What are the Foundational Skills in Reading?

The foundational skills in reading identify a set of skills students must master before they can become fluent readers. These skills include alphabetic concepts, concepts of print, phonological awareness, phonics, high-frequency words, and fluency.

What is phonics?

Phonics is the system of relationships between letters and sounds in a language. When students learn that the letter d has the sound of /d/ and later learn that “sion” sounds like /shun/, they are learning phonics.

Why is it important?

Learning phonics helps students learn to read and spell. Written language can be compared to a code, so knowing the sounds of letters and letter combinations will help students decode words as he/she reads. Knowing phonics will also help a child know which letters to use as he/she writes words.

What is the difference between phonics and language study? How are these two things related?

Language study is about learning vocabulary, parts of speech, and proper sentence composition. Phonics is related because as students learn how to read and write words, they begin to learn word meanings and word usage.

How do we teach foundational skills and language study in Ridgefield?

In Ridgefield, the teaching of foundational skills occurs across the year and across the grades, each grade reviewing, reinforcing, and building from a previously-developed foundation. Phonics starts in kindergarten by learning all of the letter names while also learning the sounds that are associated with each letter. Students are taught to blend sounds together, to sound words out when writing, and begin to build a sight vocabulary. From there, students are introduced to other elements of foundational skills such as syllables, plurals, possessives, and contractions. In 3rd grade, the focus shifts to a study of language usage, looking more at grammar, syntax, and word meanings.

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

The student will . . .

• Trimester 1
  • understand onset (initial phonological unit) / rime (the letters that follow).
  • segment words into syllables.
  • isolate and identify phonemes.
  • blend and segment phonemes.
  • understand the substitution of initial sounds.
• Trimester 2
  • understand substitution of initial and final sounds.
• Trimester 3
  • understand substitution of medial sounds.
  • distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

The student will . . .

• Trimester 1
  • master letter formation for upper and lowercase letters (if still needed).
  • master idea that each syllable must have a vowel sound.
  • blend, read and writing CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words (e.g., cat, tub, bed).
  • read and write words with digraphs (wh, sh, ch, th, ck), two letter blends (bl, br, cl, cr, fl, fr, pl, pr, sp, st), and common rimes/glued sounds (e.g., -all, -am, -an, -ng, -nk).
  • introduce the concept of base word.
  • read and write simple plurals (requires -s).
  • read and write compound words.
• Trimester 2
  • read and write inflectional endings: -ed, -ing.
  • blend, read, and write words with 4 sounds + suffix -s.
  • long vowel sounds for vowel consonant -e.
  • identify and read syllable types (closed and vowel consonant -e).
  • identify and read open syllable in one syllable words.
  • read soft sounds of c and g.
  • read and write basic contractions: n’t.
  • read y as a vowel in one and two syllable words.
• Trimester 3
  • blend, read, and write words with 5 sounds + suffix -s.
  • read and write prefixes: un-, re-.
  • introduce possessives.
  • identify, read, and write common letter combinations for vowel sounds in single syllable words, e.g., a-e, ai, ay, e-e, ea, ee, i-e, ie, igh, o-e, oa, oo, ou, ow, u-e, ui.

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

The student will . . .

• Trimester 1
  • read 40+ Fry* words.
  • write a core of 25+ words.
• Trimester 2
  • read 120+ Fry words.
  • write a core of 40+ high frequency words.
• Trimester 3
  • read 200+ Fry words.
  • write a core of 50+ high frequency words.

*Fry words are lists of words that occur with the greatest frequently in the English language.