What is phonics instruction?

What is phonics and how can phonics instruction help my struggling readers? Many teachers wonder that very question. Here I’ll give you the phonics definition along with phonics examples and skills that can help clear that question up for you.

What is phonics?

Phonics Definition:

• Phonics is connecting sounds to written letters, and using those sounds to produce words. It is the decoding of words by looking at the sound each letter makes.

Basically, it is looking at the letters, saying the sounds they make, and figuring out what the word is based on those letters and sounds. Many people call this “sounding out words”. Phonics is one of the Big 5 areas of reading identified by the National Reading Panel (you can read more about the Big 5 reading areas you need to include in your instruction here).

 

Here is a video overview of The Big 5 Reading Skills that answers in depth “What is phonics?”.

For tons of great phonics strategies an activities, here is a list of 13 Phonics Strategies You Need to Try.

Phonics vs Phonemic Awareness

So what is the difference in phonics vs phonemic awareness? We learned above that phonics is using the sounds that letters made in decoding words.

 

Simply put, Phonemic awareness is being able to listen to and hear the sounds in words. Note that letters and written words are not included in this skill. It is only the ability to hear and listen to the sounds. No decoding is involved.

 

However, also note that it is not always wrong to include letters in phonemic awareness practice. Using letters as a visual tool can actually help build phonemic awareness, as long as the focus is listening to those sounds, not decoding letters.

 

Read this post to learn more about what phonemic awareness is, and check out this list of strategies for phonemic awareness to strengthen those skills.

Why Phonics is Important

Phonics instruction puts tools in students’ reading toolbox. It gives them skills they can draw on if they come to a word that they do not know. You are empowering them by giving them the ability to decode words–any word they come across!

 

It’s especially important for students to develop phonics strategies that will help them as their education continues into middle school, high school, and college. Consider this–they will always come across big, new, unfamiliar words in their studies. If they are struggling with each new or unfamiliar word, reading textbooks and academic text will be a huge challenge for them. On the contrary, if they are equipped with the phonics strategies they need to decode words, they can handle any word their education throws at them and not be phased.

 

Learning to decode words with phonics strategies makes any text accessible. It gives students the freedom to choose whatever book they are interested in, and dive in.

 

I still remember as a little 1st grader when decoding words clicked with me. It was so exciting, and I told my mom that I could read now! I remember running to our playroom bookshelf, finding my favorite Beauty and the Beast storybook, and feeling so empowered that I had the skills to read it. It was a looong book meant as a read aloud, but I sat down and attacked it anyways. Amazingly, I got through a whole chapter and felt so proud of myself. I had to sound out each word, and I’m sure I was getting a lot wrong and not much out of the story, but that feeling of empowerment that I could read anything I wanted to was amazing. It’s a feeling I want every student to feel!

 

Phonics Interventions

If a student struggles in phonics, some teachers are tempted to move on form phonics instruction and give them other strategies to rely on (sight words, context clues, etc.). Those other strategies are GREAT to teach them and give them other tools to use, but if they are still missing phonics skills, then they will likely still struggle.

Intervention in phonics is a crucial part of your reading plan for struggling readers. If you feel a little overwhelmed about making sure you’re hitting everything you need to in your intervention time, do yourself a favor and read on The Key to Stress-Free Reading Intervention. It will make your life so much easier!

Phonics Skills

Let’s talk about specific skills that students learn and master with phonics instruction. This will give you a basic continuum that students can progress through that can guide your phonics instruction. If you need help identifying students struggling with these skills, download this FREE Reading Intervention Cheat Sheet. It will take the guesswork out of your reading interventions and make your them so much more focused!

 

 

Letters

• Letter Recognition (Letter Names)

  • The first letter skill for students to develop is letter recognition. This is when the teacher says a letter, and students are able to point to it on a paper or with letter tiles.

 

• Letter Identification (Letter Names)

  • This skill is knowing and being able to provide letter names. So if a teacher shows the student a letter, the student will be able to say the name of the letter.

 

• Letter Sounds

  • The next skill is knowing the sounds that each letter makes. This is an important phonics skill that will help with decoding words.

 

• Check out my Letter Skills Intervention Binder for practice in these skills!

 

*Note, there are different opinions on whether letter names or sounds should be learned first. I personally like to teach them at the same time in my phonics instruction. Letter sounds are crucial when sounding out words, but if letter names are ignored, students tend to get confused when talking about more advanced phonics sounds and when letters make more than one sound. The best way that I have found to approach this is to specifically tell students that each letter has a name and each letter makes at least one sound. For example, you could say:

“This letter’s name is ___. It makes the sound(s) ___.”

 

CVC Words

• Consonant Vowel Consonant Words

  • CVC words are three letter words that start with a consonant, have a vowel in the middle, and end in a consonant. They are a great place to start sounding out words. CVC words have short vowel sounds and are spelled typically with no irregular sounds or surprises. Students can start blending and sounding out CVC words, and then move to saying the whole word without sounding it out.
  • I have an in-depth blog post on the best ways to teach cvc words you can check out here!

 

• Nonsense Words

  • Nonsense words are made up words for students to practice reading. They are typically CVC words that don’t mean anything. Reading nonsense words is a GREAT phonics strategy to help students solidify decoding words. Sometimes reading real words students rely on word recognition and guessing. While that is a useful skill as well, it is still important for students to get practice decoding unfamiliar words in their phonics instruction.

 

• I have a whole intervention binder dedicated to CVC words you can check out here.

 

Phonics Patterns

Once students have mastered letters and the decoding of words, they can start adding more advanced phonics patterns to their phonics instruction. This is typically the order that phonics patterns are taught in:

• Blends (beginning blends like “stop,” ending blends like “pant,” etc.)
• Silent e (“bake,” “vine,” “home,” “mute,” etc.)
• Consonant Digraphs (words with “th,” “sh,” “ch,” “wh,” and “ph”)
• Vowel Digraphs (words with “ai,” “ay,” “ee,” “ea,” “oa,” “ow,” “oo,” “oy,” “oi,” “au,” “aw,” “ew,” “ui,”)
• Prefixes and Suffixes (“pre-,” “un-,” “re-,” “-s,” “-es,” “-ies,” “-er,” “-est,” “-ing,” “-ed”)
• R-Controlled vowels (words with “ar,” “or,” “er,” “ir,” and “ur”)
• Silent Letters (“gnome,” “knight,” “sign,” “autumn,” etc.)
• Multisyllabic Words (longer words with several syllables like “elevator” or “celebration”)

My Phonics Intervention Binder covers all of these skills in an order that builds off of each other, and is super simple to implement.

Phonics Examples

Sometimes it’s helpful to see specific examples of phonics activities, so here are a few to help demonstrate what phonics instruction can look like. For many, many more phonics and reading activities, here is my Ultimate List of Reading Intervention Activities with visual examples to take a peek at.

• Sounding Out Words:

  • The word “cat” is written in front of a student.
  • The teacher asks the student to point to each letter and say the sound it makes, then blend the sounds together to say the word.
  • The student puts their finger under each letter and says the sound it makes. Then the student says the whole word.
  • This activity can be used with my CVC Intervention Binder like in the picture above.

 

• Recognizing Phonics Patterns:

  • The teacher writes “ai” on a whiteboard.
  • The teacher tells the students that the two letters together make the long a sound (/A/). Students repeat the sound.
  • The teacher then writes the word “rain” on the whiteboard and circles the “ai.” The teacher reminds the students that “ai” makes the /A/ sound, and then models sounding it out in the word (/r/-/A/-/n/).
  • The students and teacher sound out the same word together, and then the students sound out the same word on their own.
  • Students then practice (with teacher support as needed) sounding out other words with “ai”. This can be the teacher writing more words on the whiteboard, students making new words with letter tiles, or reading a list of words and circling the “ai”.s.

 

• Piecing Together Larger, Unfamiliar Words

  • A student is reading a text and stumbles on a long word.
  • The teacher helps the student “chunk” the word by covering up all but the first syllable.
  • The student reads the first syllable, then the teacher uncovers the next syllable. The student continues to read one syllable at a time until they have read the whole word.
  • A version of this strategy is shown in my post about teaching phonics with play-dough.

So there you have it, a basic over of what is phonics, why phonics is important, phonics skills, and phonics examples of what phonics instruction might look like. Understanding these main points can help you teach your students with purpose and intention, and give you confidence in your phonics instruction.

 

Happy teaching and reading!