Cycles of Instruction

The TSTL lays out suggested instruction of letter names and sounds in cycles rather than through a single exposure that occurs in more traditional “letter of the week” routines.

Children learn best through repeated exposure over time (Texas Education Agency, 2002) which requires revisiting concepts regularly. Introducing or re-visiting three to four letters per week (shared between French and English educators), in conjunction with regular reviews, allows for these concepts to be solidified over time. 

The overarching goal of Cycle 1 is to develop the foundations for students that will be required to find success in future learning. This cycle allows beginning students time to learn and become familiar with the routines and expectations of most group learning. Students returning for a second year of Kindergarten will have time to resettle into these routines and model familiar expectations for their new peers. The concepts explored through Cycle 1 are:  

• Establishing foundational language skills and concepts (e.g., first/last)

• Exploring early phonological awareness skills using larger units of sound (e.g, syllable, body-coda, onset-rime) to scaffold blending and segmenting sounds 

• Developing one-to-one correspondence (e.g., one letter name per letter form, one object per number counted)

• Refining visual discrimination skills (matching letters)

• Concepts of print and alphabetic principle (left to right, letters make up words) 

• Practicing of pre-writing strokes (with and without writing tools)

***You will notice that Cycle 1 does not yet make use of embedded mnemonics as the focus is on letter identification, not sound, at this early stage. See SECTION 9 of the TSTL for further information and instructional considerations

Cycle 2 begins the work to pair letter names with their sounds and forms. The OCDSB’s embedded mnemonic alphabet and associated gestures were designed to support alphabet learning throughout this cycle and beyond, as needed. The goals of this cycle encompass:

• Pairing letter names and letter sounds with the support of embedded mnemonics and gestures

• Orally identifying beginning sounds in words (and then final sounds)

• Pairing initial sounds with graphemes (and then final sounds)

• Decoding and encoding single graphemes

• Forming pre-writing strokes and using pre-writing strokes to form some letters

It is recommended that all classes follow Cycle 1 with Cycle 2 instruction. While Year 2 students may have learned all of the letter names and sounds during their first year of the program, they may not yet have developed automaticity (producing the letter name or sound in less than 2 seconds) and often lose some skills during the summer months. Review of letter formation likely will also be beneficial. As such, this cycle might serve different functions for students at different levels. Cycle 2 may act as a review, reinforcement or an introduction depending on the student. 

  ***See SECTION 10 of the TSTL for further information and instructional considerations

The overarching goals of Cycle 3 are skill refinement, building automaticity of letter and sound recall, as well as the application of skills and knowledge acquired. This cycle also involves gap closing of student skills and targeted expectations even as new concepts are introduced. Gap closing will likely occur through a combination of targeted, small group instruction for some students, and the reteaching/reviewing of challenging letter knowledge and phonemic awareness skills for most group instruction. Concepts explored in Cycle 3 are: 

• Targeting letters and sounds that assessment data shows need more attention

• Pairing initial and final sounds with graphemes

• Orally identifying beginning, middle, and end sounds in words

• Orally blending and segmenting VC and CVC words

• Beginning to blend VC words paired with graphemes (once successful, move to CVC)

• Printing letters using verbal pathways and/or continue working on pre-writing strokes as needed

CYCLE 3 ASSESSMENT

Educator teams will have recently completed progress monitoring and will have data on students in the areas of letter knowledge, phonological awareness and handwriting skills. 

Data gathered in the areas of letter knowledge will inform:

• how many and which upper/lower case letter names have been learned (with or without automaticity)

• how many and which upper/lower case letter sounds have been learned (with or without automaticity)

Data gathered in the areas of phonological and phonemic knowledge will inform teams which students can orally:

• isolate phonemes (at the beginning, final and/or medial position)

• blend, and/or segment phonemes (in words with 2-3 sounds, or possibly more)

Data gathered in the areas of handwritings skills (see Appendix D.4, page 133 for a useful template) during observation of drawing, writing, building, painting and tinkering will show teams which students:

• have established hand dominance

• can cross the midline

• have a functional grasp (ie., tripod grasp, quadropod grasp, or modified tripod grasp)

• can form pre-writing strokes

Collation of this data will be the basis for planning next steps - either within or across cycles of instruction. Educator teams will determine which skills and/or content knowledge are presenting the most challenge for individual students, small groups of students or possibly many students.

Based on this, pedagogical decisions may include: 

1. 1. repeating Cycle 2 for core instruction if most students cannot recall most letter names and sounds;

   2. repeating whole group instruction for the specific skills/content knowledge that are challenging most students, while teaching new concepts from Cycle 3;

   3. planning targeted small group instruction for the students who need continued support and practice while beginning Cycle 3 for whole group instruction.

If you find that your class is spread across the levels of development, it may make sense to run two or three smaller groups instead of a most group time. 

Cycle 4 is intended and expected to be used in a small group setting for students who have mastered the skills introduced in the first three cycles. This cycle presents a shift in routine away from a letter knowledge focus (Hear it/Say it, Name it/See it, Find it, Make it) towards a routine that supports the development of decoding and encoding skills. For phonemic awareness work it is time to add some challenge. This may mean blending and segmenting 4+ phonemes words, or it could mean working with more complex skills (addition/deletion/substitution) with 2-3 phoneme words. The following are the overarching goals:

• Reinforcing concepts taught through first three cycles (ensure automaticity with all letters and sounds and oral blending and segmenting of CVC words)

• Reviewing alphabet knowledge to cue new learning

• Blending and segmenting VC and CVC words orally and paired with graphemes

• Orally blending and segmenting CCVC and CVCC words with digraphs

• Exploring digraphs (i.e., /ch/, /ck/, /sh/, /th/, /wh/) and suffixes (i.e., -s, -es, -ed, -ing)

• Begin introducing “heart” words (high frequency words, regular and irregular)

• Printing letters using verbal pathways and/or continue working on pre-writing strokes as needed

CYCLE 4 Planning & Assessment Considerations

The reading target for Kindergarten, in line with the current Kindergarten Program (2016), is that students know all of their letter names, the corresponding sounds, and recognize letter forms to automaticity. Blending multiple sounds in writing is not included in these targets, however, it is important that if some students demonstrate readiness to move beyond these targets and onto the Language Foundations Continuum for word level reading and spelling (Ministry of Ontario, 2023), that educators are providing them with this level of instruction. By the same token, it is crucial that educators respect the importance of developing the foundational skills outlined in the first three cycles which set students up for future reading and writing success. As stated in The Kindergarten Program (2016), page 67:

…the child may become frustrated and discouraged if the literacy learning is beyond his or her cognitive ability or if the demands of the learning call for greater social or emotional maturity.

With this in mind, Cycle 4 will certainly only be appropriate for small groups made up of developmentally similar students who are prepared for the demands of this increasing challenge. Cycle 4 addresses how to move forward with instruction for these students. Students might be considered ready for Cycle 4 instruction once they demonstrate:

• the ability to “tune into sounds” (i.e., can hear and identify individual sounds in the beginning, end, and middle position in a word);

• an emerging understanding that there is a systematic and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds (alphabetic principle);

• automaticity with many letter-sound correspondences;

• an emerging ability to read and spell VC and CVC words (with manipulatives or by printing) using phonemes and corresponding graphemes that have been explicitly taught

• use of approximate spellings of words, based on the student’s ability to hear, identify and manipulate sounds 

As always, keep in mind that the skills involved to begin printing (e.g., pre-writing strokes, control of a writing tool) do not necessarily develop at the same speed as alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness. Readiness to engage in Cycle 4 does not rely on printing readiness. A child might encode words using letter cards, magnetic letters or other means. Continue supporting development of gross and fine motor skills as outlined in Section 5 on page 28.

HELPFUL MATERIALS:

• Routines and structures to support literacy instruction

• Playful practice: ideas for games, whole-group activities, transitions and centers

• Pre-writing strikes, printing and composaition: Section 5

• Assessment tools: Section 7

What might the cycles look like throughout the year?    It depends...

Below are two examples (of many) possible ways that the cycles might be approached across a year based on the assessment results of a particular class. Given that children master skills at different rates and that the developmental divide between the youngest Kindergarten students and the oldest can be wide, classes may find that learners are best served by two different cycles. Where possible, educators might consider breaking the class into two groups (after cycles 1 and 2 have been completed together), following two different cycles. 

Planning Considerations in 50/50 Bilingual Kindergarten

The work of alphabet and phonemic awareness instruction is shared work, all educators on the team must be involved. How this instruction is scheduled throughout the day and across the week will depend on your context. There are many considerations, including: how language of instruction is scheduled (half day model, day on/day off, week on/week off), flow of the day, class profile and student need as determined by assessment, etc. Doing this work effectively and efficiently is essential for supporting reading success for all. For this reason, we cannot work in silos. French teachers, English teachers and RECEs will need to work from a shared plan. For general support in developing team effectiveness, see the Teams that Thrive team development video and handout in Appendix C, on page 110.