Contrary to the established advice it seems that quite a few of you are having a hard time getting the confidence to say “No!” to parents who, incorrectly, insist you teach reading & writing from the very beginning.
(After all we don’t show ABC flashcards to babies back home!)
And if you want the best speaking *and* reading results, then the advice always stands to teach speaking first (by ideally doing all of the spoken Genki English curriculum, or at the very least the first 30 lessons) and then Genki Phonics.
The more lessons you do before the phonics, the better the results will be.
OK, so now that’s off my chest …..
If you really are in the situation where you have no choice ….
… and really can’t say “no” to all those parents or admin, then we’ve also been working on a “Phonics First” curriculum which lets you teach phonics, i.e. reading, from the very first lesson. Yep, lesson 1!
This obviously is a big advantage if the parents are pressuring you (or maybe if you have a super short summer course or something!).
There are of course several HUGE disadvantages:
- It’s much harder to teach (and learn) because in order to get at least one keyword for each phonics page, you have to move up some of the later, more complex, speaking themes to nearer the beginning of your course.
- Each phoneme only has one keyword that the kids know. This makes it much more difficult, although not impossible, for them to get the correct pronunciation. Remember you can’t *teach* them the sounds here, they have to figure it out from the *words* you just taught them.
- There is a big trade off in that the kids won’t get as good speaking results as quickly as the regular order.
- Similarly you won’t get all the key grammar covered as quickly if you do the themes out of the regular order.
But….. if you still want to try, it starts out something like this, doing one theme per lesson with the last 5-10 minutes of each class doing the 5 Minute Phonics.
| Theme | Phoneme | Keywords | |
| Lesson 1 | Disco Warm Up | ||
| & I’m a Superhero | s | superhero | |
| Lesson 2 | Phonics i Where is it? | i | igloo |
| Lesson 3 | Superhero Vegetables | t | tomato |
| Lesson 4 | What’s your name? | p | potato (from Superhero vegetables) |
| Lesson 5 | Do you like food? | a | apple |
| Lesson 6 | Make a Face | n | nose |
| Lesson 7 | Baby Monkey Family | m | Baby Monkey |
| Lesson 8 | Do you like animals? | d | dog |
| Lesson 9 | Do you have any pets? | g | gorilla |
| Lesson 10 | I am a robot | o | on/off |
| Lesson 11 | How are you? | c | cold |
If you’re a VIP Member you can download the full pdf here.
Or if you want an easy life….
Just work through the regular order, do 30 lessons then start the phonics.
It’s *way* more fun!
And gets *way* better results!
Oh, and fire those too-pushy parents.
There are millions & millions of children who need your help in this world.
You can’t teach them all.
Remember, you choose who you want to teach, not the other way round! 🙂
Be genki,
Richard
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
Dear Richard
Could you please send me the rest or the whole Phonics First Curriculum. Thanks Monica
Dear Richard
Could you also send me the Phonics First Curriculum.
Thank you in advance,
Ekaterina
Hi Richard,
I hope this finds you Genki and well. Please send me the curriculum for phonics first.
Thank you in advance.
Dear Richard,
if it is possible, please send me thePhonocs First Curriculum.
Thank you so much.
Olga
I don’t teach phonics first, but I do want to be the first person to teach phonics/reading to my students. In Japan if you wait too long then the kids will start learning to read (usually the wrong way) from Juku or parents etc.. So I think it’s good to do some English communication before you start phonics, but we can’t wait too long. For me, the kids need to start Phonics in grade 2 at the latest and finish most of the course by the end of grade 4. If I do it any later there will be too much interference from other sources.
LOVE this post~I just couldn’t believe my eyes the other day: An international preschool has opened around the corner, and one week after they had opened there were 26 A4 pages of letters of the alphabet written by the 3 year old kids in the windows.
No worse commercial than this.
Things go so much easier and faster if the kids have had their amount of speaking before starting to read.
I see that all the time Margit. My sons go to a Bi-lingual pre-school (they are 2 and 4 now). I think my oldest son got a phonics textbook when he was 3. It’s a good school and my friend is the teacher so I told them look I am happy with the school, pushing them to write in a textbook is not going to impress me. I think it does impress other parents though. I told them the same thing when they asked about eiken.
Thank you for that last comment Richard, “You choose who you want to teach, not the other way around!”
I needed that nice reminder as I am signing kids up for the next course and many parents can get very pushy wanting you to let their kids in. I keep to the eight kids in a class limit but sometimes parents make me feel like I am a mean, bad person! Those eight kids are getting quality english and they pay for it and I´ve got to stand my ground! Thanks for the positive thinking!
Hello Richard. Can I please have the rest of the first phonics curriculum? Thank you very much!
Great post! I do think that reading before speakig creates more trouble than it helps. Indeed the parents didn’t teach their kids how to read before they could speak. Some seem to understand that. It makes me want to try The Genki Phonics first with kids that learn quicker than the others, as an extra activity for them.
I just put up a pdf with the full list: http://genkienglish.net/clipart/PhonicsFirstCurriculum.pdf
Interesting. I’ve been doing Genki English in a modified order, but I think I need to just go back to the suggested order and figure out how much of it to do in 40 lessons (one year) with other activities (holidays, etc).
Love your works,could you please send me first phonics curriculum?
Hi Derya,
Here you go!
https://genkienglish.net/teaching/phonics-first-curriculum/