "y" and adding "ies" to make the plural.
        Examples: baby, babies; body, bodies; gully, gullies; guppy, guppies; family, families.

El Duane Whatley, BA, 1961 (Pepperdine University), MEd. 1967 (University of Oregon)

ADDITIONAL ITEMS ABOUT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE THAT MIGHT PROVE TO BE HELPFUL

The Eight Parts of Speech in English
(Things your high school child may never have learned, or even heard about)

. Noun: A noun is a word that is the name of something. Nouns are things. Anything. Cows, trees, cars, people, ideas. Common nouns are names of common things: cups, rabbits, kids, houses, schools, highways, dollars. Proper nouns are names of specific things, and require the initial capital letter. Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

. Pronoun: A pronoun is a word that stands in the place of a noun, like she, he, it, they, them and those. A pronoun must agree with its antecedent in number and gender. I like Mary. She is cute. Mary = she.

. Verb: A verb is an action word. Any word that shows or indicates action or being is a verb. Run, jumb, go, is.

. Adverb: A describing word. Adverbs describe (or define) verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. I jump awkwardly. Adverbs often end in -ly, but some don't. He is very tall. She is truly a really intelligent woman.

. Adjective: Also a describing word. Adjectives describe (or define) nouns. Handsome boy, pretty girl. ;

. Preposition: As the name suggests, a preposition shows positional or relational aspects between nouns. I saw a rabbit in the bushes. I rode in the back of the pickup.

. Conjunction: A joining word, which joins nouns, usually.. The most common conjunction is "and." Can you think of others?

. Exclamation: Words like "Help!" and "Look!" are words of exclamation. (Strong verbs, actually). They stand alone in a sentence, usually.

This page was created by El Duane Whatley.

Modified Friday, June 23, 2006

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