01/06/2024
REASONS WHY TEACHERS NEED PHONICS TRAINING
The major problem confronting primary schools in Nigeria today is how to teach pronunciation, reading and spoken English effectively. It's obvious that there is a persistent problem of underperformance in reading, pronunciation and speaking both in public and private schools in Nigeria. Wrong pronunciation and poor reading and in most cases inability to read at all have become an endemic problem in primary schools because of lack of capacity and wrong instructional methods.
Lack of capacity in ‘Explicit Systematic Phonics’ is a major problem hindering effective teaching of reading, pronunciation and speaking in most primary schools. Systematic Phonics is globally acknowledged as the best way to get children from age 3 to begin to read and the most effective method of helping children develop logical skills that help them master the basics of reading, pronunciation and speaking very quickly, but over 97 percent of teachers do not have phonics skill or necessary understanding of the concept of phonics and how to use it to teach reading and pronunciation. This is because universities and colleges of education in Nigeria do not train teachers on Systematic Phonics because they do not offer it specifically as a course. Lack of Phonics training by universities leaves a huge gap in teachers’ Phonics knowledge and ability to use it to teach early literacy skills. The inevitable result is that most children can neither read nor speak properly and those who try to read find it difficult to pronounce words accurately. For instance, pupils mispronounce common words like ‘burn,’ rub, work, leopard, machete, weapon, creature, stipend, cleanse, stifle, fatal, legal, build, come, word, dwarf, thwart, label, crèche, brochure, and a host of others because their teachers cannot teach sounds-spelling relationships, decoding processes and other word recognition skills required to break words down into sounds to figure out their correct pronunciation.
Further, due to lack of skill in ‘Systematic Phonics and phonetics ’, teachers are unable to teach the oral components in the pupils’ English language textbooks. The English textbook used by primary schools contains oral English from which children learn pronunciation, reading and speaking, but teachers skip those topics because they do not have the ability to teach it.
Besides, phonics is new in Nigeria having been introduced just in 2006. Most teachers are still learning the ropes on how to use it effectively. Again, the absence of adequate teacher resource materials is another capacity related problem for teachers.
Moreover, the method of teaching reading and pronunciation in most primary schools is partly the reason children cannot pronounce words accurately or read fluently. Some schools still use either the ‘Whole Word’ approach or the wrong types of phonics to teach reading, pronunciation and speaking. Those methods are wrong because they are non-skills based. They do not teach learners letter-sounds knowledge, decoding processes and sounds-spelling relationship skills which children need to break written words down into sounds. Instead, the methods teach learners to recognize the form of written words and memorize their spelling and pronunciation and read by recalling memorized words. Reading requires children to interpret and say the sounds of the letters inside a written word. But the method used by some schools does not teach learners logical skills that can help them interpret written letters, associate them with corresponding sounds and pronounce words accurately.
All these problems are the reason teachers have not been able to inculcate logical literacy skills in pupils. The inevitable result is that most pupils have literacy challenges like word decoding, letter sound association, pronunciation accuracy, fluent reading, proper speaking, etc.
THE SOLUTION
Teacher training on ‘Explicit Systematic Phonics’ is the solution to the problem of poor teaching of pronunciation, reading and speaking in schools. Phonics teacher training builds teachers’ capacity to directly teach children sounds-spelling
relationships in a systematic manner so that children could use the knowledge to read, speak and write.
Training is necessary for many reasons. First, Phonics is a new idea to Nigerian teachers as it is not a part of their training in the university. Therefore, the training will familiarize them with the concept and techniques of phonics. Secondly, Phonics method is very important for teaching children because it is more effective and faster than any other method in helping them develop skills that accelerate pronunciation, speaking and reading mastery. Thirdly, the training will equip teachers to teach children letter-sounds, sounds-spelling relationships and decoding processes in a systematic and sequential manner. Above all, the training will build teachers’ capacity to teach the oral components of English in the pupils’ English language textbooks which they have always ignored or abandoned.
It's important for schools to be careful when selecting who trains their teachers. This is because the capacity of the trainer would determine the outcome of the training. Most Phonics training firms are either fake or inept.
WHY WE ARE THE BEST CHOICE
Without sounding immodest, Rapid Literacy Resources is the best firm in Phonics teacher training not only because we deliver results that meet the training needs of teachers but also because we have an unparalleled resource team with vast experience. Our training is not limited to just ‘letter-sounds’ as is the case with other firms which limit their training to Letters sounds for want of capacity.
CONCLUSION
Training teachers is necessary because teaching English literacy requires a certain level of Phonics background which the teachers don’t have because they are not trained in it in the university. Therefore, teachers need training to acquire sufficient understanding of key skills involved in using phonics to teach reading, pronunciation and speaking. To ask your teachers to use phonics methods without training is like asking a car driver to fly an aircraft or putting a round peg in a square hole.
Again, engaging a lone visiting teacher to teach Phonics or Diction is like expecting a lone tree to make a forest. Using a visiting Phonics teacher is only a temporary interventionist action to allow a school have time to train its teachers to take over. If all the teachers are trained and get involved with Phonics and diction in their respective classes, the result would be excellent, immediate and widespread.
