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# phonics

«phonics» in Mova's school dictionary: **a way of learning to read by matching letters and groups…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (phonics — uncountable, used with a singular verb)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Phonics is a way of learning to read by matching letters and groups of letters to the sounds they make. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#m1)

2) Phonics also means the lessons and books that teach this. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In early school reading (especially UK, Australia and New Zealand), children learn phonics: «sh» says /sh/, «igh» says /eye/. They blend sounds to read words (c-a-t, cat) and segment words to spell them. The UK has a «phonics screening check» in Year 1. Phrases: «phonics lesson», «sound it out», «blend the sounds».

### examples

- We have phonics every morning before break. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#x1)
- In phonics we learned that «ai» and «ay» make the same sound. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#x2)
- My little brother uses phonics to sound out new words. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#x3)
- Phonics helps you read words you have never seen before. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#x4)
- The teacher held up phonics cards with letters on them. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#x5)
- Not every word follows phonics rules, like «said» and «the». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/#x6)

### note

Ends in -s but is singular: «Phonics is fun», not «are». Words that do not follow the rules are often called «tricky words» or «sight words». Phonics is about sounds, not about the meaning of words.

### In the corpora

- [Fluent readers still use phonics, fast and silently, and slow down to it when they meet a hard new word.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/1-sounds-and-letters-how-phonics-starts/25/)
- [That is a good phonics attempt, not a silly one.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/3-tricky-words-and-common-exception-words/7/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «phonics» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phonics/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.