Phonics is understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes and graphemes, and is often referred to as word attack or decoding. The main goal of phonics is to help children learn and use the alphabetic principle, which is the understanding that there is a relationship between sounds and letters. Generally, instruction in phonics is explicit and systematic, with the teacher providing the students with direct instruction on the content matter. 

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Phonics Vocabulary:

 

• Phoneme - The smallest part of spoken language that makes a difference in the meaning of words
  
  Grapheme - The smallest part of written language that represents a phoneme in the spelling of the word​
• Consonants - all sounds represented by letters except A, E, I, O, and U that usually have a one-to-one correspondence
• Consonant Blends - 2 or 3 consonants grouped together, but each still keeps their original sound (ex. Scr)
• Consonant Digraphs - 2+ consonants combined to make a new sound (ex. Ch)
• Vowels - A, E, I, O, and U, with each having a short and long sound
• Vowel Digraphs - 2+ vowels adjacent to each other where the first is usually long and the second is usually short (ex. oa)

• ​Vowel Dipthongs - Sounds that consist of a blend of two separate vowel sounds (ex. oy)

How to Teach:

 

           It is important that phonics instruction  provides opportunities for student to practice what they are learning by reading words, sentences, and stories in order to significantly improve children’s word recognition, spelling and reading.  Phonics instruction can also involve syllables, high frequency words, and structural analysis (identifying words through meaningful units: prefixes, suffixes, root words).  There are two different instructional programs available to aide phonics instruction.  ​Examples of these programs are Lively Letters and Fundations.  



            Lively Letters uses oral kinesthetics, imagery, hand cues, music, and mnemonic stories are heavily utilized to make it easier for students to learn and remember their letter sounds. This is especially important for those with weaknesses in phonemic awareness, and visual processing, and short term memory or rapid naming of visual symbols.  Click         for more information.  



            Fundations is a phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling program for the general education classroom. Fundations is based upon the Wilson Reading System® principles and serves as a prevention program to help reduce reading and spelling failure.Teachers incorporate a 30-minute daily Fundations lesson into their language arts classroom instruction. Fundations lessons focus on carefully sequenced skills that include print knowledge, alphabet awareness, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, decoding, vocabulary, fluency, and spelling. Critical thinking, speaking and listening skills are practiced during Storytime activities. Furthermore, targeted small group intervention is available for students in the lowest 30th percentile.  Click          for more information



Activities:

Word walls - A way to integrate literacy into the classroom environment and make text take meaning

Word ladders - A game in which students add, delete, or replace letters in words to create new words that are prompted by clues and the final word is usually related to the first word

Utilizing Nursery Rhymes - Helps students pinpoint rhyming patterns



Flip Books - Students can flip parts of the words over to make new  words or rhymes

Assessment:

DIBELS - The Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) is a section of the DIBELS in which students are presented with a list of vowel-consonant and consonant-vowel-consonant nonsense words (e.g., sig, rav, ov) and asked to read the words.  Essentially, NWF assesses the student's mastery of the alphabetic principle.  This assessment will ensure that students understand phonics are not simply memorizing words.  The DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (DORF), in which The student is presented with a reading passage and asked to read aloud, can also be used for advanced phonics assessment.


Informal Observations ​- Informal observations can be made in the classroom to assess a student's level of phonics mastery when the students participate in activities targeting their phonics skills.  Some such activities are listed above, but there are numerous more activities that can be used.  See the RESOURCES page for more information.