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High Impact Phonics Instruction - Wiley Blevins

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High Impact Phonics Instruction - Wiley Blevins

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CVC

Consonant Digraphs

Consonant Blends

Long Vowel: CVCe

Special Situations

Predictable Vowel Teams

R-Controlled

Unpredictable Vowel Teams

Multisyllabic Words

Supporting Documents

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CVC Consonant Digraphs Consonant Blends Long Vowel: CVCe Special Situations Predictable Vowel Teams R-Controlled Unpredictable Vowel Teams Multisyllabic Words Supporting Documents

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The Reading Teacher - 2022 - Flanigan - The  P  Word Revisited  8 Principles for Tackling Today s Questions and

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When doing small group, say the word, count the sounds, move chips in the elkonin boxes and then go back and say which letter represents the c sound, a sound, t sound if we were spelling cat. As you do each sound, the student writes the letter and then reads the word to check it.

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This Sadler book describes the key activities to complete in a brief phonics lesson.  The key would be to keep the skills specific to the targeted ones identified in the assessment (1 or 2 skills max) and focus on them while you complete the activities in this attached summary.

Assuming the student has mastered letter sound ID (Core Phonics A-D)

Use a scope and sequence of phonics with materials such as whiteboards, elkonin boxes, etc. practice the following with the lowest deficit phonics skill identified:

1. Phoneme Awareness

2. Alphabet Recognition

3. Blending & Segmenting

4. Dictation

5. Word Awareness

6. Reading Connected Text that reinforces the phonics skills taught

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West Virginia Phonics Sequence & Lessons

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West Virginia Phonics Sequence & Lessons

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Includes 13 skill areas for phonics and spelling.
Skills different from Core include VC, silent e, prefixes & suffixes, and two-four syllable words.

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Phonology is the system of speech sounds that make up a language.

Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and distinguish between sounds in a language. It involves hearing only.

It allows people to do the following:

Count words in a sentence

Count syllables in a word

Identify rhymes

Identify the sounds in a word

Manipulate sounds (e.g., replace the "g" in got with an "n").

Phonological awareness has different levels.

For example, counting the words in a sentence and identifying rhymes requires a lower level of phonological awareness, whereas counting the syllables in a word requires a higher level.

Identifying sounds in a word and manipulating (adding to or deleting) those sounds requires an even higher level.

Phonemes
A phoneme is an individual sound within a word.

There are around 45 common English phonemes.

Some phonemes correspond to only one letter, as in the case of consonants such as "b," "p" and "n."

For example, bin has three phonemes: b-i-n.

Other phonemes correspond to multiple letters or groups of letters. This is particular true of vowels, e.g., the long "a" sound can be spelled "a," "ay," "ai," "ey," "eigh," and rarely "ea."

The word way has two phonemes: w-ay.

Weigh also has two phonemes: w-eigh.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and distinguish between individual sounds in words (i.e., phonemes). It requires a high level of phonological awareness, and it involves hearing only.

Phonemic awareness is a crucial skill for pre- and beginning readers. If they cannot hear sounds properly and/or tell the difference between them, they will not be able to consistently match sounds to letters and groups of letters.

Phonics is the study of the relationship between sounds, letters, and words.

It involves sounds and writing.

The English written alphabet is a code in which letters and groups of letters represent sounds.

When children understand how sounds correspond to letters, they can use their knowledge to sound out thousands of words.

There are several major types of phonics. The major ones include:

Synthetic phonics involves explicit instruction in phoneme-letter correspondences and focuses on blending (i.e., synthesizing) sounds together to build words.

Analytic phonics moves in the opposite direction from synthetic phonics, beginning with whole words and analyzing their component parts. It may, for example, teach by analogy, using the a-t pattern in a word like cat to help children recognize bat, sat, rat, pat, fat, etc.

Embedded phonics is the "teach as you go approach," providing instruction on an as-needed basis, while children are in the process of reading. This is the least structured approach, as well as the least effective.

Although the jury is still out on the relative superiority of synthetic vs. analytic phonics, the research is clear that a phonics program must be systematic to be effective.

Because English is more complex than other European languages and has more alternate patterns and exceptions, children must be given explicit, clearly sequenced explanations, along with plenty of practice, in order to apply what they are learning without unnecessary confusion.

For more information on this topic, download my full PDF phonics guide.

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Phonology Phonology is the system of speech sounds that make up a language. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and distinguish between sounds in a language. It involves hearing only. It allows people to do the following: Count words in a sentence Count syllables in a word Identify rhymes Identify the sounds in a word Manipulate sounds (e.g., replace the "g" in got with an "n").

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Scroll down the page to find WV phonics lessons divided by skill in sequence.

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Free Phonics Materials for Teachers, Tutors, and Families Literacy is a civil right. The research supporting phonics is too strong to ignore. All families deserve access to high-quality phonics materials. Why Open Source Phonics? Many third, fourth, and older-grade students need more practice in order to master the phonics patterns needed to sound out new [...]

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Catalog of the most frequent spellings for each phoneme - Bruce Murray, College of Education

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The top spellings for phonemes and their percentages of the 17,000 most frequent words were investigated by Paul Hanna (see Hodges, R E. (1966). The case for teaching sound-to-letter correspondences in spelling. Elementary School Journal, 66, 327-336, and the update, Fry, E. (2004). Phonics: A large phoneme-grapheme frequency count revisited. Journal of Literacy Research, 36, 85-98). I will only include graphemes that account for at least 3% of the example words. For the reliability of phonics generalizations, see the chart below summarizing Francine Johnston's research.

The frequency of spelling patterns is a matter of scientific discovery. Much of what I learned from Hanna's study surprised me, e.g., that s is the most common spelling of /z/. We don't want to burden children and teachers with rare spellings, nor do we want to omit common ones.

How reliably do vowel spellings represent phonemes?

Evidence from Johnston's study of the 3000 most common words

From Johnston, F. P. (2001). The utility of phonic generalizations: Let's take another look at Clymer's conclusions. The Reading Teacher, 55, 132-143.

See also my list of phonemes, common spellings, and meaningful names.

Return to the Reading Genie homepage.

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Catalog of the most frequent spellings for each phoneme - Bruce Murray, College of Education

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The top spellings for phonemes and their percentages of the 17,000 most frequent words were investigated by Paul Hanna (see Hodges, R E. (1966). The case for teaching sound-to-letter correspondences in spelling. Elementary School Journal, 66, 327-336, and the update, Fry, E. (2004). Phonics: A large phoneme-grapheme frequency count revisited.

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Letter Names or Sounds First? | Shanahan on Literacy

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I teach kindergarten. We are trying to follow the science of reading. We believe that is the best way to go. However, my colleague and I are disagreeing over one aspect of our program. Should we teach the letters first, the sounds first, or should we teach them together?
Shanahan response:

This is such a practical question and often research fails to answer such questions. That shouldn't be too surprising since researchers approach reading a bit differently than the classroom teacher. A good deal of psychological study of letters and words over the past century hasn't been so much about how best to teach reading as much as an effort to understand how the human mind works.

In this case, there is a research record that at least provides some important clues as to what the best approach may be.

There has been some disagreement over whether it is a good idea to teach letter names at all. Back in the 1970s, S.J. Samuels conducted some small studies with an artificial orthography and found that the "letter" names were neither necessary nor useful for college students learning to read this new spelling system. Later, Diane McGuiness (2004) in her popular book argued against teaching letter names because they can be a hindrance in some situations. An example of this were my first graders who figured that "what" must begin with the /d/ sound (using the name of the letter "w" as a clue to its sound, an approach that works often but not always).

Nevertheless, newer and more relevant research has shown that letter names may play an important role in early literacy learning. Those confusions do occur, but more often the letter names facilitate the learning of letter sounds - because the names and sounds are usually in better agreement than in the confusing instances (Treiman, et al., 2008; Venezky, 1975) and letter names seem to be more effective than sounds in supporting learning early in the progression (Share, 2004; Treiman, 2001). One instructional study with preschoolers found that teaching letter names together with letter sounds led to improved letter sound learning when compared to just teaching the sounds alone (Piasta, Purpura, & Wagner, 2010) - and this benefit was clearly due to the combination and not to any differences in print exposure, instructional time or intensity. Another study (Kim, Petscher, Foorman, & Zhou, 2010) found that letter name knowledge had a larger impact on letter-sound acquisition than the reverse, and that phonological awareness had a larger impact on letter sound learning when letter names were already known.

That learning advantage may be something specifically American, however. In the U.S., children tend to learn letter names quite early - look at the number of toys that emphasize this knowledge (type "letter name toys for infants" into Google and you get more than 8 million hits) or the Head Start curriculum. Old fashioned toys like wooden blocks emphasize letter naming, as do the latest technological gadgets. That means that many kids start school knowing at least some of the letter names and that knowledge may be the reason why letters do more to help sound learning, rather than the opposite.

One cool natural experiment compared children in the U.S. with those in England, where letter names are introduced later than letter sounds. There, the kids use their knowledge of sounds to help in the mastery of the letter names (Ellefson, Treiman, & Kessler, 2009). Essentially, the researchers figured that learning that first list of letters or sounds is just arbitrary memorization. Then, when the kids try to learn the second list, they use what they already know to make the task go easier. If I know my letter names, and they give me a clue that will help me learn the sounds, then I do that. On the other hand, if I already have mastered the sounds, then they may be used to facilitate my learning of the letter names.

If English was more like Finnish, with everyone pronouncing the language pretty consistently, and a written symbol for every phoneme in the language, I would conclude from all of this that we only need to teach letter sounds. English is more complicated than that both in terms of the range of dialects and the conditionality of the spellings - particular sounds are often represented by multiple letters (think of the letter "s" in sick, sure, ship, and use). Having a name for the letter separate from the mélange of sounds that it will represent is helpful - it provides some stability to work with. Even in England, by the time kids are taking on English spelling in its full complexity, letter names will usually have been learned. (It should also be pointed out that consistent letter names also provide a useful consistent anchor for the visual forms of the letters as well:

In the U.S., given that many children come to school knowing at least some letter names, it makes the greatest sense to start right there. The studies show that letters are a better base for sound learning in American schools, but they don't reveal whether this sequence is superior to a combined approach, teaching letters and sounds simultaneously. None of the studies compared this.

My sense of this as a teacher? If kids come to school knowing a bunch of letter names - at whatever age, I would turn my focus to the letter sounds - that available letter name knowledge will be a boon. On the other hand, if they know few letters when we start, I might vary my approach a bit... with the preschoolers I'd focus more on the letter names for a while, and not sweat the sounds. While in kindergarten and grade 1, I'd try to teach names and sounds together. I think there'd be less chance that I'd confuse those kids with a combined approach - their attention spans are a bit longer. I expect that I'll hear from preschool teachers telling of their success in teaching letters and sounds in combination, and K-1 teachers of their one skill at a time triumphs... but that just means it probably won't matter much, one way or the other, if you can make your approach work efficiently.

I definitely wouldn't start with the sounds first, though that doesn't seem to be a problem in the U.K. I think of the unifying value of letter names as being foundational knowledge, so I feel more comfortable starting there. That approach, however, is an opinion rather than a data-based, science of reading claim. That opinion is drawn from my experiences in teaching children and in my estimation of my own pedagogical skills (those with greater skills may be able to succeed with less likely bets).

Finally, I'd add something you didn't ask about. When teaching the letter names or sounds I'd teach students to print the letters. There is no reason to leave printing out of this equation - this added demand requires students to look at the letters more thoroughly, gaining purchase on their distinguishing features and it may increase the chances of the letters and sounds ending up in long term memory. Kids are hands on... they like to stack blocks, fingerpaint, decorate Christmas cookies, sit in water (don't ask), and put their hands in stuff I don't even want to think about... they like to mark on paper too, and getting them physically involved in literacy is not a bad thing. Letters then sounds, or letters and sounds together, but writing included with either approach. To me, that's the winning hand.
References
Ellefson, M. R., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2009). Learning to label letters by sounds or names: A comparison of england and the united states. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102(3), 323-341. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1016/j.jecp.2008.05.008

Piasta, S. B., Purpura, D. J., & Wagner, R. K. (2010). Fostering alphabet knowledge development: A comparison of two instructional approaches. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23( 6), 607-626. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1007/s11145-009-9174-x

Share, D. L. (2004). Knowing letter names and learning letter sounds: A causal connection. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 88( 3), 213-233. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1016/j.jecp.2004.03.005

Treiman, R., Pennington, B. F., Shriberg, L. D., & Boada, R. (2008). Which children benefit from letter names in learning letter sounds? Cognition, 106(3), 1322-1338. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1016/j.cognition.2007.06.006

Treiman, R., Sotak, L., & Bowman, M. (2001). The roles of letter names and letter sounds in connecting print and speech. Memory & Cognition, 29(6), 860-873. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.3758/BF03196415

Venezky, R.L. (1975). The curious role of letter names in reading instruction. Visible Language, 9, 7-23.

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Letter Names or Sounds First? | Shanahan on Literacy

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I teach kindergarten. We are trying to follow the science of reading. We believe that is the best way to go. However, my colleague and I are disagreeing over one aspect of our program. Should we teach the letters first, the sounds first, or should we teach them together?

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Teaching, Reading and Learning: The Reading League Podcast- Episode 11: Interview w/ Dr. Linnae Ehri

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For the first part, on this podcast Teaching, Reading and Learning: The Reading League Podcast- Episode 11:
Linnea Ehri, says…

“Phonemic awareness instruction was found to be effective when students were taught to manipulate phonemes in spoken words, by pronouncing them separately or by moving tokens to distinguish them. A subgroup of studies examined the contribution of letter knowledge.

Results suggested that teaching children to manipulate letters representing phonemes in spoken words was especially effective in teaching phonemic awareness in its transfer to reading and spelling tasks.”

“Teaching phonemic awareness with letters or without letters—both approaches were effective. The value of teaching with letters is that there is greater transfer to reading, spelling, and building sight words because you already learned those associations to letters.

You can begin phonemic awareness instruction without letters for children who have not yet learned letters yet. You can introduce sounds, especially beginning sounds in words. Amplify this by adding mouth positions and movements that occur as children are pronouncing the separate sounds in words. This helps children distinguish those sounds.”

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Teaching, Reading and Learning: The Reading League Podcast- Episode 11: Interview w/ Dr. Linnae Ehri

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Hunter - Help! My Student Is Stuck at Sound-by-Sound Reading

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Hunter - Help! My Student Is Stuck at Sound-by-Sound Reading

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University of Florida College of Education

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Alphabet knowledge includes knowledge of the letter names, knowledge of the letter sounds, knowledge of letter formation, and the ability to access this knowledge automatically. The activities in this section are designed to build students' alphabet knowledge.

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Alphabet knowledge includes knowledge of the letter names, knowledge of the letter sounds, knowledge of letter formation, and the ability to access this knowledge automatically. The activities in this section are designed to build students' alphabet knowledge.

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University of Florida College of Education

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A consonant digraph is a combination of two consonant letters that form a single consonant speech sound. The activities in this section are designed to strengthen students' familiarity with digraphs.

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A consonant digraph is a combination of two consonant letters that form a single consonant speech sound. The activities in this section are designed to strengthen students' familiarity with digraphs.

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120 lessons start with introducing letters and letter sounds. Then students read and write words like "cat" and "fib." Students learn more sophisticated phonics, affixes, and spellings, in a step-by-step way. By the end, they are reading and writing words like "communication" and "chrysanthemum." Tips for tutors are embedded in the lessons, but here are [...]

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10 Common Causes of Phonics Instruction Failure eBook | Sadlier School

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10 Common Causes of Phonics Instruction Failure eBook | Sadlier School

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In this free eBook, author/researcher Wiley Blevins identifies the 10 common causes of phonics instruction failure and how to avoid or fix them.

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Seven Characteristics of Strong Phonics Instruction eBook | Sadlier School

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After more than two decades of research, author Wiley Blevins has identified seven characteristics that all strong phonics instruction should include. The absence or weakness in any of these characteristics can have negative effects on students' learning gains.

In Seven Characteristics of Strong Phonics Instruction, Blevins explains each of these characteristics and how best to incorporate them in your daily phonics instruction.

Fill out the form to download your copy of Blevins' research-based eBook now.

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Seven Characteristics of Strong Phonics Instruction eBook | Sadlier School

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After more than two decades of research, author Wiley Blevins has identified seven characteristics that all strong phonics instruction should include. The absence or weakness in any of these characteristics can have negative effects on students' learning gains.

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Continuous Blending (Connected Phonation) to teach students to blend

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Continuous Blending (Connected Phonation) to teach students to blend

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TALA Videos: Syllable Structure (Decoding) | Library

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The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk

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Description

These videos, developed by the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies (TALA), demonstrate instruction in syllable structure.

Identifying Syllable Structures: Closed Syllables Review

Identifying Syllable Structures: Closed Syllables Practice

Published Date

2010

Funding Source

Texas Education Agency

Topic

Reading Instruction

Type of Resource

Video/Podcast

Audience

General Education Classroom Teacher
Instructional Coaches
School Administrator
Special Education Teacher

Grade Level

Elementary

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TALA Videos: Syllable Structure (Decoding) | Library

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These videos, developed by the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies (TALA), demonstrate instruction in syllable structure.

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Phinder | A Resource for Phonics Lessons

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Devin Kearns, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Special Education in the Department of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Please visit devinkearns.org to learn more about Devin.

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Phinder | A Resource for Phonics Lessons

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This is a free website that allows teachers and researchers to find words that match certain letter-sound patterns. Teachers can create word lists for phonics lessons, and researchers can find words for word recognition research.

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Copy of Tap It Map It Zap It Chain It- PaTTAN.pdf

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Copy of Tap It Map It Zap It Chain It- PaTTAN.pdf

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Encoding, Decoding and Understanding - The Literacy Bug

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The accompanying schematic addresses this rough relationship between language and literacy. If one is developing the components of language - e.g. phonological, lexical, morphological, grammatical, textual and pragmatic skills - then the learning of "the code" serves to facilitate the transference of the learner's speech into print, which itself can serve as a platform upon which further literate language can be built.

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Syllable Types - Sarah's Teaching Snippets

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Hi friends! It's been a while, but I'm excited to say that I have several posts coming soon. I have most of them half done. LOL! I know, I know, focus Sarah! Get one done and then the next. ha! I have had a lot of questions recently about syllable types and syllable division rules, so here we are! This post will go into what syllable types are, examples of each, and why its important to teach them.

What are Syllable Types?

There are 7 written syllable types used in English spelling (six if you combine vowel teams and diphthongs). You can see them below:

This visual shows you an example of a two syllable word, how it would be divided, and the types of syllables in each.

The following explain in a little more detail. You can find these Syllable Type Posters HERE.

Why Teach Syllable Types?

To read and spell, students need to know these syllable types. Knowing these syllable types makes decoding and encoding easier and more efficient. There are only 5 vowels (6 if you count y), but they make several sounds! Knowing the syllable types helps to narrow down what sound to make.

If you are teaching your student to read multi-syllable words, instruct them to apply syllable division "rules" first. Then they can decode each syllable based on what type of syllable it is is. ( Read more about syllable division here)

Closed Syllables

I teach the closed syllable type first. A closed syllable has one vowel followed by one or more consonants. This vowel is usually short (see exceptions below). Closed syllables include CVC words, and digraphs and blends with short vowels (cat, with, shop, block, slip, etc.).

If you would like a very detailed unit about one-syllable closed syllables, click HERE. If you would like a unit about two-syllable with closed and open syllables, click HERE.

Open Syllables

Next, I teach open syllables. An open syllable ends with a vowel and that vowel makes its long sound. There are not many one-syllable words that open (me, be, she, so) but there are tons of multi-syllable words with open syllables in them.

Open syllables includes words that end in y as well (by, try, baby). This is when I introduce y as a vowel.

You can find a detailed unit on open syllables HERE. Like I mentioned above, I also have a unit that focuses on two-syllable words with open and closed syllables. You can find that HERE.

Silent e

Next I teach the VCe pattern: When a syllable has this pattern, the letter e will be silent and the vowel will often say its long sound.

NOTE: This "magic" e that makes the first say its name is just one of those jobs. The silent e does so much more than I originally thought! Click here to read a post about the many jobs of the silent e. There is SO much more to the silent e!

Click here for resources for the silent e. So far, I only have one-syllable resources, but soon will have some t wo-syllable silent e syllable division practice.

Consonant +le

Consonant + le is one of my favorites to teach because it explains so much! In fact, this is one of the other jobs of the silent e that I was talking about. The e is silent but it does not make another vowel say its name. Instead its purpose is to be a "marker". See, every syllable must have a vowel. This e is there to do just that. It makes this a syllable!

Unlike the other syllable types, it is never a word by itself.

It is always at the end of a word and it's in the unaccented syllable. (What's that? Click here to read more.)

It's also the only syllable type where you can't hear the vowel sound.

Consonant +le can be -cle, dle, tle, ple, fle, gle, kle, ble, and zle.

R-Controlled Vowels

R-controlled vowels are often referred to as the "Bossy r". This is a great name because with a r-controlled vowel syllable, the r "controls" the vowel sound. Bossy r is a tricky one! It's tricky because it only changes the vowel sound when that vowel is before the r.

Here are some bossy r resources for one-syllable words.

Vowel Teams

Vowel teams and diphthongs are often put together as one syllable type, but for me, it makes sense to separate them. I'm not a linguist so I may be wrong about this, but here's why I separate the two:

With vowel teams, there are two or more letters that together make a vowel sound. Most of these are long vowel sounds, (but it can be a short sound, like ea saying /e/ in bread). I include ow (as in flow) with the vowel teams when it makes the long o sound, but when it makes the /ou/ sound like in cow, I consider it a diphthong.

With diphthongs, there are also two or more letters that together make one sound, but the sound is a completely new sound, not one of the traditional short or long vowel sound.

I don't have a detailed pack for vowel teams yet, but I do have some resources for one-syllable words with vowels teams. You can find those HERE.

Clip art is from Whimsy Workshop

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are the trickiest of all in my opinion, because they just have to be memorized. Like I mentioned above, a diphthong is when two or more letters make one new sound.

Click here for a resource that includes oo, ou, ow, ue, ew, and ui (the sounds /oo/ and /ou/).

Clip art is from Whimsy Workshop and educlips.

Click HERE to get this page free.

Join my mailing list for exclusive freebies and research-based resources for reading!

Related Blog Posts

Make sure you read my post about syllable division and Structured Literacy, too! Below is a link to a collection of blog posts about all things reading related.

Click here to see this collection of blog posts.

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Syllable Types - Sarah's Teaching Snippets

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Hi friends! It's been a while, but I'm excited to say that I have several posts coming soon. I have most of them half done. LOL! I know, I know, focus Sarah! Get one done and then the next. ha! I have had a lot of questions recently about syllable types and syllable division rules, so here we are!

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University of Florida College of Education

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A vowel team is a combination of letters that represents a vowel sound. In some cases, a vowel team represents the sound of the first vowel (e.g., team, rain), while in other cases, it represents the sound of the second vowel (e.g., field), and in still others, it represents another sound altogether (e.g., beige, book). In some cases, vowel teams can include letters that aren't vowels (e.g., dew, high). These activities help students develop automaticity with their recognition of vowel teams and the sounds associated with them.

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A vowel team is a combination of letters that represents a vowel sound. In some cases, a vowel team represents the sound of the first vowel (e.g., team, rain), while in other cases, it represents the sound of the second vowel (e.g., field), and in still others, it represents another sound altogether (e.g., beige, book).

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University of Florida College of Education

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Unlike consonant digraphs, in which two letters combine to represent a single sound, consonant blends are clusters of two or three consonants that each retain their own sounds. These activities help students develop automaticity with their recognition of consonant blends.

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Unlike consonant digraphs, in which two letters combine to represent a single sound, consonant blends are clusters of two or three consonants that each retain their own sounds. These activities help students develop automaticity with their recognition of consonant blends.

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Phonics Instructional Routines that are Aligned with The Science of Reading On-Demand Webinar

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Phonics Instructional Routines that are Aligned with The Science of Reading On-Demand Webinar

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Watch this on-demand Science of Reading session featuring Dr. Susan Hall, Retired Co-Founder, and Judie Caroleo, Director of Consulting Operations, 95 Percent Group, presented in collaboration with the Wisconsin Science of Reading and Literacy Task Force. The webinar reviews insights about the reading process revealed through scientific studies and moves to practical, multi-modal applications.

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Rebecca, the words change, danger, manger, strange, grange, range, and angel show the effect of the Great Vowel Shift. All came into Middle English from French; Chaucer uses spellings like "chaunge" and "daunger", indicating a long vowel that would have sounded sort of like a nasal version of the vowel that stereotypical Bostonians use in "park" or "Harvard". The same vowel, minus the nasalization, was in "make" and "tale", and what happened to that vowel is that its pronunciation changed but its spelling didn't (well, except that the u got dropped). I can think of only three words with -ange- where the vowel is pronounced short - phalange, evangelist, and flange; the first two are later borrowings, and I'm not sure what happened with flange.

As for father, it had the same vowel - and no one is quite sure why its vowel didn't also turn into long A in most dialects of English - though, interestingly, one does encounter a long-A pronunciation (rhyming with "bather") in some forms of Irish English. But father is syllabified as fa.ther, not fath.er, because, however it's pronounced, that A is long, and treating the first syllable as an open syllable makes sense. In contrast, the first vowel of mother is undeniably short, so it makes sense to have its first syllable closed: moth.er, not mo.ther.

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Rebecca, the words change, danger, manger, strange, grange, range, and angel show the effect of the Great Vowel Shift. All came into Middle English from French; Chaucer uses spellings like "chaunge" and "daunger", indicating a long vowel that would have sounded sort of like a nasal version of the vowel that stereotypical Bostonians use in "park" or "Harvard".

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How to introduce long vowels and other advanced phonics

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How to introduce long vowels and other advanced phonics

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Welcome to our resources page! We hope these documents, videos, and lesson plans will help you on your educational journey. Use the filters on the left side of the page to filter by document type, subject, class, or resource type.

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Welcome to our resources page! We hope these documents, videos, and lesson plans will help you on your educational journey. Use the filters on the left side of the page to filter by document type...

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Effective Alphabet Instruction with Robert Meyer

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Effective Alphabet Instruction with Robert Meyer

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Fortunately for me, how I first learned to teach reading was from a speech to print perspective, without rules, so I am not familiar with teaching reading any other way. Speech to print is how I taught my own daughter in the '90s. Not long after that, I was trained in Phono-Graphix and became a Phono-Graphix trainer. So, I don't have any other mindset or experience about how to teach words any differently than by sound. More on how (and why) it is helpful for children and teachers to teach words- especially r controlled vowels - with speech to print instruction later in this blog!

However, the teachers we train and students we teach have been given many explanations about words with r controlled vowels. For the past few decades, I have been trying to understand how R-controlled vowels are typically taught, other than how we teach it, so that students not only understand the concept but can apply it in reading and spelling.

I'm still not actually clear on the answer to that question but here are a few examples that I have found in various books and resources:

Word study lessons: phonics, spelling, and vocabulary, Grade 3, Fountas and Pinnell, pg. 210:

List of words:
Care, cart, heart, heard, beard, herd, torn, burn

Suggested language to teach: "Some words have a vowel pattern with one or two vowels and r. When vowels are with r, you blend the sound with r."

Units of Study in Phonics, Grades K-1, Lucy Caulkins, pg 114-115

Poem to give to children that includes the words stars, birds, turn, and dark

Teacher reads the poem as if they are the student making the following errors:

Teacher asks the student 'How was that?' They tell the students "It is sounding like I have trouble with words that contain vowels and an R, am I right? These are mess-ups that lots of kids make. My six year old self isn't the only one - a lot of you do too! Let's make sure you know about r controlled vowels."

"Here are some of those words I mess up all the time. Try reading these words. When you see the R after the vowel, heads up, that's an R-controlled vowel, which means you should probably try it a few different ways to figure out what sounds right".

Orton Gillingham Training Manual, 186

"Today, we are going to learn a new syllable type-an R controlled syllable. What kind?"

"An R-controlled syllable has 1 vowel. How many vowels?"

"The vowel is followed by the letter r. What comes after the vowel?"

"In an R controlled syllable, the vowel doesn't say its sound or its name."

"Instead, the r controls the vowel and causes it to make a completely different sound."

Orton Gillingam for All blog - Below is some excerpts from the blog with examples of how these words are taught.
R-controlled vowels and examples include:

Or - or, for, morn, storm, hornet, morsel, border

Ar - art, card, lard, bombard, farmer, tarnish
Or and Ar have a kind of long sound to them, meaning you hear the vowel difference. The word Or is easily distinguishable from the word Art.

Now for the tricky part. These r-controlled syllables can also sound different from word to word. Or can have a schwa sound in words like: doctor, visitor, mayor, error, worst, worth. We don't say doc-tor, we say, "doctәr." And the pronunciation reflects it. This is in contrast with the word, Fork, where we clearly hear the or.

Ar also has a long sound, a schwa sound and can sound like the "or" pronunciation.

Ar as long: arrow, carrot, barren, parallel, marry, charity

Ar as schwa: dollar, lizard, standard, collar, popular

Ar as "or" sound: war, warn, swarm, wart, warm, reward, warden

Lastly, we look at "ear" (not as a word, but as an r-controlled portion of a word). It also has two ways of pronunciation.

Ear as a schwa: early, earn learn, heard, pearl, earth

Ear as "ār" sound: wear, bear, tear, pear, swear

Words Their Way, Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston pg 187
R-controlled vowels

a with r: ar (car), are (care), air (fair)

o with r: or (for), ore (store), our (pour), oar (board)

e with r: er (her), eer (deer), ear (dear), ear (learn)

i with r: ir (shirt), ire (fire)

u with r: ur (burn), ure (cure)

If you are like me, your head is swimming after reading any or all of the above descriptions. What exactly are they talking about and how do students make sense of it so they can read and write these words?

What is the challenge and what is the simple solution?

The challenge is that to read and spell in English, we must understand the logic of the complex English code that we must access and understand to read and write.

Here is a simple explanation of the complex English code:

All words are made up of sounds and letters are symbols that represent the sounds we say

Sounds are spelled with 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters
Ex: on, knit, high, though)

Most sounds can be spelled in many different ways
Some ways to spell the sound /ai/: pay, pain, they, game, very, eight, great, vein)

Some spellings represent many different sounds
The letter 's' represents different sounds in each of these words: sit, has, sugar

When teaching speech to print, students will access sounds first then connect the letters that represent them to the sounds. This is especially helpful for words that are visually confusing. Consider the following lists of words that look similar but sound very different and think about how we can teach them to children so they understand it both to read and spell accurately:

'ear' represents the following sound(s):

ear /ea/ /r/ (rhymes with deer)

earn /er/ /n/ (rhymes with burn)

bear /ai/ /r/ (rhymes with fair)

heart /o/ /r/ (rhymes with dart)

'ar' represents the following sound(s):

cart /o/ /r/ (rhymes with heart)

tariff /ai/ /r/ (rhymes with sheriff)

wart /oa/ /r/ (rhymes with port)

arise /u/ /r/ (rhymes with surprise)

polar /er/ (rhymes with bowler)

'er' represents the following sound(s):

her /er/ (rhymes with fur)

there /ai/ /r/ (rhymes with pair)

series /ee/ /r/ (rhymes with dearies)

sergeant /o/ /r/ (...the first syllable rhymes with charge)

'or' represents the following sound(s):

work /er/ (rhymes with perk)

for /oa/ /r/ (rhymes with pour)

'ir' represents the following sound(s)

girl /er/ (rhymes with hurl)

virus /ie/ /r/ (...the first syllable rhymes with tie)

spirit /ee/ /r/ (rhymes with...?)

It is understandable that teaching these words, and knowing what to say when reading or what to write when spelling could certainly be tricky business!

From my experience, here is the most effective, efficient process to teach these words:

Simplify! Don't confuse kids with lots of explanations that are not clear and/or applicable.

Tell the class/student the word. Discuss meaning.

Segment each sound to the phoneme level

Put a placeholder for each sound (don't show the word)

This is key in speech to print instruction

We use lines on a whiteboard

Show the word

Point out and discuss

In a multi-syllable word, the 'a' before an 'r' often represent the sound /ai/ (same sound as in ate)

In a single syllable word, the 'a' before an 'r' often represents /ŏ/ (same sound as in on)

After a 'w', the letter 'a' typically represents the sound /oa/ (same sound as in go)

Say and write the entire word without lines.

Point out patterns

We do this with explicit instruction in sorts.

For example:

To learn more about this instruction and to see it in action of how we teach these types of words, how we explicitly, effectively, and systematically teach phonics and syllables without rules, and more about teaching the English alphabetic code, be sure to register for this free webinar where I will discuss these topics.

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R-Controlled Vowels: How to Teach in a Way that Makes Sense | EBLI

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R-Controlled vowels. Bossy r. Pirate r. R-influenced vowels. R in charge, rhotic and non-rhotic. What do these terms mean? These terms are referring to words that have 1 or 2 vowels with the letter 'r' after them in a word. The following words are r controlled: far, for, war, earth, ear, bear, dollar, marry, word, [...]

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Decodable Text: Training Wheels for Reading - Reading Horizons

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Decodable text can be a critical component of what you do as a reading teacher. In this episode of Literacy Talks, hear three experts explore the learning connection between phonics instruction and decodable text and how this can work to motivate striving readers of all ages.

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The word mapping tool lets you type in a word and see its graphemes and phonemes mapped out. It’s great for teaching phonics!

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University of Florida College of Education

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When a vowel is followed by an R, the sound of the vowel often changes and is said to be controlled by the vowel. There are three main r-controlled vowel sounds: the /ar/ sound, as in barn; the /or/ sound, as in corn; and the /er/ sound, as in fern, bird, and curl. The activities in this section are designed to build students' proficiency with r-controlled vowels.

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When a vowel is followed by an R, the sound of the vowel often changes and is said to be controlled by the vowel. There are three main r-controlled vowel sounds: the /ar/ sound, as in barn; the /or/ sound, as in corn; and the /er/ sound, as in fern, bird, and curl.

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Introduction

Learning to read begins at home through everyday parent-child interactions, long before children attend school. Your continued support of literacy development throughout elementary school positively affects your child's reading ability.

These Family Activities include easy-to-follow plans to help you support your child's foundational reading skills at home. Materials needed for each Family Activity, such as letter cards, are included. They begin with simpler activities and progress to more difficult ones. You may want to start with the first activity and move to the next when you notice that your child has a firm understanding of the content from that activity. We encourage you to select appropriate activities for your child, and feel free to set aside anything that seems too difficult. The goal is to engage your child in activities that promote learning in a positive environment, not to induce frustration. The activities should be completed with the child, frequently, with patience, and positive feedback. Using the activities at home will be a fun way to spend family time together!

The Family Literacy Videos show families engaging their child in the Family Activities just described. The key points about the videos help you know what to focus on for a specific activity.

The activities were excerpted from a First Grade Teacher's Guide to Support Family Involvement in Foundational Reading Skills, which is free online: https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/southeast/pdf/REL_2021042.pdf.
You can also access these videos free online: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVHqsnePfULrjkTeS-jvVIQeP-HKRWpry.

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educational improvement; excellence in education; educational research; statistics; statistical data; statistical surveys; national center for education evaluation and regional assistance.

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Introduction Learning to read begins at home through everyday parent-child interactions, long before children attend school. Your continued support of literacy development throughout elementary school positively affects your child's reading ability. These Family Activities include easy-to-follow plans to help you support your child's foundational reading skills at home.

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Three concrete steps to accelerate reading growth | REL Midwest

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By Jill Bowdon
June 28, 2021

After the 2020/21 academic year, when many students experienced remote learning for at least part of the year, school leaders, teachers, families, and students are eager to get back to in-person learning. One of the crucial questions that administrators, coaches, and teachers face in the 2021/22 academic year is: After a year of disrupted schooling, how can educators "accelerate learning" in the 2021/22 school year to help students in the early grades experience more growth than would be expected in one year?

Accelerating learning seems like a daunting prospect, but research on reading suggests three concrete steps that educators can take to meet this challenge.

Step 1: Identify the skills your students have at the beginning of the year and again in the middle of the year

As with every fall, students will arrive on the first day of school with varying levels of skills and experience in reading. Teachers who work in the primary grades know this well: Students follow their own developmental trajectories, and there is always variation in skill levels at the start of school.

Teachers have a superpower for addressing this variation. Two promising practices include:

Screening all students for potential reading problems. Screening should occur at the beginning of the year and then again in the middle year so that teachers can get a more up-to-date portrait of students' skills. For information about choosing a high-quality literacy assessment, check out the National Center on Intensive Intervention's Academic Screening Tools Chart.

Using data to inform decisions about the pacing and content of instruction during the reading block. To learn more about differentiating instruction based on data, see the Data Team Protocol for Differentiating Instruction from the Doing What Works Library.

Teachers need support from coaches and school leaders to use data-based decision making. Many state education agencies recommend that districts implement multi-tiered systems of support in reading paired with school-based teams to review reading assessment data and inform decisions about instruction and interventions.

Step 2: Use effective instruction

Promising practices in reading instruction in the primary grades include:

Responding to students' current skill levels. Experts recommend that teachers use data to understand what their students know and what they need to learn next (Gersten et al., 2008). Many teachers choose to respond to students' needs by using small groups to provide "just right" instruction and as needed, by updating group composition to respond to students' changing skill levels.

Including instruction on both foundational reading skills and reading comprehension. Several states now have legislation requiring instruction in phonics, phonological awareness, and other foundational reading skills in the primary grades. According to rigorous evidence from multiple randomized controlled trials, effective instruction in these skill areas is essential for reading success (Foorman et al., 2016). However, national experts agree that effective schools and teachers also offer instruction in vocabulary and comprehension beginning in kindergarten and continuing throughout the primary grades (Foorman et al., 2016).

For more information about the recommendations of national experts on instructional practices in foundational reading skills and reading comprehension, see these What Works Clearinghouse practice guides:Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade and Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade.

Being systematic and explicit. Based on experimental evidence, primary students who have received systematic and explicit instruction in phonics or phonological awareness experience more growth in reading than those who have not (Ehri et al., 2001; Foorman et al., 1998). Offering systematic and explicit instruction in these domains will be more important than ever in the 2021/22 academic year to help students accelerate growth.

The adjectivessystematic and explicit are commonly used in discussion of literacy instruction. But what do they mean exactly? Systematic phonics instruction uses an ordered, carefully defined sequence of letter-sound relationships and spelling patterns. Explicit instruction involves teacher modeling and then scaffolded practice around a specified learning objective with a measurable learning outcome. During explicit instruction, teachers offer clear directions and frequent, timely corrective feedback to students as needed.

To learn more about systematic and explicit instruction in phonics and phonological awareness, check out thisshort video from REL Midwest designed for use in professional learning communities or professional development. The content in this video draws from the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade.

Step 3: Intervene promptly to support students who need extra assistance and monitor progress regularly

Some educators take a "wait-and-see" approach to determine whether struggling students will outgrow reading difficulties. Experts, however, have concluded that students have the best chance at overcoming reading difficulties when schools intervene promptly with evidence-based interventions (Gersten et al., 2008). To learn more about this recommendation, check out this short video by REL Midwest for use in professional development and the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention (RtI) and Multi-Tier Intervention in the Primary Grades.

In fall 2021, teachers may find that far greater numbers of students than in years past are identified by universal screeners as needing intervention. School leaders may want to consider how to enhance their Tier 1 instruction to make it more effective, such as by using the strategies discussed above, while also assessing their capacity to serve students through Tier 2 and 3 interventions. There is rigorous, experimental evidence that providing intensive, systematic instruction on foundational reading skills in small groups between three to five times a week for 20 to 40 minutes can help students get back on track in reading (Gersten et al., 2008). However, interventions may not be effective if the teacher or interventionist does not have the capacity to implement them with fidelity. For a detailed description of how schools can plan for success, see the implementation guidance from the Center on Multi-Tiered System of Supports.

Effective small-group and one-on-one interventions in reading in primary grades will do the following:

Supplement-rather than supplant-Tier 1 instruction. All students still need to be present during Tier 1 instruction, and experts recommend that interventions take place outside of the Tier 1 reading block (Gersten et al., 2008).

Be informed by systematic decisions in the context of a data-based individualization process. Experts recommend using the seven dimensions of the Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity to evaluate and select validated interventions that work for students (Fuchs, Fuchs & Malone, 2018). Some students may only require a booster, such as small-group reading instruction aimed at building foundational reading skills for a limited number of weeks; other students who do not progress during small-group interventions may require more intensive one-on-one support (Gersten et al., 2008). Ongoing data collection and analysis will be key to determine the intensity of interventions required (Fuchs, Fuchs & Malone, 2018). For more information about the Taxonomy of Intervention Intensity and how to use it, check out this infographic [1,754 KB ] and training modules from the National Center on Intensive Intervention.

Closing thoughts

Teachers, coaches, and administrators face many challenges when school resumes in person this fall, especially after more than a year of interrupted schooling. By implementing these three concrete steps, educators will provide a strong foundation for accelerating reading growth for students in the early grades.

References

Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Stahl, S. A., & Willows, D. M. (2001). Systematic phonics instruction helps students learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel's meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 71(3), 393-447. https://www.dyslexie.lu/JDI_02_02_04.pdf [248 KB ]

Foorman, B., Beyler, N., Borradaile, K., Coyne, M., Denton, C. A., Dimino, J., Furgeson, J., Hayes, L., Henke, J., Justice, L., Keating, B., Lewis, W., Sattar, S., Streke, A., Wagner, R., & Wissel, S. (2016). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2016-4008). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE). https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/21

Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Fletcher, J. M., Schatschneider, C., & Mehta, P. (1998). The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(1), 37-55. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ571169

Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., & Malone, A. S. (2018). The taxonomy of intervention intensity. Teaching Exceptional Children, 50(4), 194-202. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1160167

Gersten, R., Compton, D., Connor, C.M., Dimino, J., Santoro, L., Linan-Thompson, S., and Tilly, W.D. (2008). Assisting students struggling with reading: Response to Intervention and multi-tier intervention for reading in the primary grades (NCEE 2009-4045). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE). https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/3

Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J. (2010). Improving reading comprehension in kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2010-4038). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE). https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/14

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Three concrete steps to accelerate reading growth | REL Midwest

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By Jill Bowdon June 28, 2021 After the 2020/21 academic year, when many students experienced remote learning for at least part of the year, school leaders, teachers, families, and students are eager to get back to in-person learning.

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Scope & Sequecne of teh LOGIC Reading Program

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The LOGIC scope and sequence is built on the Archer/Hughes principle of teaching skills logically...teaching easier skills before harder skills, teaching high-frequency skills before skills that are less frequent in usage, teaching the prerequisites to a skill before teaching the skill itself, and separating skills and strategies that are similar and thus may be confusing to students.

The scope and sequence is designed so that the highest utility spellings are taught in order to facilitate reading and spelling as quickly as possible. Kindergarten students learn to read words by Lesson 3 and are able to read simple sentences by Lesson 7.

The LOGIC scope and sequence also embodies Archer/Hughes' principle A4. in that complex skills and strategies are broken into smaller instructional units and then are synthesized into the whole, e.g. the progression from sound/symbol, to word, to sentence, to connected text.

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Scope & Sequecne of teh LOGIC Reading Program

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The LOGIC scope and sequence is built on the Archer/Hughes principle of teaching skills logically...teaching easier skills before harder skills, teaching high-frequency skills before skills that are less frequent in usage, teaching the prerequisites to a skill before teaching the skill itself, and separating skills and strategies that are similar and thus may be confusing...

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University of Florida College of Education

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The graphemes listed here include consonant combinations with silent letters, double letters that often appear at the end of words, and trigraphs (three letters combined to make one sound). These activities help students develop familiarity with other graphemes.

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The graphemes listed here include consonant combinations with silent letters, double letters that often appear at the end of words, and trigraphs (three letters combined to make one sound). These activities help students develop familiarity with other graphemes.

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A vowel team is a combination of letters that represents a vowel sound. In some cases, a vowel team represents the sound of the first vowel (e.g., team, rain), while in other cases, it represents the sound of the second vowel (e.g., field), and in still others, it represents another sound altogether (e.g., beige, book). In some cases, vowel teams can include letters that aren't vowels (e.g., dew, high). These activities help students develop automaticity with their recognition of vowel teams and the sounds associated with them.

Visual Drill
Visual Drill: Vowel Teams (PowerPoint) Visual Drill: Vowel Teams (Google Slides)
Grapheme Introductions

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A vowel team is a combination of letters that represents a vowel sound. In some cases, a vowel team represents the sound of the first vowel (e.g., team, rain), while in other cases, it represents the sound of the second vowel (e.g., field), and in still others, it represents another sound altogether (e.g., beige, book).

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Decoding and Encoding

Once children learn some phoneme-grapheme correspondences, they can begin decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) words. The activities included in this section are designed to help children apply their phoneme-grapheme knowledge to decoding and/or encoding.

In addition to these activities, we have word lists and virtual word cards you can use for practice. You can also use the Phinder tool to generate your own words for practice.

To find out more about how children learn to read words, click here.

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Decoding and Encoding | UF Literacy Institute

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Once children learn some phoneme-grapheme correspondences, they can begin decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) words. The activities included in this section are designed to help children apply their phoneme-grapheme knowledge to decoding and/or encoding. In addition to these activities, we have word lists and virtual word cards you can use for practice.