| Phonics is a method which teaches children the knowledge of how the letter-sound relationships of English language work. This knowledge is useful in decoding unknown words which are not sight words. Phonics is an important research area in English language education because it is pivotal in developing key English reading and spelling skills for children. Phonics method has received great attention of researchers from English-speaking countries since the 1960 s. The educators and teachers in China begin to attach more importance to phonics method in primary schools. Systematic phonics programs are designed to enhance children’s phonics learning by giving explicit step-by-step instructions and providing guided practice of using phonics rules in reading, writing and spelling. Thus, the purpose of this research was to explore the possibility of using a systematic and explicit phonics program provided by THRASS program in the elementary English class, then to check its effects and efficiency on students’ phonological awareness and literacy skills in contrast with the regular phonics program.This paper delivered an empirical study. 72 Grade 4 students from two different classes were taken as the research subjects. And they were divided into two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Students who participated in the control group received the regular phonics program during the periods when the experimental group were engaged in the intervention of THRASS-based systematic phonics program. Both teaching procedures adopted the whole-class instruction by two teachers. The two different interventions nearly covered for two schooling terms. Data were collected through a variety of instruments: pretest, immediate post-test, delayed post-test and interview. They were analyzed by SPSS19.0. Based on the data analysis, the paper came to the following conclusions: After the intervention, students of THRASS-based systematic phonics program significantly improved in their phonological awareness and literacy skills, and they outperformed the control group. In addition, gains made by the THRASS intervention group maintained more than the control group on the follow-up test after two months. At last, this research initially proved that THARSS as a complete systematic phonics program is feasible for teaching young EFL children who have limited English linguistic skills and it helps them more in comparison with the regular phonics instruction. Another finding was that the learning interest and confidence of the students of THRASS intervention group increased more.In this paper, the researcher advocates teachers to choose a phonics instructional program which is systematically and explicitly designed as a tool of repertoire of phonics teaching in a judicious balance with other elements and also advocates teachers to enrich resources of the basal English curriculum. The author views the systematic phonics program such as THRASS as an additional resource. If implemented effectively, it can be a significant contribution to effective teaching. Also, the researcher provides some suggestions for the teachers’ further study, such as focusing on comparing various schools of phonics programs to help teachers make pedagogical decision-making as they strive to teach these critical phonological awareness skills and early literacy skills by using the phonics method in the context of an integrated and comprehensive English curriculum. |
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