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Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech.

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Students need to be taught letter-sound relationships, and this instruction should follow a pattern of letters.  They also need to be given frequent opportunities to practice these skills.

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Teaching students the letter sounds in a systematic order doesn't need to mean that the letters are taught in alphabetical order. Students may have more success learning continuous letter sounds first.

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Today's post is from the fab team at Love2learn. I shared our first experience with Love2learn a couple of years ago which you can read here - Love2Learn - Literacy Classes For Little Ones. After our trial session I booked our youngest into a class straight away and he attended Love2learn for over two years. My gorgeous four year old nephew is now in his second year of Love2learn and he loves it too!

Love2learn is developed and run by Marita Fraser, a Speech Pathologist, and Lisa Price a Primary School teacher, both have over 20 years of experience in their fields. Together they have developed a program that is unique, and caters for the needs of individual learners.

Love2learn's main aim for their students, is that they will develop a love of literacy and learning, and commence school with confidence. They use a combination of resources, including the Australian Literacy Program, Little Learners Love Literacy, and also a combination of their own resources.

It is a multisensory approach, focusing on phonics and working in small groups. The children have so much fun they don't even realise they are learning. They enjoy singing, dancing, puppets, cooking, craft, play dough, picture books and You Tube phonic presentations.

Pre-School classes are run daily in Mont Albert, Victoria and in term 2 will start a Monday class in Ivanhoe. They provide three different preschool classes, L-plater (3 year old), P-plater (4-5 year old), and Fully Licensed (advanced 4-5 year olds).

To find out more about Love2learn head to their website love2learn.com.au or call 0425 743 781.

When it comes to teaching the alphabet, most of us will remember singing the ABC as a child, but as you will find out in this post there is a better way to teach children the alphabet and sounds than rote learning the ABC.

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In what order should the alphabet and sounds be taught?

A common question asked by both parents and educators alike, is in what order should the alphabet and sounds be taught. The answer to this question is more complex than it seems.

Most research indicates that children learn the alphabet letter names in alphabetical order. There are many songs, rhymes and ABC books that are set out in A-Z order that make it easy to learn in sequence. However, when teaching using a phonics approach, does this still apply?

Teaching children the sounds of the alphabet explicitly is the key stone to teaching them to read. Most research agrees that teaching the sound/letter links in alphabetical order is of little help when teaching children to read. In fact, it can make it harder to teach the sounds because if we follow the order of the alphabet most children will revert back to the letter name rather than the sound it makes.

There are many phonic programs which teach different sequences but fundamentally the premise is that the earliest letter/sound links taught should be ones that allow children to start reading words as soon as possible and with relative ease. Explicit teaching of both letter and sound is important. In general, the following principles apply:

1. Introduce sounds that are continuous rather than stop sounds and can be easily said by most children. For example, m, s and f can be elongated, resulting in easier blending of sounds. Therefore these sounds are often introduced early in phonics based programs.

2. Introduce more commonly used letters first. For example, m, s, f, c, p, t are more commonly used than q, v, z and x. Keep the least frequently used letters until later in the program.

3. Introduce at least 1 or 2 short vowels early in the program and then one at the end of the next sequence and so on. Give them lots of repetition with the vowels taught first before moving onto the next vowel. A child must know the vowel sounds in order to blend and read words. It is important to teach them separately minimising potential confusion.

4. Teach new sounds in small steps, consolidating previous sounds and repetition is vital.

5. Avoid teaching visually similar letters together, such as q p and d b and f t. Children get easily confused if they appear similar.

What does a Program look like that follows these principles?

At Love2learn, we teach the letters in a particular sequence following the Australian based program Little Learners Love Literacy. We first introduce m s f, then the short vowel a. P t c and i follow closely behind. From there we begin our word building using the sounds learnt.

Then we progress to the next sounds. Once the alphabet sounds are consolidated we progress onto double consonant sounds ie; ll ff ss tt then Digraphs sh th ch wh ck ng moving on to the more difficult long vowel sounds ie: ou, ay, oo etc.

At the completion of the first stage of teaching the sound/letter links, children are able to blend sounds to form words. For example, they can form i-n, a-t, , c-a-t, m-a-p, s-i-t etc. The look of delight on the childrens' and parents faces when they realise there is a link between the letter and the sound is amazing to watch.

The order in which we teach the sounds also corresponds with Little Learners Love Literacy decodable books. These decodable books allow the children to practise their sound/letter links, and blending skills in stages gaining practise with the first sequence then the next.

Decodable high frequency words and high frequency words that need to be learnt off by heart such as My, I and The are introduced progressively as we move through each stage of books and sound sequence. There is no guessing, just blending of sounds they know to form words. This sets children up for success, which motivates them to learn and provides them with confidence.

There is no one correct way to introduce the sounds. If you take into account the above factors, then success is more likely. Also be led by your child as they may already know some letters and sounds and you could start from there

Some may learn the letters and sounds in their name first, so this may be a starting point moving from the known to the unknown. Have fun and keep reinforcing the importance of not just knowing the letter name, but more importantly, the letter sound.

To find out more about Love2learn head to their website love2learn.com.au or call 0425 743 781.

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Do you have a child showing interest in learning to read?

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In what order should the alphabet and sounds be taught? - Planning With Kids

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Teaching children the sounds of the alphabet explicitly is the key stone to teaching them to read. Most research agrees that teaching the sound/letter links in alphabetical order is of little help when teaching children to read.

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More resources: Roots of Reading (PBS Launching Young Readers series) Looking at Reading Interventions: Letter Names Print Awareness: self-paced course Print awareness is a child’s earliest introduction to literacy. Children with print awareness understand that print has different functions dependin…

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There are words here and they mean things

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There are words here and they mean things

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One of the first steps to being able to read is understanding that the squiggly lines on the paper mean something.  They begin recognizing what their name looks like, what the symbols in front of restaurants look like, and that books are read front to back, from left to right. They hold books, memorize stories, and pretend to read.

This article reminded me of when one of my preschool students, who was later confirmed gifted, had heard a story several times and committed it to memory. The four-year-old 'read' the story to her mother, who, a few pages in started pointing out words she missed. I explained the idea of pre-reading, and that while she wasn't really reading, this was a great first step!

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Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression.Fluent reading builds stamina for reading lengthy or complex texts. Reading fluency serves as a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.

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When students struggle to decode words, they will struggle to comprehend what they are reading. Building student's bank of site words allows them to glide through passages and absorb content.

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"The letter-sound relationship is taught in an organized and logical sequence"

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'The instruction provides teachers with precise directions for teaching letter-sound relationships"

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I have had some luck using ASL to help with letter sound connections as well as 1 to 1 counting connections.

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See It, Say It, Sign It | Letter Sounds | ASL Alphabet | Jack Hartmann

YouTube · 06:29 · 216,451,000+ views

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youtube.com jack hartmann letters of the alphabet - Bing video

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"The understanding that print carries meaning, that books contain letters and words."

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"The ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression."

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Thinking about the role of explicit instruction makes me think of when I tried to teach my first child to read.  She had books, we read them at night, we sang her songs, but for some reason, she wasn't making the connection between words on paper and words coming out of her mouth, even after she had memorized books.  When we switched to books that focused on the letter sound connection, she was able to read.

ASL can also be used as a bridge for this, since it draws a connection between 'I can say letters' and 'I can see letters'.

Now that she's a great reader, one of the things that interested me was how great fluency impacted her reading comprehension. When her vocabulary was at a 7th grade level, her comprehension was still at a fourth-grade level, since even with accuracy, her reading was choppy.  It seems like students have to hear what they're reading in a fluid way in order to comprehend it.

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While I don't have to teach children to read as a middle school teacher, my students are developing fluency, and many struggle with comprehension. I try to model good fluency for them when I read aloud, and when they are able to read in a similar fluid way, I can tell they're understanding the material more. While I think leveled readers need to be done carefully so as to not destroy the content of the book, I do think giving children reading at their appropriate level provides them with the opportunity to build fluency in their reading.

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Phonics:  The correlation between either a letter or a group of letters and a sound.  Students can use phonics to decode new or unfamiliar words by breaking them down into their individual sounds, and then blending those sounds together.  An example of using phonics to read would be a student reading /d/o/g/ and then 'dog'.

Fluency: How smoothly the student is reading. By reading at an appropriate pace, with appropriate inflection, the student is demonstrating fluency. When a student reads smoothly, they improve their comprehension.

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Science instruction includes so many unfamiliar words, and students may not learn every term before reading a text, especially if a student is responsible for finding some of their own texts. Students with understanding of phonics and morphemes will be able to read the words, make predictions as to how they should be pronounced, and use context clues and morphemes to determine the meanings of the words

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Phonics instruction may seem like something only done in pre-school or early elementary, but some students may still need phonics instruction, especially in ESE and ELL programs.  As an ESE teacher, I've seen students struggle in classes where grade level reading was far too difficult for them, so we went back to basics and started with phonics instruction, which helped so much.

Students struggling significantly with reading benefit from read alouds which introduce them to materials and model fluency. Students hear a teacher modeling what reading should sound like and are better able to read for comprehension.