All phonics programs are not the same

Phonics programs can include six different kinds of phonics.

1. Analytic phonics -
   analyzing letter-sound relationships once a word has been identified.
2. Phonics in context -
   using sound-letter correspondence along with context clues to identify unfamiliar words.
3. Analogy phonics -
   using parts of already-known written words to identify new words.
4. Phonics-through-spelling -
   transforming sounds into letters to write words.
5. Embedded phonics -
   children are taught letter-sound relationships during the reading of connected text. (Since children encounter different letter-sound relationships as they read, this approach is not systematic or explicit.)
6. Synthetic/explicit phonics -
   convert letters into phonemes, and then blend the phonemes to form recognizable words
   phonics is learning to pay attention to every letter, to process letters in a left-to-right direction and to connect each letter to its sound.

All phonics methods are not the same

Many teachers, even those who think they already teach phonics, have no idea what a systematic phonics program entails.

There are four approaches to phonics instruction.

1. Implicit phonics – moving from the whole to the smallest part (phoneme).
2. Explicit phonics – phoneme is isolated for the children.
3. Incidental phonics
   • Discovery or embedded instruction, shifts the onus of using phonics cues from the teacher to the student by assuming that students will develop a unique reading style that combines the use of contextual and graph-o-phonics cues.
4. Systematic phonics
   • teaching is instructor-directed based on an analysis of the skills required and their sequence
   • Instruction includes specific corrective feedback - errors, and continuous evaluation of progress.

Need a GPS Unit?

Scientific research has clearly demonstrated that explicit phonics is the most effective for all students. Many current programs labeled “systematic” …“integrated language arts, in fact, use implicit phonics.

• Research has shown beyond doubt that fluent, accurate decoding is a hallmark of skilled reading.
• The ability to sound out new words accounts for about 80 percent of the difference in first-grade reading comprehension, and continues to be a major factor as students progress through the grades.
• The core activity in systematic, explicit decoding instruction is blending single sounds into words.
• Systematic programs begin with a limited set of sound-symbol correspondences, a few consonants and one or two vowels - so that words can be built right away.
• Once an association between sound and letter(s) is taught, children need cumulative practice building words with letters they know.
• Decodable books are used that are aligned with the sound-symbol association taught in the lesson.

• Systematic, explicit instruction leaves little to chance and thus ensures the success of most children
• The phonic elements are taught in a logical order, simple to complex, informed by the structure of language itself
• Predictable sound-symbol patterns of language are taught before the less common ones;
  • The sound-symbol units are then read and spelled in words:
    • those words in turn, are formed into sentences
    • and the sentences, in turn, are placed into simple stories.

Child centered learning

• Conversion of a literacy program with a 98% success rate that evolved over 30 years of working with the most challenged of learners. Testimonial by Dr. McIntosh
• Engineered and developed in-house in tandem with in-class real time teaching Testimonial by Dr. McIntosh, University of Victoria

Stories:

• span the gap between adults and children so learning “makes sense”
• create the environments that enable the letters to communicate directly with the child
• convert the child’s life experiences into life-long literacy skills
• uses body language to mime spoken language
• establish the metaphor that enables children to project their own behaviour patterns onto letters.

Personification:

• locks learning into a format that children know, understand and like
• holds students’ interest
• keeps children engaged - no focus no learning
• makes learning visual - less talk more action.

Analogic reasoning:

• sets the stage for animation and interactivity that engage all the learning modalities
• replaces extensive drill for skill practice and rote memory with patterns of logic
• changes abstract rules of phonics into patterns of behaviour that are logical and predictable
• transforms letters from abstract graphemes into sound graphics that mirror their sounds
• formats the children’s brains to deploy an analytical critical approach to literacy skills
• provides scaffolding for reconstruction of faded or forgotten learning.