‘Ki te kore ngā pūtake e mākūkūngia, e kore te rākau e tupu’ If the roots of a tree are not watered, the tree will never grow.
In order to experience the learning and joy that comes from being competent and fluent readers, early learners need a firm foundation of language comprehension and the ability to recognise and read our alphabetic language. The alphabet is the written symbolic form of the sounds of speech, and guiding learners to develop this connection between sounds and symbols is the main aim of phonics teaching. That is the focus of this Kōwae ako, which follows and builds on the SPELD NZ Kōwae ako-Learning Capsule on Phonemic and Phonological Awareness.
