Beginning to Read

It was my 5-year-old students' 21st day of school yesterday. It was a joyful experience as EVERY child was forming words and accurately decoding them. In the midst of all the activity, my teaching assistant turned to me and said "I've actually got goosebumps!" It was a magical moment building on what is becoming a firm foundation.

Some of my students had some knowledge about letters and the sounds that they represent. But many had very little knowledge on day one. So how did that beautiful moment happen yesterday? 
Simply, I taught them the skills they need to begin to unlock the code of written language.

Please note that what I am outlining here focuses on my decoding instruction. This takes up part of our literacy block, but is by no means the entirety. I have also spent lots of time reading rich texts, teaching nursery rhymes, developing our oral language.

Step 1: Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in speech. It is useful to check whether students can hear and say sounds accurately so that they can transfer this to their reading and writing. 

Over the last 21 days we have practised our phonemic awareness skills. We have been isolating phonemes along with blending and segmenting words. I have found that teaching these orally helps us when we introduce grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs). While there is an argument that 'phonemic awareness can be done in the dark', I am discovering that linking these activities to the GPCs enhances students abilities in phonemic awareness, their decoding AND their encoding.

Step 2: Teach Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences
On my students' fifth day of school I started introducing them to GPCs. In their second week they learnt 's' represents /s/, 'a' represents /a/, and 't' represents /t/. I teach the sound it often represents and how to write the grapheme. We have revised these GPCs daily ever since. We practise writing and saying these GPCs regularly. By the end of the week my class had mastered these GPCs.
I have now also introduced:

• 'p' represents /p/,
• 'i' represents /i/,
• 'n' represents /n/,
• 'd' represents /d/, and
• 'm' represents /m/.

I keep a set of flashcards with GPCs in my pocket so that anytime we have a spare minute, we can review our sounds. We make the GPCs in the air, on mini whiteboards, out of playdough, etc. I am striving to provide repeated practice while keeping the activity fresh for students.

I would have liked to have introduced a few more GPCs, but given the extended absences of students who have to isolate due to covid, I have slowed the pace slightly. I don't want students to be overwhelmed when they return to school.

Step 3: Sound it Out
Once my students know their first few GPCs we start blending them into words. The process I follow is that I show them vc and cvc words with the GPCs that they have mastered. I then model how to move from left to right, sounding it out as I go. Students then join in, and I make sure that they are saying the sounds that they can see*. Then it's the students' turn to do it independently.
​
Something to watch is that students are not stopping in between the sounds. This would make the next step harder. When I choose the cvc words, I start with ones that have a consonant that you can hold (s, m, n) as it is easier for students to blend these without stopping in between the sounds.

You can show the word by writing it, using magnetic letters, using cards, or however else you can imagine.

*Yes I know that you technically can't see a sound, but this is the phrase I use to quickly provide feedback to 5-year-olds.

Step 4: Say it Fast
Once students can accurately say the PGCs in a word, the next step is to read it as a word. I make sure that for their first few words I model it first. Once we 'say it fast', I ask "What word?" and watch in amazement as my students realise that they just read a word!

Helping students begin to crack the code of reading is one of those moments that I wish I could bottle. No wonder my teaching assistant had goosebumps!
​
A few students may struggle, especially if they are stopping between the sounds. I provide them with a 
whisper phone and this often helps them to hear the sounds that they are saying.

At this stage I am also teaching a lot of new vocabulary. This is because I am limited in the words I am asking students to read by their knowledge of PGCs. A bonus is that my students now know that 'sap' is the liquid inside trees, 'nip' is a pinch, and a 'nit' is a bug that itches hair.

Sounding out & saying it fast on day 12 of school. This is over 6 times the speed that we actually did it!

Step 5: Chop it
Hopefully you can see the link between phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. I have isolated phonemes and linked these to graphemes. Then I have taught how to blend our GPCs. On Friday we were segmenting GPCs and forming words. We said each word and then 'chopped it' into phonemes (I have heard others use the phrase 'robot talk'). My students then made each word, with an incredibly high level of accuracy.
​
I didn't want students' ability to write the letters get in the way of their ability to form words so we used cards. These stand up so I can easily monitor and provide feedback (although it means I am reading the word backwards).​

What will happen next?

• I will keep introducing PGCs to students. This will mean that the list of words that they can read and write will increase.
• Students will keep practising their letter formation so that it is automatic and legible.
• We will start to read sentences (and then start to write them).
• I will explicitly teach students irregular words. Next week students will learn the word 'a'. This means that they will begin to understand that graphemes can represent different phonemes.
• Students will start reading short books and get to take them home to read to others.
• Students will start to 'sound it out in their head' and read words more automatically.

This process can seem painstakingly slow. Listening to students labouriously sound out every word on a page, then say it fast, then re-reading the sentence takes a lot of time and patience. However it is exactly what many students need in order to ensure that they can all read.

I have learnt to embrace this meticulous, methodical approach as I have seen that students thrive from laying a strong foundation for their reading success.