To learn English like a native speaker: talk about those things of natural spelling.

As the topic of natural spelling becomes more and more popular, more and more teachers, parents and students begin to have many questions about this topic. Combining with your questions, I have read all kinds of materials and listened to lectures on natural spelling many times. Now I will make a simple summary of this hot topic.

1. Why should we teach natural spelling?

no matter native speaker or English language learner, one thing you need to do when learning English is to remember words! However, as second language learners, what we don't know is that there are shortcuts when remembering words! Yes! Is a shortcut! Compared with the traditional method of memorizing letter by letter (a-p-p-l-e, Apple), this shortcut is to find the corresponding relationship between English words and sounds.

what? Correspondence? ! Yes, it is the understanding the link between the sounds of English and the ways we write them. This correspondence exists between words and sounds. Different from parataxis in Chinese, English pays attention to phonology, that is, you can read English words when you see them. On the contrary, when you see a Chinese character you don't know, even if you think hard, you can't read it if you don't know how to read it. It is often inaccurate to rely on spelling or guessing.

but! If we just think that natural spelling is helping us remember words, it is all wet! It is precisely because of this correspondence that this shortcut is provided: by understanding the relationship between phonemes and spelling, we can get rid of the strange circle of memorizing words only, and then learn to decoding new words, improve reading comprehension and increase reading volume. In other words, the ultimate goal of natural spelling is to help children improve their reading ability, that is, to serve reading.

2. How to teach natural spelling?

When it comes to how to teach natural spelling, we must first clarify the question of "what to teach". When teaching spelling, teachers are not only teaching students how to spell a word or how to pronounce a new word by spelling, but also teaching phonemic awareness.

In other words, the teacher's teaching goal is to enable students to spell words whenever they see them, so that they can finally read while spelling.

Next, I'll talk about how to teach

An important principle is that it should be handled differently at different stages according to age (refer to Teacher Liu Baoyin's English, Only if you love to "spell" will you win)

For children in China, English is a foreign language and lacks a language environment. Then sooner or later, English enlightenment will affect the ways and methods of children's English learning.

If English is enlightened early, and they start grinding their ears (listening to English children's songs, watching English cartoons, reading English picture books, etc.) at the age of 3-4, so that they can accumulate a large number of listening and speaking vocabulary, then when they start learning natural spelling at the age of 6, their learning path will be somewhat similar to that of native speakers.

If English enlightenment begins at the age of 5-6, the accumulation of listening and speaking vocabulary, pronunciation discrimination and letter recognition in the preparation stage of natural spelling are combined with the phonetic correspondence of letters or letter combinations in the initial stage, and carried out simultaneously.

For children who are 7-8 years old, the situation is different from the first two age stages. Most of them have learned 26 letters, letter names and letter shapes, and some simple words, but they have no phoneme awareness.

9-1-year-old children should have learned the basic rules of natural spelling. Even if they haven't learned natural spelling, they have gained a certain vocabulary through learning and have more or less some potential perception of word spelling. Therefore, teaching children of this age to learn natural spelling can be carried out by systematically sorting out the corresponding rules of sound and shape.

3.? How to combine it with reading?

The foreign name for natural spelling is "learn to read", which means "Chinese enlightenment" of English as a language. English reading is the practice and consolidation of natural spelling. After learning natural spelling, children need to practice the rules they have learned with reading materials, and then review and consolidate them. Therefore, for children who are learning natural spelling, the matching effect of natural spelling textbooks and picture books is the most ideal.

since it is "learn to read", the problem we have to solve is to let students learn "how to read". In order to combine natural spelling with reading, extensive reading is essential. The extensive reading materials here are the original books, and at the same time pay attention to the collocation of picture books and graded reading. Interdisciplinary reading can also enrich children's reading horizons.

No matter whether children are enlightened in English sooner or later, reading through natural spelling changes their focus from single words to text interpretation of chapters and meaning groups. Through effective reading, children gradually learn to decode and spell strange words, and then practice repeatedly and identify words instantly, thus mastering the ability of independent reading.

Due to the lack of space, I will focus on these three questions today, hoping to help everyone's questions ~ I wish everyone's spelling teaching will be more and more smooth, and children can learn think and talk like native speakers!

this paper refers to teacher Liu baoyin's English, only if you love spelling can you win, English education in English learning magazine, teacher Yang Li's lecture "a sandwich approach to teaching phonetics" and teacher Li Hua's lecture "the integration of natural spelling and picture book reading". Ranked in no particular order. Thank you for your academic contributions!