Phonics

WHAT IS IT?

Phonics is the correlation between phonemes and graphemes in the English language. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in spoken words and graphemes are the written letters that represent each sound.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Teachers must explicitly and systematically teach phonics as it helps students understand the alphabetic principle. The alphabetic principle is the understanding that letters represent sounds and are put together to make words. With a strong grasp of phonics, students will be able to use strategies to decode unknown words.

HOW WILL I ASSESS IT?

Teachers can assess students’ phonics knowledge by giving a phonics assessment. One phonics assessment that teachers can use is the CORE Phonics Survey from the book Assessing Reading: Multiple Measures published by the CORE Literacy Library.

The CORE Phonics Survey assesses alphabet skills, letter sounds, reading and decoding skills. This assessment provides both real words and pseudowords , or made-up words, for students to read. Pseudowords are important to include in a phonics assessment because students will be forced to rely on their decoding skills in order to read the word.

Typically, the alphabet skills and letter sounds are assessed in Kindergarten, but they can be assessed in later grades as necessary. First graders are typically assessed on CVC words, consonant blends, digraphs, r-controlled vowels, long vowel spellings, variant vowels, low-frequency vowel and consonant spellings and multisyllabic words. Second and third graders are typically assessed on multisyllabic words, unless otherwise indicated.

It is important to note the following cut-offs in order to determine the type of instruction a student needs in each area of phonics knowledge.

Level of Performance
Parts	A-D	E-K	L
Benchmark	83/83	14+/15	21+/24
Strategic	65-82/83	10-13/15	15-20/24
Intensive	0-64/83	0-9/15	0-14/24

The materials for the CORE Phonics Survey are included below:

HOW WILL I TEACH IT?

Objective: Students will be able to write single-syllable words with common consonant digraphs.

Materials Needed: Elkonin boxes inside sheet protectors, dry erase markers, erasers, counting chips, digraph sound cards, word list (short, thin, when, phone, chest, shop, lunch, what, thank)

Activity: Review sounds of each consonant digraph with students. Have word list ready. Tell students you are going to say a word slowly stretching it out by sound. The students will repeat the word and count the number of phonemes. Students will then slide one chip into each box for each sound as they repeat the word (ex: thin has three phonemes and will use three boxes, /th/ /i/ /n/). Next, students will slide the chips up and out of the boxes and repeat the process, but they will instead write the letters for each sound using a dry erase marker. Monitor. Repeat the process until students have practiced all the words.

DIFFERENTIATION

I can differentiate this lesson by choosing to use only the chips inside the Elkonin boxes rather than having students also write the letters. In addition, I can differentiate by using the Elkonin boxes to work on other phonics skills.

STATE STANDARDS

Arizona English Language Arts Standards, Grade 1

1.RF.3

Know and apply phonics and word analysis skills in decoding one-syllable or two-syllable words.  a. Know the spelling‐sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs. b. Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words. c. Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word. d. Recognize and apply all six syllable types when decoding grade level texts. e. Read words with inflectional endings. f. Recognize and read grade‐appropriate irregularly spelled words.