Today is Phonics 101. I have been going over some of the lesser known spelling rules, but was thinking I shouldn’t assume everyone is familiar with the basics of beginning spelling and reading.
Here are the steps to teach beginning reading and spelling:
- Teach the alphabet.
- Teach the letter sounds. This includes consonants and short and long vowel sounds.
- Begin with reading CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant such as: cat, bet, sit, cot) and beginning sight words (these are very common words such as: the, are, was).
- Teach basic CVCe words. These are words with a long vowel sound and a silent /e/ at the end (bake, kite, hose, etc.).
- Teach blends and digraphs (typically with short vowel sounds first). Blends are two (or three) consonants where you say each sound (such as: clasp, mask, fist) and digraphs where two consonants make one new sounds (ch, ck, ph, sh th, wh with words like: such, duck, shut, which, etc.).
- Teach students about simple syllables along the way. A syllable is a word or part of a word made by one push of the breath.
Next week, we will be looking at syllables. There are six major syllable types and this is where teaching phonics gets more specific!
Have a happy Friday!
