1. Phonics Jillian Marshall February 5, 2015

2. Phonics: Cracking the Code “At one magical instant in your early childhood— that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader.” - Alberto Manguel (Blevins, 2006)

3. What is Phonics?  Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between the phonemes and graphemes, the letters that represent the sounds in written language.  Study of speech sounds related to reading (Gunning, 2013)

4. Phonological/Phonemic Awareness Concepts of Print Letter/Sound Knowledge Oral Language Emergent Literacy

5. Goals of early literacy instruction 1. Automatic Word Recognition (Fluency) 2. Comprehension of Text 3. Teach a love of reading and literature

6. Do proficient readers still use phonics when they read?  Most of words we see when we read have become sight words.  But we need phonics to decode new words.  When learning to read, we use phonics first, then eventually recognize words instantly.

7. Letter/Alphabetic Knowledge  Alphabetic Principle: Understanding that there are relationships between letters and sounds  Letter-sound knowledge: Ability to associate letters and their sounds

8. How we read words  Predicting  Sounding out  Chunking  Analogy  Automatic recognition

9.  Memory/sight word?  Sounding out?  Phonics rules?  Analogies?  Chunking? Conglobate

10. How do proficient readers decode unknown words? Most Frequent: 1. Initial consonant 2. Whole word 3. Use a pronounceable word part as a basis for constructing the word Con glob ate Rimes have more predictable pronunciation than individual letters

11. How do proficient readers decode unknown words? Least frequent:  Letter by letter  Use of context  Phonics rules

12. Stages of Reading/Writing  Prealphabetic Stage  L oo k (looks like eyes)  Partial Alphabetic Stage  Use letter sound relationships, but can’t decode yet: c a t  Use of context as well

13. Stages, cont’d  Full Alphabetic Stage  Begin to process all letters  Read word by word  Overemphasis on accuracy and sounding out  Consolidated Alphabetic Stage  Process longer words and more complex patterns  After developing skills, can spend more energy on comprehension

14. Why Teach Phonics  Teach children to read with accuracy, comprehension, fluency, and for fun  Reading to Learn  Good decoders read many more words than poor decoders  Help students become automatic in decoding  Use less mental energy  Improves spelling

15. What does phonics instruction look like in your class? Turn and talk to a partner or your table about what phonics and word work instruction looks like in your classroom. Topics to consider: Age ELLs Time Groupings

16. How to teach Phonics  Explicit instruction: Won’t make all discoveries on their own  Systematic/Logical sequence: phonemic awareness, sound-spelling relationships, blending, and reading and writing  Encourage curiosity about words  Start early and don’t overdo it  Teach many different strategies for decoding

17. How to teach cont’d  Apply to reading of actual texts and be transparent about why “Children do not use or internalize information unless the skills they have been taught are applicable in their day-to-day reading.” (Gunning, 2013, p.191)  Focused, frequent lessons (daily)  Teacher Knowledge (digraphs, blends, syllable type, etc.)  Role of assessment: Start instruction where they are

18. Decoding strategies  Word Part  Is there any part of the word you can say? - yet  Analogy  Is the word like any word that I know? - yet and net  Context  After using first two strategies, check to see if it fits in context. But not all cueing systems should be given equal attentionl.

19. Other things to consider  “Generalizations and patterns draw attention to regularities in English Spelling, but actually meeting the elements in print is the way students’ decoding skills become automatic; they can direct fuller attention to comprehension.” (Gunning, 2013, 224).  Teach variability principle: explicitly and provide opportunities for practice  ELLS: Try to determine what they know in first language and build on that  Be careful of teaching rules  E.g. Two vowels go walking, first one does the talking

20. Words Their Way  Reading, Writing and Spelling connection: Spelling is a great predictor of reading success  Practice spelling helps reading more than practice reading helps spelling  Sorting: Deepen understanding about words

21. Video  https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/portal/site/9 5ab7e99-640a-49ed-bcb1- f42a802738ac/page/8eb4f16d-70c7-4445- 8d17-2a7edd0e141a https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/portal/site/9 5ab7e99-640a-49ed-bcb1- f42a802738ac/page/8eb4f16d-70c7-4445- 8d17-2a7edd0e141a  Source: UVA, Curry School of Education

22. Stages of Spelling Development  Emergent  Letter Name  Within Word  Syllables and Affixes  Derivational Relations

23. Spelling Stages Sort  With a partner, cut and sort the examples of what you think categorizes students at each stage.  What do you notice? What was hard about the activity? Which were easy to sort?

24. Phonics Games and Activities

25. Resources  Florida Center for Reading Research http://www.fcrr.org/  Creating Literacy Instruction for all students (Thomas Gunning, 2013)  Words Their Way (Bear, et al, 2012)