Overview | More Information – Features | Tutor Training | UN SDG 4
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Overview
Designed for use in class with learners and is especially useful with a smart board / interactive screen or similar, it is a great aid to build phonemic awareness in learners and helping to decode written words into their component sounds. The searchable phonics dictionary contains over 300,000 thousand words. Each word is displayed as an interactive resource on screen and shows the relationship between the phonemes that make up the sounds of the word and the graphemes that represent their spelling in the word. This can also be very useful for ESL / ESOL tutors, whose learners have English is a second language and need to improve their literacy skills, helping them relate the sound of the language to its written forms, by making clear the Letter / Sound correspondence in each word.
More Information – Features
Each phoneme / grapheme pair is represented and for ESL / ESOL Tutors there is also the option to display the relevant IPA symbols. Each phoneme in the word can be heard by tapping on the associated grapheme. The whole word can also be heard by tapping on its ‘play’ button. Each component sound and mouth shape in a word is pronounced by an actor on video. Each complete word sound is played.
One powerful way of using this tool is to combine it with the Custom Word and Activity Builder toolkit in the following way. To introduce new sets of custom words / vocabularies to their learners’ tutors can use the Phonics Dictionary in class to introduce the new words and break them down into their sounds. If there is access to a smart board / interactive screen / tablet etc. the tutor can ask learners to play the sounds that make up each word by touching the phonemes and then listen to the whole word being spoken. Then, using the Custom Word and Activity Builder toolkit the tutor can create a set of custom word activities than contain the new vocabulary words and send those activities to their learners to practice with in their own time.
Tutor Training
The Phonics dictionary is also useful for tutor training and development and can be used by tutors to look up words and their correct decoding into their component sounds and spellings of those sounds. Giving tutors more confidence in their own work. For ESL / ESOL tutors the ability to display the IPA symbols is a useful option. For tutors who are new to the use of phonics methods then working their way through the Phonics Dictionary and App also serves as a practical phonics training resource and at the same time informs them of the structure and content of the Citizen Literacy programme. When combined with our Tutor Handbooks, our Tutor Hub service, our online free Tutor Resources and the free ‘POST-16 PHONICS APPROACHES: TOOLKIT’, this is a powerful and growing collection of CPD resources. For more information please visit our Resources page.
UN SDG 4
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 4 Quality Education
“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all.”
The Citizen Literacy programme and its free learner web app is our contribution to meeting this goal and its target of achieving universal literacy.