Transcript How Students Learn Phonics

Phonics I
Learning Phonics
• How Students Learn Phonics
• English spelling has three layers: alphabetic,
pattern, and meaning.
• Alphabetic refers to spelling words letter by
letter from left to right.
Learning Phonics
• Pattern refers to understanding the major
patterns of letters: CVC (hat), CVCe (hate),
CVVC (road), and so on.
• Meaning refers to different spellings for the
different forms of words, for example, music
and musical.
• Children learn about these three layers
through decoding (reading), encoding
(writing), and teacher modeling.
Learning Phonics
• Decoding words
• The human brain detects patterns.
• Therefore, young readers learn new words
more easily by analyzing onset and rime than
by attempting to make letter-phoneme
correspondences.
• For example, it is easier for young readers to
read Sam, ham, and jam when they recognize
the rime am and add the onsets s, h, and j.
Learning Phonics
• When the rimes become longer than two
letters, it is even easier for children because
they see two parts instead of four or five.
• Take the ound rime in found, sound, round,
and mound as an example.
• Ound is rather complicated to sound out as
individual letters; however, if students know
ound as one sound, they merely add the
onsets-J, s, r, and m-to create the four words.
Learning Phonics
• Young readers also use analogies to
pronounce unknown words.
• For example, if beginning readers know that
the letter m makes the /m/ sound in mom,
they know they need to make the /m/ sound
when they see the word milk for the first time.
Learning Phonics
• Students learn to read by focusing on onset,
rime, and the initial letter, and by considering
the length of words.
• Emerging readers can recognize their
classmates' names by looking at initial letters.
• When two names begin with the same letter,
they can identify which name sounds longer.
Learning Phonics
• For example, they know that when they
pronounce Jill, it is shorter than when they
pronounce Jeremy.
• Therefore, when they see Jill and Jeremy in
print, they can determine which word is Jill
and which one is Jeremy.
Learning Phonics
• Students learn decoding skills when the skills are
introduced, taught, practiced, and reinforced
within a context that is meaningful to them.
• When a teacher reads a text that interests
students, they see "real" words at work and not
nonsense words.
• When reading, you can help students discover
simple examples of the various phonics concepts.
• Phonics instruction disconnected from texts that
children read contributes little to children's use of
phonics strategies in recognizing words.
Learning Phonics
• Encoding words
• As students write their own texts, they learn
to listen to the sounds within words when
they break up words to encode them.
• They also learn (1) to read/write from left to
right, (2) to read/write from top to bottom,
and (3) that words have spaces between
them.
Learning Phonics
• During this process students should write
meaningful texts, not strings of nonsense
words.
• Their words do not need to be spelled
correctly; they will make approximations of
correct spellings as they develop writing skills.
• Students who listen to sounds and make
approximations as they write become better
decoders when they read.
Learning Phonics
• Teacher modeling
• Students also learn phonics by observing
teachers model and talk about their writing.
• Ask students to talk about the initial sounds,
ending sounds, medial sounds, and the
patterns within words as you write the
morning message.
• Effective teachers choose texts that use
rhyme.
Learning Phonics
• English Spelling Patterns
• English is "a complex system that is basically
phonetic, but also relies upon patterns and
meaning to provide an optimal system.
Learning Phonics
• Consonants
• Many struggling readers and English learners
have a difficult time distinguishing consonant
sounds because they do not know the proper
mouth position for each.
• Teachers who understand the position of the
mouth and tongue for each sound can help
students who struggle with correct
pronunciation and spelling of words.
Learning Phonics
Nine useful consonant generalizations
• 1. Only one consonant is heard when two of the
same consonants are side by side (merry, ladder).
• 2. C has the IkI sound when it is followed by a or
a (cat, cot).
• 3. C has the Isl sound when followed bye, I, or y
(cent, city, cycle).
• 4. The digraph ch is usually pronounced /ch/, not
Ishl (chair, chocolate).
Learning Phonics
• 5. When c and h appear next to each other,
they always are a digraph.
• 6. When a word ends in ck, it produces the IkI
sound (buck, shock).
• 7. When ght appear together, the gh is always
silent (light, might).
Learning Phonics
• 8. When kn appears at the beginning of a
word, the k is always silent (knee, know).
• 9. When wr appears at the beginning of a
word, the w is always silent (write, wren).
Learning Phonics
• Vowel diphthongs are two vowels placed
together to create a sound different from
either of the two vowels.
• When pronouncing a diphthong, the mouth
changes positions as the sound is produced.
• Two common diphthongs are loil, spelled oi
(oil) or oy (boy), and loul, spelled ou (count)
and ow (cow).
Learning Phonics
• Also classified as diphthongs are the long i,
pronounced liel, and the long u, pronounced
Iyoo/.
• Many Southerners transform their vowels into
diphthongs; hence the Southern drawl.
Learning Phonics
• Vowel digraphs are two vowels placed
together, but only the long sound of one of
the vowels is heard.
• Many children are taught that "When two
• vowels go a walking, the first one does the
talking."
• Some view this rule as not very helpful
because it has so many exceptions.
Learning Phonics
• When r follows a vowel, the vowel takes on an
r-controlled sound.
• All five vowels can be controlled by the r (care,
fern, girl, com, turn).
Learning Phonics
• Common spelling patterns in English words
• Because the English language relies upon
regular patterns of letters, it is advantageous
for teachers to be familiar with these patterns
in order to help read.
Learning Phonics
Seven generalizations about vowels
• 1. If a single vowel is followed by one or two
consonants, it usually is short (cat, cent, hop,
cut).
• 2. If the letter a comes before l, u, or w, it
usually has the /0/ sound (ball, caught, crawl).
• 3. In the vowel digraphs ai, ay, ee, and oa, the
first vowel is long (bait, day, bee, road).
Learning Phonics
• 4. They usually represents the long /i/ sound
in one syllable words (by, fIy).
• 5. They usually represents the long /e/ sound
at the end of a two-or-more syllable word
(happy, merry, sensibly).
Learning Phonics
• 6. Some vowel spellings are used to
distinguish word meanings (meat-meet, redread, beet-beat).
• 7. In the word pattern (VCe) the e is often
silent (gave, time, cape).
Learning Phonics
• PRINCIPLES OF PHONICS INSTRUCTION
• Four key principles underlie phonics
instruction:
• 1. Base instruction on what students know.
• 2. Provide systematic instruction.
• 3. Use appropriate texts.
• 4. Embed instruction in meaningful contexts
Teaching Phonics
• Principle One: Base Instruction on What
Students Know
• Effective teachers assess what students
already know and build on that knowledge.
• Take the same approach with phonics
instruction-begin with what students know.
• Assess students' knowledge during shared
reading, interactive writing, and other literacy
activities.
Teaching Phonics
• Principle Two: Provide Systematic Phonics
Instruction
• Systematic phonics instruction means
teaching phonics in a planned sequence, using
one of several approaches:
Teaching Phonics
• 1. Analytic phonics.
• Teachers begin with students‘ sight words,
known words developed from authentic
reading, and then guide the students to
analyze patterns and identify the phonics
generalizations.
• 2. Synthetic phonies.
• Students convert letters into sounds and then
blend the sounds to form a word.
Teaching Phonics
• 3. Phonics-through-spelling.
• Students transform sounds into letters as they
write; thus, they are engaged in many writing
activities.
• 4. Analogy phonics.
• Students use parts of already known words to
identify unknown words.
Teaching Phonics
• 5. Phonics in context.
• Students use sound-letter correspondences
• along with context cues to identify unknown
words.
• This approach relies on students‘ knowledge of
letter-sound relationships and patterns in words.
• 6. Onset and rime phonics instruction.
• Students recognize rimes and add the onset
when reading new words.
Teaching Phonics
• Principle Three: Use Appropriate Texts
• At the earliest stages of reading acquisitionparticularly with students who are first
introduced to book reading in school-careful
attention needs to be paid to the text of
instruction.
• For example, texts used during shared reading
events should meet the following criteria:
Teaching Phonics
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Include predictable text.
Have a smaller amount of text on each page.
Use large illustrations that support the text.
Appeal to children.
Are conceptually appropriate (texts that
teachers can use to develop a concept, such as
the topic for a unit, author study, or illustrator
study).
Teaching Phonics
• In addition, reading researchers have found
that during shared reading, it is most effective
to use authentic children's literature with text
that (1) is predictable, (2) uses phonograms,
and (3) includes rhyming words.
Teaching Phonics
Predictable text.
• Children enjoy stories with predictable text,
such as The Teeny Tiny Woman (1986) by Jane
O'Conner and Hattie and the Fox (1987) by
Mem Fox.
• Students chime in as soon as they know words
and refrains.
Teaching Phonics
Phonograms.
• Books that emphasize phonograms (rimes
following onsets) help students see patterns
within words.
• As you read and discuss stories, students
discover words that have the same letter
patterns.
Teaching Phonics
Rhyming words.
• Rhyming texts also draw attention to the
sounds in words.
• Words that rhyme do not necessarily share
the same letter pattern as phonograms must
(thus, socks and fox are rhyming words with
different rimes).
• Draw attention to the difference between
phonograms and words that rhyme.
Teaching Phonics
• Principle Four: Embed Instruction in
Meaningful Contexts
• Reading, writing, listening, and speaking
activities that focus on meaningful tasks
create meaningful contexts.
• Carefully select texts that children enjoy, have
predictable patterns, and use words that help
teach phonics concepts.
Teaching Phonics
• 1. Choose a book with predictable text that
both the teacher and the students will enjoy.
• 2. Read and enjoy the text!
• 3. Act out the story or put on puppet shows.
(Acting caters to kinesthetic learners and
develops oral language skills.)
Teaching Phonics
• 4. Have students discuss what they notice
about words. (E.g., ask "Which ones begin
with same letter?")
• 5. Play word games based on the story.
• 6. Add words from the story to the word walls.
Teaching Phonics
• 7. Find rhyming words and words that end
with the same spellings.
• 8. Have students write creative extensions of
books that use predictable patterns. (For
example, "I went walking. What did I see? I
saw _ looking at me.")
Teaching Phonics
• Another activity that teaches phonics in a
meaningful context is to have students reread
favorite predictable texts and then ask them to
point to words that begin with certain sounds.
• Next, ask them to create a list of words that begin
with that same sound.
• You may also give students words on index cards
and ask them to match them with words in the
text.
Assessment
• Informal Assessment
• Ideally, phonics assessment is conducted in
natural settings as you observe students making
sense of letter-sound relationships as they read
and write.
• However, for those who must record growth
throughout the school year, a number of informal
assessment instruments can help, including
checklists, surveys, word sorts, rubrics, running
records, miscue analyses, and inventories.
Assessment
• Checklists
• The Checklist of Known Letter Names and Sounds
assesses a student's knowledge of letter names, letter
sounds, and words with these sounds.
• The student reads from the Master Card, while the
teacher records the responses on the Checklist.
• The student is asked (1) the names of the uppercase
letters, (2) the names of the lowercase letters, (3) the
names of the script letters, if appropriate, (4) the
sound of each letter, (5) a word that begins with that
sound, and (6) a word that ends with that sound.