Alphabetic Principle

Question 1

Alphabetic Principle

Answer 1

is the concept that letters or letter combinations represent spoken sounds. Students need multiple exposures to link letters to their corresponding sounds efficiently.

Question 2

Ways to teach letter sound Correspondence

Answer 2

Teach the most common sound a letter represents first. For example, the letter “g” should be associated with the sound it makes in “goat” before associating it with the sound it makes in “wage”.

Teach letters that look similar with similar sounds separately to limit confusion (/b/ and /d/ or /m/ and /n/).

Model the correct pronunciation when teaching letter sounds, and introduce continuous sounds (f, l, m, n, r, s, v, w, y, and z) before stop sounds (b, c, d, g, j, k, p, q, t). Stops sounds should be pronounced without adding a vowel sound (/b/ for b vs. “buh” for b).

Teach short vowel sounds before long vowel sounds. This is practical and allows young readers to begin to sound out short consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words like “map” and “sun”.