THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PHONICS INSTRUCTION AND STORYBOOKS

IN ENGLISH READING CLASSES TO IMPROVE STUDENT PARTICIPATION

Naning Tri Wahyuni, Endang Fauziati and Mauly Hikmah

English Language Study

Magister Program, Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta
Jl. A. Yani Pabelan Kartasura Tromol Pos I Surakarta 57102 Phone (0271)717417
E-mail: naning.ariyanto@gmail.com, endang.fauziati@ums.ac.id
Mauly.Hikmah@ums.ac.id

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of instructional

methods based on phonics instruction in reading classes to improve students
participation therefore they can develop to their maximum potential. Using
qualitative tools of observation, documentation and interview, this research was
focusing the inquiry on investigating students’ reception to the phonics instruction
model, observing their participation in the classroom activities, also investigating
instructional methods which attract students to more actively contribute in learning
activities. The finding shows that the reception of students to the model was good
and they showed much eagerness in following the program. Further investigation
revealed that students keen to participate more in the classroom activities especially
in certain activities with the use of sound sheets, sound book, flash card sheets, word
box sheets, songs, games and storybooks. However, there were two challenges
identified during 16 weeks running the study; the lack of teachers’ skill in delivering
this method efficiently also the limited collection of English story books in school.
Hence, to improve the effectiveness of the use of phonics instruction in reading
classroom, firstly, training for teachers would be needed to deliver the method
effectively, secondly, considering the fact that school still have limited collection of
English story books or any English books, the collaboration with government
agencies or other promising bodies could be done to help in providing more
collection of storybooks in school.

Keywords: Phonics instruction, reading classroom, students’ participation

INTRODUCTION

Learning process in the classroom without active participations from students could be
pretty boring. In the other hand, student participation could create more dimensional and
engaging classroom activities which eventually could lead to the more effective learning
processes. When students participate, they actually give teacher valuable information on what
they know and they understand about a concept. Additionally, class discussions prompt
students to listen to another's point of view and adjust their thinking accordingly.
Participation requires students to use high-level thinking skills, such as analysis and
evaluation skills. For the example, when students come to disagreement in discussing things,
they actually are going beyond simple recall skills and showing a deep understanding of a
specific content. In this way, students would also share their views and knowledge and even
would be able to give feedback to each other.
In world widely educational learning approach, students’ participations are not really
new proposed idea. Over decades, the modern instructional approach of student-centered
learning has put strong emphasized on the students’ participation in designing classroom
practices. Student-centered learning focuses on students' interests first and
acknowledges students’ voices as central to the learning experience which basically
stimulates students to get involve actively in the classroom activities. Collins and O’Brien
describe this approach as:
Student-centered instruction [SCI] is an instructional approach in which students
influence the content, activities, materials, and pace of learning. This learning
model places the student (learner) in the centre of the learning process. The
instructor provides students with opportunities to learn independently and from
one another and coaches them in the skills they need to do so effectively. The SCI
approach includes such techniques as substituting active learning experiences for
lectures, assigning open-ended problems and problems requiring critical or
creative thinking that cannot be solved by following text examples, involving
students in simulations and role plays, and using self-paced and/or cooperative
(team-based) learning. Properly implemented SCI can lead to increased motivation
to learn, greater retention of knowledge, deeper understanding, and more positive
attitudes towards the subject being taught (Collins & O'Brien, 2003).

The idea of students’ participation above essentially is in line with the continually and
widely campaigns about children rights by UNICEF. One of the rights which have been
promoted is Participation Rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states
that children have the right to participate in decision-making processes that may be relevant
in their lives and to influence decisions taken in their regard—within the family, the school or
the community. The principle affirms that children are full-grown persons who have the right
to express their views in all matters affecting them and requires that those views be heard and
given due weight in accordance with the child's age and maturity. It recognizes the potential
of children to enrich decision-making processes, to share perspectives and to participate as
citizens and actors of change. The practical meaning of children's right to participation must
be considered in each and every matter concerning children (UNICEF, 2014).
Considering the goal of education set up by UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of
Child that children’s education should develop each child’s personality, talents and abilities
to the fullest, hence creating meaningful and engaging classroom activities are very critical in
learning process. Many researches have been done so far to create interactive learning
environment to improve students’ participations and positive learning experience. In the end,
those researches reveal that in creating constructive learning environment, it cannot be denied
that teachers or any other educational practitioners must be considering the nature of children
in learning, the instructional approach in learning which accommodate the needs of students
to get constructive learning experience, the interactive instructional methods and the last is
the engaging instructional materials which attract students to participate more and more
(Wahyuni, 2015).
 Children like playing and learn things while playing. The implication to language
teaching could be through games, by definition that game is an activity with rules and a goal
with the element of fun. The emphasis in the use of games for language learning is on
successful communication rather than on correctness on language, and games should be
regarded as an integral part of the language syllabus (Hafield, 1985).
Children talks about anything they have known and currently happen surround them.
Adults both observe and enforce the cooperative principles when they talk to young children;
they say something relevant and talk about the child world. They encourage children to take
their turns and make their contributions to the conversation. They make sure that children
make their contribution truthful by correcting them (Clark and Clark, 1977: 322).
Children like engaging activities; they will understand better and grasp the meaning of
things quicker when they have seen some objects with them. They retain the meaning better
by seeing the object and the things which is associated with it. For this reason, teacher should
expose the students to real life situations. Other strategies can be applied to support this
method by using visual aids, picture and images, since visual are more vivid and attractive
than words. Thus, in teaching and learning process, pictures should be integral part of every
teacher’s professional equipment (Ernestova, 1988: 278).
Another issue that should be brought in this discussion is student-centered learning. It is
also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that
shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student. In original usage, student-
centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence by putting
responsibility for the learning path in the hands of students (Jones, 2007). Student-centered
instruction focuses on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning and independent
problem-solving (Young and Paterson, 2007). Student-centered learning theory and practice
are based on the constructivist learning theory that emphasizes the learner's critical role in
constructing meaning from new information and prior experience. In classroom activities,
student-centered learning requires students to be active, responsible participants in their own
learning and with their own pace of learning (Johnson, 2013)
Student-centered learning may also refer to instructional methods that recognize
individual differences in learners. In this sense, student-centered learning emphasizes each
student's interests, abilities, and learning styles, placing the teacher as a facilitator of learning
for individuals rather than for the class as a whole. The theoretical background for this
method is actually coming from the work of theorists such as John Dewey, Jean Piaget,
and Lev Vygotsky, whose collective works focused on how students learn.
Over decades, plenty of researches have been specifically dedicated to find the best way
to teach children to read. Morag Stuart pointed out in his research paper that in order to find
the best way to teach young learners, experts and practitioners have to understand the
processes being employed by skilled readers first.
“Major theories of how skilled readers recognize, understand and pronounce written
words include processes for phonological recoding (i.e., translating segments of
print to their corresponding segments of sound) and processes by which direct
access is achieved from printed words to their meanings. If these are the processes
employed in skilled reading, then these are the processes which children learning to
read must develop in order to become skilled readers (Stuart, 2006: 19).

International reading Association did thoroughly review to the most collected research
reports over decades, they eventually come across the most evidences that teaching all
children to read require that every child receive an excellent reading instruction. Moreover,
they pointed out that the primary focus in teaching reading should be in reading instruction
which teach students to make association between the sounds in English spoken language and
the written letters which represent the sounds. In brief, key areas of instruction must include
phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency
(International Reading Association, 2000: 31) which is later called phonics instruction.
Reading programmes which accurately follow the systematic phonics principles teach
students the Alphabet code directly, systematically and discretely. An alphabet code is the
reversible relationship between the phonemes (the smallest discernible sounds in spoken
words) and the graphemes (spellings) (McGuinness, 2004: 5). Henceforth, phonics for
reading starts with introduction of the 26 alphabet letter names and sounds. Later, children
are taught to associate a spoken sound with a letter or letter-pair. This process is known as
phonemic awareness or letter/sound associations. As soon as the letter/sound associations
have been introduced, they are immediately placed in words that reflect common English
configurations. Students are explicitly taught a decoding strategy in which they say the
sounds for each grapheme (letter(s) that represent a sound), say the sounds quickly, and then
pronounce the entire word. Through focused instruction students repeatedly sound out and
blend words. A whole of this process is called decodable words (UK National reading panel,
2000). The last process in phonics instruction is relating these letter/sound associations and
also reading word to the larger scale of reading printed data which consist of a lot of words or
sentences in particular context, e.g. book reading or story reading.
Teaching phonics in the context of storybooks could be expected to endorse the use of
phonic knowledge during reading activities because decoding is embedded in the context in
which it is used, thus stimulating generalization of taught knowledge. It also might extend
children’s understanding that mastering the alphabetic principle can help children in
retrieving the meaning of printed language, hence it also encourage them to understand the
functional and the benefits of learning to decode (Adams, 1998). Further, systematic
instruction in beginning phonics embedded in story reading could be expected to nurture
children’s ability to read words in related text and to raise comprehension by evolving
understanding of the utility of word decoding skills for comprehension.
Story reading is often significant and inspiring to children since it addresses interesting
topics and also concern to child’s developmental needs. Children’s books which light up
some moral aspects such as friendship, bravery, loyalty, happiness, sadness, exclusion,
courage, etc. empower children to make meaningful connections. Book reading also enables
children to make sense of their world and to expand their understanding of life and the human
condition Story narratives enhance children’s understanding of human character and
present models for their own interactions (Appleyard, 1990). In addition, In a second and
foreign language class, book reading will be also valuable for learners to explore the ethics
and criteria of the target language culture and compare them to those in their own
environment. Thus this can help them in comprehension skills.

RESEARCH METHOD

This study was working under the qualitative framework. Qualitative data through
observation, interview and documentation were gathered to investigate students’ reception to
phonics instruction models, to observe their participation in learning activities and to examine
the instructional models which draw students to get involved keenly in the classroom
activities.
Subject of this study was third grader students at Al Abidin International Islamic School.
There were 30 students who participated in this study with the age between eight to nine
years old. The techniques used in obtaining data were observation, documentation and
interview.
 The classroom observation applied in this study was semi-structured in nature which was
hypothesis generating rather than hypothesis testing and was also reviewing the observational
data before suggesting an explanation for the phenomena being observed. Working towards
the objective of study, this observation was aiming to investigate students’ reception and
students’ participation in the classroom activities and what kind of activities which attract
students more to contribute to the learning activities. To capture more details information
needed, the observation was conducted in every session of reading classes during 16 weeks of
running the program.
Documents and records are another rich source of information. In this study, document
refers to any written materials, pictures and videos which covered all the information relate to
the learning processes of students and classroom activities where students were getting
involved. The recorded materials came from recording reading activities in the reading
session and also field notes prepared by the researcher. Field notes were written notes made
in the research setting, recounting what the researcher sees and hears and understand. All the
collected documents above were analysed and discussed in relation to the findings gathered
through classroom observations and interviews.
The present study used semi-structured interview to gather detailed and focused
information about students ‘reception to the instructional methods and classroom activities
they got involve to. This interview allowed freedom for students to speak more issues in
connection to the classroom models and the problems they faced in following the program
and the classroom activities.
All the qualitative data gained from observation, documentation and interview were
verified by using triangulation data in terms of both sources and methods. First, triangulation
involved the use of multiple data sources in order to obtain re-occurring results from different
sources. Each data source has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, all the data from
multiple sources of participants, time and sites were compared to provide a comprehensive
evaluation. The participants in here were 30 students from the third grader with eight students
being interviewed personally. Second, triangulation also involved comparison of multiple
methods of data analysis by incorporating a combination of observations, interviews and
document analysis to cross-validating the findings. Additional triangulation also was done by
comparing participants’ verbal statements against their actual performance.
Using descriptive qualitative approach, all of the data were gained through interviews,
class observation and school documentations. The qualitative data served as a guide towards
the exploration of issues in students’ receptions with the program and students’ participation
in classroom activities. Observation notes, transcripts of interviews and video recordings of
classroom activities were analysed in order to identify emerging patterns in the receptions of
those involved in the study. Further, the data from this approach will be analysis in the form
of description to support the discussion in analysing the investigation.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

This study was done in one semester in Al Abidin international school of Surakarta to
observe students’ reception and participation to the program and kind of classroom activities
which attract more for students’ participation.
Students who participated in this study signed to join with 16 weeks of reading program
with the teaching instruction based on phonics and storybooks program. Below the details of
syllabus of the program and classroom procedures:
1. Syllabus of the Program

Materials Letters and sounds Blending Identifying Tricky

and recognition sounds in words
classroom words
activities
Sound Classroom Classroom
groups activities activities

Week Hearing the Hearing the words Identifying the

1&2 sounds after after sounds have sounds in
Satipn they have been spoken by words, E.g. Is
been spoken teacher or audio there any ‘s’ in
by ‘sad’? Where
teacher/audi Practising blending is ‘d’? in the
o/song techniques in beginning/mid
simple words (c.v.c dle/ end of the
Practising words) word?
sounds first
with the Beginning words
class then box and sounds
individually box activity
Classroom
Week 3 c/k e h r m Reviewing Hearing the
the previous techniques: Words
d words after
sounds box sheets, Words sounds
which have games, flash cards have been
been learnt
Week 4 goulfb Practising blending Whole class spoken by
Classroom 4/+ letters words calling out teacher or
Week 5 ai j oa ie
techniques: sounds in audio
ee or Beginning words given word, Learning to
sound
box activity e.g. ant, then sound out,
sheets,
songs, holding up a blend and
Reading the short
letters finger for each spell the 10
story (Oxford
games, flash sound and tricky
reading tree –
cards counting words for
Phonics series level
by level depend on each
Reading
the sounds and meeting
Classroom:
blending which
Storybooks Reading
children already
learnt tricky
words
Week 6 z w ng v Practising consonants blends and and using flash
little oo digraphs cards,
long o words box
Practising blending regular words sheets
Week y x ch sh with consonant blends
7&8 voiced th
unvoiced Following up words box and sounds
th box activity
 Week Qu ou oi Introducing characters from reading
9&10 ue er ar scheme

Week Alternativ Practising Hearing the words after sounds have

11&12 e spelling alternative been spoken by teacher
vowels spelling
sound vowels Practicing more words together with
sounds class

Week 13- Intensive Reading Individual and group reading Classroom

16 Reading classroom: discussion
Classes storybooks

2. Classroom Procedures
There were five steps of teaching which was delivered in the class: letters and sounds
recognition, blending, identifying sound in word, learning tricky words and finally book
reading. Each step of teaching was delivered in direct instruction using traditional classroom
procedures of PPP model; presentation, practices and production.

Letters and Sounds Recognition

Letters and sounds recognition was taught by following the order of letter sound groups
mentioned in syllabus of the design above. Each group contains of six letters that children
have to master in a week or two for both of the letters and its sounds. In total there were 42
sounds in English from 26 alphabet letters that children must learn and master in 12 weeks
following the program.
In presentation stage, teacher started with sounding out each letter and asked students to
follow by sounding the letter out. Teacher also used sounds-phonics audio and phonics songs
to make sure that the letters are pronounced correctly. Below the sample of the instruction in
classroom activities that teacher used in explanation:
“Today we are going to learn the sound of ‘s’. Can you hear the sound of ‘s’ in
snake, sun, sand. Come on! Try to make the sound s s s snake. It is important to
know the ‘s’ sound because it will appear in many words and books you will
read”.
Then students were encourage to sound the “s” letter and use them as well in some sample
words with this sound in them to figure out how this sound works in words. The sample
words must be containing “s” sound in the beginning (such as sun, snake), in the middle
(such as sister) and in the end (such as twist, yes), hence students can work out how “s”
sound contributes in word formation. Teacher used flash cards and sound sheets in teaching.
This presentation stage later was followed by practices where students did practicing the
sounds first with the class under teacher guidance and did practices individually later.
Students used flash cards and sound sheets to practice in group or individually under
teacher’s supervision. In this level of letters and sounds recognition, students did not start to
learn word formation yet. They were only encouraged to recognize each letter in its sound
and also recognize them when they were in words. The last stage was production where all
students were hope to be able to sounding the target of letters out and recognize its letter in
words.

Blending
After students were able to sounding out the target letters, teacher then taught them how
to blend these sounds altogether to form words using from the simple C.V.C words
(Consonant-vocal-consonant: sun, tip, pan, etc.). The blending basically is process of saying
the sounds in a word and then running them together to form the sounds of word, e.g. p-a-n
for pan. This blending step will follow the order of the sounds groups. For example, children
were first taught the sounds for the letters ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’, ‘p’, ‘i’, and ‘n’. They were then taught
to blend these sounds into words (e.g. ‘pat’, ‘sit’, ‘nap’, ‘tin’). See table two in the chapter
two for more samples of words blending.
In the presentation stage, teacher chose from simplest word of three letters words such as
tin or sit, sound the sounds out and run the sounds first slowly then quickly until it sounded
that the formation of sounds have made the sound of its word. For the example teacher said:
“Today we are learning to read word. Do you know that the sounds that you have
learnt can make some nice words? Do you know the word “sit”? What sounds are
in the word “sit”? yes, sit comes from s-i-t. Now try to run these sounds together,
first slowly then quicker and quicker. Follow me!”
Classroom observation showed that Indonesian young learners clearly had known many
simple words in English and able to pronounce them well. However, blending taught
them how those word sounds actually come from. The principle of blending in running
the sounds together to form words is hope to help students to work out when they meet
new words hence they able to figure out how pronounce them properly by applying their
blending skills.
Later in practice stage, students were encourage to horn their blending skill by starting
from the simple words of 3 letter words (e.g. p-a-n, n-a-p, etc.), then move to 4 simple letter
words (e.g. s-i-n-g), followed by the more difficult one of 4+ letter words (e.g. s-i-n-g-e-r),
then to the advanced words using the order of letter sound groups (e.g. sound “oi” in o-i-n-t-
m-e-n-t).
In the production stage, students were hope to be able to pronounce word correctly
without blend them loudly. They used word box sheets, sound sheets, flash cards and words
game to play with. They even were encouraged to read storybook under teacher’s supervision
to horn their blending skill.

Identifying Sounds in Words

The ability to hear the sounds in words called phonological awareness. For the example,
when students heard the word “pin”, students could hear the sounds “p-i-n”. From the
classroom observation, it definitely helped students not only in memorizing word and spell it
properly, but also to understand how phonics works in order to form word from letter and
sounds association.
In the presentation stage, teacher showed many words from the simplest one (c-v-c
words) to the longer ones (depend on the sound groups students already learnt) and asked
students to point out certain sounds in the words. For the example:
“Today, I have “sun”. Can you mention the sounds on it...Yes, “s-u-n”. Where do
you find the “u” sound?....yes, in the middle. Now, I have “Umbrella”. Where
you can find the “u” sound?...yes, in the beginning of the word. Now, how about
“sister”, will you please sound all of the sounds on it? Finger up and count them!”
This stage then followed by more practices from children to sounding out the sounds in the
sample words using flash cards and word box sheets under teacher’s supervision. Then in the
production stage, students were hope able to sound out all of the words provided by teacher
and later followed by story book reading to enhance their skills. Students did in group and
sometimes individually appointed by teacher.

Tricky Words
Students were more able to read regular words when they have knowledge of letter
sounds and can relate to sounds and its letters. However, tricky words cannot be sounded out
or spelt out correctly by listening for the sounds in them. Most of tricky words belong to
irregular words. Thus these words have to be learnt individually.
In presentation stage, students are asked to look carefully at the words, pay extra
attention to them and put them in to their memory. Students were also encouraged to recall
their knowledge of letter sounds correspondences and their blending skills asked to figure out
how to sound the words correctly. Later, when they pronounce them wrong, teacher showed
how to pronounce them correctly. In this way, students were able to figure out that some
words do not work and cannot work just like the others, they were called tricky words. Hence
these kinds of words need more attention in memorizing. Below sample of class instruction:
“Now, you all have learnt many nice words. But, you know that there are some a
bit naughty words that do not follow the normal blending way. They were called
tricky words, since they will trick you more to learn. For the example, do you
know the word “one”, how do you spell it? How the sounds work? Yes, the
sounds seem do not work well in the word “one”. Now, for this word, you have to
memorize both the sound and its letters as well. So, you will be able to sound it
out, to spell it out and even to write it down. Let’s practice more…!”

In this program, the tricky words started being introduced after the third group of
letters have been taught. Students learnt 10 new irregular words a week. Students were
encouraged to look at them carefully, and identify the irregular part of them. For
example, the word “are”, the “ar” letters were pronounce regular, but the “e” has been
lost in the word pronunciation which is irregular. Students then were taught to sound the
word correctly and memorize them.
In the practice stage, students were encourage to read more tricky words, work them out
their self then later teacher corrected them when they did make wrong. Word box sheets and
flash cards were used to help in learning tricky words. Children eventually have to master all
the tricky words given by the teacher in the production stage.

Storybooks
There were three steps of classroom activities in book reading; teacher read the book to
students in reading time or after phonic session in combining instruction with phonics class.
Later, students read the book in group to promote class interaction, and finally the students
read the book their self to enhance their skill in using phonics for reading.
In the first step, teacher read the same book aloud to the class through the week or until
the teacher saw that students did not have problems anymore in word reading and
comprehension, then moving to a new book when it was considered that students were ready
to. To encourage pupils to focus more on the text and less on illustrations, the teacher, while
reading to students, often followed the line of text with fingers or and stopped the reading at
times to explain some difficult words to blend or when found new words and discussed with
the class some decoding aspect of the text, such as a consonant blend. Teacher read the book
to students after each session of phonics and students supposed to see the printed words
clearly and engaged with it not just in terms of letters and sounds associations to sound words
in speech but also in term of meaning as well.
In the second step, when students showed more interest and confidence in reading
activity, they started reading the book for themselves in groups. The book chosen began from
the shortest ones and increased gradually depends on the current level of ability of students in
decoding words. Teacher encouraged students to apply their phonics skills, praised them
when they did correctly and helped them when they did in wrong way. Every student in
groups had to be actively participated and discussed the issues in the book with their peers in
group.
In the third step of reading, children read the book individually under the teacher’s
supervision. Teacher sometimes asked one student to go to the front of the class and read the
book for a whole of the class. Teacher encouraged the similar decoding skills to students and
promoted other students’ participation in discussion of the topic and also on the decoding
skills. Teacher also sometimes asked students to take the book home to read with parents.
Later, in the next meeting, teacher would ask students to re-read the book in front of the class
or individually to assess how far they were able to apply their phonics skills and
comprehended the texts.

3. The Discussion
There were two things which were investigated in this study, first the students’ reception
and participation in the class and second, classroom activities which engaged students in to
more active participation. The details of findings are discussed in the following details.

Students’ Reception and Participation in the Class

During classroom activities, students’ reception was good. They felt not enough
confidence to read the texts and stories at first, however with guided reading from teacher,
their confidence and eagerness rose gradually. They did a lot of mistakes in pronunciation;
however they keen to learn the correct ones. As for comprehension, they mostly still worked
based on picture clues in guessing the meaning. However, since the reading materials which
had been used in this program (Oxford reading tree – phonics series), had been developed
gradually from the simple and short texts then moved forward steadily, they finally found the
books were easy to understand progressively. Below some quotations from students:
Researcher: “Do you like the book, Z?
Student Z: “Yes, I like it. Ini opo to, Miss? Aku juga belajar phonics di ODI. Tapi
ini beda, ini ceritanya bagus-bagus”.
Researcher: “Do you like the book, A? tahu artinya ndak?”
Student A: “Yes, sedikit menebak-nebak ceritanya, dari gambarnya, Miss. Boleh
pinjem bukunya, Miss?”
Researcher: “Do you like reading, H. Do you like the books?
Student H: “Yes, I like reading. Ini bagus-bagus. Dari Inggris ya, Miss. Bisa
pinjem ya?”

In overall, students’ reception to the model was good. They felt phonics instruction was
interactive learning model. The materials were easy to follow for students. Combined with
book reading program, the systematic instruction looked great and promising. Students were
eager to follow the fully program especially with the promising of plenty story books, nice
songs and activities.
Interactive Instructional Models
There are some classroom activities which attracted students more in class participations,
below the details:

Sound Sheets and Sound Book

The sound sheets provide the starting point for this teaching. There are 42 sounds in the
sound sheets. In learning the letter sound, first teacher shows to children how to sounding out
the specific letter. For example, the sound ‘s’, and later asking the children to copy and
follow the sound ‘s’. Then, teacher show the sample of this sound in word, such as ‘s’ in the
words snake, sun, sheep, etc.
Sound sheets has plenty activity. For each of the letter sounds there is suggested storyline
which teacher free to develop. It also contains an action and worksheet. The worksheet has a
picture relate to the story and the sound being learn for children to colour in. further, the
sheets also show other words that containing the sound. All of the sound sheets contain the
letters and sounds which have been learnt are collected to make sound book. Thus students
can always remember the sounds they have learnt later. During the program, the students
showed eagerness in collecting sound sheets and compiled them to make sound book which
they could bring home and showed to their parents. The sample of sound sheets and sound
book can be viewed in appendix 2.

Flash Card Sheets

There are two kinds of flash card sheets: sound flash card sheets and word flash card
sheets. Sound flash card sheets are very useful to help to mastering the letter sounds, while
word flash card sheets are valuable to become skilled at words reading. The flash cards are
usually used as a way for reinforcement. It means that teachers use these in high repetition in
every lesson to remember the sounds or words they have been taught to children.
Once the children have been taught the letter sounds from the sound sheets, they will
need to become very fluent at recognising the sounds. Flash cards for each letter sound are
very useful for this and these should be used for most of the days to remember the sounds of
the letters. Every time teacher holds the cards up, students call the sound out. The same way
works on word flash cards also. The flash card sheets can be added to the sound books own
by every student.

Songs
This program used Jolly phonics song. This song program contains the sample song for
all of the sounds in alphabetic letters. Example for the letter ‘s’:
The snake is in the grass, the snake is in the grass..’sss’…’sss’…’sss’
The snake is in the grass
This song is sang by emphasizing the sound of the letter ‘s’ in snake and the sound of hissing
of snake which are quite similar. Singing this song also combined by an action of hand which
copying the slithery move of the snake. The complete song can be referred to Jolly Phonics
Songs.

Games
Children like playing; hence learning can be designed through playing as well. There are
many games can be applied in phonic classes. Hunt the letter sound was one of them which
applied many times in the classroom activities during the running of the program. When
children start to be introduced to story books, during the classroom they can search the
specific sounds pointed by teacher in the story. This way not only to enhance children’s
understanding the association between letter and its sound, but also the link between the letter
sounds and words in book.
Picture clue could be another game can be played in the phonics class. There are cards
with pictures on it. Students are asked to name the pictures and to mention the sounds on
them. For example, there is a card with picture of car on it. The children asked to say the
initial sound of the car, so the sound of ‘c’. Or in other way teacher asks to children:
“Can you see what picture is this? Can you guess what sounds are they?...or is
there any ‘c’ sound on this picture?....”.
Matching pictures also can be quite useful for the reinforcement of learning the sounds and
words. Teacher provides a lot of pictures and flash cards sheets of the sounds. Then teacher
asked children to match the picture with the possibility of the sounds relate to the name of
pictures. For example, the picture ‘car’ will be matched with the sounds of ‘c’, ‘a’, and ‘r’.
By doing this teacher can explore not only the ability of students to recognize the initial
sound of the name of thing but also even the ability to recognize all of the sounds to form the
name/word which is in other words called the ability of segmenting and blend them together
to form the word.

Word Box Sheets

After students learn how to blend the sounds to form word, they will progress to the next
step of word reading. Teachers need to provide a lot of sample words for word reading. They
can use word boxes sheets. Word boxes can be made from the groups of words which are
graded to progress from the simple words, using the first letter sounds taught, to more
complicated words using digraphs. All of the words first taught are regular, so students can
work the words out for themselves. Later, when they have learnt tricky words they can move
to the irregular ones.
The use of word boxes has a goal to help students in blending practice which actually in
real phonics program this can be done in class with the help of teachers and also at home with
the help of parents.

Storybooks
Introducing storybooks can be valuable to teach children the function of reading skills
and get them involved in engaging reading activities. Eventually, children gain in confidence
in reading and can enjoy storybooks independently.
In reading session, teacher will read the book to children after each session of phonics
and children supposed to see the printed words clearly and engage with it not just in terms of
meaning but also in terms of looking at the words and eventually mentally figuring out how
letters in words associates to sounds in speech (word reading). In this way, students will
participate more in the activities. Later students encouraged to read the book their self with
friend in group and stimulated to actively participate and discuss the issues in the book with
their peers in group. In the end, students were given choice to choose the book and read it
individually under the teacher guidance. Teacher may ask one student to go the front of the
class and read the book for a whole of the class. Teacher will encourage and promote other
students’ participation in discussion of the topic. Teacher may also ask children to take the
book home to read with parents. Thus, students were given most opportunities to develop
their reading activities.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
The qualitative inquiry through observations, interviews and documentations revealed
that phonics instruction models have gained good receptions from students. They keen to
follow the fully program especially with the promising of plenty story books, nice songs and
wide variety of activities. They declared that the instructional methods were easy to follow
and the instructional materials were quite interactive. Their vigorous contributions in the
classroom activities were a significant proof for the effectiveness of the program to improve
students’ participation in learning process.
However, there were some problems emerged in the instructional method. In the daily
classroom practices, teachers were challenged to be able to apply this method so that it could
be used within Indonesians socio-cultural context like large classrooms, the position of
English as a foreign language, the custom of students learning in a traditional class with most
of students usually took passive roles and the lack of teachers’ skill in delivering this method.
Problems also emerged for storybooks activities. Obviously this program needs collection of
books or story books in English to be run smoothly. As a matter of fact, most of schools in
Indonesia has limited collection of English books especially story ones.
To address the problems above, teacher may need training to deliver this program
efficiently, also considering the fact that most of schools in Indonesian still have limited
collection of English story books or any English books, the collaboration with government
agencies or other promising bodies could be done to help in providing more collection of
storybooks in schools.

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