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
  • categorize letters by features.
  • distinguish between upper and lower case.
  • recognize and produce names of all upper case letters.
  • recognize and produce names of all lower case letters.
• Trimester 2
  • use efficient and consistent motions to form letters.
• Trimester 3
  • distinguish between consonants and vowels.
  • understand alphabetical order of letters.

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

The student will . . .

• Trimester 1
  • understand there is a relationship between sounds and letters.
  • match words with beginning sounds.
• Trimester 2
  • write one letter for each sound heard.
  • introduce initial, final, and medial sounds (in this order).
  • recognize and say digraphs wh, sh, th, ch.
• Trimester 3
  • recognize and produce sounds of all consonants including hard and soft g and c.
  • recognize and produce long and short sounds of vowels.

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

The student will . . .

• Trimester 1
  • identify rhyme.
  • hear and say syllables (clap, count).
  • blend onset and rime.
  • produce rhyme.
  • segment sentences into words.
• Trimester 2
  • blend 2 and 3 phonemes into words.
  • segment words into phonemes.
  • introduce initial sound substitution.
• Trimester 3
  • introduce final sound substitution.
  • introduce medial sound substitution.
  • exposure to concept that every word has vowel sound.

CONTENT OBJECTIVES

The student will . . .

• Trimester 1
• Trimester 2
  • read a core of 15 words.
• Trimester 3
  • write a core of 20-25 words: a, am, an, and, at, can, come, do, go, he, I, in, is, it, like, me, my, no, see, so, the, to, up, we, you.
  • read a core of 35+ words.