Phonics

How The Family Readers implement phonics research

What is phonics instruction?

Phonics instruction means students learn the relationships between letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language (often called letter-sound relationships or associations).

Phonics instruction is important because:

It leads to an understanding of the alphabetic principle - the systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds.

National Reading Panel Report

Teach phonics, word sounds, and provide one-to-one feedback on oral reading. Do this by breaking apart and manipulating the sounds in words which are represented by sounds in the letters in the alphabet...then blended together to form words (phonics) and provide practice for comprehension.

Programs of phonics instruction are effective when they are:

• Systematic - The reading program is a carefully selected set of letter-sound relationships organized into a logical sequence.

• Explicit - The program provides teachers with precise directions for the teaching of these relationships.

Systematic and explicit phonics instruction:

• Significantly improves children's word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension.

• Is most effective when it begins in kindergarten or first grade or with struggling, or impaired learners.

• Effective phonics programs provide ample opportunities for children to apply what they are learning about letters and sounds to the reading of words, sentences and stories.

How The Family Readers implement phonics research:

• Our learn-to-read books are the nucleus of a systematic, cumulative, explicit, decodable, phonetic reading program.

• Students learn to analyze letter-sound relationships in previously learned words.

• Each book has a front page phonics review of the new sounds/words to learn before reading the book.

• Word/letter recognition builds comprehension as values are added into each of the 72 storybooks.

• Writing books corresponding with the storybooks use the same words with activities and use the same letter/sound relationships for beginning, ending and forming new words.

• Students can spell words and write their own stories in the same alphabetic order as all elements of phonics are introduced throughout the 72 storybooks

• Gradually and systematically all vowel and consonant sounds are added into books.

• These materials are excellent for Preschool through high third grade and are effective to use with struggling or nonreaders.