Implementing phonics method in teaching Arabic and English reading and writing skills

Abstract

This study compared between the phonics teaching method used in teaching different languages which are Arabic and English. As each language has its own alphabetic, phonological, syntactic and semantic features, teaching them needs different methods according to the needs of the learners. However, the traditional way of teaching Arabic used through ages is the phonics method as it is the suitable method to teach languages that have consistent graph-phoneme correspondence, traditional teaching English methods did not focus on the phonics methods as a result of the inconsistency in graph-phoneme correspondence. In the Arabic and English version of the phonics method, the main element that teachers focus on is the phonemic awareness of the letters. As the learners will be able to blend and read sound and words as soon as they recognize the letter- sound connections. As a result of the consistency in the alphabetic-phonemic system, learners of Arabic can master reading and writing skills perfectly in no time unlike learners of English who struggle to recognize all types of pronunciations that one letter may have.