5 Routines I Never Leave Out of my Phonics Lessons
Review Activities for Phonics Lessons
I know I know, another person talking about phonics. Yes, phonics is important, and yes a lot of us are talking about it, and yes it’s with good reason. In order for students to comprehend what they are reading, they have to be able to read fluently. In order for students to be able to read fluently, they have to be able to read words accurately. In order for students to read words accurately, they have to be able to decode. Phonics (and phonemic awareness) is the foundation for skilled reading, so it stands to reason that we need to get our phonics lessons right.
We also know that sometimes things happen– we run out of time, a student has to leave early, we have an assembly. We have to pick and choose our instructional routines more often than we would like.
Today I want to share five routines I prioritize. I’ve combined what I have learned from the National Reading Panel with my experience working with different boxed literacy programs to distill what I call “non-negotiables” which I try to always include in my lessons.
Remember, you may have to adjust these depending on the needs of your students. For example, you might realize that your students no longer need to do an activity like phoneme-grapheme mapping and would benefit more from regular spelling dictation because they no longer need the scaffold of sound boxes.
1. Reread decodable text from the day before
One of the most important components of a phonics lesson is the opportunity for students to practice reading what they have read before. Does your phonics program do this? Mine doesn’t, and it is vital for building fluency for our students. If you teach K, this might not be relevant just yet depending on the time of the school year, and your fluency practice might come in the form of reading words or sentences rather than reading whole passages.
The key here is rereading the same text. Repeated reads have been affirmed time and again by the National Reading Panel (2020) and multiple studies since to be a powerful practice for building fluency. And I don’t know about you, but when I first started my journey with the Science of Reading, I could get my intervention students to decode and read words accurately, but not fluently. Fluency was always a challenge, and I soon realized it’s because I wasn’t giving my students the opportunity to practice reading what they have read before.
Adding this non-negotiable to my phonics lesson has been a total game changer. I start every lesson with a reread of the new decodable text from the day before. When I added this simple routine, I began to notice faster gains in both sight recognition (no longer having to sound words out) as well as words correct per minute, which indicated that my instruction was working. Students were reading more accurately and more fluently. Yes!
2. Word chains
“Spelling is the route to decoding” - Sarah Nissim
I start with this quote because I think we often underestimate the power of any encoding practice. Encoding simply means spelling. We give a word, and ask students to spell it. Through an activity called “word chains”, students are working on spelling, but they are also working on phonemic awareness and phonics. This is a high impact routine that I rarely miss because it works on phonemic awareness and phonics simultaneously.
Now, your students may not need phonemic awareness any longer (gasp, I said it!), and if that is the case, regular spelling dictation is also just as impactful which we will talk about below. But if your students frequently confuse vowel sounds, skip over the second sounds in consonant blends, or any other single syllable spelling challenges, don’t skip word chains. Here is how you do them:
Word chains can be done several different ways. The easiest way is to have students use a white board and marker OR letter tiles if you have them (if you don’t, check out my alphabet charts which contain letter tiles). You’ll want to have a list of 5-10 words containing the target phonics skill. Then:
T: Say “bug”.
S: “bug”
T: Say the sounds in “bug”
S: /b/ /u/ /g/
T: Spell bug on your whiteboard. (student should spell bug with marker or letter tiles).
T: Now I’m going to say another word, and you have to figure out which sound to change. Ready? Change “bug to big”.
If the student struggles, use the following scaffold:
Ask the student to touch each letter in “bug” but say the sounds in “big”. This helps them notice which sound is different.
Continue like this, asking the student to change the word to a new word.
3. Phoneme-grapheme Mapping OR Spelling Dictation
It is easy to spend an entire lesson doing decoding activities such as blending practice, and word and sentence reading. But, be sure to keep encoding practice in your lessons every single day. Both of these activities work on encoding, so choose one if you’re short for time, and remember, phoneme-grapheme mapping is a scaffold; we want students to eventually be able to connect sounds to print effortlessly without having to use sound boxes. This is also a great opportunity to reinforce handwriting.
For phoneme grapheme mapping, say:
T: I’ll say a word and you say it back to me. “Black”.
S: Black
T: Tell me the sounds in black.
S: /b/-/l/-/a/-/ck/
T: How many sounds are in “black”?
S: 4
T: Draw a box around four boxes.
T: What’s the first sound you hear in black?
S: “/b/”
T: How do you spell that sound?
S: b
T: Write b in the first box.
T: What is the next sound you hear in “black”?
S: “/l/”
T: How do you spell that sound?
And continue on until the student spells the whole word. You don’t have to say each prompt if the student begins to independently spell the word. As Anita Archer says, “cut the fluff and teach the stuff”. If they have it they have it. Don’t take them through the whole routine again.
Spelling dictation is similar to phoneme-grapheme mapping, but this is where you can decide whether to remove the scaffolds or not.
T: I am going to say a word and I want you to say it back to me. “Black”
S: Black
T: Great. Spell black.
Dyslexic students may need a more scaffolded approach such as the one below:
T: Say “black”.
S: black
T: Say the sounds in “black”.
S: /b/-/l/-/a/-/ck/
T: Spell “black” out loud.
S: b-l-a-c-k
T: Spell “black” on your whiteboard..
4. Reading New Decodable Passage OR Sentences
The best way to get better at reading is to read more, right? Well, yes actually, as long as we are also using explicit and systematic phonics instruction and teaching language comprehension to facilitate skilled reading.
Students need multiple opportunities to read, read, and read more. Think of it like this, if you were learning how to swim, and you only practiced moving your arms through a certain stroke, or only practiced kicking while holding onto the edge of the pool, when would you ever actually get better at swimming?
We have to give students multiple opportunities to integrate and apply the skills they are learning in text, otherwise our efforts to move kids along the reading path will be futile. So, don’t skip the piece that brings everything together– have students read the new passage!
This is my go to routine for reading a decodable text:
Highlight and read the words containing the target phonics skill. For example, if the decodable text is to practice the /sh/ digraph, students would highlight and read all of the words containing the /sh/ digraph.
Students read the passage quietly to themselves while the teacher offers corrective feedback. When students make a word error, the teacher can say, “can you go back to this word? Say the sounds again”, to prompt the student to decode again successfully. If the student is not successful on the second try, the teacher can model saying the sounds and giving the correct word. If the student reads a sentence in a robotic voice because they were spending a lot of time sounding out the words in the sentence, ask them to go back and reread the sentence.
5. Word Reading Cumulative Review
Noticing a theme here? Review, review, review! How many different ways can you review reading words with students? The easiest way is to use flashcards, printed or digital, to review with your students. But you can also use roll and reads, or fluency grids.
Struggling readers need A LOT of repetition and practice reading words, even when we think they’ve got it. We want our students to not have to sound words out. We want them to be able to read words instantly.
That’s it, those are my big five. The most important goal in your phonics lesson is for students to have a balance of decoding and encoding activities daily, with multiple opportunities to practice reading! I’d love to hear from you- which one of these will you try as a non-negotiable in your own classroom?
