Phonics

UFLI: (University of Florida Literacy Institute) Foundations is a highly structured and research-based reading program designed to help children become strong readers and spellers

• Phonics: This is the core of UFLI. It teaches children how letters and groups of letters represent sounds (e.g., "c" makes the /k/ sound, "sh" makes the /sh/ sound). They learn to "decode" words by sounding them out.

• Phonemic Awareness: This is the ability to hear, identify, and play with individual sounds in spoken words (like breaking "cat" into /c/, /a/, /t/ or blending those sounds back together).

• Decoding and Encoding: Students practice both reading words (decoding) and spelling words (encoding) using the phonics rules they've learned.

• Irregular Words (Heart Words): UFLI also addresses "heart words" – words that don't follow typical phonics rules (like "said" or "was"). Children learn to recognize the parts of these words that are regular and "learn by heart" the irregular parts. (formerly known as sight words but sight words can be sounded out when students learn the rule or pattern to help sound out the word, but some words are irregular so these words don't follow the rules we've learned)

• Connected Text: Once children have a grasp of sounds and words, they apply these skills to reading sentences and longer passages.