Four Corners Phonics Flash Cards

Video

Here are some short videos that show how we use the flash cards.

• Video explaining how to use Four Corners Phonics Flash Cards Our best video, we made this in Sombor, Serbia with Sasha Mrkailo's family. Andrius explains and shows how to play with the cards with the help of Sasha's daughter Jovena.
• Video: Time Trial: Change the First Card Take one card for the ending of a word (like "im"), and run through the beginnings of the words ("b", "bl", "br", "c=k", "c=s", "d" and so on), and see how long it takes you to read all the words. Somebody can count the seconds it takes for you to do them all. If you can do it within a certain amount of time, you win a prize! This encourages you to practice.
• Video: Time Trial: Change the Second Card Take one card for the beginning of a word (like "bl"), and run through the endings of the words for a certain vowel sound (like "im", "it", "id", "ich", ...), and see how long it takes you to read all the words. Somebody can count the seconds it takes for you to do them all. If you can do it within a certain amount of time, you win a prize! This encourages you to practice.
• Video: Real or Imaginary? Read a set of words as above, but say, which are real words, and which are imaginary words? or even naughty words.

Note to Andrius

and I will call him on monday

Note to George

GeorgeChristianJeyaraj, it is great to see you working on this! Yesterday I met with Plazi from Togo, Africa, he is a musician with a diploma in electronics and experience and interest in architecture. He would like to learn more about computers and how to build web sites. So I will ask you to tutor him. I gave him your phone number so that you could meet. --Andrius

Working with Fred

Hello Andrius How are you thanks for the mesage First of all am proud to work with you on the flash cards together iknow it will work well more so through the set up computer club.

One question i dont know the amswer is how can i be of help to the young generation to develope having abig challange as one of the educated personal in my village.

Well Andrius one project to focus on is the cyber cafe but as for 100usd we need to think big and focus on something that is impotant though not so big like going in different schools which have computers and discuss with headteachers about the impotance of the flash cards. what do u think. what would you love to do fist?

Four Corners

Andrius: I developed a system of flash cards for a child in second grade who had not yet learned to read and was falling behind. It was clear that his parents, though of the best intentions, had not and very possibly might not be able to spend the time to help him and that the child might best teach himself. This system worked very well for him - we were able to set him challenges, give him rewards and encouragements, and he was able to do the work himself. The flash cards remake the English language (using poker symbols for the vowels) to make it phonetically transparent, and break up one syllable words into two segments: initial consonant cluster and then the rest. For example: d - ig is dig. But the ig card is marked with a poker card club which makes clear the vowel sound. And there are one or two sheets of endings with the club. There are 55 InitialClusters in English, and the child can fix an ending and run through all the possible words with that ending (and practice on their own to do that fast, and get rewarded for being able to read all the words in a certain amount of time). This includes nonsense words, such as splig. Literacy is achieved when a child is able to read nonsense words as well as true words. In English, there are 16 vowel sounds, and they are organized by the corners of the mouth. Four long (scream them!):

• upper front - (as in on) - DoubleHeart
• lower front - (as in too) - DoubleDiamond
• lower back - (as in eat) - DoubleClub
• upper back - (as in cat) - DoubleSpade

• upper front - (as in cup) - SingleHeart
• lower front - (as in book) - SingleDiamond
• lower back - (as in pig) - SingleClub
• upper back - (as in get) - SingleSpade

And three R endings which use vowels that don't otherwise appear in English (as in fair, fir, for) but actually do appear (as vowels in their own right) in Lithuanian (which is the inspiration for this system, as its spelling is, as in many languages, based on the actual sounds, where they are coming from in our throat, their phonology).

The child learns to scan the word correctly, grouping the initial cluster and sight-reading it ('spl') rather than sounding it out ('supulu') which is not helpful. Then blending that with the ending. And knowing the vowel sounds and possibly guessing which one it might be.

This system lets the child or adult see that spelling is not reliable, but phonetics is, and that they can come up with their own rules for decoding, so long as they are able to get the right sound. It also gives a way to refer to the sounds (such as spade club) without bias to spelling (compare long-a (spade club) which actually has nothing to do with the sound for short-a (single diamond)).

The child was able to teach himself! He received one hour of tutoring each week, we covered one vowel sound each week and reviewed the others, too. His parents were supportive and tested him several times a week. We also invented various games that he could play, such as versions of bingo. But he did most of the learning all by himself. He was rewarded with toys, and I think that he grew quite a lot in self-esteem. I must say he was smart to begin with, and was quite motivated. He had simply never been taught to read in a way that makes sense. This system is indeed designed for those with the aptitude and maturity for self-education. It is designed to be a model for a truthful thinking about the facts.

This system is in the Public Domain and I will try to upload the materials. I appreciate help to make this more available and develop it further. I also hope there might be ways to generate revenue that contribute to the Public Domain. I think this system is very similar to what Sandeep has in mind. --AndriusKulikauskas

AndriusKulikauskas: A side note on pronunciation: it's based on my own, as a Lithuanian speaking child growing up in America. I think the blandest form of American-English pronunciation is very similar to Lithuanian. I think they are both optimized for easy speaking rather than listening, which is to say, pronunciation is straightforward (and lazy, flat, often muddled) and based on the "four corners". Whereas BBC-English is, I believe, optimized for easy listening (easy distinction of sounds), but is a phonetically contorted way of speaking (it's a lot of work and practice). American-English is an immigrant's language, as opposed to a language of class distinction. Lithuanian is a very ancient, conservative and symmetric language, I think in part because the phonetic system is very well structured and keeps things simple. So, for example, American-English does not distinguish between 'cot' and 'caught'.

The o in oi is the same vowel as in old and or.

Related Projects, Possible Funders or Partners

Thanks Andrius for Introducing this project to us we have the kids who will be participating in it fully and learn then teach others Right now they are in school and immediately after school this is going to be our first Game http://www.onehelpinganother.com

Contact: http://designthatmatters.org/portfolio/projects/cmes/

AboutThisPage

• EndeavorLeader=AndriusKulikauskas
• EndeavorTeam=SamwelKongere
• EndeavorSummary=Popularize a self-learning system for teaching oneself to read English (or other languages) based on flash cards.
• ProposalLeader=AndriusKulikauskas
• ProposalSummary=Popularize a self-learning system for teaching oneself to read English (or other languages) based on flash cards.
• ProposalStatus=Should contact DesignThatMatters.
• EntrepreneurTask=FredKayiwa is trying out these phonics flash cards to see how children and adults in Uganda might teach themselves how to read. This could open up a business opportunity.

Discussion