PHONICS & DECODING Chapter 6

BACKGROUND & RESEARCH By Rachel Jensen

BACKGROUND *Phonics: how spellings are related to speech sounds (letter-sound relationships) *Decoding: using your knowledge of phonics to read unknown words; also includes structural analysis, onset and rime, body and coda, and use of sight words

RESEARCH 2 Questions to ask: 1.WHICH phonics skills are important for children to learn? 2.HOW might you teach these skills in your classroom? A teacher must be a phonics EXPERT in a classroom where students are still learning to read. syllabication r-controlled soft vs. hard sound CVC VCe morpheme diphthong onset & rime body & coda

EXPLICIT & SYSTEMATIC There is a need for explicit and systematic phonics instruction. Phonics should be part of a comprehensive reading program; don’t teach it in isolation. Include the systematic code instruction with the reading of meaningful connected text.

APPROACHES 5 approaches to phonics instruction:  Synthetic= traditional; children taught to read unknown words by “sounding it out”  Embedded= NOT systematic; teaching phonics along with reading actual text; waiting for “teachable moments”  Analogy-based= using knowledge of word families to identify new words (e.g. knowing the word “might” can help me read the word “light”)  Analytic= starts with a whole word, and has the student analyze part of it; studying previously learned whole words to discover letter-sound relationships  Phonics through Spelling= segmenting spoken words into phonemes, then writing letters that represent those sounds Modify or combine any of these approaches based on your students’ needs.

PHONICS THEY WILL USE ( Teacher’s Book of Lists is an excellent resource!) Letter Names & Sounds: There are 26 letters, but 44 speech sounds. And they are represented 350 ways!!) Common Rules Governing Letter Sounds  The C Rule  The G Rule  The CVC Generalization  Vowel Digraphs  The VCE Final E Generalization  The CV Generalization  R-Controlled Vowels Special Consonant Rules  Single Consonants  Consonant Digraphs  Initial Consonant Blends or “Clusters”  Double Consonants  PH and the /f/ Sound Special Vowel Rules  Schwa / ǝ /  Diphthongs  Y Rules

RESEARCH CONTINUED By Marilyn Barrett

RESEARCH ON OTHER DECODING SKILLS Syllabication (segmenting words into syllables) Onset & Rime: “Word Families” Body & Coda body= onset plus vowel coda = all sounds following the vowel in a syllable

RESEARCH ON OTHER DECODING SKILLS Structural Analysis (studying the meanings of word parts) *free morpheme= words or word parts, also known as “root words.” *bound morpheme= must be attached to a root word to carry meaning (prefixes & suffixes) Sight Words high frequency vocabulary words; best learned through memorization (more in chapter 8)

SCOPE & SEQUENCE pg. 170

ENGLISH LEARNERS (EL) Phonics instruction is CRITICAL to English learners! Keep in mind that the basic differences between English and Spanish languages may cause problems in the learning of phonics. e.g. the letter “e” in Spanish has a long / ā / sound, as with “eight.”

TEACHING STRATEGIES Ten Things to Do: 1.Sequence your instruction. 2.Be very direct (explicit AND implicit) in your instruction. 3.Have daily lessons and review sessions. 4.Focus on ONE skill at a time. 5.Keep lessons brief. 6.When practicing a new phonics skill, use easy reading materials. 7.Help kids become “wordsmiths.” 8.Adjust the pace of instruction to meet the individual needs of students. 9.Link phonics instruction to spelling. 10.Make clear what you want kids to do.

TEACHING STRATEGIES What NOT to do! 1.Avoid round-robin teaching. 2.Try not to direct students too quickly. 3.Avoid drill-and-kill teaching.

ASSESSMENT OPTIONS By Karen Nelson

PHONICS ASSESSMENT OPTIONS… Nonsense Word Fluency Early Names Test Core Phonics Survey Starpoint Phonics Assessment (including Analyzing the Miscues) Running Records Words Their Way Sight Word Assessments

NONSENSE WORD FLUENCY

EARLY NAMES TEST

CORE PHONICS SURVEY (PHONICS PORTION)

INTERVENTION OPTIONS By Shellie Rush

PHONICS INTERVENTION OPTIONS… Phonics Fish Card Game Tongue Twisters Creating Nonsense Words Explicit Phonics Instruction Letter-Sound Cards Spelling in Parts Sound Swirl “Button” Sounds Stomping, Clapping, Tapping, and Snapping Sounds Making Words Wide Reading Word Boxes Word Detective

PHONICS FISH CARD GAME

TONGUE TWISTERS I thought a thought But the thought I thought Wasn’t the thought I thought I thought!

CREATING NONSENSE WORDS Example using the –ish word family: One fish, two fish, Red fish, blue fish. One kish, two kish, Red kish, blue kish.

OTHER IMPLICATIONS / RESOURCES   Sight Word activities  Fluency Graph options for keeping track of progress