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Explicit Phonic Instruction

Decoding and Phonemic Instruction Helps Build Good Reading Skills

Oct 12, 2008 Dorit Sasson

An effective approach to reading instruction includes an explicit systematic teaching of phonemic awareness and phonics.

Teaching decoding explicitly is necessary for building good reading skills. Once students can map sounds with syllables, they are ready to map whole words to sounds. Before students are expected to do this, they need to know syllabication and its frequent irregularities. This cannot be done without extensive explicit instruction where steps are clearly and precisely presented and there are enough opportunities for practice and assessment for all learners.

The Importance of Decoding Practice

There should be a deliberate joining between oral language and the benchmarks of early literacy so that students are more adept at acquiring the targeted sounds. With decoding practice, they will eventually be able to also recognize sounds in their written forms as well.

Teaching Decodable Texts

Teachers may also teach sounds within a whole word framework while recycling and reviewing students’ understanding of words. In the book Teaching Children to Read, Bill Honig describes how to teach sounds inductively by relating sounds to names and teaching words in context before actually sounding them out.

Preparing decodable phonics lessons goes hand in hand with finding texts that are neither too long nor too short yet that contain words around a targeted sound blend. Decodable sentences also represent an important element of practice. Initially, these decodable sentences can be presented on sentence strips tacked on the whiteboard (or blackboard) in large letters thus making the concept of print much more accessible and meaningful.

When Phonic Instruction Isn't Sufficient to Sustain Early Readers

When students cannot decode words properly, they become frustrated, which may suggest that it is necessary to teach phonics more systematically. Honing also makes a distinction between teaching "simple phonics" and "full decoding"; the latter focuses on full automaticity. When teaching balanced reading, teachers may teach sounds within a whole word framework while recycling and reviewing students’ understanding of words.

Meaningful activities also need to complement the right mode of reading instruction in order for effective reading instruction to actually take place. In addition, the choice of materials has important implications for giving readers (especially readers at-risk and struggling readers) the necessary tools for choosing their first reader.

The goal of sequencing instruction to explicitly teach phonics is very much like a patchwork quilt: moving from oral to phonic experience to recognizing whole words. Students of all levels and abilities need exposure and practice in order to become fluent readers.

Works Cited

Honig, Bill. Teaching Our Children to Read: The Components of an Effective, Comprehensive Reading Program, 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2001.

The copyright of the article Explicit Phonic Instruction in Primary School is owned by Dorit Sasson. Permission to republish Explicit Phonic Instruction in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.