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Emily Klemme
Instructor: Al Lindau
10Sped
609 #3
October 17, 2015

Phonics Development Process

Teaching a student how to read is one of the most rewarding aspects of being an

educator. There are many great resources for research-based practices on how to teach phonics.

How to teach phonics is an ongoing issue, however, the instruction itself is crucial.

The first step in the instruction, is engaging the learner. We have to understand how

students learn and what motivates them. Cognitive clarity aids the students understanding of

what is being taught, why it is being taught and what the end result will be. Engaging students in

literacy will help the self-confidence they need to be successful. The educator must develop

different approaches to the instruction of phonics to meet the needs of all types of learning styles.

Students need to gain awareness in phonemic awareness, sequential decoding and use

patterns and analogy to decode words. Phonemic awareness is a students ability to recognize the

sound in words, such as rhyming. There are several books that support phonemic awareness,

such as Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and inside, Outside, Upside Down by Stan and Jan

Berenstain. Sequential decoding allows students to associate sounds to letters. Synthetic phonics

teaches students to make words out of the letter sounds. Sight words are a great tool for students

to begin to decode words. When students use patterns and analogy to decode words, they are

taking words they already know to learn new words that are not familiar to them. Students are

taught that vowel sounds affect other letters. They also use patterns to pronounce larger words by

recognizing the root word, suffixes and prefixes.

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For younger elementary students, an activity that teaches students how to make patterns

is called Making Words. They are taught how substituting one letter or changing the place of a

letter can change a word. Students are instructed to make 10 to 15 words out of certain letters

that are placed in a pocket chart. A secret word is created by the teacher with the letters provided

to the students. This secret word should fit with a theme or a topic learned in class. The teacher

asks the students to take two of the letters to form a word such as am. They are then told to

change one of the letters to spell at. The students continue to work through three letter words,

four letter words and five letter words until they start to guess what they think the secret word is.

If students are struggling to figure out the secret word, they are given a hint. The secret word is

then placed in the pocket chart by the student that has spelled the secret word correctly. Students

then sort through all the words on index cards. The sorting activity instructs students to group the

words together that do not begin with a vowel by placing them in columns of the same letter up

to the vowel. The teacher and students read the words together, concentrating on certain blended

letters such t-r. A second sorting activity includes rhyming words. The Making Words lesson

teaches students to focus on the sounds of words and how changing just one letter effects the

entire word, making a new word. This hands-on activity is fun for students, as they try to solve

puzzles within a word. Students develop phonemic awareness as they stretch out words to hear

the sounds and learn the order of the letters within the word.

Read 180 is a great resource that I will choose to use with my students. The program

promotes reading and ensures students are reading at their appropriate grade level. Facilitators

can provide small group, whole group or independent reading. A technology piece is included

that can support the students individual learning. I will promote reading with Read 180 and

DEAR in the classroom for 45 minutes per day. Students will be able to choose independent
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reading or participate in a read aloud. I am currently using Storylineonline.com with my

students after school and will continue to use this program in the classroom to encourage

reading. This program has promoted reading with the use of technology, which makes learning

more enjoyable for many students.