On the surface English seems easy when compared to other languages; after all, it has only 26 letters. However, those 26 letters contain 44 different sounds. Although there are only 5 written vowels, there are 20 different vowel sounds as well as 24 consonant sounds.

Not surprisingly, this causes difficulties for learners. One problem for learners is that a single sound may be written in many different ways (see figure 2), and conversely, a single letter may possess several different sounds (see figure 1). Unless learners are aware of these features of English, they will have difficulty in decoding words well.

FIGURE 1

Single Letter / Different Sounds
apple	/'pl/
always	/':lwez/
about	/ 'baut/
acorn	/'ek:n/
artist	/'a:tst/

FIGURE 2

There are a number of important benefits to using a phonics approach to help young learners cope with the difficulties that learning English presents.

1. A phonics approach is particularly useful for pupils whose own alphabet is not based upon Roman script because it allows them to attach sounds to the letters they see.
2. If learners learn the sounds of letters in certain contexts, this knowledge can be applied to working out how other words sound in different contexts, i.e. 'sounding out' new words.
3. Phonics is very useful for teaching how to read consonants, short vowels, letter blends, digraphs and long vowels.