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I observed a kindergarten ICT classroom in Brooklyn this semester. The class has two teachers: one teacher with a regular certification, and one teacher with a special education certification. The class consists of 16 students: some with IEPs, and some without IEPs. One of the first things I noticed was how structured and routined the class operated. The teachers provided me with the class schedule, and the first period, which is a phonics lesson, is consistent Monday to Friday—having the phonics lesson at a set time everyday is important because the students know what to expect every day when they come in.

The teachers use the Edwards Orton-Gillingham program in the classroom. During a phonics lesson, I noted that the program uses a multisensory approach to teach phonic and phonemic awareness. When teaching a one-syllable lesson, the teacher follows the program using an orthographic mapping template: saying the word while counting the syllable with fingers, mapping the word, graphing the word, and spelling the word. Using all of these techniques essentially makes for a clearer understanding for all the students because multisensory teaching focuses on reaching students with different types of learning strategies like visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, etc. In the same lesson teaching one-syllable words, the teacher uses the sound wall to show the children how their mouth and tongue should be positioned for a specific letter.

The classroom consists of a majority of Asian American students (Chinese descent), and half of them are ELL students. I mention this because Mandarin and English are completely different from each other linguistically making it one of the hardest languages to bridge together. One way the teacher bridges the two languages together is by providing instructions and explanations in Mandarin to the students who need it.

Chapter 2 of Shifting the Balance focuses on the importance of phonic and phonemic awareness. One of the strategies mentioned in text was high leverage routines focusing on phoneme isolation, blending games, and segmentation activities; the orthographic mapping template covers all of the activities. The chapter also delves into developing a consistent routine teaching students phonemic awareness instead of sporadically which the teachers that I observed have done.

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For phonics, they use Fundations. This is a picture of one of the Fundations workbooks the students use. This one just shows pictures of the target sounds, their letters, and the anchor words Fundations uses for them. The teacher goes over the sounds they're working on, in this case it's vowel teams ai and ay, and asks students questions on what a vowel team is. She uses the Fundations cards that show, for example, ai for bait. She also makes sure the class knows that the Fundations cards are different colors for a reason. Vowels are red, consonants are yellow, etc. There is no articulation anchor chart used and she has a french accent, so many words end up being said using French vowels. There are anchor charts of the basic Fundations letters, closed syllable exceptions, and glued sounds. Students are clear on expectations during this part of the routine, but when they get to the picture workbook, they end up focusing on the coloring aspect over sounding it out.

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During my first grade classroom observation, I was placed in an ICT classroom that had two teachers and two paraprofessionals. The children were divided into two groups, one gathered on the main rug and the other in the back of the classroom with the second teacher. Both teachers were teaching the same literacy concept, but I noticed that the teacher in the back was moving at a slightly faster pace than the teacher leading the main rug group, where I sat with the students.

The lesson began with the teacher using the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness book. She gave students clear directions, saying, “I’m going to pick a word that rhymes with light,” to which the children responded, “sight.” The teacher then asked students to take out their “choppers” and begin segmenting sounds, “Bone” students chopped and said “B-O-NE.” “Lake” students chopped “L /A/ KE.” Students chopped “Mad” “M / A / D.”

Next, the teacher introduced “make it fun” activity for digraphs. When she said the word bench, the students broke it apart and, upon reaching the CH sound, pinched their thumb and index finger together and waved their arm to represent the sound. She continued, “Now we’re going to segment the sounds,” asking students to chop it down and say “F/ I / V / E” and “V / O / TE,” chopping between each segment.

The teacher then transitioned, saying, “Hands up, we are going to smash words together.” She directed students and said, “You have AT, add an M in front.” Students smashed their hands together and said “MAT.” The teacher said “You have IT, add a B.” Students smashed their hands together again and said “BIT.”

Next, she focused on phoneme deletion and substitution, “You have the word teach, take away T.” Students said “each.” The teacher said “You have the word base, take away B.” Students said “ace.” The teacher said “Change the first letter of heal to M.” Students said “meal.”

Afterward, the teacher used flashcards with letters and didn’t read them in order asking students to repeat after her. She called on a student to read the specific letters that were marked with blue post its. The teacher transitioned to her Foundations book to practice digraphs. The teacher said, “Pit add CK,” and students responded, “Pick.” She continued, “Lip add CK,” and they answered, “Lick.” The teacher asked a student to come to the board and underline words that had digraphs and circle those that did not. The student forgot to circle the word tin, the teacher asked, “Should that word be underlined or circled?” The student said circled because it doesn’t have a diagraph.

This lesson connects to Chapter 2 of Shifting the Balance, which was about phonemic awareness. On page 43, there was an example of phoneme segmentation, describing how a teacher breaks a word into its smallest sounds. For example, the teacher tells  students the word “can” and students sound out K / A / N.

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In the first grade ICT classroom I am observing the children are learning their phonemes and phonics through FUNdations’ visual charts, flashcards and workbooks. The day starts off with the children going over phonemes on the carpet. Students were expected to repeat and echo after the teacher pointed at each letter of the alphabet then the digraphs under the alphabet. The students breezed through the alphabet and pronouncing the counts of the digraphs. The teacher then pulled out a set of flashcards of words containing words with digraphs and asked students to stand in front of the class and spell out the word without seeing the flashcards. Some were able to complete the task quickly and some needed a little more time than others.

When it then came to the workbooks and writing words, more students struggled with keeping within the lines. For example some students wrote the letter, n, as the letter, h. The teacher responded to this by reminding students that the letter n was a plane line letter and h was a sky line letter while simultaneously pointing and referring to the letter formation chart. Nonetheless the students were still able to spell certain words out loud just by being able to tap it out and only needed some assistance with what the class called “tricky” words.

Seeing the students struggle with writing but overall excelling with orally spelling words and even some words with digraphs related to a lot of our readings and podcasts in class. Just by being able to identify the sounds of each word allows the students to create a visual in their minds of how the word would look and then the ability to say the letters in the word. I think this really supports the importance of learning and going in depth with phonemes before phonics since the students in this case were able to perform a task one way and eventually will be able to transfer their oral skills to written with more scaffolding.

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‧₊˚✩ I was able to observe a first grade class that had this Fundations board in the classroom! The board consisted of the alphabet labeled as Sound Cards, Diagraphs (phoneme), different suffixes and "glued sounds." I found this interesting, the way it was labeled as "glued sounds" because it is easy to understand as a young student. Throughout this class time the teacher used words from their word bank to practice using foundations. However, she asks the class for word suggestions and one that I liked was the word cat! The teacher instructed the students that they would sound out each letter within the word while "tapping" their fingers with their thumb. So for example, cat would be sounded out as: ka-ah-t. While sounding out the /C/ in Cat, we would tap our index to our thumb, /a/ would be middle finger to thumb and /t/ would be ring finger to thumb. And as we sound each letter out, we pronounce the whole word together and do a horizontal zip motion (like a straight smile).

‧₊˚✩ When it came to visuals or anchor charts, I was unable to take pictures of it. However, the teacher did have pictures of mouth movements for letter sounds! They were the type of cards that had different vowels and consonants and a picture of a child's mouth sounding the letter out. One thought that did pop up was how do students know how to use the mouth movements. But I quickly realized that it serves more of a reminder rather than anything else. It promotes multi-sensory learning, allowing the students to connect auditory experience with a physical movement and visual picture.

‧₊˚✩ When it came to supporting ELL students, I did find the lesson to be discriminatory, if I could say that. By this I mean that the teacher did not include Spanish words, or the sound relationships between both languages. Most of the students are hispanic/latinx so it was a little surprising.

‧₊˚✩ This activity reminded me of our peer's presentation when we were learning about Phoneme segmentation! When we would practice the different gesture techniques, I found it silly and perhaps a little embarrassing. However, being able to see it in action with young students made me actually like the different gestures! It allows us as teachers to evaluate their phonemic awareness!

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For my fieldwork, I am observing a 2nd grade classroom at KIPP Infinity Elementary School. Before beginning my observation, I was able to speak with one of the two teachers in the classroom, and she gave me some background information on how their day is structured in terms of learning material.

After their Morning Meeting, all of the 2nd-grade classes split into different groups, which they refer to as “LAB groups”. From previous experience working within a KIPP school before I knew that LAB groups were made depending on where the students were in terms of being advanced or struggling readers.

During LAB instruction, the students were split into 4 groups; 2 groups would each be with one teacher, and the other 2 were instructed to do independent i-Ready work on their laptops. While observing the small group phonics instruction, I noticed that the teacher’s guide was “Phonics for Reading” by Anita Archer, Ph.D. D. which was also by i-Ready.

The teacher did a great job at moving at the right pace for the students and using her time well, which was shown through the fact that there were very few moments where the students lost focus or got distracted. Routines and expectations were very clear during the phonemic awareness/phonics lesson, and this was due to the high-leverage instruction led by the teacher. The structure of practicing sounding on the words was very clear. The teacher would use a method of first modeling, and then the students would then the students were expected to try. For example, she would present the word by saying, “The word is was, the word is?” and the students would respond by saying “was.” She then modeled sounding it out, and then the students would try it on their own.

I did observe a lesson regarding the articulation of sounds during their “Red Thread” class time, which used the Red Thread curriculum. The teacher would pull out different cards and prompt the students to say the sounds after each card was shown. For example, some of the cards said things like “wh”, “an”, “ss”, “ay”, “ch”, “oa”, “ai”, and more. The teacher would then give the students examples of words like “play”, “goat”, and “rain” that used the sounds previously presented. However, I didn’t really see any anchor charts regarding sounds, just the alphabet, which I didn’t expect for a second-grade classroom.

During this lesson, there were different materials used. First, the laptop was used to complete the reading classwork on i-Ready as they waited to go into the small groups. Second, the book  “Phonics for Reading” by Anita Archer, Ph.D. D. which the students had their own copies of to write down the responses they discussed or view the pictures or sentences they were to discuss. This might not necessarily be a material, but the teacher encouraged the students to use visual and kinesthetic supports like the bed method when struggling to identify b or d, since it is easily confused. The bed method was when they put two thumbs up and put their fists together, sort of making a bed form, and the left should be known to be b, and the right is d, so there they know which way the “belly” goes for each letter when having to write them down. That was interesting, and I would like to use that in the future when I teach.

At one point in the lesson, I did hear the teachers talking about one of their ELL students and how hard she was trying to do good, but she was struggling to grasp the concepts in the phonics lessons. However, I didn’t observe that they incorporated her home language into the phonics instruction.

This lesson connects to our texts because it shows different things mentioned in the text, like high-leverage instructional strategies, multisensory scaffolding, and even an assessment with the  “Phonics for Reading” book they were provided with.

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The classroom I was observing was a mix of general education students and some were special education students. The teacher did a lesson on phonics in the morning. Before she started she went over some letters on a card. For example A /a/ apple or A A apple. So that students knew A makes more than one sound. The card also had a picture of how your mouth should look once you say the letter. The teacher says it and students repeat. After that, they went into their lesson which was done on the smart board when students were sitting on the rug. To get their attention the teacher would say chocolate and students would say cupcake. Teachers starts off with words like fish, dish, dash. She asks the students to underline every phoneme in the word. So students underline each letter on their workbooks. A few underlined the whole word but then the teacher repeated and said each phoneme what is a phoneme class and they say letter, and then the student understood. The next part of the activity was to focus on a digraph which they focused on sh. They read a row of words with sh in it so they can understand the sound it makes and how it doesn't sound like it’s actual phoneme sound. One student was having trouble with a word so the teacher came over to her and helped her. The teacher held her arm as each sound is being said the teacher moves her arms together. After that she uses her fists and tells the students to follow along. For example /h//a/t/ the teacher separates her fists and brings it together by each sound and the student follows. After that they play a game on the smartboard and they put a check mark on the digraphs. After that they put the words together by their sounds like shift, drag, ash. Students say if they see a digraph. I think this was a great lesson all the students were engaged!

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I felt like this photo, along with the lesson I observed using it, perfectly encapsulated the "Phonics and Phoneme Awareness" concepts we've been discussing in class.

The children used a combination of the "Heggerty" and "Fundations" curriculums. This was done as a way to make use of the speaking and phonemic aspects of "Heggerty", while also utilizing the written and phonics aspects of the "Fundations" curriculum. They began with phonemic awareness practice, saying each letter of the alphabet, then an associated word, and finally the sound of the letter, accompanied with hand movements. They then went into vowel sounds, using the pictures on the sound wall.

The routines and expectations were clear, and the children seemed to be able to follow the teacher's instructions expertly. This routine was clearly a classroom norm, even with the school year only being about a month in.

During the vowel portion, there was an alphabet chart on the smart-board, and during the lesson, the teacher would point to a word or phrase and ask for the phonemic sounds associated with it.

The teacher used "Fundation" journals, along with whiteboards for the students to spell CVC words out, then underline the vowel in the word.

There weren't any home languages incorporated in the phonics instruction, but there were also no ELL students, so there might have been less of an urgency to incorporate that in the lesson.

The lesson connected a lot to "Shifting the balance", as there was an emphasis on phoneme awareness before there was any introduction of more complex reading or writing skills. It also connected to the Science angle of Chapter 2 of "Shifting the balance", as Phonemic awareness and Phonics were taught using two different curriculums, therefore respecting the difference between the two skill sets and how they both need their own intentional instruction in order to help students learn both efficiently.

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I am doing my observation in the first grade at PS 748 in Brooklyn. The classroom has around 17 students, and some of the students are English language learners, their home languages are Chinese, Spanish, and Russian. The classroom is full of Fundation posters, and the teacher also includes her own poster charts regarding the articulation of sounds. I go there every Friday. The class starts its day with a morning meeting, and after that, they begin working on their ELA lessons.

This was my third observation in this classroom. Since I attended at least three ELA classes, I noticed that the teacher starts her class with sounds. She shows cards to the children, who then say the letter, objects that begin with that letter, and the sound (e.g., a, apple, /a/). During this activity, students sit on the carpet with assigned seats, and this is the only time when kids are not allowed to sit where they please. When I asked the teacher why, she explained that it is easier for her to observe how they form their mouths and to hear if they are making the correct sounds. During my last observation, I observed how the teacher was introducing the class to the /b/, /d/, and /d/ sounds that may come at the end of the word.

Students were asked to sit at their desks and take their writing journals. The teacher told them that they would write several different words and needed to listen very carefully because she would change the sound in the middle or at the end of the word. She began with the word mop. After that, she told the students that she was going to change the middle sounds. After that, she said map, mad, mud, etc. If the students were unsure how to spell the given words, she asked them to tap the word on their fingers or look into their sound wall. At the end of the activity, all the words were spelled on the board. She asked them what sound was given to them at the beginning and how the sound changed as she introduced them to the word.

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Word wall alphabet phonics morning routine 

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I observed a Pre-K classroom which consisted of one lead teacher and one assistant teacher and during morning circle time the teacher started off with doing their morning routine which was the date and the weather. They sang the alphabet song, after that they sang the vowel song. The word wall came after this and they proceeded to sing another song of the letters but this time practicing the letter phonics. The word wall had the letter next to the sound next to a picture of an object that starts with that letter. The teacher sang this with them while pointing at her mouth and emphazing the way her lips and mouth move for each word. Each student seemed to know the song already and be familiar with the routine. The teacher only gave the instruction of “ lets start our morning circle" and they all knew what to do, they were all engaged and some were even dancing while sitting and singing. One thing I really liked was that the teacher had the names of the students under their corresponding letter and mentioned it after the song. She would go over it and have each student point to their picture and say their letter sound and name. For example for a student her name is Andrea and she got up pointed to the A and said A/ a/ Andrea.

This lesson connects to Chapter 2 of Shifting the Balance because the teacher focused on helping students hear and say letter sounds clearly. With the help of her demonstrating the movements of her mouth and connecting these letters to their names. The word wall gave students a visual and hands on way to connect sounds to letters. Burkins and Yates explain that phonemic awareness should be taught on purpose and practiced often, which is what I saw in this classroom. They do these activities everyday and seem to be comfortable with it already. This activity showed how young children can build early reading skills through simple, daily sound routines.

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In my second grade class observation, I saw the teacher start the lesson with phonics. The board with letters was in front of the rug where the children sat. The alphabet was also color coded symbolizing which letters were vowels.

The lessons were very clear and students took turn to go up to the front of the board to lead the class with the phonic lesson. The students seem to be very familiar with the routine as there were no confusion and each students were very loud and clear with their pronunciation. The teacher moved on to the glue words such as "ild, ind, old, ost" and student were asked to come up with words that ends with those.

After the lesson on the rug, students were to go back to their own table and grab their own chart that was magnetic and was playing around with words by moving the letters around with the glue words.

This lesson connects to our course texted because its important to constantly continue daily with phonic lessons so that it strengthens their understanding and skills to help with their reading and writing

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I have been doing my field work in a second-grade classroom up in the Bronx. Throughout my time here so far, I have noticed around the room, there were Fundations posters and charts that supported what students were learning, including things like vowel teams, syllable types, and examples of how to mark words. The “Mark My Words” chart especially stood out because it clearly showed the steps for identifying sounds and patterns in words, like underlining digraphs or boxing glued sounds. Everything was very visual and easy for students to follow, which made it clear that phonics routines were a normal part of their day. I could also tell right away that the students were comfortable with the routine. They knew where the materials were, what to grab, and how to start without needing constant reminders. I saw how these charts clearly helped with their phonemic awareness practices. One specific lesson I observed focused on going over a set of target spelling words like “ball,” “call,” “off,” and “grass.” The teacher had students use their fingers to tap out each sound, especially for words with bonus letters or blends. For trick words like “from,” students followed a multisensory routine: saying it aloud, skywriting, writing it on a gel board, and then in their notebooks. When the teacher asked them to tap out and write words like “sniff” and “grass,” some students looked up at the chart to double-check how to mark bonus letters or glued sounds. It served as a helpful reference point, reinforcing the routine steps they had already practiced. This reminded me of what we read in Chapter 2 of Shifting the Balance. When the author was talking about how important it is to make phonemic awareness part of daily teaching, not something extra or separate. I saw that in the classroom. The phonemic awareness work was part of everything, including spelling, writing, and reading. For example, the teacher told students to “tap out the sounds” and to “make sure your g touches the grass,” showing how sounds connect to letters and handwriting. Them obviously doing this routine repeatedly matches the book’s idea that even just a few minutes of good phonemic awareness instruction each day can make a big difference.

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In my first-grade class observation, the teacher started the day with a phonics lesson. The class is already familiar with this routine, so after unpacking, all students quietly sit on their designated spots on the rug. The teacher sits beside a chart with letters and opens a binder to the lesson for that day. The program the teacher uses for phonemic awareness is called “Heggerty.” She begins by gaining the students’ attention and asking them to say the initial sound of a word and then the full word. Since this is a daily routine, students follow along easily and go at a fast pace with multiple words. For example, she says, “Gap, g, gap.” She then tells the class to get their “chopper hands” ready as she begins the activity. The teacher says a word, and the students chop the sounds (phonemes) while saying the word again to blend it, for example, “Sock, s-o-ck, sock” or “Cap, c-a-p, cap.” After this, the teacher switches to another hand motion where students punch their hands toward the ceiling to emphasize the final sound in the word, such as “Chug, ch-u-g, chug” or “Press, p-r-e-ss, press.” During this part of the lesson, I noticed that the routines and expectations were very clear, and the students were highly engaged. However, I did not see the ELLs’ home languages incorporated into the phonics instruction. There are two ELL students in the class, one who speaks Spanish and another who speaks Chinese, and while they followed along well, I think including their home languages could have supported their learning even more.

After completing the Heggerty lesson, the class transitions to Fundations, which focuses on phonics. On the pocket chart, lowercase letter cards are displayed in rows, and the vowel cards are highlighted in orange to help students remember them more easily. Each day, a different student is chosen to use a pointer and lead the review. The student points to a letter and says the letter name, a word, and its sound. For example, “A, apple, /a/” or “B, bat, /b/.” The class then repeats together. The teacher also reviews vowel extensions (A, E, I, O, U) on the whiteboard. She has a student come up and drag their finger across the board to emphasize the extension of the vowel, such as “U, uhhh, up.” Throughout the lesson, the teacher uses clear visual aids (like the chart and color-coded vowels) and consistent hand motions to help students with sound articulation. These routines show that the students have a strong understanding of what is expected during phonics time.

This lesson connects to Chapter 2 of Shifting the Balance, which discusses the importance of short, daily phonemic-awareness activities spread throughout the day. The lesson I observed reflects this idea because it combines quick, focused practice (Heggerty) with a structured phonics program (Fundations). The students are active participants, using movement, repetition, and visuals to strengthen their understanding of sounds and words, skills that also support their reading and writing.

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The Sound Wall shows phonemes with a letter or grapheme and a mouth picture that shows how the sound is made. The wall is organized by how and where sounds are produced, helping students connect what they feel and hear when speaking to what they see in print. It supports decoding, spelling, and pronunciation while also giving English learners a visual and interactive way to access language. This builds phonemic awareness.

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During my fieldwork, I observed multiple lessons in a dual language second-grade classroom where every student’s first language is Spanish. The class is part of a bilingual program in which students are partially taught by a Spanish-language teacher and part with an English-language teacher. While the students receive literacy instruction in both, the teacher I observed focuses only on literacy in English.

On the days I observed, every morning begins with a Heggerty phonemic awareness lesson where students gather on the rug for a fast-paced oral routine focused on sounds. The teacher led students through rhyming words, blending, segmenting, and manipulating phonemes. She clearly modeled sounds and used hand motions to represent each sound. For example,“chopping” or “tapping” to show segmentation. The students were well engaged and showed confidence during the lesson. After Heggerty, the teacher transitioned into a phonics lesson using visuals from the smartboard. She showed the students heart words one by one. Each heart word had different types of phonemes labeled using different visual markers (heart on top of sounds that do not follow a pattern and need to be memorized, red card on top of vowels, green card on top of consonants, etc). Each heart word was used in a sentence and underlined within the sentence.

Even though instruction was only in English, the teacher used gestures, visuals, repetition, and clear pronounciation of sounds to make her lesson available to students who are not yet fluent in English.

These instructional methods can be connected to what is discussed in Shifting the Balance. The teacher uses phonemic awareness as a bridge to decoding rather than stressing memorization. The teacher is helping the students develop the ability to hear, isolate, and manipulate the sounds in words which will help them when reading and as they continue developing their literacy.

This observation showed me how structured literacy and culturally responsive instruction can work hand in hand. The Heggerty routines and Sound Wall created a space where multilingual learners could develop strong phonemic awareness and decoding skills while feeling supported and included in the learning process.

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During my second-grade fieldwork observation, I noticed that the teacher had a clear routine for teaching phonics. The lesson focused on sounds like /t/, /b/, and /p/. Even though the teacher didn’t mention a specific phonics program, it felt like a structured lesson similar to Fundations or Journeys because it had a step-by-step routine.

The teacher started by showing students how to write each letter correctly on the line, explaining where to begin and how to form the strokes. After that, students practiced saying the sounds while writing the letters. This helped them understand both how to write the letters and what sounds they make. The teacher also showed pictures and words that matched the target sounds, and students had to decide which words started with /t/, /b/, or /p/ and which didn’t. This helped them listen carefully and build stronger sound awareness.

The routines and expectations were very clear — students knew what to do and followed directions right away. The teacher gave quick feedback and had students repeat the sounds out loud, which helped them practice pronunciation. Around the classroom, I saw some anchor charts and picture cards that showed mouth movements and example words. These visuals really helped students connect the sounds to letters.

I didn’t notice the teacher using students’ home languages during this lesson, but sometimes if a student didn’t understand, the teacher would say one or two sentences to help them. I think this small support really helps English learners connect what they hear in English to what they already know from their first language.

This observation connects well to what we’ve learned in our course about phonemic awareness and phonics. The teacher showed how important it is to teach sounds and letters together, with clear modeling and hands-on practice. It also reminded me how visual supports and repetition can help all students, especially English learners, become more confident readers and writers.

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During my classroom observation I was able to witness a phonics lesson focused on glued sounds. Ms. Tyler started the foundations lesson by reminding students of how we use our nasal cavity to make sounds like /m/ and /n/. For students to be able to notice that to make those sounds we use our nose, first we made the /m/ and /n/ sounds as a group and then students were instructed to pinch their noses. After pinching their noses and trying to make the /m/ and /n/ sounds students noticed they were not able to make those sounds. The teacher then transitioned to giving the students all the glued sounds. She put them on the board as we can see and gave the students examples of each one. In the picture we see l ong and s ink with the glued sounds marked in a square to signify they are glued sounds. After what was learned the students continued to practice in their composition's notebooks. Where they were coloring the picture that was connected to the sound, for example ang fang (a picture of a bat) /ang/ while saying the sound and the word aloud as a group. After completing all the glued sounds, they proceeded to take out their letter board where they have what we can see in my picture but in mini. The teacher tested their ability by asking them to spell words like drank string and dunk using the just learned glued sounds.

Routines and expectation are clear during the lesson. From what I have seen throughout the day the students have their routines set and know what to prepare for when teacher mentions a particular material. They start their day with independent reading and after a few minutes they know that as a group with their teacher they're going to go over foundations. Saying the alphabet with their sounds and a word, the trick words and practice the two r-controlled vowels.

Throughout the foundation and ELA lesson students can see charts regarding the articulation of sounds. Charts that remind them the sounds of each letter when they don't know how to spell a word.

As I mentioned before the teachers has phonics materials like the composition notebook that has the sounds and pictures with it. They also have the chart on the board, which is my picture, and the letter board.

I was reminded of shift 2 during this lesson. I remember writing in my notes that the text says that to teach phonemic awareness you need instructional routines, a word list, multisensory scaffolds, and assessments plans. As I explained before the teacher has an instructional routine where the students are not wondering what to do next. After learning a new sound like the glued sounds, the teacher provided the students a list of words to practice their skills. She made the learning accessible by using scaffolds like the letter board, where they had to move the magnets that were the letter around. Finally, she monitors her student's progress by asking them to spell the words using the learned sounds and she went around the room checking each student's board.

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During my fieldwork in a first-grade classroom, I observed students learning about sounds and letters using the Fundations program. This program is very clear and uses different ways of learning, which directly connect to the idea in Shifting the Balance about teaching sounds and letters in a step-by-step way. The teacher followed a daily plan, starting with easier sounds and then adding more difficult ones. Tools like sound cards and letter magnets helped make the lessons clear. The students knew what to do because the classroom routines were easy to follow.

One important activity I saw was called finger tapping. To read a word, students tapped each sound on their fingers. For example, for the word "mat," they tapped their index finger for /m/, their middle finger for /a/, and their ring finger for /t/. Then, they slid their thumb across their fingers to blend the sounds together and say the whole word. I noticed that the students were all very skilled at following the teacher's steps and performing this tapping procedure correctly and in unison.

The teacher used many materials to help students learn, paying special attention to sounds that are often confusing. For instance, the teacher gave extra practice with sounds like /b/ and /d/, which students frequently mix up. For example, students used sky writing to trace the letters in the air while saying the sound. The teacher also provided support for English Learners by using pictures and gestures, and all students were encouraged to use new words in sentences.

In this lesson, I noticed how the structured approach helped students become more confident readers. The clear steps and repeated practice allowed them to master sound-letter relationships. The classroom environment supported all learners in building essential skills for reading and writing. By focusing on clear, step-by-step instructions and giving extra help where needed, the teacher created a supportive classroom.

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I am observing a first-grade classroom with one teacher and one TA, both of whom are extremely engaged in their students’ learning. This classroom uses the Heggerty program and Fundations; this is done in the first periods of their school day, after their morning meetings.

The alphabet chart with images is placed on every table, with multiple printed copies. There is also a larger version up on the wall. The students started with drill sounds, which were essentially their warm-up. Ms. Lauren used large sound cards to model how to say each letter, and having the students repeat it seemed like a daily ritual they were familiar with and excited to participate in. There was an emphasis on the sounds and the mouth movements of each letter, and they moved on to the words of the day: hip and fog. Then there were trick words like his and the. Ms. Lauren worked on sentences with the students and wrote, “The fox is in his pen,” and had the students repeat it. Before writing sentences, the students had whiteboards where they were annotating and writing down their trick words.

There was also a sheet passed out with a capital A, a lowercase a, the word and, the word the, and lines following. They were each individually doing a T-chart to make the words and and the. They continued to do that, and Ms. Lauren showed an example of her book with the Fundations assessment. She explained that it will be very different from kindergarten and that they need to be patient and try their best. Ms. Lauren went on to write sentences together with the students while reviewing their trick words again. She mentioned how, at the end of the year, they will keep their books and can go over them. These routines are very clear, and the students seem to have already grasped what they should be practicing and the importance of these skills. Anytime Ms. Lauren mentions that these are things they might’ve learned in kindergarten, the students can connect their prior experiences and bring that knowledge into the classroom now. Several students told me that these are things they learned or books they used in kindergarten, which I found very interesting.

There are also many anchor charts regarding the articulation of sounds. Ms. Lauren has an anchor chart with the A, E, O, U sounds and lines directing them, which I’m assuming she physically showed them how to produce. She also uses the textbooks and videos provided to show how certain sounds or trick words should be used. This reminded me of what our classmates have done with their presentations on phonemic awareness and phonics because, in our class, we had a presentation where sounds were broken down. Ms. Lauren does a great job of showing how certain words or sounds should be spaced using her hands and motions. Overall, it was very interesting, and connecting it back to our learning was as well.

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This photo shows phonics work chart used in the classroom to connect letters, words, and sounds to each other for students to build phonics awareness. 

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Masuma Begum

EDCE 32300

Megan Blumenreich

Fieldwork observation 1-phonemic awareness/phonics

October 13,2025

In the first grade classroom, I observed the teacher leading the phonics lesson with alphabets, images, and sounds. He said “a, apple, \ǎ\!” And the students repeated the sounds while using flowing water hand gestures with the teacher flashcards in his hands to support visual and auditory learning. Each time he moved to the next letter, the same hand gestures were used. Next, he used a star wand to point at each letter in the chart, and then the vowels of a,e,i,o, and u. By making different sounds, students are able to connect and differentiate sounds with the words and pictures.

This activity connects to the course reading about how children develop phonemic awareness as the foundations for phonics awareness. In Shifting the Balance chapter 2, it emphasizes that “teaching children to notice, articulate, and manipulate the smallest sounds in words—can pay huge dividends in getting readers off to a stronger start in both reading and writing” (Burkins and Yates, 2024, as cited by Brady 2020a, Clayton et.al 2020; Suggate 2016). Hence, in relation to the teacher’s phonics lesson, he instructed the students to learn how to write the alphabets that the class went over, using a white board and a dry erasing marker. Depending on what letters to write, the students either from the plane line, grass line, or the worm line. Through the lesson and activity, this helps students build connections between phonics and writing.

In addition to writing, the teacher did a read aloud activity. He highlighted words that the students went over in class and called one of the students to come to the front of the classroom to identify the letter, read the word, and sound it out. When the student pronounced the sound, the rest of the class followed along and repeated the sound. This practice fosters phonemic awareness and connects spoken words to letters and sounds to develop their reading skills.

By demonstrating the phonics lesson, it connects with writing and reading activities. I noticed that the students learn well from auditory, expressive moments and visual approaches to learning sounds and letters. Through the use of the teacher’s hand gestures, flashcards, and proactive student participation during a read aloud, it engaged with student learning. By connecting with Burkins and Yates (2024) emphasis of interactive foundational literacy skills, organized instructions and repeated practice can help develop new reading skills, which will give me ideas for strategies to use in my future classroom.

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1st grade classroom phonics board displayed during lesson

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In my 1st grade classroom, the teacher began with their phonics lesson by using a phonics work board, which is displayed in front of the classroom. The board contained alphabet cards in different colors, along with digraphs (sh, ch, th, ck), word chunks (am, an, ang, ink, unk) and vowels. The teacher introduced the letter P and J modeling how to pronounce each letter and sound before having students echo them aloud. As students repeated the sounds, the teacher incorporated hand movements to reinforce the sound-letter connection, such as using gestures that matched the mouth movements. The same routine followed for the vowel letters.

The teacher then transitioned into the vowel extension routine. Each vowel card displayed a lowercase letter on the left, a dotted curved line across the middle, and an illustration on the right. For instance, the “a” card showed a – apple – /a/, while others included e – egg – /e/, i – igloo – /i/, o – octopus – /o/, and u – up – /u/. Students practiced the sequence “letter – picture – sound” together and took turns tracing the dotted line in the air with their arms. The dotted line served as a visual cue, helping students connect the vowel sound with both movement and the final picture.

To further reinforce letter placement and handwriting skills, the teacher incorporated a “sky writing” activity on the smartboard. The teacher displayed the sky writing lines with images of the plane line, worm line, and grass line for students to identify. These visuals helped guide students in understanding where each letter should begin and end. The teacher modeled how to “write” the letters P and J in the air, using the lines as reference points while explaining each step. After the demonstration, students participated in an interactive game where they took turns choosing a letter and “writing” it in the air while their classmates guessed which letter it was. This closing activity allowed students to practice letter formation in a fun, engaging, and collaborative way.

This lesson show phonics instruction combined structured routines and multisensory strategies. The flashcards and vowel extension cards supported phonemic awareness by linking letters to sounds and meaningful images. The guessing element of the “sky writing game” also added fun and motivated students to stay focused. The teacher monitored understanding through immediate student responses. After modeling each sound, the teacher listened as the class echoed back. During tracing and sky writing, the teacher observed whether students were following the correct path and producing the correct sound. The interactive format allowed the teacher to give quick corrections and reinforcement.

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During my second-grade classroom observation, I noticed a diverse group of students, many of whom were Spanish speakers. Students frequently engaged in translanguaging, switching between English and Spanish with peers, but used only English with the teacher.

The classroom featured several anchor charts supporting sound articulation. Including a Vowel Valley chart and the –ed endings chart. The Vowel Valley included letters, example images (such as a pan for /p/ and a bat for /b/), and visuals of mouth formations to guide pronunciation. The chart on –ed endings illustrates that spelling does not always correspond directly to sound, showing examples such as hugged (/d/), hopped (/t/), and skated (/id/).

Following the HMH curriculum, the teacher used materials like the Grammar Practice Workbook, Writer’s Notebook, and a word-building board to teach phonemic awareness skills, including letter-sound correspondence, phonemic deletion, and substitution.

In one routine, students identified letters, words, and sounds. The whiteboard displayed only letter combinations; the students orally produced the corresponding words and phonemes, indicating familiarity through repeated practice. Examples included: A–N–G → fang → /ang/, O–N–K → honk → /onk/, and U–N–G → lung → /ung/. The teacher also reinforced consonant digraphs such as wh in whistle, ch in chin, sh in shift, th in thumb, and ck in sock.

In a phoneme manipulation activity, the teacher guided students through changes like how to manipulate the word brand :

Change /d/ to /nch/: branch

Change /a/ to /u/: brunch

Remove /r/: bunch

Change /b/ to /l/: lunch

Throughout the lesson, she used scaffolding techniques such as tapping out sounds, informal assessments through repetition (correcting any student mispronouncing), and a mix of independent and collaborative learning. The use of multisensory manipulatives(sound board & art materials) actively engaged learners and demonstrated effective, research-based literacy practices that align with the Shifting the Balance text.

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While observing a first-grade ICT class, I got to see how phonics instruction are structured to really engage young learners. The teacher used the Foundation chart with visual images to introduce the letters D and S, and it was clear the students were familiar with the routine. They started by skywriting the letters with their fingers, following the teacher’s model, and then practiced writing them on whiteboards that had sky, plane, and grass lines to guide where each part of the letter should go.

What stood out to me was how many different senses were involved in the lesson, students were hearing the sound, saying it out loud, tracing it in the air, and writing it down. When the teacher said the /s/ sound, students immediately knew to write “s” and even used a keyword “snake” from the foundation chart to remember it. It made the lesson feel interactive and accessible for all students, especially for ELLs, who seemed to benefit a lot from the visuals and repetition that is happening in the classroom.

Later on, the class worked on tapping out the sounds in simple words like fit, and learned trick words “like” “and” and “go”. They also practiced reading short sentences with a partner using little foldable books. The teacher circled back to the letter-sound focus during each part of the lesson, which helped keep everything connected.

This observation reminded me the importance of clear and consistent phonics instruction, which is also something we’ve talked a lot about in class. The lesson reflected key ideas from our readings like how multisensory learning and clear routines help to support early literacy development. I left with a better understanding of how much thought is put into even the smallest parts of a lesson.