Phonics

Students respond quickly when teachers deliver systematic phonics instruction. Students in the early grades can more readily recognize letters and letter sounds, segmenting, and blending if they are receiving systematic phonics instruction."-Education Week.org

Students who are fluent readers with grade-level text by the end of third grade are more likely to have an adequate understanding of letter-sound combinations; this understanding then facilitates the bootstrapping of further word learning.- David Liben, David D. Paige, Bellarmine University

What are Phonics?

Phonics is the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. Children's reading development is dependent on their understanding of the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language. Learning that there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters allows children to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words, and to begin to read with fluency.

http://www.readingrockets.org

Examples

First Grade

Letter-sound correspondences for consonants (C)

Single consonants

Blends/clusters such as bl, cr-, st-

Digraphs such a: sh-, ph-, th-

Words with a short vowel (V): CVC, CCVC, CVCC (e.g., dog, frog, bill)

Words with a long vowel with a silent “e”/magic “e”/ bossy “e”: CVCe words (e.g., make, came)

Plural ‘s’ and verb endings (e.g., talked, talking)

Second Grade

Vowel digraphs (e.g., boat, thief, train)

R-influenced vowels (e.g., car, fir, forest)

Recognizing affixes and base words

Prefix: untie, retell, disorder

Suffix: sadly, taller, tallest, graceful

Phonics Assessments

Real and the nonsense words Phonics Assessments

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ifzg1D7zzA-WqJrXAsVc2zOeMHPwul1kH9DESEzG8vo/edit?usp=sharing

Phonic Elements: Assessment

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/phonic-elements-assessment

Teaching & Learning Phonics

Analogy phonics
Teaching students unfamiliar words by analogy to known words (e.g., recognizing that the rime segment of an unfamiliar word is identical to that of a familiar word, and then blending the known rime with the new word onset, such as reading brick by recognizing that -ick is contained in the known word kick, or reading stump by analogy to jump).
Analytic phonics
Teaching students to analyze letter-sound relations in previously learned words to avoid pronouncing sounds in isolation.
Embedded phonics
Teaching students phonics skills by embedding phonics instruction in text reading, a more implicit approach that relies to some extent on incidental learning.
Phonics through spelling
Teaching students to segment words into phonemes and to select letters for those phonemes (i.e., teaching students to spell words phonemically).
Synthetic phonics
Teaching students explicitly to convert letters into sounds (phonemes) and then blend the sounds to form recognizable words.

(http://www.readingrockets.org)

Teaching should be Systematic & Explicit - learningattheprimarypond.com

Systematic means that we progress through a specific scope and sequence. For example, if students are ready to learn short vowel word families, we don’t teach miscellaneous word families as they appear in our shared reading stories. We have a plan to teach the -at word family, then -an, etc. It also means that instruction goes from easy to complex and includes built-in review and repetition (Blevins, 2017).
Explicit means that we have to directly teach students about letters, words, and spelling patterns. We use thinkalouds and clear language so that students gain strategies for reading and writing words. Although we can encourage students to make their own discoveries about words, we don’t expect them to do it on their own.

Differentiation

"In order to be most effective, phonics instruction needs to be differentiated, so that it matches the specific level of the learners. This includes beginning letter sound instruction." -learningattheprimarypond.com

Explicit teaching (teacher show and tell)

(a) Of new grapheme-phoneme correspondences. And/or
(b) of the skills of blending, segmenting and writing (using the new GPCs and those previously taught). Initially blending and segmenting should be done orally, then with ‘written words’. Both real and pseudo/non-words should be used. And/or
(c) of new irregular words (1-6 per week).

The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model, Pearson & Gallagher (1983), should be used to develop student confidence:

Firstly, ‘I do’ – the teacher explains the knowledge and models the skill, strategy or process, thinking aloud.
Secondly, ‘We do’ – the student is given guided practice. This initially takes the form of working with the teacher step-by-step through examples but can progress to work in pairs or small groups. Check for understanding by calling on some non-volunteers. Additional examples should be provided for weaker students and extensions for more able students.
Thirdly, ‘You do’ – after success has been achieved in guided practice, the student is required to independently use the information/skills/strategies. The student should be working in the ‘zone of proximal development’, therefore independent tasks should be individualised. An able student, for example, might be required to read or write words containing more sounds or syllables than that required of peers.

Leveled Books:

" A leveled library system helps students select books that are appropriate based on the level on which they are reading."-https://www.scholastic.com/

In a leveled reading library, students are provided with their "just right" reading level through periodic assessment. This gives them guidance on what book selections to make in the classroom library. Each student will have their just right book level throughout the academic year and modified as appropriate. The library will offer a diverse selection of books to accommodate a spectrum of students are varied levels in one room.

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