The Three R’s of Phonics InstructionRelationships, Relevance, and Results

“I believe that reading, in its original essence, is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.”

Marcel Proust

The relationship of phonics to phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

The relevance of phonics instruction for developing readers, accelerated readers, and struggling readers.

How to get results through practical strategies for providing each learner with instructional support and adequate opportunities for application and practice.

The Three R’s

“Children are wired for sound, but print is an optional accessory that must be painstakingly bolted on.” Steven Pinker

The National Reading Panel defines phonemic awareness as “the ability to focus on and manipulate phonemes in spoken words.”

Every spoken word can be conceived as a sequence of phonemes.

Phonemic awareness is prerequisite for learning to decode, along with letter recognition and letter-sound knowledge.

Phonemic awareness leads to decoding automaticity.

One to one correlation between a sound and a symbol must be established to successfully decode.

Phonics and Phonemic Awareness

Children who have five years of experience fighting with trolls, rescuing maidens with silken tresses, and deciphering clues given by witches will have an easier task recognizing unfamiliar words and ultimately comprehending the text that contains them.”

Maryanne Wolf

Children start kindergarten with a variety of vocabulary levels from listening and speaking vocabularies.

Blended phonemes become words. Spelling, sound, and meaning connections lead to

automaticity. Affixes have meaning that effect the use of the word as it is

decoded. Visual word form area is built as students have more

exposure to words. Vocabulary knowledge helps students quickly recognize

frequent spelling patterns from words they are familiar with.

Phonics and Vocabulary

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”  - Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"

Fluency consists of rate, accuracy, and prosody as it relates to comprehension.

Fluency has also been described as the bridge between phonics and comprehension.

Automaticity is the link between phonics and fluency.

Phonics and Fluency

“Reading is experience. A biography of any literary person ought to deal at length with what he read and when, for in some sense, we are

what we read.” Joseph Epstein

When a student can decode words fluently, their brain is freed up to focus on comprehending the text.

As words are decoded, an area in the brain associated with the meaning of the word is utilized.

Poor phonics application can lead to comprehension problems.

Phonics and Comprehension

“Kindergartners who receive systematic beginning phonics instruction read better and spell better than other children, and first graders are better able to decode and spell words. The students also show significant improvement in their ability to understand what they read. Similarly, phonics instruction helps older children spell and decode text better, although their understanding does not necessarily improve.”

National Reading Panel

Importance of Phonics Instruction for Developing Readers

Every student needs a phonics foundation. Phonics instruction for advanced readers can

strengthen areas of the brain used in reading processes.

Using nonsense words with advanced readers facilitates analytical thought processes.

Advanced readers will encounter hard words in text.

There are plenty of opportunities for differentiation with advanced readers.

Importance of Phonics Instruction for Advanced Readers

Phonics can strengthen and build visual and auditory areas of the brain, as well as the linguistic and conceptual areas.

Phonics Instruction can “rewire” the brain.

The earlier the intervention the better, but it can ALWAYS be done!

Importance of Phonics Instruction for Struggling Readers

“Teaching reading IS rocket science.”  - Louisa Moats

Remember the difference between a strategy and a skill.

Use decodable texts coordinated directly with phonics instruction in earliest levels of instruction to speed up word recognition.

Use connected text in instruction. Instruct in all areas of fluency. Implement guided repeated oral reading to

develop automatic word recognition and fluency.

Getting Results

Provide time and accountability for silent reading.

Challenge advanced readers by having them look for exceptions and always explain the “why” in a word.

Pronounce schwas like they are spelled to facilitate long term learning.

Advocate for early systemic phonics instruction.

Emphasize spelling, sound, and meaning for all words used in instruction.

Getting Results

When teaching individual phonemes in words, use the actual letter that represents the phoneme instead of blocks or other objects to help build visual word form area.

Provide students multiple exposures to skill words in multiple contexts.

Getting Results

“The greatest gift is a passion for reading.”  - Elizabeth Hardwick

Thank You!

Adams, M.J. (2009). Decodable text: When, why, and how? in E.H. Hiebert & M. Sailors (Eds.), Finding the right texts: What works for beginning and struggling readers (pp.23-46). New York: Guilford.

Lewkowicz, N.K. (1980). Phonemic awareness training: What to teach and how to teach it. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72(5), 686-700. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.72.5.68

Morais, J. (2003). Levels of phonological representation in skilled reading and in learning to read. Reading and Writing, 16(1/2), 123-151. doi: 10.1023/A:1021702307703

Samuels, S.J., & Farstrup, A.E. (2011). What research has to say about reading instruction (4th ed.). Newark, DE; International Reading Association

Wolf, Maryanne. Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain. 1st ed. New Yourk, NY: Harpercollins, 2007. Print.

References