What is Phonics? One important element of the foundational skills of reading is phonics. To read, children need to “break the code” of print by learning the sound(s) that each letter stands for. Phonics is instruction in the relationships between letters and sounds. Reading Street teaches phonics explicitly and systematically. As we teach letter-sound relationships in isolation in sequential order, we also teach children to blend the sounds to decode words. With each lesson, we provide decodable text and writing opportunities that give children practice in applying the phonics skills that they are learning and show them the usefulness of what they are learning.
Why Teach Phonics? Over the years, several influential reviews of the research have confirmed that phonics instruction is an important part of teaching reading. Jeanne Chall’s 1967 book, Learning to Read: The Great Debate, examined 25 studies done between 1900 and 1960 and concluded that programs that included systematic phonics had substantial and consistent advantages over other programs, especially for children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. While this book was largely ignored during the 70s and 80s as educators embraced whole language, it was confirmed in another landmark study published in 1990. Marilyn Adams, in her book Beginning to Read, reviewed 20 years of research, not only on reading instruction but also on the psycholinguistic processes involved in reading. She concluded: “More recent studies indicate that explicit, systematic phonics is a singular, successful mode of teaching young or slow learners to read” (p. 56). Drawing on psychological research, Adams said that skilled readers recognize each individual letter and the sequence of letters in a word as they read, and they read words quickly by recognizing spelling patterns in words. “Toward hastening the development and refinement of the letter recognition network, students should be engaged in activities that encourage attention to the ordered, letter-by-letter structure of the syllables and words that they are to read. . . . Many of the most common practices of reading programs—including synthetic phonics, writing, exercise with frequent blends and digraphs, and practice with word families—seem ideally suited to this end” (Adams, 1990, pp. 130–131). The National Reading Panel, a committee formed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), published its own review of reading research in 2000, entitled Teaching Children to Read. The Panel conducted a meta-analysis of 38 research studies on phonics and concluded that “systematic phonics instruction enhances children’s success in learning to read and that systematic phonics instruction is significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no phonics” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 9). Put Reading First, a book that summarized the National Reading Panel’s results for teachers, reiterated this conclusion: “Systematic and explicit phonics instruction significantly improves kindergarten and first-grade children’s word recognition and spelling” (p. 14).
How to Teach It?
Systematically and Explicitly The National Reading Panel endorsed systematic, synthetic phonics instruction. A “systematic” approach to phonics means that instruction is developmentally sequenced, with phonics elements taught in a carefully sequenced order from easiest to more difficult. See sequencing recommendations on p. 7. (By contrast, in incidental phonics instruction, sounds are taught randomly as they come up in words children naturally use or read.) “Synthetic” phonics instruction teaches students “explicitly to convert letters into sounds (phonemes) and then blend the sounds to form recognizable words” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 8). Synthetic phonics is a part-to-whole approach in which students first learn the sounds associated with letters before applying them to words. (By contrast, analytic phonics is a whole-to-part approach in which a number of sight words are learned first, followed by phonics generalizations that are subsequently applied to other words.) Scott Foresman Reading Street materials provide sequential, cumulative instruction and practice opportunities for the full range of foundational skills. The program offers a systematic, synthetic approach to phonics instruction. Phonics lessons follow this basic format: • Phonemic Awareness: Activities in phonemic discrimination, oral blending, and segmentation allow children to become aware of the sounds they will focus on in the day’s phonics lesson. This is a “warm up” for the phonics lesson. [See the Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Skills Bible for more information.] • Teach Sound/Spelling: The teacher introduces the sound/spelling in isolation, using Sound- Spelling cards and key words. • Teach Blending: The lesson provides explicit modeling, teaching, and practice in the blending together of already introduced sound/spellings to form words. Blending strategies include sound-by-sound, onset-rime, and whole-word blending. (Additional types of blending are used in word structure lessons.) • Word Work: Students build, manipulate, and sort words to reinforce sound/spelling patterns. • Connect to Spelling: Spelling lists connect to the week’s phonics lesson, so that students see the connection between reading and writing. • Decodable Readers: Practice in reading decodable text reinforces the letter-sound patterns being learned, helps children develop fluency, and shows the utility of what they are learning.
When to Teach It?
Although traditionally it was thought that phonics should start in Grade 1, the National Reading Panel found significant benefits to Kindergartners learning phonics. Phonics instruction should be substantially complete by the end of second or third grade, but may be necessary through Grade 6 for students who need intervention.
Resources Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Armbruster, B. B., Lehr, F., Osborn, J. (2001). Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. Partnership for Reading. Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (1996). Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Chall, J. S. (1967). Learning to Read: The Great Debate. NY: McGraw-Hill. Ehri, L. C. (1992). Grapheme–phoneme knowledge is essential for learning to read words in English. In L. Ehri & J. Metsala (Eds.), Word Recognition in Beginning Literacy. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Ehri, L. C. (1994). Development of the ability to read words: Update. In R. B. Ruddell, M. R. Ruddell, & H. Singer (Eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, 4th Edition. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Hiebert, E. H., et al. (1998). Topic 3: Phonics and word recognition accuracy. Every Child a Reader: Applying Reading Research in the Classroom. Ann Arbor: Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA)/University of Michigan. Honig, B., Diamond, L, & Gutlohn, L. (2000). Teaching Reading Sourcebook. Novato, CA: Arena Press (CORE – Consortium on Reading Excellence). Juel, C., & Minden-Cupp, C. (1999). Learning to Read Words: Linguistic Units and Strategies. Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement/ University of Michigan. CIERA Report #1-008. Juel, C., & Roper/Schnieder, D. (1985). The influence of basal readers on first grade reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 134–152. 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. Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institutes of Health.