Pam Williams, age 13, of Dotham, Ala., for her question:
WHAT IS PHONETICS?
Phoentics is the science of speech sounds and the symbols by which they are shown in writing and printing. This science is based on a study of all the parts of the body concerned in making speech.
It includes the positions of the parts of the body necessary for producing spoken words and the effect of air from the lungs as it passes through the larynx, pharynx, vocal cords, nasal passages and mouth.
The natural way of learning to speak is by imitating sounds made by others. Speech problems may sometimes be overcome if a person discovers where to place some part of the speech apparatus to make sounds.
The phonetic ideal is a language in which every spoken sound is represented by one letter and only one. No language has reached this ideal, but Spanish and Italian are close to it.
English is especially difficult because spelling was decided on by printers hundreds of years ago, but speech has continued to change sounds.
English is far from the phonetic ideal. Every vowel has several sounds as in cake, hat, bath and arm. "A" and "e" have about eight sounds.
An international phonetic alphabet has been compiled by experts to represent the various sounds. These symbols can be applied to all languages.
Reformed spelling has been tried by many persons, to make spelling come closer to sound. Its value is doubtful, because pronunciation changes rapidly. A series of technical dictionaries would be necessary to explain the language if simplified spelling were widely adopted throughout the world.
Phonics is the association of letters or combinations of letters with their appropriate speech sounds. It includes understanding the principles that govern the use of letters in words.
In reading, phonics helps us understand the sound of a word that is unfamiliar. In spelling, phonics helps us write the appropriate letters for the sounds we hear.
Phonics can be taught synthetically or analytically. In the synthetic approach, the child learns the sounds of individual letters and letter combinations, usually before he learns to read. When the child meets an unfamiliar word, he synthesizes, or sounds out, the sounds that make up the word.
In the analytic approach, the child develops a vocabulary of words he knows by sight. He does this while learning to read. In this way, he understands both the sound of the letters and the reasons some letters are used instead of others.
Most educators prefer the analytic approach to the synthetic approach.
A knowledge of phonics makes it possible to reconstruct the sounds of many words not known by sight. This is particularly true for language in which each letter or symbol represents only one sound and each sound is represented by only one letter.
In English, the relation between sounds is not consistent. Thus, phonics has limitations if it is the only means used to learn unfamiliar words.