PHONICS
If your child is struggling to learn to read, it is highly likely that they need phonics instruction.
What is Phonics?
Connecting individual speech sounds to visible letters is how the human brain learns to read.
There are hundreds of thousands of words in use in the English language. Far too many to memorize as wholes. So our writing system and our brain uses a clever shortcut: we use 26 letters to represent the 44 speech sounds of English.
This is why learning phonics ( letter-sound relationships ) becomes absolutely critical to learning how to read.
Hang on. What about those kids who learn to read with hardly any effort?
First of all, that’s actually very few kids. Second, their brain is actually still making these same letter-sound connections; they're just picking up on the patterns more readily.
But most kids can't do this on their own. They need to be taught phonics explicitly, and they’ll need lots of practice for phonics to stick.
Read More: Why Phonics is Essential - Five from Five || Synthetic Phonics - Phonics Hero || How Children Learn to Read - Phonics Hero ||
Jump to: Phonics Assessments || Problems & Solutions || Essentials of a Good Phonics Program
What is Phonics?
Phonics teaches the relationship between the 26 letters of the English alphabet and the 44 speech sounds that they represent. A few definitions:
Letters are also commonly referred to as “graphemes”
Individual speech sounds are commonly referred to as “phonemes”
Letter-sound-relationships are commonly referred to as grapheme-phoneme-correspondences or GPCs
Not sure how to articulate the 44 individual speech sounds of English? These quick videos will help you learn all the sounds: USA 1 | USA 2 | AUS | UK
The Relationship Between Letters and Sounds
In order to learn to read an alphabetic language such as English, children must learn the alphabetic principle - that letters can represent sounds - and they must learn the relationships between speech sounds and the visible letters that can represent them in written words.
But in English, letters and sounds have a bit of a complex relationship.
English has what is known as a “deep orthography.” Some languages have “shallow” orthographies where letters and sounds largely have simple 1:1 relationships; one letter usually only represents one sound (see, for example, Finnish, or Italian). English is much more complicated. Sounds can be represented by one or more letters, sounds can be spelled in multiple ways, and a given spelling can represent multiple sounds.
1. Sounds can be represented by one or more letters
( e.g. p as in pie th as in thick dge as in hedge )
2. Sounds can be spelled in multiple ways
( e.g. The “Long A” sound as in “cake” can be spelled:
ai, ay, a, a_e, ea, ei, ey, etc)
3. Letters can represent multiple sounds
( e.g. The Letter A can represent many sounds, as in:
April, as, wash, was, luggage, many, etc)
Sound complex? It kinda is. In fact, according to various estimates there are at least 250-350 letter-sound relationships in the English language (see, for example, this phoneme-grapheme list). Read More: Letter-Sound Correspndences - Phonics and Stuff || What are Phonemes and Graphemes? - Sounds-Write
But Whyyyyyyyy?
Why is English so complex? Well, it has to do with the fact that English is a hodge-podge of a language. It represents a coming together of several other languages. Each of those languages had already established their own words and spellings. Oh - and did I forget to mention? They all used the same latin alphabet but with their own pronunciations for each letter.
Womp womp.
So what happened when Germanic, Old Norse, Latin, Greek, and French came together in the British Isles to form English? Well, sound-spellings got very complex, very quickly.
English scribes largely chose to preserve the existing spelling-meaning linkages of words rather than to respell them phonetically. Why would they do this? Well, English pronunciation is stress-timed, which means it does some funny things when it comes to longer words. Many vowel sounds shift to schwa. Consider the pronunciation of the following words:
real, really, realistic, reality.
They all come from the same root word, and all share the same core meaning, but we pronounce the <ea> in each of them so incredibly differently. If we had rewritten the spelling to be phonetic, they would have become:
reel, rilly, reeuhlistic, reeality
This would have completely severed the words from their original spelling-meaning linkages. They no longer visibly appear to be related to one another at all! Furthermore, if we *had* gone with a purely phonetic spelling route, how would we deal with vowel pronunciation shifts and dialect changes? Would we spell words differently in American English as compared to New Zealand English? Purely phonetic spelling would likely have caused just as many problems as it would have solved.
Over time, English has also had a number of pronunciation shifts, and as it spread to different corners of the planet, dialects and accents have diverged further, making letter-sound relationships even more complex.
This is why it takes children a lot longer to learn to read English than a language with straightforward letter-sound relationships such as Finnish ( one-third of Finnish children begin school already knowing how to read, because Finnish phonics are so easy to learn ). Thankfully there are ways to streamline the organization and teaching of English phonics. Dive Deeper: The History of English Podcast || Etymology Online ||
Organizing Letter-Sound Relationships
The way a phonics program is organized is called its “Scope & Sequence”
If teaching 250-350 letter-sound relationships seems daunting, don’t stress.
We can simplify things a lot when we organize phonics instruction by the 44 sounds of English.
When we think of it this way, things get a lot more manageable.
It’s also a lot more intuitive for kids.
Children come to the table with the sound and meaning of words. The first step is to help them isolate (or "segment") those speech sounds (phonemes) and connect (or "map") them to printed letters (graphemes).
Think of our brain as having 44 drawers or 44 file-folders. One for each sound. Any time we have a letter or letter combination that can represent that sound, we simply slip it into that drawer. Tami-Reis Frankfort has a lovely visual illustration of this: the Chest of Sounds.
This is the way that Linguistic Phonics programs (colloquially known as “Speech-to-Print” programs) design their phonics scope & sequences. This particular organization helps make phonics easier and more intuitive for children to learn and quickly crack the reading code. What is Linguistic Phonics? Read my Linguistic Phonics 101 doc.
Linguistic Phonics Scope & Sequence Examples: Sounds Write Basic Code & Extended Code || Reading Simplified Streamlined Pathway
Other programs have different methods and scopes and sequences, but without an organizing principle such as sound, the kid-friendly structure and efficiency that it can create, is lost.
While many of the mainstream phonics approaches utilize scopes and sequences that are designed to take many years to cover, Linguistic Phonics scopes & sequences deliver the same phonics information in a fraction of the time. And in fact recent research suggests that a faster pacing of 3-6 letter-sound relationships taught per week is better than a slower scope and sequence. See Demchak & Solari 2025.
Using Phonics to Decode Words
Once students have some phonics knowledge, and can link letters to sounds, they can begin to decode words. At first, this process might sound slow and laborious. That’s okay. Sounding out words is an absolutely critical step in how the brain learns to read. We'll go into more depth about how to use phonics to decode words a little further on down the page.
Read More: Phonics - Five from Five || Why Phonics is Essential - Five From Five || Basics: Phonics and Decoding - Reading Rockets || How Children Learn to Read - Phonics Hero || Sounds and Letters - Spelfabet || Letter-Sound Correspondences - Phonics and Stuff |
How do you know if your child has sufficient phonics knowledge?
Phonics knowledge is something that is tricky to test for using real words. Why? Because some kiddos have become very good word guessers. If a child wasn't taught phonics, or if phonics didn’t stick, they may have simply learned to guess or memorize a great deal of words.
Wait, isn’t memorizing words a good thing?
Actually, no.
There are hundreds of thousands of words in English. Eventually, kiddos will start to encounter more and more and more and MORE words that they haven’t seen before. There will be no pictures to help them. Without the tools to sound out and decode these words, they will hit a wall.
But once they have the letter-sound relationships, they can sound out anything.
Kids need phonics.
Quick Clues that Phonics Knowledge is Low
Guessing words based on the first letter ( “fifth” is read as “fish” )
Guessing words based on the pictures ( under a pony photo, “holder” is read as “horse”)
Guessing words based on the context ( in a fairytale, “mango” is read as “magic” )
Reading common or predictable words very rapidly,
but can’t seem to tackle unfamiliar ones ( can read “beautiful” but not “beastliness” )
If your child is struggling to read, especially if they are using any of the above strategies, it is highly likely that they need formal phonics, phonemic awareness, and decoding instruction. But it can be helpful to do a proper phonics assessment to check. This can also help you target instruction if they only need a little extra phonics knowledge, not a lot.
Measuring Phonics Knowledge
There are a few straightforward ways to assess phonics knowledge. The two main ways to assess letter-sound knowledge are Nonsense Word Assessments, and Letter-Sound Assessments.
Your child’s instructor should be able to give you an idea as to what sort of phonics knowledge your child does or does not have.
You can also test them yourself, but even if you are a good reader yourself, you’ll likely need to brush up on phonics beforehand so that you can assess them properly.
First, See How much YOU Know
Many of us were taught phonics in haphazard ways, and even if we were taught properly, we may not know what we know. Phonics is complicated. You’ll want to brush up on your knowledge of letter-sound relationships, and keep some of these resources handy if you choose to assess your own child.
You’ll notice that I specify US / UK / AUS for the phonics materials I list. Why am I doing that? The ways that spellings are pronounced varies quite considerably across English dialects. Check out some of the sound-spelling charts for dialects other than your own, and you’ll soon see what I mean.
Look especially at the lists for /aw/, /or/, /ar/, /er/, and /a/ ... Yes, in UK/AUS, the words "lore" and "law" are pronounced the same. No, in the USA, they are not ... at all.
See what I mean? ;o)
Phonics Code
Remember how to pronounce the 44 phonemes of English? If not, these Phoneme Videos will help you learn all the sounds: 44 Phonemes Video - Rollins Center (USA) | Fabulous Phonemes Guide - SPELL-Links (USA) | English Phonemes - Reading Universe (USA) | The 44 Sounds of Australian English - Spelfabet (AUS) | Sounds of English - Tami Reis-Frankfort (UK)
Then check out these Sound-Spelling Charts to learn the various spellings which can represent these sounds. Remember, sounds can be spelled in multiple ways!
Express Readers: Sound Spellings Chart (USA) pdf (cot-caught merged)
Literacy Learn: 44 Phonemes Spelling Chart (USA)
Letterland UK Sound-Spelling Guide: Consonants | Vowels (UK)
Debbie Hepplewhite: Code Charts (UK)
PhonicBooks Code-by-Sound Charts: Chart of the English Code (UK) created by the original PhonicBooks before DK took over. They are still in the process of recreating them. There is currently a Consonant Chart here.
Spelfabet: Phoneme Word Lists (AUS)
Want to see how common each sound-spelling is?
Dive into Phonics and Stuff’s fabulous Phoneme Frequency Tables (USA)
Phonics Terminology
There are also some terms that can be helpful for teachers to know. You’ll encounter these common terms in phonics assessments and instructional materials, so you’ll want to know the literacy lingo even if your kiddo doesn’t need to.
Phoneme = an individual speech sound
Grapheme = the spelling of a phoneme
This can be one letter, or multiple letters - ie. a digraph like the <ea> in “bead” ... a trigraph like the <dge> in “bridge” … or a split digraph like the <a_e> in “cake”
Phonics = the relationships between individual speech sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) which represent these sounds.
Short Vowels
The short vowel sounds, “kindy sounds,” or “basic code” vowel sounds are the easiest to learn and most frequent vowel sounds in basic English words, so we often teach them first:
/a/ as in cat /e/ as in hen /i/ as in fish /o/ as in fox and /u/ as in bug
Some programs will mark letters with a breve ( ˘ ) above them to indicate short vowel pronunciation.
Long Vowels
The long vowel sounds, “name sounds,” or “advanced vowels” are harder to learn because they tend to have more complicated sound-spelling relationships.
Long Vowels: /ay/ as in rain * /ee/ as in leaf /i_e/ as in night * /oa/ as in glow * /ue/ as in school /yoo/ as in few *
Advanced Vowels: /aw/ as in caught /oo/ as in book /oi/ as in boy * /ow/ as in ground *
Some programs will mark letters with a macron ( ¯ ) above them to indicate long vowel pronunciation.
* Note that some of these are actually not single phonemes, but actually what are known as diphthongs (two vowel sounds that glide into one another). Most programs don’t bother to make this distinction, but it is important to be aware of in the event that your kiddo has trouble thinking of these as one sound; it’s because they aren’t. My students who are learning English as a second language are sometimes confused by these until I point out that they are two vowel sounds, not one. I have marked all the diphthongs (US English) with an asterisk *
R-Controlled Vowels:
These letter combinations are known as R-Controlled Vowels. That’s because in most dialects of English, the letter R will signal a different pronunciation of the vowel before it. In “rhotic” dialects of English (such as American English), the R is also pronounced. In “non-rhotic” dialects of English (such as British/Australian/NZ English), the pronunciation of the R has often been dropped.
Yes, it is true, American English is closer to the original pronunciation of English in this regard.
/ar/ as in park /or/ as in corn /ur/ as in bird /air/ as in share ** Note that in non-rhotic dialects, words ending in <-er> will often be pronounced with a schwa ("uh") sound.
Orthography = the spelling system of a language
Decoding = reading words by recognizing and applying letter-sound relationships
Schwa = the most common vowel sound in English: "uhh" It can be spelled with any vowel letter, and is a very frequent pronunciation in longer words. See: banana, agenda, the, family, concern, etc.
Common Markups
Many phonics programs use some interesting markings in their instructional materials. What do they mean? Here’s a quick guide:
/ / = the sound of the letter(s)
For example, you might see: /ay/
this should be read as the sound of “ay” such as in the word rain.
< > = the spelling
For example, you might see: <ay>
this should be read as this specific spelling of “ay” such as in the word play.
Phonics Teacher Quizzes
Want to test yourself? Here are a few phonics tests for teachers and parents!
Reading Simplified: Test Your Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Knowledge
Five from Five: Test Your Knowledge (AUS)
Phonics Hero: Phonics Definitions and a Quiz!
(this is more about the jargon of phonics teaching)
This is a LOT! Do kids need to know all of this?
Yes and no.
As Mark Seidenberg says, they have to learn just enough to reach escape velocity. We only need to teach kids enough that they can launch into reading. More on this in a bit.
PHONICS ASSESSMENTS
The two main ways to assess letter-sound knowledge are Nonsense Word Assessments, and Letter-Sound Assessments. As I mentioned before, your kiddo’s teacher or tutor should be able to give you an idea as to what sort of phonics knowledge your child has, but you can also assess it yourself.
Nonsense Word Tests
In my opinion, the quickest, most valuable type of phonics assessments are what are called “Nonsense Word” tests. These are basically what they sound like: children are asked to read made-up words: jad / peff / hond / bleag / graib / pirt
Why nonsense words?
Using nonsense words ensures that kiddos haven’t just memorized the word. They also can’t guess based on one or two letters, or the context of a passage. Pseudoword assessments are powerful because they really force kiddos to rely on their letter-sound knowledge.
How to Give a Nonsense Word Reading Test
Most nonsense word tests are deceptively straightforward.
You’ll simply have your child read a series of nonsense words, and write how they pronounced them on your scoring sheet. Then, later, you’ll have to go through each response and decide if it was a reasonable answer.
Sounds easy enough, right?
It is! … If you (parent/instructor) know your phonics (see above).
If you don't, click on all of the links I provided above and study each of the charts carefully until you have your phonics down, back-to-front. Pre-read each assessment before you give it to your child and think of all the legitimate ways they might pronounce each word (there will be many legitimate options!).
Free Nonsense Word Tests
Some of these include real word assessments and individual letter-sound assessments too. All of those measures can provide useful information as well, but when pressed for time, a nonsense word assessment will give you the most bang for your buck. Do not worry overly much if you cannot find a nonsense word test specifically designed for older students. Just use the best that you can find. I recommend using Nonsense Word tests with anyone where you are worried about phonics.
DIBELS DIBELS 8.0 has a section called "NWF" or "Nonsense Word Fluency" in its K-3 Materials. Students will be asked to read nonsense words the best they can. This test has a timing component, which you may or may not choose to use, depending on your purposes. Be sure to download the Administration Guide, as well as the Benchmark Materials and Scoring Booklets. Follow the instructions exactly as printed in the Administration Guide (page 65) to get the most accurate results. There are many other subtests contained in the DIBELS materials, so be aware that you will need to sift through to find what you need.
CUBED-3 The CUBED-3 Assessment contains a nonsense word section within the DDM subtests.
Acadience has many assessment materials that are free to download as PDFs. These are based off of the original DIBELS materials. Click on Acadience Reading K-6 and enter your email to access the product download hub. Select Acadience Reading K-6 (paper/pencil) to get the free pdfs. Acadience has many materials available. Select your grade level to download the complete packet. (There is also a test for RAN and progress monitoring materials which you can download separately).
See also:
Really Great Reading Spelfabet - Nonsense Words
Measured Mom - Free Phonics Assessment
Letter-Sound Tests
A second way to test letter-sound knowledge is also to simply to give a child a letter-sound knowledge assessment (aka a phoneme-grapheme assessment).
These assessments simply ask students to pronounce individual graphemes. For example:
a / ea / igh / dge / ough / augh /
While this sort of assessment can be helpful, it has a big downside. It can actually be nearly impossible for anyone who has not recently been studying phonics to do well on a test like this. So it may not be the best thing to give an older student. And there are other complications. Graphemes such as <ough> have so many valid pronunciations that, out of context, it's likely that our brain won't know how to handle it. Similarly, while <dge> might be extremely difficult to tackle on its own ( is it "d-j-eh?" what is it even asking? ), it might feel much more intuitive to attempt a pronouncation of it in a nonsense word such as “pridge”
While keeping in mind the shortcomings, simple Letter-Sound assessments can still be useful, particularly for students who have been recently studying phonics. I will list a few free options below. It is also quite straightforward to make your own:
Phoneme-Grapheme Knowledge Assessment - SPELD SA
Letter-Sound Correspondence Sheet - Phonics Hero
Phonics Assessments - Cox Campus
Timed Letter-Sound Assessments
Once kiddos have been provided phonics instruction, it can be useful to see how rapidly they can recall each letter-sound. In order to read fluently, their phonics recall will need to be pretty swift. Timed assessments can track this (see also the DIBELS nonsense word fluency assessment above):
Letter Sounds Assessment - Reading Universe
Why is Phonics Knowledge Low? What Can We Do About It?
So what do you do if your child has phonics gaps, or doesn’t have much phonics knowledge at all?
Most children need to be explicitly taught phonics (how is another matter, which we’ll get into below). A lot of children aren’t getting adequate phonics instruction in school. However, keep in mind that they DON’T need to be taught everything. They need a fair amount, but just enough to get the ball rolling. Why is this the case, and how much is enough? We’ll discuss that below too.
Problem 1: School Deprioritizes Phonics
Is your kiddo guessing words based on picture clues, context, or the first letter? This is a red flag that your child may not have received adequate phonics, phonemic awareness, and word decoding instruction in school. Gaps in these areas can lead to inaccurate, slow reading, poor reading comprehension, and lack of desire to read.
Many schools don’t teach much phonics, or if they do, they teach it as only one of many “strategies” that kids should reach for when trying to read a word. For years, schools thought that this was the right way to do things; that guessing words from pictures, context, and the first letter was how to teach reading. But what happens when we remove these scaffolds? We discover that our kids can’t actually read. See, for example: Is My Kid Learning to Read? Part 1 and Part 2).
We now know that guessing words is not a good approach for teaching reading. In recent years, the science of reading has been growing, and now we even understand the neuroscience of the reading brain; guessing is not how our brain learns to read. Yet many many schools still teach using these well-intentioned, but very ineffective MSV, Three-Cueing or so-called “Balanced Literacy” methods.
How would you know if your child’s school uses these methods? Well, posters and "reading strategies" like these are a red flag that your school may be using these subpar methods to teach reading.
Stuck on a Word? DON'T use these strategies
Red Flags - Why Three Cueing is Ineffective - by Five From Five
What if your school teaches guessing? If your child’s school isn’t teaching reading right, you’ll need to be proactive in terms of getting your child the reading instruction they desperately need. Big hugs to you; you’re in a tricky spot, because you’re going to need to counteract what your kiddo is being told in school, and you’re clearly not going to get much support from the classroom teacher or admin. They are still under the unfortunate misconception that what they are doing is best. Whether or not you approach the school with your concerns is up to you. It will be an uphill battle. It may require a dyslexia diagnosis and an advocate, which in turn, may get very expensive. It will also take time; time that your kiddo may or may not have. Check your school district’s approved intervention program lists to see if they even offer solid intervention phonics programs for children with reading struggles. Know Your Phonics Interventions back to front: how effective they are, and how long they take.
In the meantime, here’s what to do at home:
First, do not let your child guess words. Slay the Guessing Monster. In order for effortless reading to develop, words must be sounded-out many times so that they are properly imprinted and "orthographically mapped" in the brain. If you or your child sees posters or methods like the above in school, tell your child:
“Those guessing strategies are for kids who don’t know how to read, but in our house, we are learning to READ. You are becoming a reader, so you don’t need to guess the word. We are going to learn phonics and how to sound out words. Do your best to sound it out! I’ll help you if you get stuck.”
This is how the brain learns to read. By sounding-out. If a child makes an error when sounding out the word, point to the letter they mispronounced and ask what other sound the letter can make, or simply tell them the sound. Then have them sound out the word again properly (here are some tips and a video with examples). After a number of repetitions, your child will have stored the letter-sound relationships of the word in their long term memory. This is also known as “orthographic mapping.” Once this has occurred, your child will recognize the word instantly on sight, and will no longer have to sound out (unless they have a visual processing disorder). Importantly, this is not the same as rote memorization. The words must be sounded out multiple times for true orthographic mapping and storage in long term memory to occur. Read more about How the Brain Reads.
Before your child will be able to sound out words, however, they’ll need a structured literacy intervention that incorporates phonics, phonemic awareness and decoding practice.
We’ll dive into Effective Phonics Programs later in this post.
However, there are a few MORE issues to consider before we get into that: hiccups with Speech, Hearing, and Vision.
Problem 2: Speech & Auditory Issues
Even kids who *have* been taught phonics can have trouble getting those letter-sound relationships to stick if they have hearing, speech, or auditory processing issues.
These are kiddos who have trouble interacting in noisy environments; who you have to speak a little bit louder to; who have to look at your mouth when you speak to them; who confuse similar speech sounds such as B/P, D/T, G/K, Z/S, F/S, M/N/NG E/I, F/TH/S/SH TH*/V, W/R, W/L, SH/CH.
Here are some tips for helping children learn to distinguish similar sounds, and how to produce crisp consonants (this last one can trip up adults too, because it’s difficult to accurately produce single speech sounds in isolation, be sure to check it out!). Learning how to articulate sounds can take time for some children.
If you suspect that your child has issues with their speech or hearing, you’ll want to get this looked into. While issues with speech and pronunciation often resolve on their own with time, if you’re feeling worried, be sure to contact your doctor and they can connect you to an Audiologist or Speech Language Pathologist (SLP). When should you be concerned? Here are some early signs of speech, language, and hearing disorders, and a communication milestones chart.
Phonics is all about speech sounds. Resolving hearing and speech issues will make learning phonics much much easier, and this may require remedial therapy or assistive devices.
Read More: Effects of Hearing Loss - ASHA | Effects of Hearing Loss on Development - Reading Rockets | Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in the Classroom - Reading Rockets | Deafness and Hearing Loss - Reading Rockets | Auditory Processing Disorder - Understood | Understanding Auditory Processing Disorders - ASHA | Auditory Processing Disorder - Cleveland Clinic | Articulation Disorders - Cleveland Clinic | Clearing Up Sound Confusions - The Dyslexia Classroom | What’s the Difference Between a Speech Impairment and a Language Disorder - Understood | Phonological Disorders - Cleveland Clinic | Resource Hub: Articulation - Reading Universe | Terms you May Hear from an SLP - Understood
Problem 3: Vision & Visual Processing Issues
You may have heard this common refrain before: “Dyslexia is not a vision disorder.”
Well, that depends on who you ask. Leading language neuroscientist Stanislaus Deheane says there are visual subtypes of dyslexia, while another prominent reading scientist, Mark Seidenberg, has found that struggling readers have significantly higher difficulties with excluding visual distractions than normal readers. This could make passage-reading a major uphill battle.
It’s a bit of a silly argument, really. Of course vision issues impact reading.
This is why we buy reading glasses when we get older.
And of course issues with the brain’s visual processing system can impact reading. Reading is, in part, a visual processing act. Whether or not we want to label reading problems caused by the visual processing system as “dyslexia” is a separate question: one of many questions that challenge the utility of the current “dyslexia” label.
But as parents, we just want to get our kids reading.
If our kids have a vision or visuo-attentional processing issue that is impacting their reading, we need to do something about it, dyslexia label or no.
What are signs of vision issues or visual processing disorders? There are many different things that can go awry. These are the kids who frequently get headaches when reading; who get tired after very little reading (their eyes are tired, often from Convergence Insufficiency); who swap letters within words, reading FORM as FROM;
or switch letters between words,
reading PIKE BALE as PALE BIKE;
or even pull letters from words on a different line up into the target word. Neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene discusses some of these visual processing errors in this video at the 40 minute mark.
Note: b / d confusion and reversing letters and words is not necessarily a sign of dyslexia or a visual processing disorder. The human brain is naturally designed to mentally rotate all visual objects as if they were 3D objects (watch this video from the 44 minute mark). A chair is a chair is a chair no matter which way you look at it. This is a natural brain process called mirror invariance and is something we ALL must train our brains to selectively turn off for letters, numbers, and words. Some of us are better at turning this off than others. An arrow or dot in the upper left of a page indicating where to start writing, as well as handwriting instruction should remediate these errors in time.
Vision and visuo-attentional processing issues aren’t necessarily going to impact kids’ ability to learn phonics, or to decode words in isolation. However, when they attempt to take those skills to the passage level, this is where the “visual noise” of the other surrounding letters will start to hurt their reading ability, and where their reading stamina and reading fluency can really drop off.
Diagnosis. If you suspect that your kiddo has a vision or visual processing disorder, you have a few options. For vision issues such as Convergence Insufficiency (CI), there are a few screening tests you can do at home. However, you’ll want to go to an optometrist or ophthalmologist to have it diagnosed definitively. Note that these types of vision issues are NOT part of a standard eye exam, and can occur in people who have 20/20 vision. You will need to specifically ask your eye doctor for these types of tests. For visuo-attentional processing issues, you may want to see a developmental optometrist to diagnose your child’s specific issue.
WARNING. Be careful who you choose to diagnose your child. The most often prescribed (and most effective) treatment for convergence insufficiency and visual processing disorder is “Vision Therapy.” Vision Therapy can be very costly, and your insurance may or may not cover it. Many of those who offer diagnoses are ALSO vision therapists. There are many many tales of unscrupulous providers who diagnose and prescribe vision therapy for patients who may or may not see benefits from it, costing parents thousands of dollars, with no tangible transfer to reading improvement. Do your research. Join Facebook Groups such as Vision Therapy Parents Unite. Find someone that you feel confident you can trust.
Read the research on Affordable Alternatives. There is a growing body of research that there are a number of affordable alternatives which can help with visual processing issues and reading fluency. These low-cost alternatives include the scaffolds mentioned above, such as Finger Tracking; using Cardboard to Block Surrounding Words; increasing Letter and Word Spacing (see also this), Larger Font Size (there is some indication that this may help non-dyslexic readers too, but mixed results in other studies); inserting Double Spacing for text reading; using a higher dose of the tried-and-true intervention for fluency issues - Repeated Reading; paper-based Visual Search Training; as well as Visual Attention Span training; and the use of specific, child friendly Action Video Games (AVGs), such as the free app Fruit Ninja, several Raving Rabbids Minigames, and Skies of Manawak. Multiple randomized controlled trials have supported the efficacy of these Action Video Games at improving reading accuracy and rate in dyslexic children. My own children saw dramatic improvements in reading fluency after approximately 8 hours using this sort of AVG. That said, this is a newly emerging area of research. You will need to judge whether you think these are sufficient or appropriate for your child.
Just remember: Remediating Visual Issues is NOT a substitute for Structured Literacy Intervention.
Most struggling readers will need a Phonics Intervention too.
Read More: What is the Role of the Visual System in Reading and Dyslexia? - IDA || Eyes on Reading with Emily Hanford and Stanislas Dehaene (watch from the 40 minute mark) ||
Journal Articles: Characterizing Different Types of Developmental Dyslexias - Dehaene et al. 2023 PDF , PrePrint PDF || Multiple Types of Developmental Dyslexia - Friedmann 2024 || Action Video Games: A Meta Analysis - Puccio et al 2024 ||
Solutions: Phonics Intervention
Once your child’s hearing and speech issues are being addressed, what most kids need to improve their phonics knowledge is … (surprise, surprise) … explicit phonics instruction!
There are a lot of phonics programs out there, and nearly all of them seem to meet the key criteria of systematic, sequential, explicit phonics instruction, with teacher modelling and student practice. So how do we know which one to pick?
Well, for several years now, I have been diving into the real-world research on the effectiveness of phonics interventions. If you want to dip into my extended tour of the scientific research, visit my “Know Your Options: Phonics Intervention” page. The tl;dr on that? Linguistic Phonics programs such as Reading Simplified, Phono-Graphix, and SPELL-Links have the best evidence of effectiveness, and they get results in a very short timeframe.
If you want to dig into what makes a good phonics intervention, and why, keep reading.
Criteria for a Good Phonics Intervention
Not all phonics interventions are created equally. Some are very well planned, some are less so. Some will get the job done quickly. Some will take years.
So what are the criteria that make a phonics intervention a good one? These include a well planned scope & sequence, multi-component activities, thoughtful planning to reduce of cognitive overload, high levels of student practice with immediate corrective feedback, and last, but not least, the right amount of direct, explicit teaching. Just enough to give kids the ability to tackle any word they come across.
Let's dig into these further:
1. Well Planned Scope and Sequence
A phonics “scope” refers to how much phonics a given program explicitly teaches, and its “sequence” refers to the order in which it teaches each concept. Here are some good guidelines and considerations for a well structured scope and sequence that moves students from basic letter-sound relationships to more complex ones: Begin with basic letter-sound relationships such as single-letter consonants and short vowel sounds. Within these, start with letters that can quickly be used to build many words ( for example: S, A, T, P, I, N versus J, U, V, Z, W ). Teach a few letters and digraphs each week (most guidance suggests at least 3-6 letters per week) so that kiddos can immediately begin using them to form words. Then fold these into review in subsequent weeks (integrating review into subsequent lessons is also known as “interleaving”).
Some phonics scopes and sequences are taught over the course of many years. This is a disservice to the approximately 50% of children who need to be explicitly taught phonics. While the other half of the class has been able to pick-up on phonics patterns after minimal teaching, our struggling readers are left behind, patiently waiting to be taught the rest of the code explicitly.
I have seen the growing anxiety and mental anguish these kids go through as they wait for a painfully slow phonics scope and sequence to help them.
This is why I advocate for a streamlined phonics scope and sequence, one that introduces all the common letter-sound correspondences quickly. Can we go back and do a formal phonics review in later years? Absolutely, if you need to (I have never found this to be needed, by the way). But let’s give our kids the tools they need to succeed as soon as we can.
Let’s give them the code.
One approach to organizing phonics instruction in a streamlined way is to introduce one spelling for each sound first. Jolly Phonics structures itself like this. In this way, approximately 42 sound-spelling correspondences are introduced in 8 weeks, with 5-6 sounds introduced each week, for a total of 42 sounds. Then, 20 more sound-spelling correspondences are introduced over the next 13 weeks, for a total of 32 hours of instruction to deliver 62 sound-spelling correspondences in 21 weeks.
But there’s something even more efficient:
Phonics sequences that are Organized By Sound. This is how the Linguistic Phonics (Reading Simplified, EBLI, Sounds-Write, That Reading Thing, SPELL-Links) approaches arrange their phonics scope & sequence. What does this look like? You can download a Linguistic Phonics Scope & Sequence here. Essentially, you’ll start with consonants and “short vowels” and teach simple 1:1 letter-sound relationships (e.g. “a” as in map, and “i” as in fin” and “w” as in “wig”). Then, when you get to the “long vowels” you would introduce all the common spellings of a vowel in the same lesson (i.e. In one lesson, you would teach /oa/ spelled <o> as in “go,” <o_e> as in “home,” <ow> as in “show,” <oa> as in “boat,” and <oe> as in “Joe”) see also this video. In this way, 42 sounds of English can be explicitly taught over the course of about 12-16 hours, one hour per week, for a total of approximately 84 sound-spelling correspondences in 12-16 weeks.
Does it work?
Yes. In a well structured program, this pacing allows students to rapidly unlock the English code. This is my summary of the Evidence for Reading Simplified (a Linguistic Phonics Program that uses this approach). It has the best evidence of effectiveness with struggling readers of any phonics program I have found, and I can attest. The research on Jolly Phonics is of lesser quality, but in these studies it seems to get good results, at least for the average student.
2. Integrate Multiple Skills in Each Activity
An effective, efficient phonics program won’t drill individual skills ad naseum, instead, they will thoughtfully integrate practice for multiple skills into each carefully constructed activity.
Integrate, Don’t Isolate || No Island Teaching!
Teach Phonics & Phonemic Awareness Together
Phonics (teaching letter-sound relationships) and phonemic awareness (PA) (the ability to segment, blend, and manipulate speech sounds within words) are two key components of any early literacy program. Historically, they were taught separately, with phonemic awareness (PA) activities designed as sound-play done without visible letters. This is sometimes referred to as “phonemic awareness in the dark.”
However, a growing body of research shows that not only is this inefficient, it is also less effective than teaching phonics and PA together; that is, sound-play activities are more effective when done with visible letters (Listen to these Podcasts 1, 2, watch this Video on Phonemic Awareness, and read or watch some 2024 research updates). Programs are shifting toward combining Phonics and PA, but many still spend lots of time teaching them in isolation.
What does it look like to teach phonics and PA the old way - separately? A lesson might begin with oral-only drills of call-and-response for blending, segmenting, adding, deleting, or manipulating phonemes. For example, a teacher may say “/b/ + /e/ + /d/ Blend them together. What’s the word? That’s right: bed.” … or “Sock. Say the whole word. Now, segment the sounds. That’s right: /s/ + /o/ + /k/” … or “Say brush. Now change the /b/ to /k/ . What’s the word? That’s right: crush.” These activities would all be done via speaking, with no visible letters. We now know that these audible-only drills are a good start, but not an efficient use of our time. Students will learn faster and better if we include visible letters straight away.
Okay, so what does it look like to teach phonics and PA together? Programs may use activities similar to the above, but simply provide students with letter tiles or a letter bank, and ask students to manipulate the letter tiles or write the letters as they do the activities. For very young students, you might start with simple Word Building activities such as Build It or Say and Pull, but many students can quickly learn to add, delete, and manipulate sounds in Word Chaining activities (“can you change MAP to MAT?”) such as Sound Swap, or Switch It (get the intro packet here or here ). Linguistic Phonics programs such as Reading Simplified, Sounds-Write, EBLI, Phono-graphix, and SPELL-Links all make extensive use of word chaining activities. Other programs such as UFLI and Really Great Reading now incorporate them as well (although UFLI still spends time doing PA the old way too).
Most phonics programs that incorporate Word Chaining activities will include word chain lists for you to use. If you need more, here are some great resources to help you build your own, and tailor to your specific needs:
More Resources: Word Chain Builder - Phonics And Stuff || Fast Word Chains - Phonics and Stuff || Word Chain Playground - Phonics and Stuff || Word Chain Info - UFLI || Really Great Reading Letter Tiles - Online || Word Chain Cat - The Literacy Hill || Movable Alphabet - Spelfabet || Word Sequences - Spelfabet ||
Ditch the Drills! Teach Phonics in the Context of Words
Some programs teach phonics skills via isolated letter drills with flashcards. While this can eventually be effective, it’s not very efficient. It can also be difficult to get buy-in from students when they can’t see the end goal: reading real words.
There is no reason to withhold real word building and real word reading from children. In fact, it’s a much more efficient way to teach phonics than isolated drills and letter-sound flashcards (there are problems with flashcards). Many well designed phonics programs teach reading in the context of words from the very first lesson.
What does teaching phonics in the context of words look like?
We saw some examples above. Use Word Building and Word Chaining activities instead. Some programs refer to these sorts of activities as “Word Work” and use them as part of their array of phonics activities. I would argue that it’s much more efficient and just as effective to always teach phonics in the context of words ; )
Another very high-leverage activity to learn phonics in the context of words is Read It - Blend as You Read. In this activity, kiddos will read words, but because they don’t see the entire word at once, they can’t simply guess at the word. They have to use their phonics skills to sound it out. The blend as you read approach is also critical for many kiddos with low working memory who can’t keep a long string of individual letter-sounds in their heads as they sound out. Be sure to check it out!
Write-Say
A fabulous hack to help kiddos’ phonics knowledge stick is to use a write-say technique whenever they are writing.
What is Write-Say? It’s quite simple: have them say the sound of each letter or digraph as they are writing it. Check out this quick EBLI video, as well as this explanatory video, and a whole class example - both from Reading Simplified.
This is a powerful way to strengthen the letter-sound connections in your kiddo’s brain.
Spelling words, as opposed to just reading them, has been shown to have a bigger impact on literacy outcomes Conrad et al 2019.
What phonics programs use the Write-Say technique? These are a core element of Linguistic Phonics programs such as Reading Simplified, Phono-graphix, EBLI, Sounds-Write, SPELL-Links, Get Reading Right, and That Reading Thing. Write-Say is also used in some of the activities in UFLI, some Orton-Gillingham activities, and the Australian program MultiLit. It is often a more optional component in other programs.
Read More: Write to Read - Reading Simplified || Write-It-Out - Stouffer 2023 ||
3. Consider Cognitive Load
What is cognitive load? Cognitive load theory explains that a person’s working memory is limited. The average person has the ability to hold about 7 pieces of information in their working memory at one time. A kiddo with poor working memory might only be able to hold 3-4. This is why it’s critical not to overload kiddos with unnecessary information when teaching them new material. More on Cognitive Load Theory (pdf), and a What Is Cognitive Load podcast, and this quick video or this longer video from the original developer of the theory - John Sweller.
We need to keep things simple for kids. When they sit down to read, we want as little between them and the page as possible. We need to reduce cognitive load and cut the fluff - especially for our kiddos with low working memory. So what does this look like in practice?
Blend as You Read
I mentioned this approach briefly above, but it is worth mentioning again here because of its benefits for reducing cognitive load.
When asking a child to sound out a word, most phonics programs will have them say each sound individually, then all together as a real word. For example: a student might be taught to say:
“/m/ …. /a/ …. /t/ … mat”
This is called segmented phonation. While this can be useful to master the segmenting of phonics sounds, it can be tricky for kiddos (especially those with low working memory) when reading words. By the time they get to the end of long words, many kiddos with low working memory will have already forgotten the first sound. What has been found to be more effective when teaching reading, is to use connected phonation, or blend-as-you-read, where the student stretches out each sound so that they blend into one another. For example, a student might be taught to say:
“Mmmaaaattt … mmaatt … mat”
The student would continue saying the previous sound until their brain has decoded and is ready to say the next sound. In this way, the sounds are kept together in the brain, and kiddos are less likely to forget the earlier letter-sounds. This approach has a few variations, and is also called blend-as-you-read (see also this post and this mystery word envelope variation), successive blending (see also this playlist), or continuous blending (see also this post).
A number of programs use this type of strategy, including Linguistic Phonics programs, Open Court, UFLI, Direct Instruction programs, and others are following suit.
Simple, Rule-Free Word Attack Strategy
Rule Free Reading
In order for reading to be smooth and effortless a kiddo’s “word attack strategy” (the way they approach reading a previously unread word) needs to be simple and effective.
Less is more. Typically, all the guidance they need is:
Say the sounds.
Try another sound there.
Unfortunately, many phonics programs teach children to decode long words using a complex set of what are called syllable division or syllabication “rules.” When a child attempts to read a long word, they are taught to stop and break the word into syllables based on a lengthy series of rules about the number and placement of consonants and vowels in a word. In these programs, students will stop and mark up the long word, dividing it into syllables with slash marks, and then attempt to pronounce the word using the rules. Most Orton-Gillingham based phonics programs use this approach: Wilson Reading, Fundations, Take Flight, Barton, Logic of English, All About Reading, and SIPPS all rely on syllable types and syllable division when students begin to decode longer words.
Not only is this an incredibly time consuming procedure for a child, and a detriment to their brain’s already overtaxed cognitive load, the method also falls apart very quickly because, as we have recently found out, the syllable rules don’t work very often. For most of them, it’s only as good as a coin flip (and often worse).
Womp Womp.
So what do we do? Easy. We keep it simple. Even for longer words.
We teach without syllable rules.
“Sound it out.
Try another sound there.”
Children need to be able to develop Set for Variability - the skill to adjust their pronunciation of words if what they sounded out didn’t make sense (listen to this podcast on SfV). This is an essential skill to develop proficiency in because, as we saw earlier, certain letter combinations can represent more than one sound, and there aren’t hard and fast rules about which pronunciation they will take on in a word. For example, let’s say a kiddo...
Reads: “They went to the TOWN.” as … “They went to the TONE.”
This is a perfectly reasonable pronunciation, because the letter string <OW> represents the sound /OA/ as in “slow, crow, flow, flown, blown, known, own … etc.” But we have what is called ”overlap” in the English alphabetic code, so in other instances, the same <OW> letter string will be pronounced /OU/ as in “how, cow, gown, crown, down, brown … etc.”
Because there are no hard and fast rules that dictate which sound to use, we need to learn to be flexible, and to try a different sound when the first one doesn’t lead to a word that makes sense.
Anyone who attempts to use syllable rules will ultimately have to use Set for Variability for most words anyway. So let's just cut the fluff and go straight to that technique.
Which programs emphasize Set for Variability? Linguistic Phonics approaches such as Phono-graphix, SPELL-Links, EBLI, Get Reading Right, That Reading Thing, Sounds-Write, and Reading Simplified all teach using a Set for Variability strategy for longer words. Some other programs, such as UFLI and Jolly Phonics de-emphasize syllable types and syllabication rules.
Read More: What is Set for Variability? Stephanie Stollar video || Set for Variability - Reading Simplified || When Young Readers Get Stuck - Nell Duke || Set for Variability - Reading Horizons podcast || Phonics and Flexibility - Shanahan on Reading || How to Teach Students to Read Irregular Words - Danielle Colenbrander podcast ||
Journal Articles: Steacy et al 2022 - Set for Variability as a Critical Predictor of Word Reading
Error Correction: Focus on Letters and Sounds
In order for kiddos to develop Set for Variability and the ability to swap out sounds when they mispronounce a known word, you’ll need to train them via mispronunciation correction. Here’s a procedure you can use:
Wait and see if they catch their mistake
In the early stages of reading, they might not, but give them a moment to see if they caught their mis-pronunciation. If not …Tap the letters that they mispronounced
Again, wait a moment and see if they can pull out the incorrect sound and insert the correct one. If not…Ask: “What other sound could this be?”
If their phonics knowledge of these letter-sound relationships is strong, they will be able to try other reasonable sound options and arrive at the correct pronunciation. If not …Tap the letters and say:
“You’re right! Those letters CAN be [THAT] sound, but here it is [THIS] sound.”
*Don’t be afraid to show your excitement here! If the error they made is a reasonable letter-sound relationship, this is a really great sign that they are learning their phonics! Framing things in this positive light can really help their motivation.Help a bit more if needed:
If a kiddo has been making a lot of errors and is getting exhausted, it is okay to sometimes just directly tell them the sound or word, or to switch to buddy reading alternate sentences. Challenge is great, but we don’t want to overtax our kiddos!
- Provide definitions and context for unknown vocabulary words. It will be very difficult for a kiddo to arrive at the proper pronunciation of a word that they’ve never heard before.
See Set for Variability Error Correction in action! Here are some more examples, including this video, and these tips, as well as a free parents’ course that includes some more advice.
The Set for Variability “Sound it Out, Try another Sound” approach is sweet and simple, and works with any word, long, short, or in-between, so your kiddo can take it anywhere and everywhere with them across the day. As they begin to read more advanced words, they may also find it help to notice the morpheme chunks in words.
Explicit but not Everything Under the Sun.
Explicit Teaching
What is explicit teaching? Explicit instruction or direct instruction involves directly teaching students a concept, and then allowing them to practice with high levels of teacher feedback. It follows a model of:
I do
We do
You do
Explicit instruction stands in contrast to inquiry-based or implicit instruction which is student-led. While student-led sounds nice in theory, it breaks down in practice when it comes to learning foundational skills. These are not things we are wired to learn. Students don’t just “pick up” foundational concepts like the letter a represents the sound /ah/. Non-explicit reading intruction makes the faulty assumption that students surrounded by piles of beautiful books and comfortable beanbags will eventually just figure out how to read somehow. We know that this is not the case. This will only serve to frustrate children, when they inevitably discover that they can’t figure it out on their own.
Most kiddos need to be directly and explicitly taught the phonics code.
In order for explicit instruction to be effective, however, it is not just about the teacher-led “I do” modelling phase. Students need lots of opportunities for practice, with immediate corrective feedback.
Read more: Explicit Instruction - Reading Universe || 16 Elements of Explicit Instruction - Reading Rockets || Explicit Phonics Instruction - Five from Five ||
Just Enough Phonics to Launch Reading
Okay, so we know that for phonics, explicit teaching is best, particularly for struggling readers, but how much explicit teaching is enough?
Remember: while there are only 26 letters and 44 sounds in English there are approximately 250-350 letter-sound correspondences (see this list). Do we need to teach each and every one of these phonics relationships explicitly??
The research suggests no.
When a child learns to read, we don’t sit down with them and pre-teach every single word in the book they are about to pick up. Instead, we know that after a certain threshold, once children have been taught enough phonics and how to use set for variability to adjust their pronunciations, implicit learning and self-teaching can kick in. When they get to a letter-sound relationship that they haven't encountered, they'll know how to use Set for Variability to swap a sound in and out, and re-pronounce the word. As reading scientist Mark Seidenberg says, we need to teach kiddos just enough to reach escape velocity; just enough to launch them into reading.
So how much phonics do we need to teach? Some research suggests that teaching 60-80 high frequency letter-sound correspondences allows students to decode an increasing amount of text, but that after this point, there are diminishing returns (see Vousden et al 2008). Given that we know that dyslexic learners need phonics to be explicitly taught, it seems wise to lean toward the higher end of this range for struggling readers; perhaps 70-90 letter-sound relationships. But spending too much more time beyond this may not be as high-leverage, and it comes with opportunity costs.
Many phonics programs do exactly this. Jolly Phonics explicitly teaches about 62 letter-sound correspondences; MultiLit teaches 83; Reading Simplified teaches 84; UFLI, around 94. Others teach a fair few more: All About Reading teaches approximately 120.
Most programs tend to teach the most common, highest-leverage letter-sound correspondences first. What are these? According to Vousden et al 2010, this is the list for British English, and Savage et al 2020 (in their appendix) list the first 38 in their Canadian English study.
Read More: Explicit but Not Exhaustive - Reading Simplified || What is at the heart of Science of Reading for teachers? - Jennifer Buckingham || The Self-Teaching Hypothesis - Five from Five ||
When is Good, Good Enough? The Myth of Mastery
There is a myth in the phonics world that we need to teach phonics to mastery. We actually have no evidence that this is the case. This is something that hasn’t been directly researched. Are there successful phonics programs that teach to mastery? Yes. Are there successful phonics programs that DON’T teach to mastery? Also yes (and these latter programs tend to be much faster at getting kids reading well).
Cognitive reading scientist Mark Seidenberg questions the utility of teaching phonics exhaustively, to mastery. There can be an incredible time cost to doing this.
What is “Teaching to Mastery”? Teaching phonics “ to mastery” in its most extreme form, might require that a student is 100% accurate with their use of a given phonics concept on 3 assessments. This would need to be achieved before they would be allowed to progress on to the next phonics concept. Ultimately, this might mean that a student could get stuck attempting to “master” a single concept (such as the <ou> pronounced /oo/ as in soup) for weeks on end.
There is no evidence that this is a necessary component of a phonics program. There are plenty of successful ones that do not use it. And I would argue that being stuck on a single letter-sound for weeks on end would be incredibly demoralizing for a student. Kiddos are motivated by progress.
Instead? A well-structured phonics program will use a system called “interleaving” or “spiraling.” What this means is that when a phonics concept is introduced, opportunities for practicing and reviewing that concept are built into the subsequent lessons. Learning about a concept is not one-and-done. It is reviewed and re-reviewed for several weeks, building up more opportunities for the concept to click, but without sacrificing forward progress. When interleaving is used, a much lower threshold of mastery (perhaps 60-70% accuracy) needs to be met before moving to the next step, because there will be many more opportunities for improvement.
Work smarter, not harder.
What programs use interleaving and lower mastery thresholds? Many programs now incorporate some degree of interleaving, but most still require high levels of mastery. Linguistic Phonics programs emphasize interleaving over mastery, and UFLI does as well.
Read more: Are We Overteaching Phonics? - Harriet Janetos
Smart Sequences
While digging into the research on various phonics programs, I noticed a potentially troubling trend: complex, multi-year programs that integrated many aspects of literacy into one program (think Wilson or Take Flight, which integrate phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling) tended to have poorer results on student reading outcomes than programs that focused more narrowly on phonics and decoding.
Why would this be the case?
I don’t want to overstate this, but here is my hunch.
Phonics and decoding are foundational skills. A basic proficiency in these areas is needed before students can see progress in other areas. When a phonics and phonemic awareness program is diluted so that time is spent on other areas, it’s putting the cart before the horse. Furthermore, it could very well be leading to cognitive overload. How can a student who is expending immense brain power just to decode words be expected to expend further energy on a reading comprehension strategy? There is just nothing left in the tank. In the early stages of reading, comprehension instruction needs to take place as a language comprehension task - where the text is read aloud TO the child, and the comprehension strategies are practiced in discussion.
Similarly, it is well known that children can master the ability to decode words much sooner than they master the ability to spell them accurately. When a program will only let a student advance once their spelling ability has caught up to their reading ability, that program will be SLOW to see results. This is a completely unnecessary burden on children. I have yet to meet a child who is ashamed of their spelling, but have met plenty who are mentally anguished by their inability to read. Let’s teach them to read. Plenty of time for perfecting spelling later.
Reading first; spelling second.
Furthermore, the way that the English language is structured is such that there are no hard and fast rules that govern the READING pronunciation of English words, BUT there are a few fairly reliable "rules" for the SPELLING of longer English words. Teaching students spelling “rules” or conventions when learning to read will be very unhelpful. It will just add extra cognitive load to their already overtaxed brain, and will simply slow their reading down. However, teaching the conventions during spelling can illuminate the logical structure of complex English words, and can help kiddos make sense of spelling. Stay tuned for my post on spelling.
Want to know more?
Dip into the research on the Real-World Effectiveness of Phonics Interventions, and why I now advocate that parents and educators reach for a Linguistic Phonics Program before they bother with anything else: Know Your Phonics Interventions back to front: how effective they are, and how long they take.
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