The Phonemic Approach is widely cited as one of the most effective ways to teaching spelling and reading skills.

If you are new to teaching, or even just new to the world of phonics, you may find the following terminology helpful: 

Phonemes

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.  The word "at" has two phonemes: /a/ and /t/.  The word chat has three phonemes: /ch/, /a/ and /t/. 

Australian English speakers generally use 43 individual sounds, while British English speakers generally use 44 individual sounds.

Graphemes

A grapheme is the letter or letter combination used to represent the sounds (phonemes) in written form.  A grapheme may represent more than one phoneme, such as the letter a in apple, glass or lady.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic Awareness relates to the working knowledge of the 43 individual phonemes that form the words of Australian English.  It incorporates the ability to segment words into their individual sounds. 

Synthetic Phonics

Synthetic Phonics involves the act of segmenting words in the individual sounds that make them, for example, cat has three sounds: /c/-/a/-/t/.  Synthetic Phonics also covers the reverse process of blending individual sounds to form words, for example, the sounds /d/-/o/-/g/ together forms the word dog.  Synthetic Phonics looks at words from the inside out, and gets students thinking about the relationship between letters, sounds and words.

Want More?

The following websites have research and reports about the effectiveness of using the Phonemic Approach:

National Enquiry into the Teaching of Literacy

http://www.dest.gov.au/nitl/report.htm

The Rose Report

www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/rosereview/interim/

Scotland's 7 Year Study

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/02/20688/52449