Phonics
Teach students to connect sounds to letters and teach patterns so students will learn to read and spell.
Teach students to connect sounds to letters and teach patterns so students will learn to read and spell.
At school, your child is learning that letters or combinations of letters make certain sounds. At home, you can support by practicing sounds and providing reminders when students sound out words (“That word starts with the /b/ sound, just like in the word ‘ball’. Try to sound it out again but make sure you start with the /b/ sound.”).
When your child stalls on a word, resist saying it. Ask them to touch each letter and say its sound, then blend. Give it ten seconds before helping. When you help, try to zero in on where the child is struggling with the word (EX: If a child reads “stream” as “steam” you may point to the “r” in the word and say something like, “Make sure you get your /r/ sound when you blend that word.”).
Ask the teacher which letters or patterns the class is on (like sh in “sheet” or silent-e in “hope”) and hunt for it together in books, signs, and menus. Practice reading or spelling more words with the sound or pattern.
Pictures are fine for enjoying the story — but the word itself gets solved with letters and sounds, not by guessing from the picture. Encourage your child to decode (sound out) unfamiliar words.
Early phonics books can sound clunky and be a bit boring (“Sam sat on the mat”). That clunkiness is the point — every word is one your child can conquer alone by decoding it (sounding it out). Decodable texts tend to have mainly fair words that can be easily sounded out.
Phonics is the link between individual speech sounds (phonemes) and graphemes (the letters or letters that represent those phonemes) and their application in decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) words. Phonics is sometimes referred to as the "code" of the English language and often targets common patterns, word parts, and expectancies. Research outlines the importance of employing Structured Literacy Principles to teach phonics in a systematic, structured, cumulative, explicit and diagnostic fashion.
Research is clear that literacy is taught best when instruction follows the four Structured Literacy Principles. Here is what each one looks like for phonics.
Instruction follows a logical order, begins with the easiest concepts, and progresses to more difficult concepts (EX: Teachers introduce easier sound patterns first such as the phoneme associated with individual graphemes and progress to more challenging phonemes like digraphs, diphthongs, and trigraphs where two or three graphemes combine to make one sound.).
Each step must be based on concepts previously learned and continual review until mastery must be a part of practice. Systematic, sequential and cumulative learning enhance explicit instruction (EX: Even if a student demonstrates mastery of a sound pattern one day, a teacher may practice the sound over a number of weeks to ensure mastery prior to introducing the next sound in the sequence, additionally the teacher would be aware that there are different forms of mastery. A student may be able to identify the sound a letter makes when presented with the letter, but if they are given the sound and asked to produce the letter or letters that make that sound they may struggle.).
Teachers use approaches such as gradual release of responsibility models (I Do, We Do, You Do) where the teacher models and students have multiple opportunities to practice with support and independently (EX: A teacher may model tapping out each phoneme in a word and attempting to blend the phonemes to read the word. Then, students will get an opportunity to practice as a class with the teacher guiding and providing corrective feedback as needed. Finally, students may work independently to decode words at their desk followed by the class reviewing the words together to ensure accuracy).
Teacher assesses where students are, progress monitors as frequently as possible, diagnoses where skill gaps exist, and adapts instruction as needed (EX: To start the year, a teacher administers a sound/symbol test to see if students can spell a wide range of phoneme patterns or the teacher may give a more extensive phonics screener such as the Core Phonics Screener. Based on overall classroom data, the teacher picks which patterns to prioritize teaching and introduces them from the easiest pattern to the hardest pattern. In addition, the teacher may use individual student data to plan which sounds to practice one-on-one or in small groups based on student needs.).
There is also sufficient evidence suggesting that phonics strategies are more successful when students are provided opportunities to apply what they learn about letters, sounds, patterns, and words to both reading and writing. For this reason, it is recommended that phonics be paired with "meaning-based strategies" where students are taught to decode (sound out and read) words, analyze word parts (graphemes, phonemes, morphemes, roots/affixes, inflectional endings), and write words.
Findings below are drawn from What Works Clearinghouse educator practice guides published by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
The What Works Clearinghouse (2016) practice guide, "Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade: Educator's practice guide" (pg. 29-37), indicates strong evidence for "teaching students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words." This study outlines the importance of teaching blending/chunking/sounding out strategies for reading/spelling, teaching common spelling patterns from easiest to hardest, building words with letter tiles and/or Elkonin boxes, teaching recognition of common word parts (prefixes, suffixes, roots), manipulating word parts, reading decodable words in isolation, reading decodable words in texts, and introducing non-decodable words (and orthographically mapping their sounds per Science of Reading research): https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/WWC/Docs/PracticeGuide/wwc_foundationalreading_040717.pdf The report includes a range of useful information from sound/syllable patterns (see below screenshot sample):
The What Works Clearinghouse (2022) practice guide, "Providing reading intervention for students in grades 4-9: Educator's practice guide" (pg. 11-19), indicates strong evidence for "building students/ decoding skills so they can read complex multisyllabic words." This study outlines the importance of identifying students' word reading skills, teaching sound/symbol (phoneme/grapheme) correspondence, moving from simple phoneme patterns ( /t/) to more complex patterns (/ch/, /ea/, /oi/, /dge/), teaching strategies for decoding multisyllable words, teaching prefixes and suffixes, teaching decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) strategies for single and multisyllable words. The report includes lots of useful suggestions for things like working with multisyllable words (see below screenshot for sample): https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/WWC/Docs/PracticeGuide/WWC-practice-guide-reading-intervention-full-text.pdf
The What Works Clearinghouse (2009) report, "Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to intervention and multi-tier intervention in the primary grades." (pg. 19-) indicates strong evidence" for providing intensive, systematic instruction on up to three foundational reading skills in small groups to students who score below benchmark on universal screening. Table 3 in this document outlines areas to screen and progress monitor includes nonsense word fluency and word identification (See Table 3 below) and Table 4 identifies phonics as a foundational skill (particularly for grades 1-2). Further, the document indicates Tier 2 instruction should take place in small homogenous groups ranging from three to four students using curricula that address the major components of reading instruction (comprehension, fluency, phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary). The areas of instruction are based on the results of students' scores on universal screening. Instruction should be systematic—building skills gradually and introducing skills first in isolation and then integrating them with other skills. Explicit instruction involves more teacher-student interaction, including frequent opportunities for student practice and comprehensible and specific feedback. Intensive instruction should occur three to five times per week for 20 to 40 minutes. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/PracticeGuide/rti_reading_pg_021809.pdf#page=17
The progression of skills from most basic to most difficult is as follows:
Each skill is outlined below, with sample activities to target each skill. A more comprehensive list of sample activities is available via the "phonics" tab on the literacy portal.
Students must learn letter-sound correspondences for all consonants and vowels. Students should be able to identify the sound when given a letter as well as identify the letter when given a sound. Best practices include:
Air Writing: Demonstrate how you can trace letters/sounds in sand, shaving cream, in marker on a dry erase board, etc. Then tell students they will learn how to see and trace a word in the air, visualizing it in front of them, by doing something called air writing. Model this for students by turning your back to them so they can follow your finger movements and see the letter you trace. After you model, students should practice. Teacher says: "This is the letter 'o'. 'O' makes the /o/ sound. Watch me as I say the letter name and then trace it in the air while I say the sound. 'O' says 'o' (tracing shape of 'o'). Now you will all try. What will you say as you start to write/trace?"
Sound Spelling Test: To regularly test students' phoneme/grapheme correspondence, you can conduct a class-wide, small group, or one-on-one sound spelling test. The teacher orally says the phoneme and the students write the grapheme that spells that sound.
Word Assembly: Using the University of Florida Literacy Institute's Word Work Map for Beginners the teacher will choose a sound level appropriate for the students. The teacher will choose to work at the two sound level (consonant vowel, CV or vowel consonant, VC), three sound level (consonant-vowel-consonant, CVC), four sound (consonant consonant vowel consonant, CCVC or consonant vowel consonant consonant, CVCC), or five sound (consonant consonant vowel consonant consonant, CCVCC). Word assembly begins with the teacher placing out all the sounds in a target word, but in mixed up order (EX: For the word "tap" they may lay the letters out in the order "atp" on the word work map). The student(s) must then say the word, segment the sounds using each of their fingers to represent a sound, and then move the letters on the word work map so they are in the right order.
Once students master letter-sound correspondences, it is important for them to learn that sometimes two letters that occur together make one sound. These are called digraphs. Consonant digraphs include: ch, sh, th/th, wh, ck, ph, ng. Use the same strategies outlined under individual letter-sound correspondence to make digraphs stick for students.
Voiced and Unvoiced Sound Sort: Your mouth position is the same when articulating certain sounds (p/b), but one sound is "voiced" (/b/) and one is unvoiced (/p/). Unvoiced is a term for quiet sounds (the vocal cords are not engaged) and voiced is a term for noisy sounds (vocal cords engaged). The "th" digraph has an unvoiced sound (as in "thin" and "thick") and a voiced sound (as in "this" and "the"). Use mouth positioning to model the two different sounds. Then, group students in pairs and give students two notecards, one with /th/ at top (quiet/unvoiced) and another one with /th/ voiced. Underline the second th to identify it as the noisy/voiced one. Students are given a set of words that contain either a voiced or unvoiced /th/ word. Students work together to read the word and identify which column to sort the word under. To finish the activity, each student reads all the words aloud.
Colored Sand Trays: The Orton Gillingham program often uses colored sand trays to practice sound patterns in a multisensory way. Each student or group of students receives a sand tray and the teacher dictates a sound pattern. Students trace the sound pattern in sand while saying each letter and then the sound it makes ("S-h spells /sh/").
Word Manipulation with Letter Tiles: Using the University of Florida Literacy Institute's Advanced Word Work Map, the teacher leads the students through a series of phoneme manipulation tasks with a chain of words. The teacher will chose to work at the two sound level (consonant vowel, CV or vowel consonant, VC), three sound level (consonant-vowel-consonant, CVC), four sound (consonant consonant vowel consonant, CCVC or consonant vowel consonant consonant, CVCC), or five sound (consonant consonant vowel consonant consonant, CCVCC). Or, perhaps the teacher will mix a couple levels into their changes (EX: starting at the CVC level and moving up to the CCVC, CVCC, or CCVCC levels if the students can handle it). To start the activity, the teacher gives an initial word for students to construct (EX: "Show me the word 'void'."). The student(s) then construct the initial word on the Advanced Word Work Map and then segment each sound in the word saying v---oi---d after constructing the word. Then, the teacher will make a series of changes to the word. The teacher could make an substitution (EX: "Our first word was 'void,' who can show me how to change it to 'soid'?" ----the V has been substituted for an S). The teacher could make an addition (EX: "Now our word is 'soid,' how do we change it to 'sloid'?" --- the L has been added). The teacher could also make a deletion (EX: "Our word is now 'sloid,' how could we change it to 'sloi'?" ---- the D has been deleted). The teacher progresses through a series of 5-10 changes, often called a "chain". Students should be encouraged to segment the old word and new word while touching each sound prior to swapping in/out the needed letters (EX: " 'Sloid' to 'sloi'. S-L-OI-D to S-L-OI. Hmm, I need to take out my /d/ sound."). You can watch a video of a teacher doing manipulation with actual letter tiles for further reference.
Vowel teams are mostly digraphs, though some can be diphthongs (sounds that are pronounced by moving your mouth from one position to another). Use the same strategies outlined under individual letter-sound correspondence to make vowel teams stick for students. Below is a possible scope/sequence for introduction of sound patterns:
Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping: Give students a phoneme-graphing mat like the one below. Turn over vowel team words and have the students map the words on their phoneme-grapheme mat. Encourage them to tap it out first with their finger on each Elkonin box (/sh/ /ee/ /t/ while touching each box when they say each sound) and then write the corresponding graphemes in each box. When mapping, there should be one phoneme per square, which means vowel teams go together in one square). Ex: "Sheet" would be mapped Sh—ee---t (three phonemes even though there are five graphemes in the word). The method of tapping out the sounds prior to writing the phonemes in each box basically uses orthographic mapping.
The Blending Drill: Orton Gillingham uses The Blending Drill to practice blending/segmenting phonemes (with the graphemes present, so this activity is a phonics drill). The teacher puts out a series of sounds on a blending board and asks the students to touch and say each sound (segmenting) prior to blending the whole word. The Orton sound pack includes advanced digraphs and diphthongs. These cards can be purchased on the ISME website or you could use the literacy portal cards to print your own version on cardstock.
As students enhance their decoding skills, they need to progress from sounding out 2-3 sound words (it, on, cat, Sam) containing no blends to 4-5 sound words with beginning or ending blends (glad, sweet, risk, task, blend, drench). For this reason, modeling how sounds must be blended together quickly when sounding out 4-5 sound words is beneficial. Some suggested beginning and ending blends are below:
Cooperative Nonsense and Real Word Decoding: Give students a list of words containing blends. Pair weaker and stronger readers together. Encourage them to go through the list together. One student identifies the blend (weaker reader) and the other student decodes the word (stronger reader). When the list is completed, students switch roles. The teacher circulates through the room and supports as needed.
Word Work With Blends Followed by Reading Connected Text: Using the University of Florida Literacy Institute's Advanced Word Work Map, the teacher teaches 1-2 blend patterns, modeling for the students how to read/spell the blend. Then, the teacher models reading and spelling 1-2 words with the blend. The teacher will then chose to work at the four sound (consonant consonant vowel consonant, CCVC or consonant vowel consonant consonant, CVCC), or five sound (consonant consonant vowel consonant consonant, CCVCC) level, providing words for students to either read or spell on the Word Work Map. After practicing reading with those particular blends, the teacher will pick a decodable text at the CCVC, CVCC, or CCVCCC level containing the blends to read with students (as a whole class, in pairs, or small groups) from University of Florida Literacy Institute's decodable texts.
There are a few combinations in English where three letters combine to make one sound. Those are called trigraphs. Students will benefit from learning these patterns and how to read/spell them.
Swat: Provide students with two trigraphs ("igh" and "tch"). Review what each one says, air writing the letters and saying the sound (" 'igh' says 'ie', 'tch' says 'ch'."). The teacher then has the students place a "tch" and "igh" notecard on their desk. The teacher distributes fly swatters to each student. The teacher says a sound, and the students must swat the correct notecard containing the trigraph. Once they master both trigraph sounds, give them words containing the trigraphs (verbally or in written form on a flashcard). Students must swat the trigraph that the word contains.
Trigraph Sort With Focus on Orthographic Tendencies: After introducing a trigraph like "dge" the teacher can complete a sort of words containing "dge" vs. ones that don't, containing "ge" instead (edge, dodge, hedge, pledge, ledge, lodge, nudge, sludge, rage, age, page, stage, huge, etc.). The teacher will model how to orthographically map each word verbally prior to sorting (i.e., segmenting each sound in the word: /h/ /e/ /dge/ OR /p/ /ae/ /j/ ). Then the students will segment words and place in the correct column. The teacher will point out orthographic tendencies for the general use of "dge" vs. "ge" (for instance, the vowel in a "dge" word is always short, whereas in "ge" words it is usually long).
Word families are groups of related words that have the same root word or the same set of graphemes (letters) making the same sounds.
Same root word
Same graphemes making same sounds (rimes)
Word Family Go Fish: Make up decks of cards containing common word families. Students pair up with a partner to play Word Family Go Fish. The game works just like actual Go Fish. Students ask each other questions: "Do you have a word from the "at" family?" "No, go fish."
Read/Write the Room: Place cards around the room containing common word family words. Students walk around with a clipboard and paper and write down/read aloud the word with a partner.
Inflectional endings are a group of letters added to change a word's meaning, such as:
Best Practices include:
Sparkle Spelling Game: Teacher arranges chairs in a circle in the classroom. The teacher starts the Sparkle game by picking a root word (such as "hope"). The teacher then tells students to add an inflectional ending to the root word ("ed" for example). The student to the left of the teacher spells the first letter in the word (h) and the next student spells the next letter (e). That process continues until someone spells the last letter. The student after the person who spells the last letter stands up and says: SPARKLE. That student is temporarily out of the circle for a round. If a student misses a letter in the word, they are temporarily out a round. A round consists of spelling one word.
Reading and Recognizing the "ed" Ending: The teacher prepares a series of words ending in "ed" (including words with a variety of pronunciations of the "ed" ending, such as "helped" where it sounds like /t/, buzzed where it sounds like /d/, or printed where it sounds like /id/ or /ed/ pending a person's pronunciation). The teacher will model choosing a word and "flexing" their pronunciation of the ending until it sounds right (trying the "t" version, "d" version, or "id"/"ed" version). Then, the students will be given a series of words to try with a partner as the teacher circulates to check their pronunciation.
Many prefixes, roots and suffixes are derived from other languages. This fact is significant for two reasons. First, many of the prefixes/suffixes/roots are challenging to sound out, as they don't play by English phonetic rules. Thus, students need to be exposed to these and learn how they sound when encountered in words. Additionally, many prefixes/roots/ suffixes have a meaning associated with them that can often help students figure out the meaning of the overall word if they know the meaning of the prefix/root/suffix. Use techniques to reinforce prefixes/roots/suffixes with students (word sorts, reading/spelling in isolation, locating prefix/suffix/root in a text) to reinforce. Some common prefixes/ suffixes/roots to start with are below: in, un, ex, pro, pre, re, con, dis, trans, sub, per, less, ness, tion, ly, ment, tive, sive. If students master those you can move onto more complicated endings (bene, mal, tia, tian, cia, cian, tiate, tience, ciate, gion, gious, etc.).
Prefix/Root/Suffix Sort: Make up decks of cards containing common prefixes, roots and/or suffixes. Pick two specific prefixes, roots, or suffixes (Ex: pre and pro). Have students sort the words under a heading for each prefix/root/suffix. Students can be given words that contain one or other of the prefixes/roots/suffixes or words that don't contain either. After the words are sorted, students work in teams to segment and sound out each word based on what they know the prefix/root/suffix says.
Multisyllable Decoding: The teacher will teach the students a simple set of syllable breaking rules, modeling how they apply them to breaking a multisyllable word into syllable chunks. One of the rules can/should be to break off common prefixes/suffixes (give the students a list of some of the more common prefixes/suffixes such as re, ex, con, pro, pre, sub, tion, ment, less, ness, ly and practice pronunciation of each). Provide students with a list of multisyllable words to break down into syllable chunks with a peer (including plenty of words containing the common prefixes/suffixes). The teacher can circulate and support students throughout the process with anything from recognition of common prefixes/suffixes to breaking the word into syllable chunks or sounding it out.
Morphemes are the meaningful units of a word. For example, the word "unreachable" has three morphemes ("un," "reach," "able") and each one plays a role in the meaning of the overall word. Students benefit from breaking words down into morphemes, as well as learning the meaning of certain morphemes.
What's My Meaning: Students are grouped into pairs and given words that contain a number of morphemes (you can call them "word parts" to simplify). Students must count the word parts and then see if they know the meaning of any of the parts. Students work as a team to determine the overall meaning of the words. The teacher will have a bank of common morphemes and corresponding meanings for students to reference. Word meaning is reviewed once the students have made their predictions about word meaning.
Prefix Sort: Many common prefixes have meaning attached to them. A good example are the prefixes "male" or "mal" and "bene" or "ben". These Latin roots have opposite meanings (with male/mal meaning "bad" and "bene" or "ben" meaning "good"). Introduce students to the pronunciation and meaning of each of these two prefixes. Provide them with a set of words and have them sort them into the male/mal pile or bene/ben pile (malfunction, malaise, malignant, malformed, malnourished, malpractice, benefit, beneficial, benefactor, benign, benevolent). Practice segmenting the words and pronouncing them, discussing how the prefix plays a role in word meaning (EX: "Benefits are good things you get from something like a job, like paid health or 401K. If a computer malfunctions it is bad, it makes a mistake. If a tumor is malignant, it is bad because it is usually deadly. If a tumor is benign, it is good because it means the tumor is not harmful.).
Knowledge of the 6 different types of syllables will better enable students to decode and encode words, especially multisyllabic words. Each syllable type is explained in the table below. Alternatively, you could teach students a series of syllable breaking rules that apply to all words/syllable types and just use those rules to break words down into syllable chunks.
Chunk Lines: This is a multi-syllable spelling activity. Students are given paper and asked to spell multisyllabic words. Before spelling the word, the students are instructed to pound, clap, or count out the syllables and draw "chunk lines" for each syllable of the word. The student fills in any common prefixes/suffixes they hear first and then attempts to spell the rest of the word. The class discusses the different syllable types seen in the word chunks, and how this affects pronunciation and spelling.
Open and Closed Syllable Sort: Students work with a partner to break a series of words down into syllable chunks. Then, they practice sorting them into two piles, ones containing open syllables and ones without open syllables. They review the rules for pronunciation of closed syllables (vowel in closed syllable says sound) vs. open syllables (vowel usually says name but can say sound or schwa as well) prior to reading each word with their partner. The teacher should circulate to support, provide corrective feedback and clarify mistakes as needed.
The video library has clips of real K–3 classrooms modelling every one of these practices, and the printables library carries materials for the same skills.
Seven evidence-based literacy practices for kindergarten through third grade — the research, the teaching sequence, and the materials, free for teachers and families.