Sounding Out Phonics

Get the lowdown on why this teaching method is key to reading success.

If you're the parent of a beginning reader, chances are you're hearing a lot about phonics. Here's what you need to know about how your child will learn phonics and how you can help at home.

What exactly is phonics?
Phonics is knowing that sounds and letters have a relationship — it's that simple, and that complex. It is the link between what we say and what we can read and write. "Children need very explicit instructions on how the letters on a page correspond to the spoken word," explains Margie Gillis, Ed.D., project director of reading research studies at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. A child who has mastered phonics can connect the sounds he knows with letters, then put them together to make words. (And then he can put words together to read sentences, and so on.)

Phonics offers your beginning reader the strategies she needs to sound out words. For example, she learns that the letter D has the sound of "d" as in "doll." Then she learns how to blend letter sounds together to make words like dog. It's not as easy as it sounds, because the 26 letters in our alphabet correspond to 44 sounds. But when your child has mastered it, this knowledge helps her read familiar words at an appropriate pace, and gives her the ability to decode and spell words she hasn't seen before.

Why is phonics important?
The ultimate goal of reading is good comprehension. But in order for your child to understand what he reads, he must be able to do it quickly and automatically, without stumbling over words. Phonics facilitates that process. With lots of practice sounding out words, in combination with other important reading skills such as phonemic awareness, letter recognition, vocabulary building, and concepts of print, he learns to read more fluently. Then he can turn his attention to grasping the passages.



How is phonics taught?
Systematically and sequentially. Teachers give children plenty of practice before moving on. Your child will read short, easy books, containing the particular letter sounds or words she's working on. Her teacher will give her lots of opportunities to read aloud, and will guide and correct her as she reads. There will also be lots of writing, to reinforce the sound-print connection. Here's what your child is likely to learn in each grade:

Kindergarten:
Letter recognition: learning the letters of the alphabet. Connecting some letters with their sounds (she'll know about 20 sound-symbol connections by the end of the year). Phonemic awareness: understanding that words are made of individual, separate sounds. She may be asked to clap out her name, make up nonsense words, or listen for the rhymes in a poem to build sound sensitivity. Reading and writing easy consonant-vowel-consonant words (in some schools). A few sight words.

First grade:
Mastery of short and long vowels. Letter combinations: The "b" sound plus the "r" sound makes the "br" blend, in which you can still hear both of the consonants you started with; "t" plus "h" makes a new "th" sound. Reading simple words, sentences and stories. Beyond phonics: word endings, like "ed" and "ing," and more sight words, such as is, was, have, and are.

Second grade:
Vowel combinations (what sound does "ea" make? How about "ai"?). Spelling patterns of increasing difficulty. Multisyllabic words and putting word parts together ("pan" plus "cake" equals pancake). Vocabulary and word recognition

How can I support phonics learning at home?
Reinforce schoolwork with easy activities.

Team up with the teacher. Ask how you can highlight phonics and reading. If you have concerns, share them. Struggling readers should be given extra-intensive instruction, either in the classroom, or in small groups with the school reading specialist. "Don't be satisfied if the teacher says 'Let's just give it some time,'" emphasizes Dr. Gillis. Children need help as early as possible in order to catch up.

Listen to your child read daily. "If he stumbles on a word, encourage him to sound it out," suggests Marci McGowan, a 1st grade teacher at the H.W. Mountz School in Spring Lake, New Jersey. But if he still can't get it, provide the word so he doesn't get discouraged. Take turns reading a paragraph at a time, to help make it more fun.

Boost comprehension. Ask questions like, "What do you think will happen next?" or "What did he mean by that?"

Revisit familiar books.
It's okay if your child wants to read favorites from earlier years. Reading easy books helps kids develop fluency, and makes them feel successful in those early stages, says McGowan. If a book has more than 5 unknown words on a page, it's too challenging, she adds.

Read aloud. Choose books on topics that excite your child, and read with gusto, using different voices for the characters. This is where you can expose your child to more challenging literature to enrich vocabulary. In the early grades, her listening level far exceeds her reading level.

Spread the joy. Show your child how much you value reading by having plenty of books and magazines around the house. And visit the library and bookstores often. You'll cultivate a lifelong love of reading in your child.

by Ellen H. Parlapiano

Child bedroom furniture

Give your child to feel his self like an adult by taking part in the selection of his bedroom furniture.

Each piece of child bedroom furniture is expertly made, attractive, and sturdy; you and your child will love how the new furniture in their room looks and feels.

When you are perusing through inventory of children’s bedroom furniture, pay close attention to the wide variety of beds featured. The styles of beds in youth bedroom furniture collection range from simple, classic wood bed designs that will look great in any room to fun, metal bunk beds, perfect for when your child has a guest. Also beds that are geared for little girls, like our canopy beds, and those that are tailored for little boys, like our Targhee Captains bed. Beds are made specifically for a smaller individual, yet comfortable and built to last. Your children will love their bedroom furniture for many years to come.

When you and your child are looking for children’s bedroom furniture, shop around. You will be looking for better price. Look for low price, and high quality.

Italian furniture

If you would like to know something about Italian furniture I can say that this is the finest brand I have ever seen, because of their individuality.

The Italian furniture industry is the largest in the world. This furniture is valued for its style, quality and functionality. In Italy, there exists a strong relationship between furniture designers and furniture manufacturers. This allows the designers to be creative while knowing that their products will be made to the highest quality.

The Italian culture places a high value on beauty. The centre of the world fashion industry is in Milan and this influence has extended to the world of furniture design. Italian furniture, designed for all rooms of the house, is not just beautiful, but always useful as well.

Lexington furniture

I want to say that this furniture helps you to realize your personal vision of how life at home should feel.

Lexington Home Brands has grown over the last 100-plus years into a brand and lifestyle leader. As a full-line furniture manufacturer, Lexington Home Brands produce bedroom, dining, casual dining, occasional, home entertainment, home office, youth, upholstered, leather, and wicker furniture.
Lexington bedroom furniture, and Lexington baby furniture come in styles for every aspect of life.

The company produces furniture in a wide range of styles, including soft modern, transitional, sophisticated and relaxed country, cottage, and casual, American and European traditional, Victorian, and eighteenth century.

Furniture refinishing

As I know, old furniture can be refinished and if your furniture are with a little elbow grease you can make it handsome again. You just need to understand the basics of refinishing techniques.

When refinishing furniture, you must do the most unpleasant part of the job first. Removing the old finish can be a cumbersome and messy task. For a while early in the process, until you start getting down to the wood underneath the mess, you may feel that you have completely ruined the piece. Have patience. Once you get to the point of final sanding the wood, you will have graduated from making a mess to creating a masterpiece. When you are finished, you will be proud of what you were able to create.

You can remove old paint and varnish in a couple of different ways, primarily by sanding and by the use of chemical strippers. Heat guns can also be used for stripping and are sometimes used as a supplement to the other methods in the removal of a particularly stubborn finish.

Sanding is a good method only if you have good sanding equipment and are experienced in the use of such equipment. If you are trying to remove an old finish by hand sanding or with a common orbital finishing sander, you will work yourself into a puddle and waste a lot of sandpaper. On the other hand, belt and disk sanders can remove finishes quickly, but since they are capable of removing so much material, you must be very careful not to disfigure the piece by sanding too deeply. It is also difficult to sand varnish from round or decoratively curved areas such as turned table legs.

Chemical strippers, commonly called "paint strippers," are an effective means of removing paint and varnish from wood furniture or projects. Using these chemicals is probably the fastest and easiest method for most people. Despite what you may read on the back of a can, if you want to do a really good job, some sanding will still be required after the old finish is removed by the stripper.

Making Sense of Reading

Principals and administrators across the country can relate to this scenario. They know that quick fixes are not likely to help when children are not learning to read. The root of the problem is often related to what teachers know and understand about children's learning to read. Many teachers do not have a conceptual understanding of reading. In addition, teachers often do not know what parts of their reading instruction work or do not work, and as a result, why their students' test performances are high or low.

For years, teaching reading has focused primarily on curriculum and instruction. Teachers were expected to follow the teacher's guide and deliver instruction. As long as they were equipped with the necessary curriculum, administrators and the public assumed every child would become a successful reader. This expectation has not been met, however; not every child has become a successful reader.
To address the problem of low reading achievement, principals and district administrators typically have responded by adopting yet another "reading program" in hopes that just the right one will help children learn to read. If the new reading program again results in low reading scores on the achievement tests, as often happens, the cycle begins again. What can principals and district administrators do differently to help increase scores on reading achievement tests?
The focus needs to shift from teaching reading to learning to read. This means that teachers begin to weigh the results of their teaching. One question that helps teachers make this pivotal shift is " What reading skills have my students learned?" Depending on the answer, a teacher can determine whether to move ahead or go back and teach again, perhaps, in a different way, based on individual student needs.
Because children's backgrounds, learning needs, and skills vary, effective reading instruction depends upon three main components. Teachers must assess children's reading skills in an on-going manner and use assessment information to customize instruction to individual student needs. In addition, teachers must participate in on-going professional development to gain knowledge of reading and reading instruction.
In a meeting sponsored by SEDL, school, district, and state leaders explored issues that principals and other administrators face in creating and supporting effective reading programs. These leaders acknowledged that no silver bullets exist, that developing teachers who diagnose reading needs and prescribe reading instruction according to student's individual needs takes time, and that the capacity to deliver significant results on standardized tests requires a district of skilled teachers. Working from this perspective, principals and district administrators can build an effective reading program for their campuses and, ultimately, for their districts.

Furniture repair

From my point of view, to make your furniture repaired you must do the following things.

Never repair your own furniture unless you are absolutely certain you are performing the right procedure. Many "homespun" repairs do more harm than good. One of the most common homespun repairs is on wobbling chairs. The amateur handyperson turns the chair upside down, squirts some glue into the hole, lets it dry and assumes the problem is solved. Sometimes, the person will hammer a nail into the area making matters worse. By this time the correct repairs will be even more expensive because the glue and the nail must be removed without further damaging the wood.

Insist that your furniture repairs are not only strong and look good, but that they are also repairable in the future. Choose a finish that not only looks and wears well but that is repairable and refinishable. Choose a repair that recognizes that next time it might break on the next layer of wood fibers.

Know how you want to use the piece before you restore it. There is a difference in restoring an item for everyday use and restoring primarily for decorative appearance. It is one thing to simply refinish an item, but is another to restore it or make it match another item.

Garden furniture

I must say that garden furniture certainly isn’t a necessity to make your plants grow, but it makes it much easier to sit and enjoy them

A well-placed bench can be a visual focal point as well as an invitation to rest. Chaise lounges and dining tables can turn a deck or patio within a garden into an outdoor room and add living space to your home.

Teak is considered to be the premier wood used for garden furniture because it is heavy, durable, rot-resistant, maintenance-free, and does not splinter. It does not have to be sealed, stained, or finished. It can be left outdoors untreated and withstand the elements for years. After a couple of seasons in the sun, teak weathers from a warm honey brown to an attractive silvery gray.

Tectona Grandis is an extremely dense hardwood of the family Verbenaceae. It is indigenous to India, Burma, Thailand, Indochina and Java. The harvest of teak does not destroy rain forests -- it cannot even grow in rain forests. It is a deciduous tree that grows well in the dry, hilly terrain typical of plantation forests in Southeast Asia.

Teak furniture

I should say that this furniture are a symbol of luxury and with its rich quality is the ideal choice for people who are looking for affordable furniture with remarkable value.

Furniture Teak is the direct importer of quality furniture made from Teak, Mahogany and other fine tropical woods. You pay only for the furniture and not the overhead.

They can make customized furniture for you made from your choice of wood, finish and style. Any style can be made from antique, colonial, chinese, chippendale or anything else. Most of their furniture is shipped with no finish so you can easily match the colors you have or put on a special finish. They ship directly to you anywhere in the world directly from Indonesia. They can save you thousands of dollars because there are no middlemen here, just direct from their factory to you.

Furniture outlet

I think that the furniture outlet shop is an ideal place to find slightly damaged new furniture, because these items are priced so low.

Especially, if the condition of an item from a manufacturer doesn't meet the rigid standarts it will cost not so expensive, or pehaps if furniture from a manufacturer became damaged in transit, it will be placed in Outlet Furniture Shop at deep discounts, many times at pennies on the dollar. Inventory is limited to stock on hand. All items are sold as-is and ready for you to take home immediately. The outlet accepts cash, check, and most major debit and credit cards. Financing is available.

The Office Furniture Outlet is the worldwide leader in office furniture liquidations. Their team of employees works hard to find the highest quality used office furniture to buy and sell. They are very experienced in removing used office furniture from its existing home in a careful manner that maintains its quality and value. Once they remove the furniture, they are able to offer the high quality furniture to potential buyers at significant discounts. They sell to individual consumers through our online store as well as our retail store located in Baltimore, MD. They also sell to larger buyers like corporations and furniture resellers through our online store as well as our retail store. Their real time inventory is unique in the used office furniture liquidation industry and provides an invaluable resource for both their consumers as well large scale buyers.

Their customers rave about the opportunity to purchase high quality used office furniture at deep discounts. Their customers constantly ask how they are able to acquire such great office furniture and sell at such low prices. They are able to sell for such low prices because of the high volume of furniture they purchase. They pass the cost savings directly to their clients who in return continue to be repeat buyers.

American furniture

I can say that with this American furniture company you can save a bunch of money, because it is not too expensive and very comfortable.

American Furniture made in the last half of the 17th century by American colonists. Furniture made by the earliest settlers, none of which is known to have survived, was probably crude and makeshift. The earliest known American-made furniture dates from the mid-17th century, when life in the colonies was becoming more settled.

Now American Furniture company is located in San Gabriel, California. American Furniture has evolved into a full capacity manufacturer of steel and corporate furnishings.

Products are solely distributed through authorized dealers.Known for our quality throughout the design and dealer community, American Furniture continues to manufacture each product with the highest levels of standards and pride. They also treat every project with equal consideration, always keeping your priorities in mind.

Bombay furniture

I think that Bombay furniture are applied to a rather extensive class of furniture pieces originally manufactured in the city of Bombay.

The wood used is Shisham or blackwood (Dalbergia), a hard-grained dark-colored timber which with proper treatment assumes a beautiful natural polish. Much of the so-called Bombay furniture is clumsy and inelegant in form, defects which it is suggested by experts, like Sir George Birdwood, it owes to the circumstance that the original models were Dutch. Some of the smaller articles, such as flower stands, small tables, and ornamental stands, are, however, of exceedingly graceful contour, and good examples are highly prized by collectors. The carving at its best is lace-like in character, and apart from its inherent beauty is attractive on account of the ingenuity shown by the worker in adapting his design in detail to the purpose of the article he is fashioning.

The workmen who manufacture the most artistic Bombay furniture are a special class with inherited traditions. Often a man knows only one design, which has been transmitted to him by his father, who in his turn had had it from his father before him. In recent years under European auspices efforts have been made with a certain measure of success to modernize the industry by introducing portions of the native work into furniture of Western design. In the main, however, the conventional patterns are still adhered to. Bombay boxes are inlaid in geometrical patterns on wood. The inlaying materials consist of the wire, sandal wood, sapan wood, ebony, ivory and staghorn, and the effect produced by the combination of minute pieces of these various substances is altogether peculiar and distinctive.

Harlem furniture

I must say that this furniture is excellent because of their quality.

This furniture are named Harlem Furniture because of its flagship location on Harlem Street, the company was founded by Sam Berman in 1912 in downtown Chicago. The family-run furniture retailer (Berman's grandson, Bruce, is president and CEO) sells furniture by the room at a discount and operates about 15 retail stores, primarily in Illinois.

In 2005 private equity firms Pouschine Cook Capital, Bear Growth Capital, and Mercantile Capital, acquired a controlling stake in Harlem Furniture. With the increased funding, the company expects to double in size within four years, expanding its store count in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Wholesale furniture

As I know it is very interesting method of puchasing a furniture, because you can create your own custum made furniture design which will be good-looking in any room you want.I think that the best wholesale furniture you can purchase are located in the Indonesia.

The craftsman here in Indonesia spend long hard hours slowly creating the most beautiful pieces of furniture "art" I have ever seen in my whole life. They can take nothing more than a photo or rough sketch and recreate masterpieces out of wood, really good isn't it? ;). If you would like they can assist you to create a new design described by you. They will personally work with you to produce a photo mock up of your descriptions. Once finalized they can take that to the master wood craftsmen here and they will recreate it into a piece of furniture art you can not find anywhere else in the world. Each piece of furniture they build whether it is our standard designs or one you create is unique.

Strengthen Your Child’s Self-Esteem

Most parents want their children to have a healthy sense of self-esteem and many believe that low self-esteem lies at the bottom of many of society’s problems.

Even though self-esteem has been studied for decades, its precise nature and development is still subject to debate. However, child development experts generally agree that parents and other adults who are important to children play a major role in laying a solid foundation for a child’s self esteem development.

When parents and teachers of young children talk about the need for good self-esteem, they usually mean that children should feel good about themselves. With young children, self-esteem refers to the extent to which they expect to be accepted and valued by the adults and peers who are important to them.

Self esteem is so important in young children because it is a self fulfilling prophecy. The more confident children feel about their social, physical and intellectual success then the more likely they will succeed. Conversely, the less confident children feel then the more likely they will fail.

Children with a healthy sense of self-esteem feel that the important adults in their lives accept and care about them. They feel that those adults would be upset if anything happened to them and would miss them if they were separated. Children with low self-esteem, on the other hand, feel that the important adults and peers in their lives do not accept or care about them very much.

During their early years, young children’s self-esteem is based largely on their perceptions of how the important adults in their lives judge them. The foundations of self-esteem are laid early in life when infants develop attachments with the adults who are responsible for them. When adults readily respond to their cries and smiles, babies learn to feel loved and valued. Children come to feel loved and accepted by being loved and accepted by people they look up to. As young children learn to trust their parents and others who care for them to satisfy their basic needs, they gradually feel wanted, valued, and loved.

Self-esteem is also related to children’s feelings of belonging to a group and being able to adequately function in their group. When toddlers become preschoolers, for example, they are expected to control their impulses and adopt the rules of the family and community in which they are growing. Successfully adjusting to these groups helps to strengthen feelings of belonging to them.

Young children are unlikely to have their self-esteem strengthened from excessive praise or flattery. On the contrary, it may raise some doubts in children; many children can see through flattery and may even dismiss an adult who heaps on praise as a poor source of support–one who is not very believable.

As they grow, children become increasingly sensitive to the evaluations of their peers. When children develop stronger ties with their peers in school or around the neighborhood, they may begin to evaluate themselves differently from the way they were taught at home. You can help your child by being clear about your own values and keeping the lines of communication open about experiences outside the home. You can also help by teaching your child to socialize well with other children and encouraging interaction with children with similar family values.

Children do not acquire self-esteem at once nor do they always feel good about themselves in every situation. A child may feel self-confident and accepted at home but not around the neighborhood or in a preschool class. Furthermore, as children interact with their peers or learn to function in school or some other place, they may feel accepted and liked one moment and feel different the next. You can help in these instances by reassuring your child that you support and accept him or her even when others do not.

Self-esteem is most likely to be fostered when children are esteemed by the adults who are important to them. To esteem children means to treat them respectfully, ask their views and opinions, take their views and opinions seriously, and give them meaningful and realistic feedback.

A child’s sense of self-worth is more likely to deepen when adults respond to the child’s interests and efforts with appreciation or interest rather than just praise. Respond positively by taking their interests seriously with appropriate encouragement, for example, reading a book about dinosaurs or studying worms in the garden.

Young children are more likely to benefit from tasks and activities that offer a real challenge than from those that are merely frivolous or fun. Young children can be given appropriate responsibilities and tasks that make them a part of the community or family.

You can help your child develop and maintain healthy self-esteem by helping him cope with defeat as well as success. In the moment of failure remind your child that you still love and support him. Later, when the initial emotional response has passed talk with your child about the situation. Sometimes, it is important to point out that most people are not good at everything they try. Or perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from a mistake or lack of preparation. Teaching children to work past the small disappointments and troubles of childhood can help them handle the greater challenges life will throw in their path.

As a parent you play a primary role in the development of your child’s sense of self worth and that sense of self will play a crucial role in your child’s future success. Showing your child that you value and care for her and helping her learn to value herself can go a long way to building that important sense of self esteem.

Phonemic Awareness

In recent years the field of reading education has changed dramatically and many reading instructors have divided between phonic instruction and whole language. Various reading programs that fall into one of the two camps have spent millions advertising the relative merits of both.

The simple truth of the matter is that the best reading instruction takes place using a combination of both strategies. And increasingly reading research has demonstrated that phonemic awareness, not simply phonics, is critically important to ensuring reading success–especially for students with learning disabilities.

However what makes this so confusing for many parents and caregivers is that the term “phonemic awareness” is tossed around so often and in so many different ways. Phonemic awareness concerns the structure of words rather than their meaning. To understand the construction of our written code, words, readers need to be able to reflect upon the spelling-to-sound correspondences. To understand that the written word, beginning readers must first have some understanding that words are composed of sounds (phonemic awareness) rather than their conceiving of each word as a single indivisible sound stream.

The development of this awareness cannot be accomplished in one simple step but rather over time. It is also important to note that these skills are actually pre-reading skills. Children do not necessarily recognize any of these elements on the page but rather by ear.

The stages of phonological development toward the end goal of deep phonemic awareness can include:

• Recognition that sentences are made up of words.
• Recognition that words can rhyme & the ability to make rhymes
• Recognition that words can be broken down into syllables & the ability to do so
• Recognition that words can be broken down into onsets and rimes & the ability to do so
• Recognition that words can begin with the same sound & the ability to make these matches
• Recognition that words can end with the same sound & the ability to make these matches
• Recognition that words can have the same medial sound(s) & the ability to make these matches
• Recognition that words can be broken down into individual phonemes & the ability to do so
• Recognition that sounds can be deleted from words to make new words & the ability to do so
• Ability to blend sounds to make words
• Ability to segment words into constituent sounds

Phonemic awareness is more complex however than simple auditory discrimination, which is the ability to understand that cat and mat are different words. To be able to describe how they are similar and how they are different demonstrates a level of phonemic awareness. Young children are not normally asked to consider words at a level other than their meaning, although experience with rhymes may be the first indication for children that they can play with the structure of words.

Learning to recognize and play with rhyme is often the beginning of phonemic awareness development for many children. To be aware that words can have a similar end-sound implies a critical step in learning to read. Sensitivity to rhyme makes both a direct and indirect contribution to reading.

Directly, it helps children appreciate that words that share common sounds usually also share common letter sequences. Later exposure to common letter sequences then makes a significant contribution to reading strategy development.

Indirectly, the recognition of rhyme promotes the refining of word analysis from larger intra-word segments (such as rhyme) to analysis at the level of the phoneme (the critical requirement for reading).

Studies show a very strong relationship between rhyming ability at age three and performance at reading and spelling three years later. A number of studies have reinforced the value of such early exposure to rhyming games.

Rhyming and phoneme awareness are related. Studies have shown that children who are capable of good discrimination of musical pitch also score high on tests of phonemic awareness. Since pitch change is an important source of information in the speech signal, it may be that sensitivity to small frequency changes, such as is involved in phoneme recognition, is an important aspect of successful initial reading. Such results raise the interesting possibility that musical training may represent one of those pre-reading, home-based experiences that contribute to the marked individual differences in phonemic awareness with which children start school.

So, what do you teach? Techniques that target phoneme awareness most frequently involve direct instruction in segmenting words into component sounds, identifying sounds in various positions in words (initial, medial, final), identifying words that begin or end with the same sound, and manipulating sounds in a word such as saying a word without its beginning or end sound.

Most of the phoneme awareness activities should not take more than 15 or 20 minutes to complete. Although a particular activity can be selected well in advance, the specific words targeted for phoneme awareness should be selected from material familiar to your child — such as a book you recently read together or a game or a family outing. Phoneme awareness activities are a natural extension of the shared reading activities.

A natural and spontaneous way of providing children with exposure to phonemes is to focus on literature that deals playfully with speech sounds through rhymes. Simple rhyme patterns are easily recalled after repeated exposure, and children will get the idea of creating new rhymes. In “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket” (Seuss, 1974), initial sounds of everyday objects are substituted as a child talks about the strange creatures around the house, such as the “zamp in the lamp.” Children can make up their own strange creatures in the classroom such as the “zuk in my book.”

Alliteration is the repetition of an initial consonant sound across several words, such as presented in the alphabet book “Faint Frogs Feeling Feverish” and “Other Terrifically Tantalizing Tongue Twisters”.

Assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds within words, is often combined with rhyme, as in “It rains and hails and shakes the sails” from “Sheep on a Ship” or in humorous ways such as “The tooter tries to tutor two tooters to toot” in “Moses Supposes His Toeses Are Roses”. Some books include music to go with the rhymes, such as “Down by the Bay”, in which two children try to outdo one another in making up questions that rhyme, such as “Did you ever see a goose kissing a moose?”

Spend some time in the children’s section of your library or browse through your child’s book shelves at home to look for books that deal playfully with language. Read and reread the stories and comment on the language use then encourage predictions of sound, word, and sentence patterns (for example, “What sound do you hear at the beginning of all those words?”) and invent new versions of the language patterns utilized in the stories.

Research has demonstrated not only a predictive relationship between phoneme awareness and reading success, but also a causal relationship. Phoneme awareness that has a positive impact on reading can be developed in children through systematic instruction. Early training in phoneme awareness should be a priority for those interested in improving early reading instruction and in reducing reading failure.

Some other activites include:

Making Word Families Charts: Charts can contain words from one story or a brainstormed list from the children. The children can dictate the words to be placed on a word family chart. As they begin to develop letter/sound knowledge, they can copy or write the words themselves. You can use magnetic letters to “create” words for a word family chart. Provide a rime of plastic letters (e.g., at) and have the children take turns placing different letters in the onset position to create new words (e.g., hat, bat, sat, rat). These charts can be used as reference charts (or the children can make their own word families reference book) for spelling and creative writing activities.

Odd Word Out: Four words, three of which rhyme, are presented (e.g., zveed, bead, pill, seed ). The child determines which word is the odd one that doesn’t belong with the others. The game of concentration or memory is a good practice activity for rhyme recognition.

Alliteration: Sound personalities can be introduced naturally and in context by selecting a particular sound to talk about that is stressed in alphabet or other books that use alliteration. For example, presenting “smiling snakes sipping strawberry sodas” for the alphabet letter S. It is helpful to create or provide pictures that represent these sound personalities and to post them as each is introduced. A natural connection can sometimes be made between the sound and the letter, such as presenting a picture of “Sammy snake” drawn in the shape of the letter S or “Buzzy bee” flying in a pattern of the letter Z. Besides providing a label to facilitate talking about sounds, the pictures provide self-correcting cues for children engaged in initialsound isolation and sound-to-word matching activities.

Counting: To count syllables in words, activities can be used such as clapping hands, tapping the desk, or marching in place to the syllables in children’s names (Ma- ry), items in the immediate environment (win- dow), or words from a favorite story (wi-shy, wa-shy). Initially, two- syllable words can be targeted, building up to three.

Sound Synthesis: Sound synthesis can be done using the following sequence: blending an initial sound onto the remainder of a word, followed by blending syllables of a word together, and then blending isolated phonemes into a word. Model this by blending an initial sound onto a word by using the jingle “It starts with /n/ and it ends with ight, put it together, and it says night.” When they have the idea, the children supply the final word. An element of excitement can be created by using children’s names for this activity and asking each child to recognize and say his or her own name when it is presented- “It starts with /m/ and it ends with ary, put it together and it says ———.” Context can be provided by limiting the words to objects that can be seen in the room or to words from a particular story the children just read. As the children become proficient, they can take turns using the jingle to present their own words to be blended.
Sound-to-Word Matching: Requires that the child identify the beginning sound of a word. Awareness of the initial sound in a word can be done by showing the children a picture (dog) and asking the children to identify the correct word out of three: “Is this a /mmm/-og, a /d/d/d/-og, or a /sss/-og?” A variation is to ask if the word has a particular sound: “Is there a /d/ in dog?” This can then be switched to “Which sound does dog start with-/d/, /sh/, or /1/?” This sequence encourages the children to try out the three onsets with the rime to see which one is correct. It is easiest to use continuants that can be exaggerated and prolonged to heighten the sound input. Iteration should be used with stop consonants to add emphasis.

Restaurant furniture

I should say that if you are looking for a restaurant outdoor furniture, you need solid, reliable and practical furniture that also fits in with your design and helps project the right image to the right customer.

This outdoor furniture is used world-wide, in particular in restaurants, hotels and schools, as well as in the home. Weather-resistant materials, such as aluminum, steel, teak and polypropylene, and combine this with practical designs that are easy to stack or clean.

When selecting dining sets for a restaurant, you have several options to help you match your environment. Tables are available in stainless steel with different surfaces, such as smooth or a non-glare hologram effect, or teak. Round, square or rectangular tables range from 24" wide to 42". And there are several bar height tables too. Table bases are constructed of anodized tubular aluminum and are totally water resistant.

A wide range of seating is available to match the tables, from traditional, to original to striking. The AL 108 side chair is a fairly traditional tubular aluminum and PVC wicker side chair seen in many restaurant settings. For a brighter, more striking effect, the SA 142 steel chair is made of powder-coated steel and polypropylene in several colors, including orange, aqua and electric blue. Many chairs are stackable.

Bobs furniture

I think that this is very fashionable furniture which are available for all people.

Bobs Discount Furniture has provided fashionable, affordable home furnishings and bedding to its New England neighbors. The first Bobs, a modest showroom in Newington, Conn., laid the groundwork for the well-deserved reputation of genuine value and customer care that the company now enjoys. It was that reputation that drove the company's quick expansion statewide and into western Massachusetts. In 2000, Bobs began to look north, and entered the New Hampshire, Boston perimeter and southern Maine markets. The continued success and credibility of this homegrown company has now led to the opening of showrooms in Providence, Rhode Island; Nanuet, New York; and Totowa and Paramus New Jersey, for a total of 25 stores chain-wide.

Bobs caters to the family. While shopping, adults and children are invited to enjoy free refreshments in Bobs cafes or, depending on the store, take a break to watch a movie, play a video game or hit a round of miniature golf. At Bobs, the Customer truly is Number One.

To support continued success and unparalleled service to customers, Bobs is always seeking quality.

Bar furniture

I think that furniture for bar are designed to be stylish enough to compliment the decor of virtually any home, yet are still durable enough to provide years of lasting enjoyment.

A bar stool is almost essential to have when there is a breakfast bar in the home. These are usually high counter tops that can be used for an informal or quick meal as well as a variety of other purposes. Stools for bars are also higher than a normal chair and are perfect for sitting at such a unique area. There are several types of stools and chairs including those bar furniture pieces that are constructed from fine woods and those that are made from nicely finished metals.

While we carry bar furniture that is made from several different materials including wood and metal, we also carry pieces that come in several different styles and types including those which would fit in well at a pub. Tables and bar stools that have that pub look are extremely popular, especially amongst people who want to incorporate a fun and eclectic decorative scheme into their homes. These pieces are great for game and entertainment rooms, and even work well as an alternative dining set in the kitchen or dining room. You often have the opportunity to acquire a bar pub table that is separate from the pub table bar stools or you can also often be purchased as a set. Either way their durable and stylish construction makes these pieces a welcome addition to just about any environment.

Thomasville furniture

As I really can concern this question about Thomasville furniture, I would say that this is not very famous brand of furniture, but people still purchasing it in the areas around Thomasville city.

The vision and high standarts exemplified by Thomasville have made it an unquestioned leader in home furnishings. Its furniture is sold through a network of more than 150 independently owned Thomasville Home Furnishings Stores, as well as over 400 leading independent retail stores.

Over the years, the company has taken great pride in building beautiful, well-made furniture that is always in step with the fashion trends of the day. And it is this long record of accomplishment that has led Thomasville to where it is today—stronger, more successful and more vibrant than ever before. Thomasville will continue to shape the way people furnish their homes, bringing gracious, tasteful designs to consumers everywhere, regardless of whether their taste is traditional, transitional or contemporary.

Celebrating a century of defining comfort and beauty in American homes, Thomasville offers furniture for every living style in dining room, bedroom, home entertainment, home office, occasional, youth, and fabric and leather upholstery. Thomasville has also produced two of the most successful licensed furniture collections in the industry, Ernest Hemingway, The Collection of a Lifetime; and Humphrey Bogart. Continuing in the tradition of craftsmanship and style, the addition of Thomasville Cabinetry for the kitchen and bath now makes it possible to find Thomasville in every room of the home.

Dining room furniture

I think that dining informally with your family is just as important, and you must choose a range of furniture that is suitable for all occasions.

Furniture must be designed to be inviting and comfortable for your friends and family.
A dining area is ideally a haven away from the turmoil of the busy, even hectic lives many of us live today. It is a wonderful place to enjoy the relaxation and pleasure that happens when you gather round to dine with friends and family. This area does not have to be formal – or even separate - it can be a corner your living area, a breakfast nook, any space that can accommodate a table and chairs will serve this purpose. The most important thing about having a meal is to be enjoying the food and the company sharing it.

As retailing expert in this area, I know that you are creating a uniquely personal home, not just buying decor items for your house.

The ritual of sharing meals is as old as civilization itself and family, friends, colleagues and brothers in arms have all been comforted by the feelings of solidarity brought by eating together. In ancient times, victories in war, birthdays and days of spiritual significance were celebrated by feasting and the celebrations of thanksgiving and Christmas have ancient origins. Today we still share food as one of the highest sacraments, to cement a friendship, to renew family loyalties or to celebrate birthdays or achievements. Sharing fine food and drink should above all else be one of the most enduring and simple pleasures of life. Nothing compliments the experience of a carefully prepared meal better than fine tables and chairs in which to sit and eat from. I hope that our products will help you to enjoy your meal times with family and friends or simply in the quiet everyday moments with your loved one.

Broyhill furniture

I should say that this furniture is very original in design, so if you are looking for something unique this for you!

For many years Broyhill has been associated with fine quality furniture. And, throughout all that time, the guiding force that has defined the company and its products has been a commitment to quality and value. Today, the Broyhill brand is recognized by more than 90 percent of consumers, making it one of the country's best-known, full-line furniture brands.

Broyhill's extensive product line includes bedroom furniture, dining room furniture, living room furniture, wall systems/home entertainment furniture, home office furniture and numerous couches and sofas both in upholstery and leather ranging in style from Traditional, Country Cottage, European, American Casual, Contemporary and Eclectic.

Bassett furniture

I think that this is the one of the most expensive and comfortable furniture nowadays.

Bassett owner was making a good living traveling the countryside selling goods for general stores when he began carrying lumber samples from the mill. He quickly made his first sale of lumber to a coffin company in Winston - Salem, N.C. and returned home with the knowledge that the furniture industry, and its demand for raw lumber, was gaining a foothold in the region.

Soon he had orders for oak from several furniture companies in North Carolina. As he learned more about the industry, he found that the best furniture markets for lumber we re up north and soon was on his way to showcase his Appalachian oak.

Bassett furniture has beautiful furniture. Whether it’s contemporary furniture or traditional furniture - you will find a piece of furniture you will enjoy.

Living room furniture

From my point of view, the best living room furniture is the type that brings you better living through increased levels of value, style, comfort and convenience.

To find a rich selection of affordable options for your new living room furniture, trust style and comfort experts to introduce you to a better way of treating your body and your efforts in a lasting interior design. Your personal tastes can at last dictate your directions in interior design, because you will find more of the type of living room furniture you appreciate when you harness the flexibility and diversity of my online listings. Choose a complete and matching set of living room furniture that includes a comfortable leather chair, a leather couch, and some attractive hardwood end tables, or select unique pieces of living room furniture to complete your existing collection.

Whether you are seeking something uniquely stylish from a limited production or simply trying to find an affordable collection of living room furniture with a solid and lasting value, you will surely find your satisfaction, trust me:)

Greetings!

Hey, I'm glad to present you my first blog. It's about furniture. I've collected and placed here some info about furniture such as classifying furniture by rooms, such as furniture shops and even antique furniture. I hope it will help you in your life! :) Welcome!

Hooked on Phonics

Hooked on Phonics is a commercial brand of educational materials, originally designed for reading education through phonetics.

Developed in the late 1980s and first marketed widely in the 1990s, it used a particular instructional design to teach letter-sound correlations (phonics) as part of children's literacy. The program has since expanded to encompass a wide variety of media, including computer games, music, and flash cards in addition to books in its materials, as well as to include other subject areas. The target audience for this brand is primarily individuals and home school parents, as exemplified by the memorable 1-800-ABCDEFG® phone number, prominently featured in radio advertisements, or by the letters in the phone number lighting up bouncing ball-style on-screen during the television ad.

The product along with its catchphrase, "Hooked on Phonics worked for me!" (spoken by happy children in the product's television ads), became widely recognized during the mid-1990s. The phrase was used widely in pop culture to make pejorative tongue-in-cheek jokes about not being able to read or for making incidental reading errors. Modifications (typically phonetic misspellings) to the catchphrase also abound for both comic as well as promotional purposes.
The developer of the program, Gateway Learning Corporation, was based in Santa Ana, California used the success of Hooked on Phonics to develop new educational aids such as Hooked on Math, Hooked on School Success, and Master Reader.
In 2005, Educate, Inc. acquired the company, now known as HOP, LLC.

History
· 1987: The original Hooked on Phonics program was released and Gateway Educational Products, Ltd., was founded.
· 1990: The Hooked on Math® program was introduced.
· 1996: Company sold, becomes Gateway Learning Corporation.
· 1998: Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read program released.
· 1999: New edition of Hooked on Math released, includes games and activities.
· 2001: Hooked on School Success® created to teach study skills, test-taking strategies.
· 2001: Partnership with KinderCare to offer Hooked on Phonics tutoring programs in KinderCare daycare centers.
· 2003: Hooked on Phonics® Master Reader was developed to teach kids "advanced skills."
· 2005: Educate, Inc. acquired the company, now known as HOP, LLC.
· 2005: Learn to Read grade-level kits offered in major retail locations nationwide.
On July 6, 2004, the Federal Trade Commission revealed that Gateway Learning Corporation had been selling its customer list to telemarketers. Although the company's website stated that it "would not sell personal information such as phone numbers and children's ages to marketers without customer permission", in April 2003 it inadvertently had and took corrective action.

Different phonics approaches

Synthetic phonics is a method employed to teach phonics to children when learning to read. This method involves examining every spelling within the word individually as an individual sound and then blending those sounds together. For example, shrouds would be read by pronouncing the sounds for each spelling "/?, ?, æw, d, z/" and then blending those sounds orally to produce a spoken word, "/??æwdz/." The goal of synthetic phonics instruction is that students identify the sound-symbol correspondences and blend their phonemes automatically.

Analytic phonics has children analyze sound-symbol correspondences, such as the ou spelling of /æw/ in shrouds but students do not blend those elements as they do in synthetic phonics lessons. Furthermore, consonant blends (separate, adjacent consonant phonemes) are taught as units (e.g., in shrouds the shr would be taught as a unit).

Analogy phonics is a particular type of analytic phonics in which the teacher has students analyze phonic elements according to the phonograms in the word. A phonogram, known in linguistics as a rime, is composed of the vowel and all the sounds that follow it. Teachers using the analogy method assist students in memorizing a bank of phonograms, such as -at or -am. Students then use these phonograms to analogize to unknown words.

Embedded phonics is the hallmark of traditional whole language phonics programs. Phonics is taught in the context of literature using "mini-lessons," short lessons that emphasize phonic elements with which the teacher has seen students struggle. The focus on meaning is generally maintained, but the mini-lesson provides some time for focus on individual sounds or phonograms. Embedded phonics differs from other methods in that the instruction is always in the context of literature and that separate lessons are not typically taught.

Owing to the shifting debate over time (see "History and Controversy" above), many school systems, such as California's, have made major changes in the method they have used to teach early reading. Today, most teachers combine phonics with the elements of whole language that focus on reading comprehension, as Adams advocated.[2] This combined approach is often called balanced literacy. Proponents of various approaches generally agree that a combined approach is important. A few stalwarts favor isolated synthetic phonics and introduction of intensive reading comprehension only after children have mastered sound-symbol correspondences. On the other side, some whole language supporters are intransigent in arguing that phonics should be taught little, if at all. Generally, however, the balanced literacy approach has settled much of the disagreement in the United States.

There has been a resurgence in interest in synthetic phonics in recent years, particularly in the United Kingdom. The subject has been promoted by a cross-party group of Parliamentarians, particularly Nick Gibb MP. A recent report by the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee called for a review of the phonics content in the National Curriculum. The Department for Education and Skills have since announced a review into early years reading, headed by Jim Rose.

Jim Rose's group has now reported and the UK Government has decreed that synthetic phonics should be the method of choice for teaching reading in primary schools in England.
Phonics is the core of beginning reading programs like Hooked on Phonics.

History and controversy

Because of the complexity of the English alphabetic structure, more than a century of debate has occurred over whether English phonics ought to be taught at all. Beginning in the mid 19th century, some American educators, prominently Horace Mann, argued this point precisely. This led to the commonly used "look-say" approach ensconced in the "Dick and Jane" readers popular in the mid-20th century. Beginning in the 1950's, however, phonics resurfaced as a method of teaching reading. Spurred by Rudolph Flesch's polarizing, bombastic criticism of the absence of phonics instruction--particularly in his popular book, Why Johnny Can't Read--phonics resurfaced, but--owing to Flesch's polemical approach--was considered a product of a politicized way of educational thinking. The popularity of phonics rose, but many educators associated it with "back to basics" pedagogy and eschewed it.

In the 1980s, the "whole language" approach to reading further polarized the debate in the United States. Whole language instruction was predicated on the principle that children could learn to read given (a) proper motivation, (b) access to quality literature, (c) many reading opportunities, (d) focus on meaning, and (e) instruction to help students use meaning clues to determine the pronunciation of unknown words. For some advocates of whole language, phonics was the antithesis of this emphasis on getting at the meaning. Parsing words into small chunks and reassembling them had no connection to the ideas the author wanted to convey. Much of the whole language theory easily dovetailed with phonics, but the whole language emphasis on understanding words through context and focusing only a little on the sounds (usually the alphabet consonants and the short vowels) could not be reconciled with the phonics emphasis on individual sound-symbol correspondences. Thus, a false dichotomy between the whole language approach and phonics emerged in the United States, leading to intense debate and ultimately to a Congressionally-commissioned book and two government-funded panels focused on phonics.

The book, Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print (Adams, 1990), argued that phonics was an effective way for students to learn to read. Adams argued strongly that both the phonics and the whole language advocates were right. Phonics was an effective way to teach students the alphabetic code. By learning the alphabetic code early, students could quickly free up mental energy they had used to word analysis and devote this mental effort to meaning, leading to stronger comprehension earlier in elementary education. This result matched the goal of whole language instruction while the means supported the advocates of phonics.

The argument, eventually known as "the Great Debate" continued unabated. The National Research Council re-examined the question of phonics (among other questions in education) and published the results of its Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998). The National Research Council's findings matched those of Adams. Phonics was a very effective way to teach children to read, more effective than what was known as the "embedded phonics" approach of whole language (where phonics was taught opportunistically in the context of literature). They found that phonics must be systematic (following a sequence of increasingly challenging phonics patterns) and explicit (teaching students precisely how the patterns worked, i.e., "this is b, it stands for the /b/ sound").

The final attempt to determine what approach made the most sense was undertaken by the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2001), which examined quantitative research studies on phonics (as well as other areas of reading instruction). Their meta-analysis of hundreds of studies confirmed the findings of the National Research Council: phonics is a more effective way to teach children to read than is embedded phonics or no phonics instruction. They found that phonics had particularly strong benefits for students of low socio-economic status.

Consonant phonics patterns

· Consonant digraphs are those spellings wherein two letters are used to represent a consonant phoneme. The most common consonant digraphs are ch for /t?/, ng for /ŋ/, ph for /f/, th for /θ/ and /ð/, and wh for /?/ (often pronounced /w/ in American English). Letter combinations like wr for /?/ and kn for /n/ are also consonant digraphs, although these are sometimes considered patterns with "silent letters."
· Short vowel+consonant patterns involve the spelling of the sounds /k/ as in peek, /d?/ as in stage, and /t?/ as in speech. These sounds each have two possible spellings at the end of a word, ck and k for /k/, dge and ge for /d?/, and tch and ch for /t?/. The spelling is determined by the type of vowel that precedes the sound. If a short vowel precedes the sound, the former spelling is used, as in pick, judge, and match. If a short vowel does not precede the sound, the latter spelling is used, as in took, barge, and launch.

The final "short vowel+consonant pattern" is just one example of dozens that can be used to help children unpack the challenging English alphabetic code. This example illustrates that, while complex, English spelling retains order and reason.


Sight words and high frequency words

There is a body of words that do not follow these rules; they are called "sight words". Sight words must be memorized since the regular rules do not apply, e.g., were, who, you.
Teachers who use phonics also often teach students to memorize the most high frequency words in English, such as it, he, them, and when, even though these words are fully decodable. The argument for teaching these "high frequency words" is that knowing them will improve students' reading fluency.

Vowel phonics patterns

· Short vowels are the five single letter vowels, a, e, i, o, and u when they produce the sounds /æ/ as in cat, /?/ as in bet, /?/ as in sit, /?/ as in hot, and /?/ as in cup.
· Long vowels are the synonymous with the names of the single letter vowels, such as /e?/ in baby, /i/ in meter, /??/ in tiny, /o?/ in broken, and /ju/ in humor.
· Schwa is the third sound that most of the single vowel spellings can produce. The schwa is an indistinct sound of a vowel in an unstressed syllable, represented by the linguistic symbol ?. /?/ is the sound made by the o in lesson. Schwa is a vowel pattern that is not always taught to elementary school students because it is difficult to understand. However, some educators make the argument that schwa should be included in primary reading programs because of its importance in reading English words.
· Closed syllables are syllables in which a single vowel letter is followed by a consonant. In the word button, both syllables are closed syllables because they contain single vowels followed by consonants. Therefore, the letter u' represents the short sound /?/. (The o in the second syllable makes the /?/ sound because it is an unstressed syllable.)
· Open syllables are syllables in which a vowel appears at the end of the syllable. The vowel will say its long sound. In the word basin, ba is an open syllable and therefore says /be?/.
· Diphthongs are linguistic elements that fuse to adjacent vowel sounds. English has four common diphthongs. The commonly recognized diphthongs are /æw/ as in cow and /??/ as in boil. Four of the long vowels are also technically diphthongs, /ei/, /??/, /o?/, and /ju/, which partly accounts for the reason they are considered "long."
· Vowel digraphs are those spelling patterns wherein two letters are used to represent the vowel sound. The ai in sail is a vowel digraph. Because the first letter in a vowel digraph sometimes says its long vowel sound, as in sail, some phonics programs once taught that "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." This convention has been almost universally discarded, owing to the many non-examples. The au spelling of the /?/ sound and the oo spelling of the /u/ and /?/ sounds do not follow this pattern.
· Vowel-consonant-E spellings are those wherein a single vowel letter, followed by a consonant and the letter e makes the long vowel sound. Examples of this include bake, theme, hike, cone, and cute. (The ee spelling, as in meet is sometimes considered part of this pattern.)

Basic rules

Alphabetic principle

English spelling is based upon the alphabetic principle, the idea that letters represent sounds. For example, the word pat is composed of three letters, p, a, and t, each representing a phoneme, respectively, /p/, /æ/, and /t/.[1] Some letters in English regularly represent one sound, such as b, m, p, and t. However, the alphabetic principle is not sufficient to represent all of the spellings in English.

Reading in English also requires understanding of additional patterns that do not follow the "one letter-one sound" principle. For example, the word shirt is composed of five letters which represent only three sounds, /?/, /?/, and /t/. The connections between spellings (also called graphemes) and sounds are called "sound-symbol correspondences" or "sound-spelling correspondences," among other names.

Sound-symbol correspondences often follow certain conventions, and these conventions are often called "phonics rules" or "phonics patterns." English has many phonics patterns. These vary considerably in the degree to which they follow the stated pattern. For example, the letters ee almost always represent /i/. On the other hand, the grapheme ough represents /?f/ as in enough, /o?/ as in though, /u/ as in through, /?f/ as in cough, and /?/ as in bought. Therefore, teachers generally teach that ee says /i/ but rarely teach a pattern for the letters ough. Because a large body of patterns that constantly conflict is antithetical to students remembering the patterns they are taught, elementary school children often learn a selection of these patterns known to be most consistent. A selection of these is given below, although not all of these are taught by teachers.

Phonics

Phonics

Phonics refers to a instructional design for teaching children to read. Phonics involves teaching children to connect sounds with letters or groups of letters (e.g., that the sound /k/ can be represented by c, k, or ck spellings).

Phonics in English
Phonics is a widely used method of teaching children to read, although it is not without controversy (see "History and Controversy" below). Children begin learning to read using phonics usually around the age of 5 or 6. Teaching English reading using phonics requires children to learn the connections between letter patterns and the sounds they represent. Phonics instruction requires the teacher to provide students with a core body of information about phonics rules, or patterns.