Ms. Docherty
Mara Docherty
Educational Portfolio
Winona State University
Elementary Education
Phonics
Phonics Definition
An approach to teaching reading that emphasizes the systematic relationship between the sounds of language and the graphemes (i.e., letters or letter combinations) that represent those sounds. Learners apply this knowledge to decode printed words.
Phonics is the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. Children's reading development is dependent on this alphabetic principle. Teaching phonics should be embedded in a literacy lesson. Understanding phonics has a direct link to becoming a successful reader.
VOCABULARY
Systematic Structured Phonics
Systematic is also be known as Synthetic phonics. Synthetic phonics teaches the entire code, logically and explicitly, along with the skills of blending and segmenting, right at the start of reading instruction. Known as the most effective way to teach phonics.
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Minimizes memorization
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Maybe often be taught within a phonic based program
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Convert letters into sounds and then blend
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Positive effects for students who have difficulty reading
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Not taught to guess words
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Modeling
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Starts with individual letters
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Explicitly teaches alphabetic code
(Anderson, 2020)
Phonics Generalizations are phonic rules that are taught to emerging readers to help them learn letter combinations sounds to increase reading and spelling ability.
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"C" generalization
- Followed by a, o, or u = /k/ "hard"
- Followed by e, i, or y = /s/ "soft"
2. "G" generalization
- Followed by a, o, or u = /g/ "hard"
- Followed by e, i, or y = /j/ "soft"
3. CVC- short vowel, closed syllable
- When words or syllables end with one or more consonants, the vowel makes a short sound
- Examples: cat, dog, plat-ter, fos-sil, car-pen-ter
4. CVVC- first vowel is long
- "2 vowels go walking, the first one does the talking"
- This represents a digraph: two graphemes create one phoneme
- Examples: read /rēd/, wheat /whēt/, tree /trē/
5. CVCe - silent e
- When a word has a vowel followed by a consonant and an "e".
- The "e" is called a silent e.
- The vowel then "says its own name" or has the long vowel phoneme
- Examples: kite = /kīt/, plate = /plāt/
6. CV- long vowel
- When a word or syllable has a vowel as the last letter, the vowel makes a long vowel phoneme. This open syllable is usually accented or stressed.
- Examples: nō' tice, mē'dia, sī'lent, dē'fy
7. R- controlled or influenced
- "Bossy r" controls the sound of the vowel it follows.
- The four r-controlled vowel sounds are:
âr, ar /âr/ as in care, wear
är /är/ as in car
ûr, ėr /ər/ as in blur, sir, after
ôr /ôr/ as in corn
Phonics Generalizations
Consonant
the airflow is cut off, either partially or completely, when the sound is produced.
Rime
rest of syllable that is not an onset
Vowel
which the air flow is unobstructed when the sound is made.
Digraph
two letters that make one sound
Diphthong
a single glided vowel sound
Blend
two consonants that you slide through
Orthography is the practice of proper spelling, a way of spelling or study of spelling.
Emergent Stage
Characteristics of this stage include: scribbling, drawing shapes, writing letter-like forms and/or random strings of letters/numbers. At this stage, writing only conveys the meaning for the student who wrote it.
Letter Name - Alphabetic Stage
Students begin to understand the similarities in letter-sound. Students become phonemic spellers, that can spell the sounds they hear. At this stage, they may omit silent letters. It is common for students at this stage to point to each word as they read, but understand the concept of words.
Within Word Pattern Stage
Students at this stage of development spell most single-syllable short-vowel words correctly, along with most initial consonant digraphs and blends. Students begin reading with a faster pace and fluency. Students are beginning to read silently. They begin using long vowel markers in their spelling. Common to start to write longer texts and are able to revise the text at this stage.
Syllables and Affixes Stage
Students at this stage are able to spell most single-syllable long and short vowel words. If students make mistakes, most often will happen at a juncture of syllables. This happens in most unaccented syllables. Readers have decent fluency and expression and now at a faster pace silently.
Orthography Stages (Spelling Feature Analysis)
Word Study
Word study provides students with opportunities to investigate and understand the patterns in words. Knowledge of these patterns means that students needn't learn to spell one word at a time. Word Sorts are lists of words corresponding to certain developmental spelling patterns. Students will look for related words and sort them into categories. This will help spot patterns and make generalizations about spelling.
Three ways to sort:
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Sound sorts- students sort words by sound patterns. Example: allows them to see that OW and OY sounds can both be spelled two ways, growl- cloud; joy- moist
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Pattern Sorts- students sort words by spelling patterns. An example could be endings or beginnings or even rich; such using a short vowel pattern.
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Meaning Sorts- sorting by shared meaning. Students sort words into categories with common meanings.
Sorts can be Open or Closed
Closed sorts are when the teacher gives students the heading to sort words into.
Open sorts are more inquiry as students are left to work the categories for themselves.
A cycle of instruction for word study might include the following:
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introduce the spelling pattern by choosing words for students to sort
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encourage students to discover the pattern in their reading and writing
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use reinforcement activities to help students relate this pattern to previously acquired word knowledge
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/word-study-learning-word-patterns
Analytic (also called Implicit)
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Not a planned sequence
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Highlights particular elements when they appear in the text
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Whole word method of teaching reading
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Starts with the whole word and then moves to part (phonemes)
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Students analyze letter-sound relationships in previously learned words to avoid pronouncing words in isolation
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The subset of Analytic is Analogy
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Teaches the student to read through analogy
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An example: Learning onsets and rimes: Student learns unfamiliar words by recognizing similarities between known words
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Drawback: need extensive memorization of onsets, rimes, word families, and word patterns
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Embedded
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A more implicit approach that leans on incidental learning
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The least effection of instructional approaches
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Has a little emphasis on phonics
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Not a planned sequence
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Highlights particularly elements when they appear in the text.
Synthetic
Synthetic Phonics is the most complex. This method teaches the entire code, logically and explicitly, along with blending and segmenting. Also known as systematic phonics. Focuses on teaching each individual letter sound and having students try to sound each letter or letter combination one at a time to try and blend those back into a word. Known as one of the most effective ways to teach phonics. Covered more about synthetic phonics above in systematic structured phonics.
Instructional Approaches
Education.com has different games for any level reader. There are games for students working on long vowel sounds, short vowels, digraphs, vowel pairs, and consonant endings. This site also has different subjects to work on. Students can navigate by grade level or subject. Students can use this site during stations, at home, free time, or with the class.
Bitesize has 27 different learner guides. Each learner guide works with a different letter or sound. Students will be able to pick what they want to work on. The teacher could also assign different letters to students who need to work on different sounds. Bitesize also has other subjects and different phases of phonics. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zvq9bdm
Read with Phonics is a phonics-based app that helps young people to learn synthetic phonics in a colorful and interactive way. Students will be able to practice segmenting and blending skills, grapheme recognition, word comprehension and more. App also has a positive reward system which keeps students motivated to get to the next level or grow in their phonic skills.
abc PocketPhonics is an app that covers all sounds. It gives the students a chance to practice blending and other phonics on their own time. It demonstrates a clear focus on phonemes: sounding them out, spelling them, and using them to form words. Students will be given a phoneme and have to say it, write it, and use it in a word. Students are then given stars on how well they did and will be told how many mistakes they had. Students can use this app instead of having different packets of writing and tracing.
Monkey Word School Adventure is an educational app that includes phonics, letter congregation, rhymes, tracing, and wordplay. Includes six mini activities that adjust to the student's ability level. With the help of an adult, you are able to set the challenge level for the student.The learning ranges from letter recognition and writing to spelling and phonics, introducing word components such as consonant blends, digraphs, and irregular vowels. Students could work on this place of a station to build on phonics.
Flipbook
Students create flipbooks containing word beginnings. Using Words beginnings that can be used in the same word ending or same word endings that can be applied to the same word beginning. This is a fun way to teach sound and letter combinations. You can make a flipbook with a notebook, scissors, tape, and markers. You can use a flipbook to practice three-letter words and sounds, blends, or word families. To make it more challenging, label one section with a blend such as: ch, bl, th, etc. Label the other section using patterns like -at, -ake, -ight, -ock, etc.
Making words is an activity that can be done in small groups, large groups, or one on one. To prepare, the teacher will have a "secret word". Instead of writing the word out, the teacher will mix up the letter out of order on the board. Students will have a manipulative letter in front of them. The teacher directs students to try and make a two or three letter word with the letters given. Students will try and sound out each phoneme to see if it makes a word. The challenge increases as the teacher challenge them to see if they can figure out the secret word. If needed, assist students with giving the first phoneme in the secret word.
Five Strategies/Activities
Students can play the Memory game with pairs of word cards that include the phonics skills that student needs to work on. An example of a memory card could be r-controlled vowels. As students flip over a card, they will make the correct sound and then determine if they have found a match before that. Memory cards can have a long vowel needed to be remembered or a picture of an object with the long vowel or the phoneme needs to be worked on. Students can work on this game at home or with friends at school.
Elkonin boxes help students build phonological awareness by segmenting words into different phonemes. This helps teach students how to count the number of phonemes in the word instead of the number of letters. How to use Elkonin Boxes:
1. Pronounce word slowly, stretching it out by each phoneme.
2. Ask the child to repeat the word
3. Draw boxes with one box for each syllable or phoneme.
4. Have student count number of phonemes in the word
5. Direct the student to fill out boxes for what he/she thinks should go in each box while sounding out phonemes.
Memory Game
Making Words
This activity can be played in multiple ways and in flexible times. It is open-ended and can be adapted for any reading developmental levels. Preparing for this activity, students will choose letter, chunks, or syllables that they have been working on and write them on small pieces of paper. Then fold up the paper and put it in a bowl or bag. Students then will reach into bowl/bag and take out two pieces of paper. They will then manipulate the word parts ( endings, middle sounds, or beginning phonemes) given, into a word. They make as many words as they can even if they are real or nonsense. Each group will write down all the words regardless if real or nonsense on a white-board in categories. Students will then discuss in large groups what their group thought of. This activity can be tweaked in different ways to fit the time slot you have available.
Elkonin Box
Real or Nonsense?
Assessment
Spelling Inventory is used to differentiate instruction based on spelling developmental stages. The words that are in the inventory are designed to demonstrate students' knowledge of key spelling features at different stages in development. Includes lists of words that are chosen to represent a variety of spelling features at increasing levels of difficulty. The student will number their paper. Call each word aloud and repeat it. Say each word naturally without emphasizing phonemes. After administering the inventory, use a Feature Guide to complete your assessment. A blank inventory that is used for the primary is to the right of the text. This assessment will show what students need to work on, which has the lowest score.
References
Anderson, M. (n.d.). Powerpoints, podcasts. Retrieved January 30, 2020, from https://winona.learn.minnstate.edu/d2l/le/content/4760249/Home
Blamey, K. L., & Beauchat, K. A. (2016). Starting strong: evidence-based early literacy practices. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse Publishers.
Https://mypearsontraining.com/assets/files/documents/TG_WTW_WordStudy.pdf. (n.d.). photograph.
Synthetic Phonics or Systematic Phonics? What Does Research Really Say? (2020, January 28). Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-literacy/synthetic-phonics-or-systematic-phonics-what-does-research-really-say-0
Twisdale, M., W, T., Robertson, T., Karen, Lake, A., Mj, … Bear, D. (2019, September 27). Word Study: Learning Word Patterns. Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/word-study-learning-word-patterns