Phonics: Strategies for Decoding Unknown Words

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Phonics Strategies forDecoding Unknown Words

• Presented byCherry Carl

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Presentation Highlights

• Research background on phonics
• Phonics skills and rules
• Approaches to teaching phonics
• Assessing phonics/decoding knowledge
• Developing phonics knowledge

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Presentation Highlights

• Strategies and materials
• Building decoding fluency
• Special Needs Indicators
• Taking a look at California standards
• Resources

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What Does ResearchSay About Phonics Instruction?

• Phonics instruction is an essential part of
  balanced reading programs in the early grades.
• For phonics to help the reader, the word(s) to be
  decoded must already be known (in the readers
  listening and speaking vocabulary).
• Source Reutzel and Cooter (1999)

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What Does Research Say?

• Phonics skills are best taught after phonemic
  awareness and alphabetic principle have been
  learned.
• When phonics rules are used in conjunction with
  meaning and grammar cues, the reader can
  positively identify unknown words in
  instructional level reading materials.
• Source Reutzel and Cooter (1999)

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What Does Research Say?

• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction is
  more effective than non-systematic or no phonics
  instruction.
• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction
  significantly improves kindergarten and
  first-grade children's word recognition and
  spelling.
• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction
  significantly improves children's reading
  comprehension.
• Source Student Achievement and School
  Accountability ConferenceOctober 2002

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What Does Research Say?

• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction is
  effective for children from various social and
  economic levels.
• Source Student Achievement and School
  Accountability ConferenceOctober 2002

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What Does Research Say?

• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction is
  particularly beneficial for children who are
  having difficulty learning to read and who are at
  risk for developing future reading problems.
• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction is
  most effective when introduced early (K or 1).
• Source Student Achievement and School
  Accountability ConferenceOctober 2002

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Phonics Skills and Rules

• The C Rule
• The G Rule
• The CVC Generalization
• Vowel Teams (Digraphs)
• The Final E
• The Bossy R (R-Controlled)
• Source Reutzel and Cooter (1999)

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Phonics Skills and Rules

• Consonant Digraphs
• Blends/Clusters
• Double Consonants
• The Schwa Vowel sounds
• Diphthongs
• The Y Rules
• Source Reutzel and Cooter (1999)

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Approaches to Teaching Phonics

• Explicit or alphabetic phonics methods
• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction
  provides instruction in a carefully selected and
  useful set of letter-sound relationships and then
  organizes the introduction of these relationships
  into a logical instructional sequence.
• Children have ample opportunities to practice
  and review.

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Approaches to Teaching Phonics

• Implicit phonics methods
• Children learn to analyze letter-sound
  relationships in previously learned words. They
  do not pronounce sounds in isolation.

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Approaches to Teaching Phonics

• Analogy Based Phonics
• Children learn to use onsets and rimes they
  already know to identify/decode unknown words
  with similar parts.

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Assessing Phonics Knowledge

• Phonemic Awareness Activities
• Alphabetic Principle
• Basic Phonics Skills Test
• Running Records
• Nonsense Test
• Phonics Inventory
• DIBELS

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Developing Phonics Knowledge

• Phonemic awareness
• The alphabetic principle
• Explicit phonics instruction

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Strategies and Materials

• Making words
• Sorts
• Tongue Tanglers
• Onsets and Rimes
• Decodable Texts
• Flexible Practice
• Dictation/Spelling
• Word Work

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Sample Sequence

• Phonemic Warm-Up
• Teach Sound/Spelling
• Practice Blending
• Apply
• Decodable Text
• Dictation
• ? Picture/Word Sorts
• ? Word Hunts

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Building Decoding Fluency

• Access to and practice reading vast amounts of
  high-quality, engaging text
• Repeated readings of books, poems, journals, and
  other genre
• Independent reading opportunities with easy
  reading materials and familiar text

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Special Needs Indicators

• Difficulty identifying vowel sounds in words
• Difficulty identifying consonant sounds
• Difficulty identifying sounds represented by
  digraphs
• Inability to identify syllable breaks in words
• Inability to use structural analysis

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Summary Statements

• Phonics is an essential part of a comprehensive
  approach to the teaching of reading.
• Phonics instruction needs to be explicit and
  direct incidental and opportunistic approaches
  to developing phonics are less effective.
• Source John J. Pikulski (1998)

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Summary Statements

• Phonics instruction can and must be meaningful,
  lively, and engaging phonics should not be
  equated with repetitious drill or the mindless
  completion of worksheets.
• Source John J. Pikulski (1998)

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Summary Statements

• In order for children to gain full use of phonics
  skills they need guidance in integrating them
  with other word identification skills and in
  strategically and fluently applying those skills.
  
• Source John J. Pikulski (1998)

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Summary Statements

• In order for children to gain full use of phonics
  skills they need many opportunities to apply them
  to functional and interesting reading and writing
  activities.
• Source John J. Pikulski (1998)

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Summary Statements

• While the development of phonics and other word
  identification skills is essential and necessary
  for skillful, mature reading, it is not
  sufficient skillful mature reading must also
  build upon language, vocabulary, and concept
  development as well as a variety of thinking
  skills.
• Source John J. Pikulski (1998)

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• Taking a Lookat California Standards

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Kindergarten

• 1.14 Match all consonant and short-vowel sounds
  to appropriate letters.
• 1.15 Read simple one-syllable and high-frequency
  words (i.e., sight words).
• 1.16 Understand that as letters of words change,
  so do the sounds (i.e., the alphabetic
  principle).

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Grade One

• 1.10 Generate the sounds from all the letters and
  letter patterns, including consonant blends and
  long-and short-vowel patterns (i.e., phonograms),
  and blend those sounds into recognizable words.

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Grade One

• 1.11 Read common, irregular sight words (e.g.,
  the, have, said, come, give, of).
• 1.12 Use knowledge of vowel digraphs and r-
  controlled letter-sound associations to read
  words.

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Grade One

• 1.13 Read compound words and contractions.
• 1.14 Read inflectional forms (e.g., -s, -ed,
  -ing) and root words (e.g., look, looked,
  looking).

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Grade One

• 1.15 Read common word families (e.g., -ite,
  -ate).
• 1.16 Read aloud with fluency in a manner that
  sounds like natural speech.

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Grade Two

• 1.1 Recognize and use knowledge of spelling
  patterns (e.g., diphthongs, special vowel
  spellings) when reading.
• 1.2 Apply knowledge of basic syllabication rules
  when reading (e.g., vowel-consonant-vowel su/
  per vowel-consonant/consonant-vowel sup/ per).

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Grade Two

• 1.3 Decode two-syllable nonsense words and
  regular multisyllable words.
• 1.4 Recognize common abbreviations (e.g., Jan.,
  Sun., Mr., St.).

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Grade Two

• 1.5 Identify and correctly use regular plurals
  (e.g., -s, -es, -ies) and irregular plurals
  (e.g., fly/ flies, wife/ wives).
• 1.6 Read aloud fluently and accurately and with
  appropriate intonation and expression.

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Grade Three

• 1.1 Know and use complex word families when
  reading (e.g., -ight) to decode unfamiliar
  words.1.2 Decode regular multisyllabic
  words.1.3 Read aloud narrative and expository
  text fluently and accurately and with appropriate
  pacing, intonation, and expression.

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Resources

• Arbruster, Dr. Bonnie. Research-Based Instruction
  in Reading. Student Achievement and School
  Accountability Conference October 2002.
• Blevins, Wiley (1998). Phonics from A to Z A
  Practical Guide. New York Scholastic.
• Chall, Jeanne S. and Popp, Helen M. (1996).
  Teaching and Assessing Phonics A Guide for
  Teachers. Cambridge, MA Educators Publishing
  Service.

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Resources

• Pikulski, John J. (1998). The Role of Phonics in
  the Teaching of Reading.
• Reutzel, D. Ray and Cooter, Robert B. (1999).
  Balanced Reading Strategies and Practices. Upper
  Saddle River, NJ Prentice Hall.