Phonics Instruction



This past year I have been in a literacy training class and I have learned a lot about helping my struggling readers.  There are many components that work together to create a good reader.  This is going to be a very generic overview of these components.  Being a good reader includes phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, and language comprehension.  All of these components happen in different parts of the brain.  Regardless, how these components develop is still a developmental process.  We must help our students develop their brains in the right way in order for them to become good readers.

Phonemic awareness has to do with the spoken language.  Phonemes are the individual sounds within our words.  For example, the word cat has 3 phonemes.  We hear a /k/, /ӑ/, and /t/.  One of the things that makes learning to read and write English is that we have many ways to represent some phonemes.  Some are fairly easy to remember, such as bath - /b/ /ӑ/ /th/.  The /th/ is made up of two letters that work together to make one sounds, but that sound is pretty much always made up of those letters.  A trickier one would be the /k/ sound.  That could be made up of c, k, ch, and kh.  There are probably even more, but those are just some that popped into my head.  Keep in mind that the ch can also make the /ch/ sound like in much.  Students with hearing impairments, speech impairments, or are learning English have a marked disadvantage when it comes to phonemic awareness for many different reasons.  They have to be able to hear the sounds and produce the sound correctly before they can read and write the sounds correctly.  This is why those songs and nursery rhymes in preschool are so important.  I will address that more at another time.

Phonics is the instruction that connects the spoken language to the written language.  We typically begin this in Pre-K and/or kindergarten and expect students to have most of it mastered by the time they enter first grade.  This is where we start to see the largest discrepancy in what students should be able to do and what they are capable of doing if there is any type of deficit.  At this time the students will most likely work with an intervention teacher.  If the extra, targeted instruction is not producing noticeable growth, the student may then be referred for special education testing.  What qualifies a student for special education is complex, and I am still learning.  I do not work with students until/unless they have qualified for special education services due to a specific learning disability (SLD) or other health impairment (OHI). 

 For my phonics instruction (which is the meat and potatoes of reading instruction), I use magnetic letters on a cookie sheet, both of which can be purchased relatively inexpensively at Walmart or a similar store.  The original set I created by printing the letters onto an 8.5x11 inch sticky label.  You could also use alphabet stickers or a permanent marker to put the letters onto the cookie sheet.  The reason for having them permanently on the cookie sheet is so that the letters always get put back in the correct order.  This helps the student find them quickly.

 We always start with CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words like cat and dog.  Start with one vowel at a time.  I usually start with /ӑ/ and move on to /ŏ/.  These seem to be the easiest ones for the students to hear and remember.  Many of them struggle more when we add in the /ĭ/ and the /ĕ/.  Some of them struggle a little with the /ŭ/. 

Once they have become very proficient with these, we start adding in the digraphs (letters that work together to make one sound), /th/, /ch/ and /sh/.  There are others, but these are the ones we focus on at this stage.  After they have mastered those, we add in consonant blends. 

I have created printables of word-parts tiles.  These include individual letters, digraphs and consonant blends, word families and ending sounds. These can be printed and cut apart to make manipulatives to aid in phonics instruction.  The tiles are color coded to help you and your student differentiate the different word parts.  It is important to only work with a few at a time.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CVC Words

CVC Words are consonant-vowel-consonant words such as cat and dog.  When working on CVC words with students, I usually do “chaining” activities where I call out words where I am just changing one sound from the previous words.  If a student is still working on vowel sounds, I will usually just use one or two vowel sounds so that they can distinguish between the two.  As they become more proficient, I add another vowel, and so on.  Keep two things in mind when doing phonics practice.  1 st , make sure the student is always working in the reading direction (left to right).  I use an arrow to remind them.  2 nd , it is extremely common for students at this level to mix up the b and d.  They  know  the sounds, but it is really hard to tell the letters apart.  I hold up both thumbs and remind them of /b/ /d/ rule and then they usually figure it out.  Also, don’t allow them to struggl...
Read more

Fluency

Fluency is a term used to describe how well a reader reads.   There are a few different aspects to being a fluent reader.   At the earliest levels, fluency has to do with how smoothly a student reads and how well they use inflection in their reading.   As they become more proficient, generally by about second grade, we start to measure fluency as how many words they can read correctly in one minute. Fluency is important because unless we are reading with fluency, we will not understand what we are reading.   How many times have you been reading something that includes words from a foreign language and you are busy trying to decipher the meaning of the words?   Or perhaps in a textbook in college?   We often have to go back and re-read materials if we were not able to read them fluently, because we missed the meaning of what we just read. In the Resource Room, we typically do not measure “fluency” the same way that the general education teachers do...
Read more

Consonant Blends

Consonant Blends Once students have mastered CVC words (or have at least 85% accuracy), you can move on to consonant blends.  Remember to only focus on 2-3 sounds at a time when starting out. Video Example Example Consonant Blending Chaining Activity: stick flick click slick slack black flack clack clock block flock I have created printables of word-parts tiles.    These include  individual letters ,  digraphs and consonant blends ,  word families  and  ending sounds . These can be printed and cut apart to make manipulatives to aid in phonics instruction.    The tiles are color coded to help you and your student differentiate the different word parts.    It is important to only work with a few at a time.
Read more