How to Use Phonics to Teach Reading
Yup, another homework assignment, but I’m learning soooooooo much, and every time I do, I just think of something else to make to help the Goblins get on this Reading Railroad!
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is being aware of the little sounds that letters make and knowing that those sounds put together — make words. It is the foundation of reading and becoming a fluent reader, so it ranks up there in importance. But it’s not that easy in English, because of the ‘borrowed’ words. English has about 80% of its words taken from other languages. Seems more like a stolen vibe to me, but that’s another discussion. Also, the sounds don’t have a one to one correspondence with the letters, which makes it even more difficult. Meaning, lead can sound like the stuff in pencils, or it can sound like what leaders do. Hella difficult!
The 5 levels of phonemic awareness are:
Knowing and identifying the individual parts of the words (beginning middle and ending sounds)
Creating and differentiating rhyming words
Knowing the syllable breakdown in the word
Recognizing that these words form sentences, and
The all powerful blending.
Blending Consonants
Beaded Bracelet
/b/ /ea/ /d/ makes the word bead
Blending CVC Words
/d/ /o/ /g/ makes the word dog
Consonant blends - FALSE. TRUE. MAYBE.
Consonant digraphs - Chalk - cheese- photo - and - graph. Ok, that’s a stretch, but photograph could be one word.
Vowel digraphs - Oh, I like these… chair, speak, and point
Blending Activities
Emergent readers need a lotta practice with all 5 of these skills… I mean they need to know it forward and backward and in the damn dark to make this reading thing happen.
Take every opportunity you can to stuff some learning into the fun.
Use the words to make short sentences.
Blending to make words.
Have a ‘to go’ box of activities ready for the car… it just takes a cool old school metal lunchbox and some letters for the first run.
If you’re a real rebel rouser, you can try salt in a pencil case to trace words in the car… some kiddos need to ‘feel’ it, and it’s still cheap and cheerful!
Dollar store and a printer and you have yourself a crap-load of blending activities…
Not sure if this is a guideline or strategy, but I like to teach the word families, like the patterns. I’d probably use that one and then always find an outlier, someone that just doesn’t follow the rule or pattern, but is still a valid word. Gotta love those guys. Like Kansas. If Kansas = Kansas, why does Arkansas = Ark-an-saw
I really like to have the students proofread their work as well. You know, let them write little sentences and then let another student look them over and see if they make sense. Having them reread their own papers and proofing it themselves, is an awesome start. That gives us a chance to spell how we think and read and reread the corrected word (in purple of course). I mean, does anyone still grade papers in red? Ugh, yes, I’m rolling my eyes! And as long as they can use a cool colored pen to proofread, they are happy as pigs in slop! Trust.
That is a fat cat in a hat.
Snapping to the syllables in a word… we call this ‘SnapChat’ in class
Notice my pencil lines - after the fact!
Should phonics be taught in isolation? or as part of a balanced approach? Phonics should be taught with other parts of reading and literacy as a balanced framework for language arts. Do we really learn anything in isolation? If you teach phonics alone, the students will try and sound out the sight words. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s not pretty. It actually hurts to hear it.
Order of Teaching
It’s been agreed upon by the smart folk in academia that the order within the categories don’t matter, but the order of the categories do matter.
So, this is the order for teaching:
letter names, letter sounds and rhyming words (being able to say and recognize them (not spell)
3 and 4 letter words, that have a Consonant beginning, Vowel middle, and Consonant ending - such as m-a-t and f-i-g and m-o-m
more difficult blends, like d-e-ck and m-a-th and b-ir-d - these are called digraphs (because they have 2 letters to them
Vocabulary is a different beast… never skimp at the chance to teach a new meaning of the word, no matter how young. We have college words on our KG spelling list. They don’t need to be able to spell it, but should be able to use it in their conversations and get the general meaning of the word.
If you are still reading this, you’ve won the prize! Click here to download the file that shows you how to make the little Blend Book yourself! Or you can buy the Printable Blend Book.
And if you really, really like it, buy the physical book for $9.99. It’s going to be the springboard to my reading program.