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Phonics, Decoding and Word Recognition Skills

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Links to citations listed at the bottom of the post. What is Classroom Management?
I wanted to deeply understand the idea of classroom management. It helped to start with the basic idea of a classroom as a place where teachers and students gather for the purpose of learning. Ideally, everyone involved is there with good attitudes and behaviors, and a willingness to learn. The teacher presents the lesson, the students absorb the material, and everything goes well. However, this ideal is not always achieved.

Classroom management, then, consists of techniques and attitudes "through which a teacher controls their classroom environment so that student learning prevails because student misbehavior is effectively minimized and redirected." (cpi management strategies)

Just as important, it addresses "the prevention of disruptive behavior preemptively, as well as effectively responding to it after it happens" (Wikipedia Classroom Management)

Classroom management is action-oriented and also goal-oriented. Those actions and goals will be examined in detail later, but we can consider the "big picture" goals now:

to create a successful learning environment; indeed, having a positive impact on students achieving (Wikipedia Classroom Management)

to create an environment that supports and facilitates academic and social-emotional learning (Wikipedia Classroom Management)

to not only maintain order but to optimize student learning (Wikipedia Classroom Management)

to encourage, and establish, student self-control by promoting positive student achievement and behavior. (UniversalClass Understanding CM)

From a student's perspective, effective classroom management involves clear communication of behavioral and academic expectations as well as a cooperative learning environment (Wikipedia Classroom Management)

In other words, classroom management's primary goal is to create the ideal classroom through teacher efforts and student training. One advantage I infer is that when students experience a well-managed classroom, they are more likely to cooperate in creating another, thus helping their future teachers and classmates.
Why Classroom Management?
My education did not include training for classroom management. My student experience showed me that poor behavior could exist, but I saw very little of it during my undergraduate studies and almost none during my graduate studies. It was easy for me to believe that teaching at a community college meant I would have very little poor behavior and what did occur could be quickly dealt with. This belief was incorrect.

My lack of skill here meant that some situations got out-of-hand, while others were not resolved in a manner that made me proud of my actions. I felt like I was the only teacher with this problem and dreaded those semesters where problems occurred. To my surprise, I found colleagues who felt the same way and who wished they knew how to handle demanding situations.

Even more surprising was discovering K through 12 teachers, people who had gone through teacher certification programs, who had not had classroom management training, or much of it.

It is a difficult aspect of teaching for many teachers. ... Teachers do not focus on learning classroom management, because higher education programs do not put an emphasis on the teacher attaining classroom management; indeed, the focus is on creating a conducive learning atmosphere for the student. (Wikipedia Classroom Management)

But poor student behavior can impact that learning atmosphere for others:

the time a teacher must take to correct misbehavior caused by poor classroom management skills results in a lower rate of academic engagement in the classroom (Wikipedia Classroom Management)

a high incidence of classroom disciplinary problems has a significant negative impact on the effectiveness of teaching and learning (UniversalClass Understanding CM)

So, in order to teach effectively, we need classroom management skills: "Teachers who apply strong and consistent management and utilize organizational skills have classrooms that experience fewer discipline problems." (UniversalClass Understanding CM) And, "if continuous minor problems are not addressed properly, they will eventually turn into bigger, harder-to-control issues" (UniversalClass Understanding CM)

Those are not the only reasons: "research has shown that confidence in classroom management is important for a teacher's sense of well-being and emotional health. Gaining skills in this area can decrease stress levels, burnout and resignations. This is significant considering the UK, USA and Australia lose 30-50% of their teachers in the first 5 years." (liz's early learning)

I would summarize this to say that good classroom management helps to attain the ideal learning experience while addressing the health of both the teacher and the students. "With a classroom environment like that in place, a teacher would have time to teach". (cpi management strategies)
Classroom Management Basics
We can see that, as teachers, we want to influence and control student behavior. We want to be pre-emptive as much as possible - I see this as defining a positive classroom environment - and we want to respond well to poor behavior - I see this as stopping it quickly. But sometimes a student's response will escalate the situation, so what are we to do about that?

Consider this:

many in the field of teaching are not exactly clear on what constitutes classroom management and discipline and how these two concepts work together to create a stable, structured classroom that inspires learning and reduces conflict (UniversalClass Understanding CM)

Let me emphasize one part of the previous quote: "classroom management and discipline and how these two concepts work together". This tells me that even the best classroom manager will face situations where deflecting and redirecting poor behavior will fail. Discipline enters the picture here, so we will need to address how to apply it correctly.

These ideas form the structure for the rest of this document.

cpi management strategies
https://www.crisisprevention.com/Blog/May-2016/Classroom-Management-Strategies-for-Educators
accessed 14jan18

liz's early learning
https://www.lizs-early-learning-spot.com/classroom-management-and-new-teacher-anxiety/
accessed 16jan18

UniversalClass Understanding CM
https://www.universalclass.com/articles/self-help/understanding-classroom-management.htm
accessed 14jan18

Wikipedia Classroom Management:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classroom_management
accessed 14jan18

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Links to citations listed at the bottom of the post. What is Classroom Management? I wanted to deeply understand the idea of classroom management. It helped to start with the basic idea of a classroom as a place where teachers and students gather for the purpose of learning.

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References

Click the "References" link above to hide these references.

1. E.g., Pearson, P. E., & Gallagher, M. C. (1983). The instruction of reading comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8, 317-344; Rosenshine, B., & Stevens, R. (1984). Classroom instruction in reading. In P. D. Pearson, R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, & P. Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 745-799). New York: Longman.

2. Honig, W., Diamond, L, & Gutlohn, L. (Eds.). (2000). Teaching reading sourcebook for kindergarten through eighth grade. Novato, CA: Arena Press; National Reading Panel, 2000.

3. Dole, J. A., Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., & Pearson, P. D. (1991). Moving from the old to the new: Research onreading comprehension instruction. Review of Educational Research, 61, 239-264.

4. Dickson, S. V., Simmons, D. C., & Kameenui, E. J. (1998). Text organization: Research bases. In D. C. Simmons & E. J. Kameenui (eds.), What reading research tells us about children with diverse learning needs: Bases and basics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

5. See, e.g., Turner, J. C., & Paris, S. G. (1995). How literacy tasks influence children's motivation for literacy. The Reading Teacher, 48, 662-675.

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What Is Effective Comprehension Instruction?

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Effective comprehension instruction is instruction that helps students to become independent, strategic, and metacognitive readers who are able to develop, control, and use a variety of comprehension strategies to ensure that they understand what they read.

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What Research Tells Us About Reading, Comprehension, and Comprehension Instruction

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The purpose of reading is comprehension — getting meaning from written text. Find out what else research tells us about the active process of constructing meaning, and how good readers consciously employing comprehension strategies.

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Oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or comprehend in listening. Reading vocabulary refers to words we comprehend or use in print. In the Simple View of Reading, which describes reading as having two basic components - word recognition and comprehension - vocabulary falls under language comprehension.

Letter of completion

After completing this module and successfully answering the post-test questions, you'll be able to download a Letter of Completion.

Vocabulary plays an important part in learning to read. Beginning readers must use the words they hear orally to make sense of the words they see in print.

Consider, for example, what happens when a beginning reader comes to the word dig in a book. As she begins to figure out the sounds represented by the letters d, i, and g, the reader recognizes that the sounds make up a very familiar word that she has heard and said many times. It is harder for a beginning reader to figure out words that are not already part of her speaking (oral) vocabulary.

Furthermore, as children advance to reading longer, more complex types of words, many English words have more than one plausible phonetic pronunciation. For example, canopy could be cuh-NOP-ee instead of CAN-up-ee; timid could be pronounced with a long i in the first syllable (like time - id) instead of with a short i. If children already have these words in their oral vocabularies, it will be easier for them to read the words correctly.

Vocabulary is also very important to reading comprehension. Readers cannot understand what they are reading without knowing what most of the words mean. As children learn to read more advanced texts, they must learn the meaning of new words that are not part of their oral vocabulary.

There are four types of vocabulary:

Listening vocabulary: the words we need to know to understand what we hear

Speaking vocabulary: the words we use when we speak

Reading vocabulary: the words we can read and understand

Writing vocabulary: the words we use in writing

In assessment of vocabulary in beginning or struggling readers, use of an oral measure (listening and/or speaking vocabulary) is very important. A written measure of vocabulary will confound vocabulary knowledge with reading skills.

For instance, if a student who struggles with decoding gets a low score on a vocabulary measure that requires reading, it will be difficult to know whether the low score actually reflects vocabulary limitations or merely the fact that the child could not decode the words on the test.

Adapted from: Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read, Kindergarten Through Grade 3, a publication of The Partnership for Reading.

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Oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or comprehend in listening. Reading vocabulary refers to words we comprehend or use in print. In the Simple View of Reading, which describes reading as having two basic components - word recognition and comprehension - vocabulary falls under language comprehension.

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Narrative Texts

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by TeachThought Staff

While critical thinking is a foundation rather than a brick, how you build that foundation depends on the learning process itself: exposing students to new thinking and promoting interaction with that thinking in a gradual release of responsibility approach.

Question stems can be a powerful part of that process no matter where the learner is. Assessment (pre-assessment, self-assessment, formative and summative assessment), prompting and cueing during discussion, etc.

See also 28 Critical Thinking Question Stems & Response Cards ($2.95)

In that light, the following 25+ question stems framed around the early, non-revised Bloom's Taxonomy are worth a gander.
Image attribution flickr enokson; 25 Question Stems Framed Around Bloom's Taxonomy

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25 Question Stems Framed Around Bloom's Taxonomy

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by TeachThought Staff While critical thinking is a foundation rather than a brick, how you build that foundation depends on the learning process itself: exposing students to new thinking and promoting interaction with that thinking in a gradual release of responsibility approach. Question stems can be a powerful part of that process no matter where the learner is.

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Teachers handle many issues in a day, from disciplinary and behavior issues to a lack of adherence to the daily schedule cases. Consistently experiencing such challenges can sometimes make the teaching profession feel unrewarding. Luckily, teachers can use various classroom management strategies to inspire compliance among students.

It starts with having a solid classroom management plan that outlines the methods and techniques for running a classroom and each lesson. From there, teachers can also upgrade their classroom management skills through a degree in education and apply these additional 20 strategies to manage their classrooms better.

The Best Classroom Management Strategies Today

The five components of effective classroom management include developing behavioral standards, establishing working relationships with students, valuing your time as a teacher, familiarizing students with teaching methods, and anticipating student behavior.

Teachers should implement the following universal classroom management strategies for the best chance of succeeding at managing their classrooms:

The most effective way for teachers to instill good student behavior is by leading through actions, not words. That's because students' minds are still developing, so they learn more from experiences. Therefore, doing simple things like avoiding electronic use, talking politely, and respecting everyone in the class can have a significant impact on molding better student behavior.

Teachers can manage classrooms better by involving students in rule-making, documenting the rules, and setting consequences for breaking them. Teachers should also reward good behavior and talk more positively about students.

Most humans, from employees to students, comply better to set rules when involved in decision-making. Teachers can use this classroom management technique to ensure willful rather than forced compliance with classroom rules throughout the calendar year.

For the rules to work, students should be able to see them every time they enter the classroom. Teachers should create professional charts with all rules typed and stick them in a visible place to ensure they remain on top of each student's mind.

Teachers should avoid punishing the entire class for a mistake made by several students. Instead, they should identify and call out the bad-behaving students after the class and try to discover the cause of their bad behavior to see if they can come up with a solution.

Teachers should generally be social and approachable human beings. Even on bad days, teachers should try to be the most optimistic in the classroom environment and not let their bad moods radiate to the rest of the class.

In every classroom, some students are gifted in academics while others have strengths in other areas, such as art. Teachers should support learners of all students in areas they show interest and passion.

Students love to feel appreciated when they have put some effort toward doing the right things, and it keeps them motivated toward a good path. Therefore, teachers should regularly acknowledge class or student efforts to encourage positive participation and behavior in the classroom.

Teachers should reward good behavior from the entire class or students from time to time to encourage more of it. Rewards can include special parties, outdoor activities during free time, or treats.

Parents often hear from teachers only when their child has done wrong in school. Teachers should also contact parents with positive information or a good word about the children for better student-teacher and parent-teacher relationships.

Learning can become mundane and boring when it's the same old regurgitated content. As such, teachers should spice up each day's learning experience by setting the tone for an exciting day from the minute lessons start. This way, students will remain excited and expectant throughout the day.

Teachers should get to know their students more personally to be in a better position to help them thrive. Privately, they should learn their students' strengths and weaknesses in academics and life to help them grow.

Students are creatures of habit. As such, teachers should set short- and long-term classroom routines and schedules that allow students to know what is expected of them at each point during the day for more productivity.

Bad behavior should never go unchecked in a classroom or students will become hardheaded. Instead, teachers should have creative ways to deal with bad behavior, such as unwarranted class disruptions, to show others that such behavior isn't acceptable.

Classroom Management Techniques for Colleges and Institutions of Higher Learning

Students in colleges and universities admire teachers who have positive personal relationships with them. They're also more compliant in the classroom for teachers with whom they have a good rapport.

Students capture information better when it's conveyed in various formats instead of one. These can include visual presentations such as graphs and PowerPoint presentations, group work, and takeaway assignments.

The passion and enthusiasm shown by teachers rubs off on students too. Therefore, teachers should always try to be their most excited selves in classrooms to encourage active student participation and response.

Teachers should prepare thoroughly for every class they plan to attend during the day. They should review and improve their notes regularly to make them as easy to understand and enjoyable as possible for students.

Teachers should implement a technology-off policy to prevent students from being distracted while in class. The only exception would be laptops for note-taking, but smartphones and other gadgets should be turned off until the end of the lesson.

Bring These Strategies to Life with UoPeople

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Best Classroom Management Strategies To Ensure Success

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How can a teacher manage a classroom effectively? Here are some tested classroom management strategies to try in your class today.

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What Is Fluency?

Fluency is the ability to read "like you speak." Hudson, Lane, and Pullen define fluency this way: "Reading fluency is made up of at least three key elements: accurate reading of connected text at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody or expression." Non-fluent readers suffer in at least one of these aspects of reading: they make many mistakes, they read slowly, or they don't read with appropriate expression and phrasing.

​ Developing reading fluency with Read Naturally Strategy programs

Key Concepts

Why Is Fluency Important?

For many years, educators have recognized that fluency is an important aspect of reading. Reading researchers agree. Over 30 years of research indicates that fluency is one of the critical building blocks of reading, because fluency development is directly related to comprehension.

Here are the results of one study by Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, and Jenkins that shows how oral reading fluency correlates highly with reading comprehension.

To interpret this type of correlation data, consider that a perfect match would be 1.0. As you can see, oral recall/retelling, fill in the blank, and question answering are all above 0.6, which indicates there is a strong correlation. But oral reading fluency is by far the strongest, with a .91 correlation.

Many researchers, including Breznitz, Armstrong, Knupp, Lesgold, and Pinnell, have found that fluency is highly correlated with reading comprehension-that is, when a student reads fluently, that student is likely to comprehend what he or she is reading.

Why are reading fluency and reading comprehension so highly correlated? Dr. S. Jay Samuels, a professor and researcher well known for his work in fluency, put forth a theory called the automaticity theory. According to Dr. Samuels, people have a limited amount of mental energy. If you want to multitask or to become proficient at a complex task such as reading, you first need to master the component tasks so you can do them automatically. For example, a reader who must focus his or her attention on decoding words may not have enough mental energy left over to think about the meaning of the text. However, a fluent reader who can automatically decode the words can instead give full attention to comprehending the text. To become proficient readers, our students need to become automatic with text so they can pay attention to the meaning.

See also:

Challenges Faced by Non-Fluent Readers

Students become fluent by reading. Some students learn to read fluently without explicit instruction. For others, however, fluency doesn't develop in the course of normal classroom instruction.

Research analyzed by the National Reading Panel suggests that just encouraging students to read independently isn't the most effective way to improve reading achievement. Too often, simply encouraging at-risk students to read doesn't result in increased reading on their part. During sustained silent reading, at-risk readers may get a book with mostly pictures and look at the pictures, or they choose a difficult book so they will look like everyone else and then pretend to read.

Even if at-risk students do read, they read more slowly than the other students. In a 10-minute reading period, a proficient reader who reads 200 words a minute silently could read 2,000 words. In the same 10 minutes, an at-risk student who reads 50 words a minute would only read 500 words. This is equal reading time but certainly not an equal number of words read.

These students need to read more, but just asking them to read on their own often doesn't work. The National Reading Panel has concluded that a more effective course of action is for us to explicitly teach developing readers how to read fluently, step by step.

Research-Proven Fluency Strategies

How do we explicitly teach students to read fluently? The National Reading Panel found data supporting three strategies that improve fluency, comprehension, and reading achievement-teacher modeling, repeated reading, and progress monitoring.

Teacher Modeling

The first strategy is teacher modeling. Research demonstrates that various forms of modeling can improve reading fluency. Examples of teacher modeling include:

Teacher-assisted reading

Peer-assisted reading

Audio-assisted reading

Teacher modeling involves more than just listening to someone else read. Students must be actively involved 100 percent of the time and in a multisensory way.

Teacher modeling teaches word recognition in a meaningful context, demonstrates correct phrasing, and gives students practice tracking across the page. A child can benefit from teacher modeling once he or she knows at least 50 sight words and has a good sense of beginning sounds.

The reading rate of the model reader is important. Christopher Skinner, a reading researcher, found that students who read lists of words with him slowly were more fluent with the words than students who read with him at a faster rate. The slower rate enables students to learn new words and clarify difficult words. As students learn more words, they naturally become more fluent.

Another form of modeling is the neurological impress method. In the neurological impress method, a proficient and a struggling reader read together from a passage, with the more able reader reading near the rate of the struggling reader. Heckelman (1969) showed that after 29 15-minute sessions, 24 seventh- through ninth-grade boys, who were an average of 3 years behind in reading, gained an average of 1.9 years in reading based on the Oral Gilmore and the California Achievement Test.

Repeated Reading

Another technique that research has shown significantly builds reading fluency is repeated reading. In fact, the National Reading Panel says this is the most powerful way to improve reading fluency. This involves simply reading the same material over and over again until accurate and expressive.

In the 1970s, LaBerge and Samuels studied what happens when students read passages over and over again. They found that when students reread passages, they got faster at reading the passages, understood them better, and were able to read subsequent passages better as a result of the repeated reading.

Repeated reading is a form of mastery learning. The students read the same words so many times that they begin to know them and are able to identify them in other text. Besides helping students bring words to mastery, repeated reading changes the way students view themselves in relation to the act of reading.

Progress Monitoring

People who play video games are presented with a specific goal and with immediate, relevant feedback about their progress toward that goal. This combination of having a goal and getting feedback on progress can be very motivating.

Progress monitoring takes advantage of this combination to motivate students to read. You give students a specific, individual reading goal, and you tell them exactly how you're going to know they've met it. Then, you give them the means to measure how they're doing. Finally, you make it simple enough that they'll know they've met their goal even before you do. This progress monitoring is what motivates students to practice reading the same story over and over until achieving mastery.

​Developing Reading Fluency With Read Naturally Strategy Programs

The research-based Read Naturally Strategy combines these three strategies into highly effective programs that accelerate reading achievement. Students become confident readers by developing fluency, phonics skills, comprehension, and vocabulary while reading leveled text. The time-tested intervention programs engage students with interesting nonfiction stories and yield powerful results.

Learn more about the Read Naturally Strategy
Research basis for the Read Naturally Strategy

The Read Naturally Strategy is available in a variety of formats:

Choosing the right Read Naturally Strategy program

One Minute Reader®
Structured, supplemental reading program for developing literacy skills independently. Available in these formats:
One Minute Reader Live (component of web-based Read Live for supplemental reading at school)
One Minute Reader books/audio CDs (for a school-to-home checkout program)

Bibliography

Armstrong, S. W. (1983). The effects of material difficulty upon learning disabled children's oral reading and reading comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 6, pp. 339-348.

Breznitz, Z. (1987). Increasing first graders' reading accuracy and comprehension by accelerating their reading rates. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(3), pp. 236-242.

Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M. K., & Jenkins, J. R. (2001). Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: A theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(3), pp. 239-256.

Heckelman, R. G. (1969). A neurological-impress method of remedial-reading instruction. Academic Therapy Quarterly, 5(4), pp. 277-282.

Hudson, R. F., H. B. Lane, and P. C. Pullen. (2005). Reading fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and how. Reading Teacher 58(8), pp. 702-714.

Knupp, R. (1988). Improving oral reading skills of educationally handicapped elementary school-aged students through repeated readings. Practicum paper, Nova University (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 297275).

LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, pp. 292-323.

Lesgold, A., Resnick, L. B., & Hammond, K. (1985). Learning to read: A longitudinal study of word skill development in two curricula. In G. Waller & E. MacKinon (eds.), Reading research: Advances in theory and practice. New York, NY: Academic Press.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Pinnell, G. S., Pikulski, J. J., Wixson, K. K., Campbell, J. R., Gough, P. B., & Beatty, A. S. (1995). Listening to children read aloud: Data from NAEP's integrated reading performance record (IRPR) at grade 4 (NCES Publication 95-726). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics.

Samuels, S. J. (2002). Reading fluency: Its development and assessment. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction, 3rd ed., pp. 166-183. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Samuels, S. J. (1997). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 50(5), pp. 376-381.

Samuels, S. J. (2006). Towards a model of reading fluency. In S. J. Samuels and A. E. Farstrup (eds.), What research has to say about fluency instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Samuels, S. J. (1997). The method of repeated readings. The Reading Teacher, 50(5), pp. 376-381.

Skinner, C. H., Logan, P., Robinson, S. L., & Robinson, D. H. (1997). Demonstration as a reading intervention for exceptional learners. School Psychology Review, 26(3), pp. 437-447.

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What is fluency? Reading at a conversational rate with accuracy and expression. Why is fluency important? Fluency directly correlates to comprehension.

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Ideas to Help

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Fluency is extremely important because it takes students a step beyond word recognition and into the land of comprehension. Once students are no longer focusing on the word itself, they can begin focusing on the meaning behind the text. With that said, here are a few ideas on how to help your students build and improve their reading fluency!

1.) Reader's Theater. I love a good reader's theater. It's a fun way to practice fluency and learn about multiple topics while practicing prosodic reading (intonation, expression, and phrasing). In my Tried It Tuesday Reader's Theater post, you can find a freebie to get you started! Radio readings are also a great way to practice fluency, and they're similar to reader's theater. There's more to fluency than just accuracy! 🙂

2.) One good way to help students practice their fluency is through the use of phrases. You can provide students with cards to practice both sight words (time them for accuracy with a buddy) and Fry phrases. I like to give my students three-word phrases, such as "to the store," to practice. You can read about some of those interventions using such phrases in my Reading Interventions post.

3.) Causation Cards (and, of course, Task Cards). I love causation cards, not because they are my most unique creation (toot! toot!) but because students love them, and they are a fantastic way to jazz up review while incorporating both content vocabulary and fluency practice. AND they get students up and moving! If you aren't aware of what these amazing cards are, YOU HAVE GOT TO CHECK THEM OUT! Kids are always begging to do them again and again. You can read about them in either my Back to School post or in the A Cure for the Fidgety post I wrote for Deb Hanson of Crafting Connections. You can also download a set FREE (social studies, but still it'll help you see the concepts!) in my TpT store.

4.) Echo Teacher Readings and Choral Reading. I do this one all the time in my classroom. Sometimes during a science lesson or during social studies, we need to read the textbook. Let's be honest, sometimes that textbook's reading level is a bit high. So, I will read a paragraph while walking around the room, and everyone (better be) following along. Then, they echo read that same paragraph back to me. I like this method because it's a great way for them to hear the paragraph first (modeled!) and to practice reading it, too, with their peers (to keep up the proper pace). I then continue with the next paragraph and so on. Sometimes, if I think they didn't do well sticking together or it sounded like they could use a little more practice, I might read it again or even have them read it again a few times.

Sometimes, I'll have students read with me at the same time so they can definitely keep up with the pace. Every Friday, I would place a poem up on the doc cam, and students would first listen to me read it, and then they would practice it chorally in a group. Finally, we would all read it together as a whole class. Students enjoy reading poetry together, and it prevents "singling" students out. However, be aware that some students like to just "mouth it" and appear as if they are reading. I've gotten very good at noticing right away who they are. Just move near them, and you'll be amazed how quickly they start to voice it rather than mouth it.

5.) Whisper Reading. When I have students in small groups, I will sometimes sit or stand behind a student and whisper read into their ear what they are reading at the same time aloud. This provides a "model" of sorts for students to guide them as they read. It's very similar to reading with a reading tape or program.

6.) Partner Reading. Sometimes having students partner up and read together at the same time is very beneficial and a great way for students to practice their fluency. I have used students who are are on different levels but close. However, I would not suggest using students who are many levels apart, as that will just lead to frustration.

7.) Timed Reading. Provide students with practice passages that they can use to partner up with someone and time themselves. There are many different practice passages on TpT and Reading A-Z. Do something similar to Super Speed 1000 or 6-Minute Solution, where students practice reading and each time try to move just a bit further down the page.

8.) Read Often! Students need to read as much as possible. One way to build fluency is to provide them with books on their level or just below so that they can practice reading more automatically. When the books are too hard, students spend more time on decoding and word attack than on trying to understand the book. Provide multiple opportunities for students to be reading and reading that book repeatedly!

Best Wishes!

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8 Ideas to Help Build Fluency - The Owl Teacher

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Fluency is extremely important because it takes students a step beyond word recognition and into the land of comprehension. Once students are no longer focusing on the word itself, they can begin focusing on the meaning behind the text. With that said, here are a few ideas on how to help your students build and improve their reading fluency!

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Read, Read, Read some more...

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Learn how to find your students 'fluency score, guidelines for instruction, strategies to improve fluency, assessment, intervention, and more.

How do I find my students' fluency score?

One-minute reading: Total words read (minus) errors made = words correct per minute.

1. Select a 100-word passage from a grade-level text.

2. Have individual students read each passage aloud for exactly one minute.

3. Count the total number of words the student read for each passage.

4. Count the number of errors the student made on each passage.

5. Subtract the number of errors read per minute from the total number of words read per minute. The result is the average number of words correct per minute (WCPM).

6. Repeat the procedure several times during the year. Graphing students' WCPM throughout the year easily captures their reading growth.

How many words per minute should my students be reading?

1. First grade: 60 words (read correctly by the end of the year)*

2. Second grade: 100 words (read correctly by the end of the year)*

3. Third grade: 112 words (read correctly by the end of the year)*

* 50th percentile

See the 2017 Fluency Norms Chart by Hasbrouck and Tindal for the complete set of scores. Learn more in the article, Understanding and Assessing Fluency.

Guidelines for instruction

Good fluency instruction:

Provides children with opportunities to read and reread a range of stories and informational texts by reading on their own, partner reading, or choral reading.

Introduces new or difficult words to children, and provide practice reading these words before they read on their own.

Includes opportunities for children to hear a range of texts read fluently and with expression.

Encourages periodically timing a child's oral reading and then recording information about the student's reading rate and accuracy, to help monitor the student's progress.

Model fluent reading, then have students reread the text on their own

By listening to good models of fluent reading, students learn how a reader's voice can help written text make sense. Read aloud daily to your students. By reading effortlessly and with expression, you are modeling for your students how a fluent reader sounds during reading.

After you model how to read the text, you must have the students reread it. By doing this, the students are engaging in repeated reading. Usually, having students read a text four times is sufficient to improve fluency. Remember, however, that instructional time is limited, and it is the actual time that students are actively engaged in reading that produces reading gains.

Have other adults read aloud to students. Encourage parents or other family members to read aloud to their children at home. The more models of fluent reading the children hear, the better. Of course, hearing a model of fluent reading is not the only benefit of reading aloud to children. Reading to children also increases their knowledge of the world, their vocabulary, their familiarity with written language, and their interest in reading.

Have students repeatedly read passages aloud with guidance

The best strategy for developing reading fluency is to provide your students with many opportunities to read the same passage orally several times. To do this, you should first know what to have your students read.

What students should read

Fluency develops as a result of many opportunities to practice reading with a high degree of success. Therefore, your students should practice rereading aloud texts that are reasonably easy for them - that is, texts containing mostly words that they know or can decode easily. In other words, the texts should be at the students' instructional or independent reading level.

The text your students practice rereading orally should also be relatively short - probably 50-200 words, depending on the age of the students. You should also use a variety of reading materials, including stories, nonfiction, plays, and poetry. Poetry is especially well suited to fluency practice because poems for children are often short and they contain rhythm, rhyme, and meaning, making practice easy, fun, and rewarding.

Video: Reading Multisyllable Words with Xavier, Third Grader

In this video, reading expert Linda Farrell gives Xavier a strategy for reading multisyllable words - and lots of practice to master the skill. See more videos here: Looking at Reading Interventions.

Activities to increase fluency

There are several ways that your students can practice orally rereading text, including student-adult reading, choral (or unison) reading, audio-assisted reading, partner reading, and readers' theatre.

Student-adult reading

In student-adult reading, the student reads one-on-one with an adult. The adult can be you, a parent, a classroom aide, or a tutor. The adult reads the text first, providing the students with a model of fluent reading. Then the student reads the same passage to the adult with the adult providing assistance and encouragement. The student rereads the passage until the reading is quite fluent. This should take approximately three to four re-readings. Re-readings may occur across multiple instructional sessions or days.

Choral reading

In choral, or unison, reading, students read along as a group with you (or another fluent adult reader). Of course, to do so, students must be able to see the same text that you are reading. They might follow along as you read from a big book, or they might read from their own copy of the book you are reading. For choral reading, choose a book that is not too long and that you think is at the independent reading level of most students. Patterned or predictable books are particularly useful for choral reading, because their repetitious style invites students to join in. Begin by reading the book aloud as you model fluent reading.

Then reread the book and invite students to join in as they recognize the words you are reading. Continue rereading the book, encouraging students to read along as they are able. Students should read the book with you three to five times total (though not necessarily on the same day). At this time, students should be able to read the text independently.

You might also try a variation called Echo Reading, where you read a section of the text aloud and then invite the students to repeat the passage.

Audio-assisted reading

In audio-assisted reading, students read along in their books as they hear a fluent reader read the book on an audio recording. You'll need a book at a student's independent reading level and a tape recording of the book read by a fluent reader at about 80-100 words per minute. The recording should not have sound effects or music. For the first reading, the student should follow along with the recording, pointing to each word in her or his book as the reader reads it. Next, the student should try to read aloud along with the audio. Reading along with the audio should continue until the student is able to read the book independently, without the support of the recording.

Partner reading

In partner reading, paired students take turns reading aloud to each other. For partner reading, more fluent readers can be paired with less fluent readers. The stronger reader reads a paragraph or page first, providing a model of fluent reading. Then the less fluent reader reads the same text aloud. The stronger student gives help with word recognition and provides feedback and encouragement to the less fluent partner. The less fluent partner rereads the passage until he or she can read it independently. Partner reading need not be done with a more and less fluent reader. In another form of partner reading, children who read at the same level are paired to reread a story that they have received instruction on during a teacher-guided part of the lesson. Two readers of equal ability can practice rereading after hearing the teacher read the passage.

Readers' theatre

In readers' theatre, students rehearse and perform a play for peers or others. They read from scripts that have been derived from books that are rich in dialogue. Students play characters who speak lines or a narrator who shares necessary background information. Costumes, props, and other aspects of performing a play do not necessarily have to be used. The point of readers' theatre is to provide children with a legitimate reason to reread text and to practice fluency. Readers' theatre also promotes cooperative interaction with peers and makes the reading task appealing.

Several variants of reader's theatre can also be useful. For example, in radio reading, children record their reading with sound effects, like an old-time radio show. In another variant, children perform a text for younger children. This variant can be especially useful for struggling readers. For example, a fourth-grade poor reader may still read much better than a typical first grader and may be able to read books at that level quite fluently to a younger child. The ability to read well to a younger student provides an opportunity for the older child to "shine" and may be very motivating.

What should I do about silent, independent reading in the classroom?

Reading fluency growth is greatest when students are working directly with you. Therefore, you should use most of your allocated reading instruction time for direct teaching of reading skills and strategies. Promoting silent, independent reading outside of school or as a free-time activity is also valuable, but this should not replace direct instruction in reading in school.

Direct instruction is especially important for readers who are struggling. Readers who have not yet attained fluency are not likely to make effective and efficient use of silent, independent reading time. For these students, independent reading takes time away from needed reading instruction

When should fluency instruction begin?

Fluency instruction is useful when students are not yet automatic at recognizing the words in the texts, but have a reasonable degree of accuracy in reading the words. All beginning readers need opportunities to develop fluency, especially from the second half of Grade 1 through about Grade 3, prime years for fluency development in typical readers. However, these opportunities will not be sufficient for some students, who will require additional intervention in the area of fluency. How can you tell when students may need fluency intervention? There is a strong indication that a student needs fluency intervention:

If you ask the student to read orally from a grade-appropriate text that he or she has not practiced, and the student's reading is notably slow or labored;

If the student cannot read orally in grade-appropriate text with good expression (prosody);

If the student makes many self-corrections of words (it's good when children can self-correct errors, but frequent self-corrections indicate a lack of automaticity in word reading and poor fluency in text reading); or

If the student cannot meet oral reading fluency benchmarks when reading at his or her instructional level (e.g. a third grader who reads instructionally at a Grade 2 level should be able to meet Grade 2, not necessarily Grade 3, fluency benchmarks; see Carnine et al., 2004).

Is increasing word recognition skills sufficient for developing fluency?

Accurate word recognition is a necessary but not sufficient condition for fluent reading. Throughout much of the twentieth century, it was widely assumed that fluency was the result of word recognition proficiency. Instruction, therefore, focused primarily on the development of word recognition. In recent years, however, research has shown that fluency is a separate component of reading that can be developed through instruction.

Having students review and rehearse word lists (for example, by using flash cards) may improve their ability to recognize the words in isolation, but this ability may not transfer to words presented in actual texts. Developing reading fluency in texts must be developed systematically.

Fluency intervention

Barriers to fluency

When students can read (decode) words accurately and the words are part of their vocabulary, then most students will be able to read fluently given sufficient opportunities for practice. However, some students' fluency difficulties involve factors other than problems in word reading. There are several possible reasons for these students' fluency difficulties:

Receptive language weaknesses. Examples of these are autism spectrum disorder and receptive language disorder (aphasia). Assessment and intervention for this requires specialized training.

Low vocabulary and limited background knowledge

Executive functioning issues (including processing speed and ADHD)

Teachers can support students with low vocabulary and limited background knowledge by pre-teaching key vocabulary words and background knowledge before reading. To build relevant background knowledge, read stories aloud, show pictures and videos, and bring examples into the classroom. During background knowledge development, interweave explicit vocabulary instruction [see Vocabulary module: In Practice].

For example, when teaching a unit on insects, show pictures of different insects. Lead the class through labeling the animal's body parts. This will likely include the word 'antenna'. Teach explicit instruction in the word 'antenna.' Read aloud short passages about insects and lead discussions that require students to use the word 'antenna' orally. These activities precede reading about insects.

Comprehension, the construction of meaning from text, also requires strong executive functioning. That is, it requires the ability to attend, infer, visualize, reason, distinguish, organize, synthesize, and hold all that in working memory during the actual process of reading. Good executive function also helps students recognize what is important and what is not important in a text. Students with poor executive function may have difficulty with reading comprehension because they fail to recognize key points or are overwhelmed by unimportant details. Reading fluency may suffer because of the student's inability to understand what he or she is reading.

Students with these kinds of difficulties should not be pushed to read faster, because doing so may further impair comprehension. Developing underlying comprehension abilities - such as vocabulary, background knowledge, and the ability to recognize key points - will likely be more beneficial to these students' fluency development (as well as their overall reading development). Prosodic approaches to reading fluency that emphasize expressiveness of oral reading rather than rate of reading (e.g., readers' theatre) may also be especially useful for these students.

References

Feifer, S. (2007). Know how executive function skills affect reading comprehension. Today's School Psychologist, July 8.

Kaufman, C. (2010). Executive function in the classroom: Practical strategies for improving performance and enhancing skills for all students. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.

Should I assess fluency? If so, how?

You should formally and informally assess fluency regularly to ensure that your students are making appropriate progress. The most informal assessment is simply listening to students read aloud and making a judgment about their progress in fluency. You should, however, also include more formal measures of fluency. The DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency is a widely used assessment for students in grades 1-8.

Probably the easiest way to formally assess fluency is to take timed samples of students' reading and to compare their performance (number of words read correctly per minute) with published oral reading fluency norms or standards, such as the widely referenced Hasbrouck & Tindal fluency norms (Hasbrouck & Tindal, 2017). In these timed assessments, students should be told to do their best reading (as opposed to being told to read fast).

Monitoring your students' progress in reading fluency will help you determine the effectiveness of your instruction and set instructional goals. Also, seeing their fluency growth reflected in the graphs you keep can motivate students.

Adapted from: Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read Kindergarten Through Grade 3, a publication of The Partnership for Reading.

References

Carnine, D. W., Silbert, J., Kame'enui, E. J., & Tarver, S. G. (2004). Direct instruction reading (4th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Chard, D. J., Vaughn, S., & Tyler, B .J. (2002). A synthesis of research on effective interventions for building reading fluency with elementary students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 386-406.

Hasbrouck, J., & Tindal, G. (2006). Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for reading teachers. The Reading Teacher, 59, 636-644.

O'Connor, R.E., White, A., & Swanson, H.L. (2007). Repeated reading versus continuous reading: Influences on reading fluency and comprehension. Exceptional Children, 74, 31-46.

Stahl, S. A. (2004). What do we know about fluency? Findings of the National Reading Panel. In P. McCardle & V. Chhabra (Eds.), The voice of evidence in reading research (pp. 187-211). Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing Co.

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Learn how to find your students 'fluency score, guidelines for instruction, strategies to improve fluency, assessment, intervention, and more. In this section: Determining fluency scores Guidelines for instruction Activities to increase fluency Silent, independent reading When should fluency instruction begin? Word recognition skills and fluency Fluency intervention Assessing fluency How do I find my students' fluency score?

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In our previous posts, we talked about Phonics, and vocabulary building. Next in the series is fluency.

In educational parlance, " fluency " is a buzz-word that gets thrown around with great weight. But, what exactly is fluency? How can it be measured? What are some of the common misconceptions about measuring fluency?

Traditionally, reading fluency has been associated with oral reading skills. However, there are more aspects to it than just speaking fluently. Reading fluency forms a vital component for the overall reading ability. When reading fluency is good, there are more mental resources available for analysis, critical thinking and understanding.
"Reading fluency is made up of at least three key elements: accurate reading of connected text at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody or expression." - Hudson, Lane, and Pullen
According to National Reading Panel's definition, fluency is the ability to read text with accuracy, appropriate rate and good expression (NICHD, 2000). A big misconception around fluency is that if children are reading at a faster and more fluent rate, then they can comprehend the word they speak. But, this is not always true. During many instances, children have simply memorised the visual representation of the word, helping them to read this particular passage faster and with fewer errors. These children are very likely to go back to slower reading when new material is presented to them.

Christopher Skinner, a reading researcher, found that students who read lists of words with him slowly were more fluent with the words than students who read with him at a faster rate.

We need to become more aware of what is actually happening during the process of fluent reading and how do we assess fluency. The process of fluency assessment begins with the component pieces of fluency which are prosody, accuracy and rate. Prosody refers to the pattern of stress and intonation in a spoken language; accuracy in reading fluency refers to the minimum number of errors made by the reader. Reading rate is also important to assess the overall reading fluency of a child. It is simply the words read per minute.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress has a Fluency Scale which is used globally. Different levels are explained below:
Level 1 (Non-Fluent)
Primarily reads word-by-word.
Level 2 (Non-Fluent)
Child reads in two-word phrases with some three- or four-word groupings. Some word-by-word reading may be present.
Level 3 (Fluent)
In this stage, reads in three- or four-word phrase groups. Some small groupings may be present.
Level 4 (Fluent)
In this level the child reads in larger, meaningful phrase groups.

There are different ways one can adopt to build fluency. National Reading Panel has listed three broad strategies to be effective in improving reading fluency: Teacher Modeling, Repeated reading and Progress monitoring. Teacher modeling is listening to the other person read with complete involvement in a multi sensory way. Different ways of modeling such as teacher supported reading, audio supported reading and peer supported reading can be used. Repeated reading is a powerful approach that considerably builds reading fluency. Progress monitoring is a motivational method where students are provided with a specific goal and an instant feedback on their development.

There are various ways of assessing a child's reading fluency. Some of them are listed below:

· A simple procedure to assess children's reading speed and accuracy uses regular classroom texts to determine the number of words that students can read correctly in one minute. To obtain a words-correct-per-minute (WCPM) score, students are assessed individually as they read aloud for one minute from an unpracticed passage of text. To calculate the WCPM score, the examiner subtracts the total number of errors from the total number of words read in one minute. An error includes any word that is omitted, mispronounced, or substituted for another word.

· Two very common and easy methods of assessing a child's reading fluency are SSR and RRR. SSR stands for sustained-silent reading, which involves silent reading for 30 minutes, plus additional 15 minutes for writing personal reflections on what was read.

· RRR stands for Round Robin Reading is another popular technique where individual students in a group take turns reading aloud from the text.

· "Fluency Battery" is a fluency measuring tool developed by USAID, 2009 the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning, 2002). This tool primarily, involves measuring a child's speed of accurate reading, and writing Hindi and math tests. It was adopted by ASER to test the same in the regions of Bihar and Uttarakhand.

We are keen on hearing about your views on the importance of assessing reading fluency. Share examples of approaches adopted by you to achieve fluency. We will soon update you on the final component essential to reading ability.

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Fluency- an important ingredient in reading assessments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In our previous posts, we talked about Phonics, and vocabulary building. Next in the series is fluency. In educational parlance, " fluency " is a buzz-word that gets thrown around with great weight. But, what exactly is fluency? How can it be measured? What are some of the common misconceptions about measuring fluency?

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What are Phonics and Why are they so Important

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What are Phonics and Why are they so Important

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Video Included

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Phonics: The Most Important Skill that Beginning Readers Learn - Parents' Corner

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Phonics is at the heart of how children learn to read. If you have a young reader, you might remember how exciting it was when he or she started learning letters, or how proud your child felt the first time he or she sounded out a word.

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National reports on the teaching of reading in the US, UK and Australia support the effectiveness of phonics for early decoding skills.

On this page

While the importance of phonics teaching is now universally accepted, the way phonics is best taught continues to be debated. What is agreed, however, is that the teaching of literacy should incorporate evidence-informed practices which include a place for explicit and systematic phonics instruction. As with all literacy learning, phonics instruction should take place within a meaningful, communicative, rich pedagogy, and within genuine literacy events (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.19).

Regardless of which approach is employed, phonics instruction must contain the following:

explicit teaching of the grapheme and phoneme

multiple exposures to the grapheme and phoneme through meaningful texts and contexts

systematic teaching of graphemes and phonemes based on what students need to learn (building on known knowledge)

explicit links to handwriting and how the upper and lower case grapheme is represented.

As noted by Wyse (2010), literacy teaching involves the use of texts 'to locate teaching about the smaller units of language including letters and phonemes... [This] contributes to contexts that are meaningful to children and enables them to better understand the reading process, including the application of key reading skills' (pp. 144-5).

Students with learning difficulties and dyslexia

The Literacy Teaching Toolkit materials (including the phonics resources on this page) are targetted at students within the expected range of abilities.

For advice, guidelines and tools to assist students with learning difficulties and dyslexia see:

Learning Difficulties and Dyslexia

Resources - Online Tools and Applications

While phonological awareness includes the awareness of speech sounds, syllables, and rhymes, phonics is the mapping of speech sounds (phonemes) to letters (or letter patterns, i.e. graphemes). Phonological awareness and phonics are therefore not the same, but these literacy focuses tend to overlap.

As students learn to read and spell, they fine-tune their knowledge of the relationships between phonemes and graphemes in written language. As reading and spelling skills develop, focussing on phonemic awareness improves phonics knowledge, and focussing on phonics also improve phonemic awareness.

An awareness of the links between speech sounds (phonemes) and letter patterns (graphemes) is one of the essential repertoires within the Four Resources model of reading. When reading, children need to "break the code" of written language, as well as comprehend texts, understand how texts are used, and to critically analyse texts. Including phonics is a necessary part of a rich literacy programme, as argued by a number of experts with differing views on the teaching of phonics including Emmitt, Hornsby and Wilson (2013), Goswami (2010), Stahl (2011), Paris (2005), Konza (2016).

Foundation

Level 1

Level 2

Reading

Learn some generalisations for adding suffixes to words (Content description VCELA217)

Recognise most letter-sound matches including silent letters, trigraphs, vowel digraphs and common long vowels, and understand that a sound can be represented by various letter combinations (Content description VCELA218)

Level 3

Reading

Understand how to apply knowledge of letter-sound relationships, and blending and segmenting to read and use more complex words with less common consonant and vowel clusters (Content description VCELA249)

Recognise most high-frequency words, know how to use common prefixes and suffixes, and know some homophones and generalisations for adding a suffix to a base word (Content description VCELA250)

Level 4

Reading

Read different types of texts for specific purposes by combining phonic, semantic, contextual and grammatical knowledge using text processing strategies, including monitoring meaning, skimming, scanning and reviewing (Content description VCELY287)

Level 5

Reading

Understand how to use banks of known words, syllabification, spelling patterns, word origins, base words, prefixes and suffixes, to spell new words, including some uncommon plurals (Content description VCELA312)

The English Spelling System

English can be thought of as an alphabetic language consisting of 44 speech sounds (phonemes) which map onto letter patterns (graphemes). Graphemes can be a single letter (graph), or a combination of two (digraph), three (trigraph), or four letters (quadgraph).

For details, see: The 44 Sounds of English (pdf - 230.7kb) The 44 Sounds of English (docx - 223.93kb)

Some languages are phonetic in their spelling (e.g. Finnish, Italian), where there is a simple one-to-one relationship between sounds and letters. In English, there are only 26 letters, so combinations of letters (graphemes) are needed to represent all 44 sounds (phonemes). This makes the spelling system (orthography) of English more complicated than languages with more phonetic orthographies.

Another factor that illustrates why English's alphabetic orthography is complex is that some letters make multiple sounds. For example, the letter combination "ough" can be read in at least seven different ways: as in "through", "thorough", "although", "plough", "thought", "cough" and "rough".

Also, In English there are often multiple ways to spell the same sound. For example, the /or/ vowel sound can be spelt "or" as in "horse", "au" "haunt", "our" "court", "augh" "caught" and "ore" "store" to name a few.

Despite this complexity, there are numerous sound-letter patterns (graphemes) that are useful to highlight, so that children can crack the code of written language.

English is also considered a morphophonemic language, which means that its spelling is also made up of various morphemes (e.g. prefixes, suffixes, base words). The morphology of words increasingly becomes important for the teaching of reading and spelling as students progress in their literacy abilities. The morphology of words also adds to the complexity of the English spelling system.

Graphemes map onto phonemes

English can be thought of as an alphabetic language consisting of 44 speech sounds (phonemes) which map onto letter patterns (graphemes).

We have 20 vowel sounds, and 24 consonant sounds. In English we use graphemes to represent these various sounds. Graphemes can be a single letter (graph), or a combination of two (digraph), three (trigraph), or four letters (quadgraph).

It is important for teachers to be familiar with the most common and productive sound-letter patterns (graphemes).

For more information and a list of the most common graphemes, see: Graphemes = Sound Letter Patterns (docx - 124.65kb)

Regular/Irregular, Low/High Frequency

Words can be categorised as either are regular or irregular words (in terms of their spelling). Distinguishing between words that are completely (or mostly) regular or irregular can be helpful to know which words might be difficult for students to decode independently.

Regular words are words that can be decoded using knowledge of phonics patterns (e.g. get, well, which, before)

Irregular words are words that do not conform to phonics patterns (e.g. do, said, could, yacht, doubt)

Words can also be categorised as either low frequency or high frequency, referring to how frequently they are found in texts for students of a particular year level. Overtime, it is expected that students will become proficient and efficient at reading words they encounter the most (high frequency words).

High frequency words are words that students of a particularly learning level encounter frequently (e.g. get well help because)

Low frequency words are more rare (or not usual) for a student in a particular learning level to come across (e.g. cog pharaoh deleterious)

It can be useful to use lists of high frequency words (e.g. Oxford Word List, Magic Words). However, when you identify the graphemes within these words it is clear that many high frequency words are also regular words.

For more information, see: Words - Regular/Irregular and High/Low Frequency (docx - 208.63kb)

Word Morphology

Morphology is the study of words and their parts. Morphemes (like prefixes, suffixes, and base words) are defined as the smallest meaningful units of meaning.

All words can be broken down into their morphemes:

Other examples of words with multiple morphemes are: roll+er driv+ing under+stand+able class+ic+al

Morphemes are important for phonics (reading and spelling), as well as vocabulary and comprehension. Teaching morphemes is useful, as they are often spelt the same across different words (even when the sound changes), and often have a consistent purpose and/or meaning.

For example, students can learn about the plural -s, and how it can be spelt with an "s" or "es", based on a sound rule. See plural s section for more details.

For more information, see: Word Morphology

See the 44 Speech sounds video

Phonic sequences

In English, phonics is the teaching of introductory, basic, intermediate, and advanced sound-letter patterns (graphemes). Awareness and recall of these patterns is relevant for the development of both reading and spelling.

The phonics lesson sequences aim to provide teachers with explicit information about how to teach phonics to students who might require additional support in Foundation, Level 1 and Level 2. The lesson sequences are examples and are not intended to cover all aspects of phonics.

​ Victorian Curriculum: Phonics and word knowledge

​Foundation

​Reading and Viewing

​Recognise all upper- and lower-case letters and the most common sound that each letter represents ( VCELA146)

For example,

Recognise the most common sound made by each letter and their symbol (phoneme to grapheme). There is no fixed or set sequence to follow (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.85) but here are two alternatives:

1. Phoneme: /m/, /b/, /l/, /t/, /g/, /h/, /s/, /k/, /v/, /z/, /p/, /j/, /n/, /d/, /r/, /y/, /f/, /w/ Vowel phoneme (short): /a/, /e/, /i/ /o/, /u/ Digraph: /sh/, /ch/, th/th voiced and unvoiced (Hill, 2015, p. 275)Digraph: /sh/, /ch/, th/th voiced and unvoiced (Hill, 2015, p. 275)

2. Stretchable consonants: /f/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /r/, /s/, /v/, /z/ Plosive consonants: /b/, /d/, /j/, /k/, /p/, /t/ Initial consonants: /h/, /w/, /y/, /c/, /g/, q= /k/ + /w/ Short vowels taught in rime -at, -et, -ip, -ot, -un (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, pp. 87-101)

Blend sounds associated with letters when reading consonant-vowel-consonant words ( VCELA147)

For example, blend one syllable words: c-a-t, p-e-g and apply this knowledge when reading.

​ Writing

​Understand that spoken sounds and words can be written and know how to write some high frequency words and other familiar words including their name ( VCELA157)

For example,

Write consonant-vowel-consonant words by segmenting the sounds. Listen to the sounds heard in the word and then write letters to represent those sounds. (See Phonological awareness and early writing)

Teach the spelling of high frequency words (e.g. the, to, go, I, and, look, here). Examination of students' writing provides easy access to which words to teach (Hill, 2015, p. 189). Refer to word lists such as Oxford Word List,High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

Know how to use onset and rime to spell words where sounds map more directly onto letters ( VCELA158)

For example,

Start with words from an authentic source and build word families using magnetic letters, word slides or onset/rime cards (hop: h-op, p-op, c-op, m-op, sh-op, ch-op, st-op)

Begin with single vowel and consonant rimes such as: -ad, -an, -am, -ap, -at, -en, -et, -in, -ip, -it, -op, -ot, -ug, -un, -um (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.102). (See onset-rime segmentation andPhonological Awareness Onset-rime video)

​Speaking and Listening

​Identify rhyming words, alliteration patterns, syllables and some sounds (phonemes) in spoken words ( VCELA168)

For example,

Blend and segment onset and rime in single syllable words and isolate, blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words (First consonant, last consonant sound, middle vowel sound) ( VCELA169)

For example,

Blend and segment onset and rime - Orally build word families (h-op, p-op, c-op, m-op, sh-op, ch-op, st-op). Start with single vowel and consonant rimes such as: -ad, -an, -am, -ap, -at, -en, -et, -in, -ip, -it, -op, -ot, -ug, -un, -um (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.102).(See onset-rime segmentation andPhonological Awareness Onset-rime video)

Isolate, blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words - Count the phonemes in two and three letter words, identify the first and last sound in words, isolate sounds in words to segment (cup= c-u-p) and blend sounds (sh-i-p=ship) to make single syllable words (See Blending sounds into words,Segmenting words into sounds andF-2 Spelling unit).

​Victorian Curriculum: Phonics and word knowledge

Level 1

​Reading and Viewing

​Recognise short vowels, common long vowels and consonant digraphs, and consonant blends ( VCELA181)

For example,

Short vowels - Vowel sounds are usually short when they appear in one-syllable words. A vowel inside a rime has a consistent sound.

Investigate and decode words which contain long vowel sounds: begin with split digraphs (a-e = cake, e-e = these, i-e = vine, o-e = hope, u-e = cute). Follow with common vowel digraphs making a long vowel sound: (ai, ay, ee, ea, oa)

Consonant digraphs. Teach: 'sh'- ship, wish, 'ch'- chop and much, unvoiced 'th'- thin and with, voiced 'th'- then, feather, 'ph'-phone, elephant, graph, 'ck'- black, 'wh'- what, 'ng'- king, 'qu'- queen (included here because 'q' always appears with 'u' after it). (Hill, 2015, p.252; Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.192) (See Phonics lesson: Consonant digraphs in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit).

Consonant blends. Begin with 2 letter initial consonant blends - bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, lr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, tw (Hill, 2015, p. 249) (See Phonics lesson: Consonant blends in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit).

Understand how to spell one and two syllable words with common letter patterns ( VCELA182)

For example,

Investigate words with common consonant blends (bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, lr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, tw) and vowel sounds (a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e, ai, ay, ee, ea, oa) such as tree, star, be.gin, tea.cher

Learn an increasing number of high frequency words with regular (and, am, can, get, his, this, up) and irregular spelling (after, all, come, here, my, of, said, saw, some, the, they, was, were, what, when, you). Refer to word lists such as: Oxford Word List,High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

Understand that a letter can represent more than one sound, and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound ( VCELA183)

Students can give examples of how a grapheme can make more than one phoneme (for example 'u' in 'cut', 'put', 'use' and 'a' in 'cat', 'father', 'any')

Decodes single-syllable words with common long vowels (see Syllabification video and Level 1 Syllable Lesson in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit)

​Writing

​Recognise and know how to use simple grammatical morphemes in word families ( VCELA191)

Building word families (for example 'play', 'plays', 'playing', 'played', 'playground')

Reads and writes one and two syllable words with common suffixes (walk, walked, walks, walking) (See Word Morphology)

Understand how to use visual memory to write high-frequency words, and that some high-frequency words have regular and irregular spelling components ( VCELA184)

Students use strategies such as look-say-cover-write-check to learn regular (and, am, can, get, his, this, up) and irregular spelling (after, all, come, here, my, of, said, saw, some, the, they, was, were, what, when, you) of high frequency words. Refer to word lists such as: Oxford Word List,High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

​Speaking and Listening

​Identify the separate phonemes in consonant blends or clusters at the beginning and ends of syllables ( VCELA203)

Students can identify the consonant blends at the beginning (bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, lr, sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, tr, tw) or ending (ft, ld, lk, lp, lt, mp, nd, ng, nk, nt, py, ry, sk, sp, st, ty) of syllables and then the individual phonemes that make up the blend (frog = 'fr' = f-r or jump='mp' = m-p) (Hill, 2015, p.249).

Manipulate phonemes by addition, deletion and substitution of initial, medial and final phonemes to generate new words ( VCELA204)

Addition of phonemes: (adding /b/ to 'in' to make = 'bin' or /m/ to 'far' to make = 'farm'

Deletion of phonemes: (deleting /s/ from swag to make = 'wag' or deleting /b/ from brat to make = 'rat'

Substitution of initial, medial or final phonemes (substituting /p/ for /g/ in get = 'pet', substituting /o/ for /e/ in pet = pot, substituting /d/ for /t/ in pot ='pod') (See Deleting and manipulating sounds in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit)

​

​Victorian Curriculum: Phonics and word knowledge

​Level 2

​Reading and Viewing

​Learn some generalisations for adding suffixes to words ( VCELA217)

(See Literacy Glossary)Investigate and teach the way words change when suffixes are added (-ing, -ed, -er, -est, -ful, -ly)

For example,

add 'ed' or 'ing' to verb stem e.g. talk → talked, talking

drop the final 'e' when adding 'ing' e.g. hope →hoping

if the verb stem ends in 'e', just add a 'd' e.g. use → used, hope →hoped

double the last consonant if there is a short vowel before it and then add 'ed' or 'ing' e.g. plan →planned, planning, hop →hopped, hopping

if the verb ends in y, change the 'y' to an 'i' and add 'ed' e.g. try →tried (Derewianka, 1998, p. 62)

final consonants are not doubled before adding a suffix beginning with a consonant e.g. wonder + ful = wonderful, quick + ly =quickly

Recognise most letter-sound matches including silent letters, trigraphs, vowel digraphs and common long vowels, and understand that a sound can be represented by various letter combinations ( VCELA218)

Silent letters - students recognise and read words with silent letters e.g. knife, castle, write. Initial silent letters (g-gnome, k-knew, p-psychology, w-wrap), medial silent letters (h-ghost, l-could, t-castle, w-two) and final silent letters (b-thumb) (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.193).(See Phonic Lesson-Using a traditional tale to teach phonic elements in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit)

Trigraphs - a group of three letters that are associated with one sound, for example, 'eau' in 'plateau'. Teach 'ear' as in 'wear', 'tch' as in 'catch', 'ear' as in 'fear', 'ure' as in 'sure'

Vowel digraphs and common long vowels: Revise (a-e, ai, ay, e-e, ee, ea, i-e, oa, o-e, u-e) Then teach: (ie, y, oe, ow, oo, ue) followed by: (ou, oy, oi, au)

Teach R-Controlled Vowels: ar, er, ir, or, ur

​Writing

​Understand how to use digraphs, long vowels, blends, silent letters and syllabification to spell simple words including compound words ( VCELA226)

Students can write words containing consonant digraphs ('sh', 'ch', 'th', 'ph', 'wh', 'ck', 'ng', 'qu') and vowel digraphs and long vowels (a-e, ai, au, ay, e-e, ee, ea, i-e, ie, oa, oe, o-e, oi, oo, ou, ow, oy, u-e, ue, y) (see Phonics Lesson: Consonant digraphs in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit)

Students can write words with 2 letter (See Level 1 Phonics Scope) and 3 letter consonant blends (scr-, shr-, spl-, spr-, str-) (See Phonics lesson: Consonant digraphs in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit).

Students can write words with silent letters: Initial silent letters (g-gnome, k-knew, p-psychology, w-wrap), medial silent letters (h-ghost, l-could, t-castle, w-two) and final silent letters (b-thumb) (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p.193).

Syllables: Students can break words into syllables to hear the phonemes (e.g. button= but.ton = b-u-t. t-o-n) (see Syllabification video and Level 1 Syllable Lesson in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit)

Compound words (see Word Morphology-Compound words in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit)

Use visual memory to write high-frequency words and words where spelling is not predictable from the sounds ( VCELA227)

Can use visual memory strategies such as: look-say-cover-write-check, knowledge of letter patterns, word shape and possible letter combinations to write high frequency sight words. Read and write all 100 high frequency words. Refer to word lists such as: Oxford Word List,High Frequency, M100 words as a guide.

​Speaking and Listening

​Manipulate more complex sounds in spoken words through knowledge of blending and segmenting sounds, phoneme deletion and substitution (VCELA238)

Blend and segment more complex sounds when saying words, for example 'squint' and 'watch'. Include words with 2 letter blends (See Level 1 Phonics Scope) and 3 letter blends (scr-, shr-, spl-, spr-, str- in the initial and final position of a word.

Deletion of phonemes in more complex words: (deleting 'e' from 'bathe' = bath, deleting the 'i' from paint = pant)

Substitution of initial, medial or final phonemes in more complex words (substituting 'str' for 'th' in thing = 'string', substituting 'ea' for 'oa' in boat = 'beat', substituting '-tch' for 'th' in with = 'witch' (See Deleting and manipulating sounds in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit)

Identify all Standard Australian English phonemes, including short and long vowels, separate sounds in clusters (VCELA239) Listening for and recognising different sounds in words during shared reading and read alouds including short vowels ('a' as in can), long vowels ('o' as in pony) and separate sounds in letter clusters ('s-t-r' in strap)

The 20 vowel and 24 consonant phonemes make up the 44 phonemes of English. Each phoneme may have multiple spellings (graphemes) and a sample are listed here: (See The English Spelling System: 44 sounds of English in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit):

1. Short Vowels - 'a' in cat, 'e' in leg, 'I' in sit, 'o' in top, 'u' in rub and 'oo'/'u' in book and put

2. Long Vowels -

'a' in baby, cake, eight, say, snail, they, gauge

'e' in emu, see, meat, feet, theme, people, happy, key

'i' in sign, pie, high, fine, tiger, my, buy

'o' in no, boat, toe, stone, though, flow, sew

'u' in moon, rude, true, few, shoe, soup, fruit (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p. 179; Snowball & Bolton, 1999)

3. 3 R-Controlled vowels - 'ar' in car, giraffe, half, 'er'/'ir'/'ur' in her, were, bird, hurt or in cork, more, sure, saw, war (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p. 179)

4. 6 other vowels - 'ow'/'ou' in cow and out, 'oy'/'oi' in boy and void, 'eer'/'ear' in deer and near, 'air'/'ere' in hair and there, 'our' in tour

5. 1 Unstressed Vowel - schwa in trumpet, about, father, lemon, circus, taken (Snowball & Bolton, 1999)

6. 24 Consonants - p in pet, b in bet, t in tip, d in dip, k/c in kite/cap, m in met, n in net, ng in sing, f in fan and photo, v in van, th in think (voiceless /th/), th in this (voiced /t/), s in Sue, dress and cent, z in zoo, h in hat, j in jump and giant, w in wet, r in rat, y in yak, l in leg, sh in ship, zh in treasure and beige, ch in chain and creature (Hornsby & Wilson, 2011, p. 179; Snowball & Bolton, 1999)

7. Additional Consonant Sounds - x = k + s as in box, qu = k + w as in quit

For in practice examples, see: Sample phonics lessons

For more information see: Phonics for early childhood educators

References

Derewianka, B. (1998). A Grammar Companion: For Primary Teachers, Newtown, NSW: Primary English Teacher Association

Emmitt, M., Hornsby, D. & Wilson, L. (2013). The place of phonics in learning to read and write. Norwood: ALEA.

Goswami, U. (2010). Phonology, reading and reading difficulties. In K. Hall, U. Goswami, C. Harrison, S. Ellis & J. Soler (Eds.). Interdisciplinary perspectives on learning to read: Culture, cognition and pedagogy. (pp. 103 - 116). New York: Routledge.

Hill, S. (2015). Developing early literacy: Assessment and teaching (2nd ed.) South Yarra, Australia: Eleanor Curtain Publishing.

Hornsby, D. & Wilson, L. (2011). Teaching phonics in context. Port Melbourne: Pearson Australia.

Konza, D. (2016). Understanding the process of reading: The big six. In J. Scull & B. Raban (Eds), Growing up literate: Australian literacy research for practice (pp. 149-175). South Yarra, Vic. : Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Snowball, D. and Bolton, F. (1999). Spelling K-8: Planning and Teaching. York, Maine: Stenhouse.

Stahl, K.A.D. (2011). Applying new visions of reading development in today's classrooms. The reading Teacher, 65(1), 52-56.

Wyse, D. (2010). Contextualised phonics teaching. In K. Hall, U. Goswami, C. Harrison, S. Ellis & J. Soler (Eds.). Interdisciplinary perspectives on learning to read: Culture, cognition and pedagogy. (pp. 130-148). New York: Routledge.

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Last Update: 24 August 2020

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​ National reports on the teaching of reading in the US, UK and Australia support the effectiveness of phonics for early decoding skills. On this page While the importance of phonics teaching is now universally accepted, the way phonics is best taught continues to be debated.

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Examples in text

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When we talk about foundations of literacy, three "PH" words often come to mind: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. We see these terms when we view grade level reading standards, reading research, and built into reading lessons found in many core reading series. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory, and the focus is on the sounds in words. Phonics, on the other hand, focuses on the letters that the sounds represent. Phonics involves print, phonological, and phonemic awareness do not. While phonological and phonemic awareness are both oral and auditory, there are differences between these two terms.

What is Phonological Awareness?

"Phonological awareness is the understanding of different ways that oral language can be divided into smaller components and manipulated." (Chard and Dickson, 1999) Phonological awareness refers to the bigger "chunks" or "parts" of language. When we ask students to rhyme, blend small words to make a compound word, break words apart into syllables or onset-rime, we are working at the phonological awareness level. Phonological awareness can be thought of as a big umbrella with the bigger "chunks" of language being the top of the umbrella.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made of individual sounds called phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound we hear in a word. Phonemic awareness falls underneath the umbrella as a sub-category of phonological awareness. Rather than working with larger units of spoken language, we ask students to listen for the individual sounds or phonemes in a spoken word. When we ask students to blend or segment words into the smallest unit of sound they hear, we are working at the phonemic awareness level. For example, the four sounds /p//l//a//n/ can be blended to make the whole word plan.

How Does Phonemic Awareness Help Reading and Literacy Development?

In their book, "Know Better, Do Better", David and Meredith Liben state "It is not an option to skip or shortchange phonemic awareness! Children without mastery of it will inevitably struggle." While decades of research support this statement, phonemic awareness is still the most common reason students struggle with word reading. When educators consider phonemic awareness and phonics to be interchangeable terms, phonemic awareness is often left out of instruction and the focus shifts to print with phonics.

Failing to provide explicit phonemic awareness instruction leads to many students lacking the understanding that words are made up of individual sounds. Instead, they get the message that words are whole units that need to be visually memorized. While students learn language naturally by listening to speech and words, hearing individual sounds in words is not natural. We don't speak in individual sounds, instead, our speech is co-articulated and we hear whole words in oral language. If we begin our literacy instruction by teaching letters and sounds, without phonemic awareness instruction, phonics does not make sense to students.

Phonemic awareness and phonics do work together when students learn to read and spell. Words are made up of sounds (phonemic awareness) and letters represent these sounds in print (phonics). Without the ability to hear sounds in words, phonemic awareness and phonics cannot engage in this reciprocal relationship. Researcher Wiley Blevins explains, "Phonemic awareness training provides the foundation on which phonics instruction is built. Thus, children need solid phonemic awareness training for phonics instruction to be effective."

It is essential for students to understand that words are made up of individual sounds, and they can blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds. If students can do this work through the air, we can transfer these skills to print, so they can read and spell more words.

How Does Phonological Awareness Develop?

It is important to support and scaffold students through the continuum of phonological awareness to allow them to eventually hear and manipulate those individual sounds in words- the phonemic awareness level. The image of the ladder below shows the continuum of phonological awareness. When providing instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, we begin at the phonological level. It is much easier to hear the bigger units of language versus the individual sounds in a word. For example, asking children to segment pencil into two-syllables, /pen/ /cil/, is an easier task when compared to segmenting the word pen into three individual sounds, /p/ /e/ /n/.

The largest unit of language is a word. Instruction in phonological awareness begins at the word level when children learn that compound words can be blended, segmented, and manipulated. For example, we can blend the small words class - room together to the compound word classroom. Or the opposite, we can segment compound words into two separate words. We can say the whole word and take it apart into two smaller words: raincoat, rain - coat. We can also substitute one small word in a compound word. Say sunshine, change shine to glasses and the word is sunglasses.

Once students can blend, segment, and manipulate compound words, we narrow the unit of language they hear and do the same work with syllables. For example, we blend the three syllables /cal - en - dar/, to say the whole word calendar. Students can segment a word into syllables: elbow can be segmented into /el/ - /bow/. We can substitute a syllable in a word to make a new word: reading; change /read/ to /talk/ and the word is talking.

We can narrow the unit of language again when we focus on the onset and rime. Onset-rime is breaking apart a syllable. The onset of a word is all the sounds that come before the vowel and the rime is the vowel and all the sounds after. Students blend the onset and rime into a whole word or segment a spoken word into the onset and rime.

For example, students can blend the onset /b/ and the rime /ig/ into the word /b-ig/, big. And if we were to segment the word flip, the onset would be /fl/ and the rime would be /ip/. Onset-rime is the last level of phonological awareness and teaches students to blend and segment two parts into a word. Developing a foundation of understanding in phonological awareness prepares students to hear individual sounds and develop phoneme awareness. The chart below shares examples of tasks and activities at the phonological awareness level

Phonological Awareness Activities

How Does Phonemic Awareness Develop?

When looking at the image of the ladder, the first three rungs on the ladder are phonological awareness and the top rung on the ladder is phonemic awareness. The focus is on hearing individual sounds in spoken words. While instruction begins with phonological awareness, our end goal is phonemic awareness. Students who are phonemically aware are not only able to hear the sounds in words, they are able to isolate the sounds, blend, segment and manipulate sounds in spoken words.

For example, segmenting the word pen into the sounds /p/ /e/ /n/ is an example of a phonemic awareness task. If students can segment the word, they can then spell the word. If they can blend those sounds, they can read the word. Additionally, if students can substitute the /p/ to a /h/, they can make a new word - hen. Phonemic awareness training provides students with the skills necessary to read and spell words when they see these sounds in print.

There are several skills included in phonemic awareness instruction and the chart below shares examples of skills and tasks at the phonemic awareness level.

Phonemic Awareness Activities

Phoneme Isolation

Phoneme isolation is a skill where students hear and isolate a sound at the beginning of a word, middle of a word, and end of a word, often referred to as initial, medial, and final sounds.

The first sound in the word name is /n/.

The final sound in the word bark is /k/.
The medial or vowel sound in the word cup is /u/.

Blending (parts to whole)

Blending is a skill that directly correlates to phonic decoding. Students hear sounds spoken aloud and they blend the sounds to make a word. During instruction, the teacher provides the phonemes and the students blend the phonemes into a whole word.

/s/ /u/ /n/, sun

/b/ /r/ /ā/ /k/, break
/p/ /r/ /i/ /s/, price

Segment (whole to parts)

Segmenting is a skill that directly correlates to encoding or spelling. Students hear a whole word and they segment the word into all the individual sounds they hear. During instruction, a teacher would say a whole word and students segment the word into individual phonemes.

Phoneme Manipulation:

Add

Delete
Substitute
Phoneme manipulation is practiced with adding a phoneme, deleting a phoneme, or substituting a phoneme in spoken words.

Adding an initial sound to make a word: Add /s/ to /-at/ and the word is sat

Deleting an initial sound from a word: Say cup. Without /k/, what's left is, /-up/.

Substituting an initial sound: The word is top. Change /t/ to /m/and the word is, mop.

How Do You Teach Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

Considering the research and the role phonemic awareness plays in building the foundation of reading, it is clear we owe it to our students to do better. All students benefit from explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness. In most literacy curricula, the amount of time dedicated to phonemic awareness, and the way it is presented, is not effective enough to create phonemically proficient readers. Often just a few minutes are devoted to this instruction, with varying skills taught each day. If we are going to do better for students, our instruction in phonemic awareness needs to be intentional.

For our younger learners, we should begin instruction at the phonological awareness level (compound words, syllables, onset-rime) to allow students the opportunity to blend, segment, and manipulate parts of words first before we have them do that same work with phonemes. With older learners, or struggling readers, our goal is to get to the phoneme level as quickly as possible so they can transfer these skills to reading and spelling.

Phonological and phonemic awareness skills can be divided into 3 levels: early, basic, and advanced. In the past, many educators thought the basic skills of blending and segmenting were enough to create proficient readers as these skills directly corelate to decoding and encoding. However, we now know that providing phonemic awareness instruction to the advanced level is critical.

Phonemic awareness instruction is powerful, but it does not need to take long. Dr. Heggerty created quick, 10-12 minutes lessons to provide students with the practice and repetition they needed to reach phoneme proficiency. Our lessons include all 8 phonological and phonemic awareness skills beginning with compound words and working our way to the phoneme level. Teaching these skills each day will allow our children the repetition and practice they need to hear, blend, segment and manipulate sounds in words.

How Do You Assess Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

We can assess students' phonemic awareness in many ways. Universal screeners, such as DIBELS or Acadience, assess some skills and can be an indicator that we need to "dig deeper" or learn more about certain students. Other assessments include the PAST or our Heggerty Phonemic Awareness assessments which provide more information by assessing more skills.

Because phonemic awareness is oral and auditory, assessments are completed one-on-one and can be time consuming to administer. A quick and effective way to check in on students' phonemic awareness is listening to their responses during instruction. You can rotate rows when students are sitting on the carpet and have a focus group each week. Once students know most of their letters and sounds, looking at their writing will show you what sounds they are hearing in words as they map those sounds to print. Similarly, listening to students sound out or decode words is a way to assess their ability to blend sounds into words

The Foundation for Literacy Development

In her blog post Of 'Hard Words' and Straw Men: Let's Understand What Reading Science is Really About Louisa Moats notes that, "Perhaps the most critical and least-practiced component of effective early instruction is phoneme awareness. Awareness of the sounds that make up spoken words, facility at manipulating those sounds, and the links between speech and print must be mastered for students to be fluent readers and accurate spellers of an alphabetic writing system like ours."

Both phonological and phonemic awareness focus on the sounds in language. We begin our instruction at the phonological level and narrow the unit of language until we can work at the phoneme level. focuses on teaching students to hear the specific sounds in words and is essential for literacy instruction.

It is important for students to be explicitly taught how to hear sounds in words to help them blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds. When a student has phoneme proficiency, they are able to transfer the oral and auditory skills to print to be able to read and spell words. Phonemic awareness is the necessary foundation for creating proficient readers and writers.

References:

Liben, David & Liben, MeredithKnow Better, Do Better. LIteracy Solutions, 2019.

Blevins, Wiley. Phonics from A to Z. 2017

Moats, Louisa. Of 'Hard Words' and Straw Men: Let's Understand What Reading Science is Really About, Oct 16, 2019

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What are Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness?

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When we talk about foundations of literacy, three "PH" words often come to mind: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. We see these terms when we view grade level reading standards, reading research, and built into reading lessons found in many core reading series. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory, and...

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Top 10 CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT Tips in 10 Minutes

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Examples of Phonological and Phonemic Lessons

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Examples of Phonological and Phonemic Lessons

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"Phonological awareness," "phonemic awareness," and "phonics," are literacy terms we often hear used simultaneously, and maybe even interchangeably! However, as we work with children, helping them to develop a strong foundation of literacy and language skills, we must realize the important distinction between these terms.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate parts of spoken language. Skills are at a listening/auditory and spoken/verbal, level - NO print - spoken words requiring ears only!

It is a broad term and comprised of a group of skills that progress developmentally, but of course, overlap as children mature. As phonological awareness skills develop, children will begin to attend to, discriminate, remember, and manipulate (segment/blend) words and sounds at these levels or chunks:

Sentence
Understanding that the sentence they hear, "Thecatisfat" is comprised of four separate words "The cat is fat".

Word

Understanding the words "cat" and "fat" rhyme.

Understanding two words become one in a compound word: cat + fish = catfish

Syllable
Understanding the word "cat" as one syllable.

Phonemic Awareness
Understanding and manipulating the three sounds in "cat" = /k/ /a/ /t/

Let's take a closer look at phonemic awareness. It is a specific skill under the broad category of phonological awareness. If we put phonological awareness skills on a continuum, phonemic awareness is the most sophisticated and last to develop.

The following is a list of specific phonemic awareness skills. Keep in mind, all of these are done at the auditory/spoken level, NO print:

Recognize words in a set begin with the same sound (cat, cake, kite all begin with the /k/ sound)

Isolate and say the first/last/middle sound/s in a word (cat begins with the /k/ sound and ends with the /t/ sound, etc.)

Blend separate sounds (phonemes) into words (/k/- /a/ - /t/ = cat)

Segment words into sounds (cat = /k/- /a/ - /t/)

Delete/manipulate sounds in spoken words (What is "cat" without the /k/? - "at"

Basically, phonemic awareness skills include learning how to break apart (segment) and combine (blend) the sounds in words. Phonemic awareness should begin in Pre-K with the focus on the simpler phonemic awareness skills of isolation and identifying beginning and ending sounds. Because phonemic awareness is a more advanced phonological awareness skill, development continues into kindergarten and early elementary.

Why are phonemic awareness skills so important?

Well, children who cannot hear and manipulate the phonemes of spoken words will have a very challenging time learning how to relate phonemes to letters when they see them in written words, Phonics. Therefore, Phonological Awareness skills are foundational for Phonics.

What is Phonics?

Phonemic awareness, however, is not phonics.

Phonics skill development focuses on helping children understand the relationship between sounds of written letters, letter combinations, and words. Phonics deals with written language, therefore we need to use our ears AND eyes, where as Phonological Awareness (and phonemic awareness) involves NO print, just listening and saying sounds and words. To keep this straight in my mind, I think about phonological awareness activities as those which can be completed with the eyes closed, while phonics activities require us to see the written letters and words, so, eyes need to be open.

Both phonemic awareness and phonics are interrelated, foundational skills and necessary for reading. However, it is important to understand a foundation of all phonological awareness skills should built before intense concentration is given to phonics.

The Benefits of Phonemic & Phonological Awareness

PreK is the time to begin to lay the foundation for strong reading skills, and it is important to begin by concentrating on phonological awareness skill development. In addition, if we do not help children gain the foundational understanding of sounds that phonemic awareness brings, phonics (assigning a letter a sound, spelling, and reading) will make little sense. And research supports this.

In summary, Phonemic Awareness is critical for reading. It primes readers for mapping speech to print, connecting sounds with written symbols, and also gives children a way to approach sounding out, blending sounds to make and read new words.

Phonological Awareness Activities & Strategies

In Pre-K, Phonological Awareness skills most certainly need to be taught explicitly, but fun extra practice can be woven in anytime.
Activity 1: Games to Play While Lined Up
Here are a few ideas for some simple games to play while children wait in line:

1. Sentence game: say a sentence, "The cat is fat". Tap the first 4 children on the head as you say each word of the sentence. Ask, "How many words?", four! Repeat the sentence, or say a different sentence, as you go down the line of children.

2. Rhyme game: Say a few words that rhyme, "cat, fat, bat". Prompt children to join in the game. You may need to prompt by saying some initial sounds: /p/ - at, /s/ - at, etc. Include silly words (/z/ - at) and blends (/th/ - at)!

3. My Turn/Your Turn syllable count game: (My Turn) Model clapping/stomping/tapping the syllables for objects you see in the classroom (Ceil-ing, floor, ta-ble, com-pu-ter). (Your Turn) Prompt children to imitate you. Ask after each word, "How many syllables?"

4. Repeat the beginning sound game: /c/ - /c/ - cat, /c/ - /c/ - cake, /c/ - /c/ - car. Prompt children to join in with other words.

The Get Set for School curriculum offers many activities that support early Language and Literacy skill development for children in your Early Childhood classrooms.

Here are some additional sample activities and products to explicitly instruct young learners in some key Phonological Awareness skills.
Activity 2: Discriminate rhymes
Each of the four Mat Man books features the beloved character, Mat Man. Rhyming verses in all the books help children discriminate and learn about rhymes.

Mat Man helps students learn about shapes, professions, rhymes, while expanding their imaginations, exploration, and community awareness.

Click here to see more sample pages from the Mat Man Book Series.
Activity 3: Discriminate between environmental sounds and speech sounds
Children learn important social, math, literacy & language concepts as they move and sing to upbeat songs on the Sing, Sound, and Count with Me Music Album

For example, the song "Syllable Sound Off" helps to develop children's understanding of syllables as they listen for and move to identify 2, 3 and 4 syllable words... all in one song!

Rhymes are taught in a fun playful way in the song "Rhyming Riddles". In fact, most songs on the music album include verses with rhyming words!
Activity 4: Identify Sounds and their sources
The Sound Around Box is a versatile classroom tool that will help you teach early language and literacy concepts in a fun and hands-on way. It provides the opportunity for many group activities which will help children develop important social skills as they engage in multisensory play with rhymes, syllables, beginning sounds, alphabet knowledge, letters, word parts, and test their memory skills!
Activity 5: Develop early language, literacy, motor, and social skills
Line It Up engages children in fun interactive activities that develop early language, literacy, motor, and social skills. The set includes a mountable magnetic display bar to hold the Story, Letter, and Coloring Cards.

The 26 Coloring Cards each have simple picture. The picture can be colored, but also used to facilitate a "Syllable Chant" activity. For example, on the "A" card: al-li-ga-tor.

The 26 Picture Cards can be used for phonemic awareness activities as children name each picture and identify those that begin with the target sound. For example:

Show picture side of Letter Card A. Name each picture.

Alligator begins with /ă/. Say it with me, /ă/, alligator.

Does violin begin with /ă/? No, violin begins with /v/.

Does astronaut begin with /ă/? Yes, /ă/, astronaut.

Continue with banana and apple.

Let children circle beginning /ă/ pictures.

All of the Get Set for School products support a variety of learning opportunities for your developing children. The products and activities highlighted shown here are just a snapshot of the many skills these products can facilitate.

To learn more about these and other Get Set for School activities and products, visit our website.

A-Z for Mat Man and Me

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5 Phonological & Phonemic Awareness Activities

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"Phonological awareness," "phonemic awareness," and "phonics," are literacy terms we often hear used simultaneously, and maybe even interchangeably! However, as we work with children, helping them to develop a strong foundation of literacy and language skills, we must realize the important distinction between these terms.

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Searching for the most effective strategies for phonics instruction and intervention? Here is a list of 13 effective and engaging phonics strategies that will focus on the most important phonics skills while using reading intervention strategies that work.

What is phonics?

Phonics is the reading strategy of connecting sounds with letters. It's when students begin to learn the sounds that letters make, recognize phonics patterns, and decode words. Phonics instruction is the gateway to reading printed text, and it is so empowering!

Why phonics intervention?

When students struggle using phonics strategies while reading, it really slows them down and prevents them from reading fluently. When they aren't reading fluently, they aren't able to comprehend what they read. It's all a big chain, and each step is crucial.

Phonics intervention for struggling readers empowers students with the tools they need to read unfamiliar text. When they can apply phonics strategies to decode new words, any text becomes accessible. That opens up a whole new world of possibilities for them!

If intervention feels overwhelming for you, try using this FREE Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet as a starting point. It can help you identify struggling readers, pinpoint where they need help, and give you tons of activity ideas to help them.

Phonics Intervention Strategies

So we know that phonics intervention is important, but how do we do it?? Here is a list of 13 of my most engaging and EFFECTIVE phonics strategies for struggling readers. They are each focused on important skills and have made a huge impact on my students. I hope they can help yours too!

If you need some more ideas for activities, check out my Ultimate List of Reading Intervention Activities, or for more general reading intervention strategies you can use for any skill, check out this blog post!

Strategies for Phonics #1: VOWELS

One of the first and most important strategies for phonics you should include in your phonics intervention, is a focus on the vowels. Differentiating all of the long and short vowel sounds is such a huge phonics skill to learn, because every single syllable of every single word includes a vowel sound. Vowels also sound very similar to each other, the differences are more subtle. This makes telling the sounds apart trickier for beginning readers, and it often takes a bit more time than learning the consonant sounds. Also the fact that there are at least two different sounds for each vowel (short, long, and sometimes schwa), makes it even more confusing. Spend a good amount of time at the beginning solidifying vowel sounds and it will save you a lot of back-tracking.

This picture is from my Phonics Intervention Binder in the section focusing on silent e and long and short vowels. It's so important that students hone down on the vowel sounds first, before trying to move onto complex phonics patterns.

Strategies for Phonics #2: CVC WORDS

After vowels, cvc words are the next big phonics strategy to focus on. CVC words are words that start with a consonant, have a vowel in the middle, and end in a consonant. Being able to read a single-syllable word gives you building blocks to read multisyllabic words. Solidifying reading CVC words ensures that students are able to read correct letter sounds, blend the sounds together, and read a syllable. If students are struggling reading CVC words, they will struggle even more trying to apply complex phonics patterns and rules. Solidify the CVC words first, then start branching out.

I have an entire Intervention Binder focused on CVC words, because they are that important!

Strategies for Phonics #3: Word slide

I know I've shared this phonics strategy in my Intervention Strategies for Phonemic Awareness blog post, but you can use it just with sounds for phonemic awareness, or add written words to use it as a phonics strategy. When students are first learning to blend, teach them to use their arm slide to blend the sounds together. Have them stick their arm out. Put their other hand on top of their shoulder and say the first sound of the word. Then, have them pat down their arm saying a sound for each letter as they pat. When they finish, have them put their hand back up to their shoulder, and slide it down the "slide" as they say the whole word. Encourage beginning readers to use their arm slides when they are reading and need to sound out a word. You can see a video demonstration of this on my Instagram page under the "Teaching" story highlights (the purple circle with the apple).

Strategies for Phonics #4: To say whole word, sound out in head

After students master verbal blending, they need to move on to the more advanced phonics strategy of saying the whole word without sounding it out. This is especially important for CVC words. To encourage your struggling reader to say the whole word, tell them they can sound the word out in their heads. Have them zip their mouths, put their finger under each letter, and nod as they think the sound each letter makes in their head. Then, they can say the whole word out loud. If this is too hard for them, try whispering the sounds for a while before moving them into their head.

Strategies for Phonics #5: Nonsense words

I've heard the argument before that practicing nonsense words is a meaningless activity and a waste of time. They are words that students will never read in real life. However, there is a very good reason for practicing them! First of all, it solidifies being able to read a single syllable. Remember, all words are made up of at least one syllable, so learning to read single syllables is the first step. In addition, reading nonsense words gives practice decoding unfamiliar words. Sometimes students rely on memory and context to read words, which is great for common words and fluency. However, as they get older and start reading more academic texts, they will come across new words that they will need to read, but are unfamiliar with. It's important for them to have decoding skills to break words apart into syllables and figure them out. Practicing nonsense words give them those phonics strategies to do just that.

Strategies for Phonics #6: Review and repetition

There are many tricky phonics rules and patterns, and in the rush to cover them all it is tempting to teach and move on. But if the phonics pattern is taught one week, and then not reviewed again for several weeks, students are bound to forget them or mix them up with all those rules swimming around in their heads. Try your best to integrate review of old phonics patterns in your practice. When you model reading passages, stop to highlight previously learned patterns. Include older practice words in games and assignments. Try to do a quick, comprehensive review of all of the learned phonics patterns everyday.

This picture shows pages from my Phonemic Awareness Intervention Binder and my Blending Slide Cards practicing the same word in different formats.

Strategies for Phonics #7: Chants

One of my most successful strategies for phonics instruction was doing a chant every day. I would make it fun and energetic by standing on a desk or a table, and getting a rhythm into it. Before I knew it, both the kids and I were dancing to the chant as we practiced our phonics! Our chant consisted of going through a stack of giant flashcards of all of the phonics sounds we had learned so far. I would hold up the flashcard, say the letter(s), and then say the sound(s) those letters made while holding up a finger for each sound (more on the fingers down below!). Then the students would repeat the same thing after me. It was a great quick review everyday!

Strategies for Phonics #8: Visual associations/flashcards

I think the flashcards were a huge part of the success of the phonics strategy mentioned above. Each flashcard had the phonics pattern (letters) and a big picture of a word with that sound. Pictures are huge for visual learners, so try to have as many picture examples as you can while teaching phonics. This will give students something to associate with each phonics pattern and help them remember the sound.

Here are amazon links to some simple letter flashcards and some phonics flashcards with visuals. Another idea is to use ABC posters as flashcards, like these. You could keep them full size so the whole class can see, or print them 2 to a page for smaller flashcards. Just use cardstock and maybe laminate them so they last.

Strategies for Phonics #9: Using your fingers

I learned this strategy for phonics from a great mentor teacher my first year. Fingers are great because: 1. You always have them on you, 2. They are very tactile and literally "hands on". Using your fingers is a great way to show phonics sounds in a more concrete way. Start with holding up a finger for each sound a letter makes when learning letter sound (like mentioned in strategies for phonics #7). Then when learning CVC words, hold up a separate finger for each sound in the word. When you add consonant and vowel digraphs (2 letters that make 1 sound), you hold up an extra finger but stick it right next to it's "buddy" letter. So you still have 3 "finger spots", but one of the spots has 2 fingers stuck together in it. This helps teach the concept of digraphs and 2 letters making 1 sound together.

Another hands-on idea is to use play-dough. You can read this blog post with TONS of phonics activities you can do with play-dough!

Strategies for Phonics #10: Pattern searches

Often students can read phonics patterns in isolation when they know they are practicing that sound, but when a list of words or a passage is put in front of them, all of their phonics strategies go out the window. A great bridge for overcoming that is to use the pattern search phonics strategy. Give students a list of words with different phonics patterns or a passage that has a lot of words with the focus phonics pattern. Have students search for the focus phonics pattern(s) and mark them. They now know where the phonics patterns are and are mentally prepped for them. Have students go back and read the list or passage.

In the picture I used these CVC Poem Books and Blends Poem Books. They are great because each poem focuses on a different phonics pattern, and they promote fluency as they practice.

Strategies for Phonics #11: Highlighting

This phonics intervention strategy goes with strategy #10. Highlighters are AWESOME! They are bright and bold so they draw attention to important things, but they are light enough so you can still read the words through them. Have students highlight phonics patterns to draw attention to them in words or passages. You can color code each phonics pattern for added visual organization too.

I used my Consonant Digraph Reading Passages and Mini-Books for this phonics strategy. Each passage focused on a different digraph, so it was perfect to highlight the specific digraphs.

Strategies for Phonics #12: Chunking

As mentioned above, reading single syllables is an essential step in reading multisyllabic words. Once they are able to read single syllables, students can put that phonics skill to use to read larger words. Big words can be very overwhelming to students, so one of my favorite phonics strategies to use is chunking. I like to physically cover up part of the word with my hand or a notecard, and let the student just see one chunk of the word at a time. You can also chunk it by drawing lines in between syllables, or drawing a "swoop" under each syllable.

Strategies for Phonics #13: Spelling and writing

Last of all, but still one of the most effective strategies for phonics, is writing. The act of forming the letters as you say the sounds they make sticks in your brain because it is so sensory. The writing is kinesthetic and hands-on, you visually see the letters as you write, and you hear yourself saying the sounds. It's such a well-rounded phonics strategy! Try using white boards and markers to practice writing phonics patterns and then words with those phonics patterns. You can get fancy with using your finger to write in colored sand, or you can just use the good old paper pencil method.

I hope these strategies for phonics intervention have helped give you some ideas on how to help your struggling readers master their phonics skills! If you need more ideas, download this free Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet, which has a ton of specific phonics strategies you can use in your reading intervention. And remember, intervention does not have to be overwhelming! If you are feeling overwhelmed, head over to this post about The Key to Stress-Free Reading Intervention.

Happy reading and teaching!

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13 Strategies for Phonics Reading Intervention You Need to Try

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Searching for the most effective strategies for phonics instruction and intervention? Here is a list of 13 effective and engaging phonics strategies that will focus on the most important phonics skills while using reading intervention strategies that work. Phonics is the reading strategy of connecting sounds with letters.

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How I Teach Kids to Read (Phonemic Awareness Activities)

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May use for testing

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Vocabulary Acquisition and Use Standards

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Vocabulary Acquisition and Use Standards