Phonics, Reading, and Me Research Report

Efficient and Effective Early Reading Instruction

By Kathleen A. J. Mohr, Ed.D Professor, School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Utah State University

The release of the 2022 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores show the largest drop in reading since 1990 with the greatest decreases for lowperforming students.

—U.S. Department of Education et al., 2022 No Time to Wait

Beginning with the End in Mind

Learning to read has always been considered one of the most powerful gateways to future success. It’s become more imperative than ever, now that we are witnessing the impact of learning gaps during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Families and educators are concerned about children having missed out on significant opportunities during remote and hybrid learning that hit schools suddenly, leaving little space for teachers to adapt to very different kinds of learning. For those students already at risk of not making expected literacy gains, the situation is especially worrisome. Looking for equitable solutions that provide students with the tools that will lead to success means that educators are charged with critical decisions. They need to use research-based curricula and evidence-based practices as their schools urgently work to accelerate learning while maintaining the nurturing supports children need to feel engaged.

Becoming literate is a uniquely human endeavor that is an orchestration of myriad processes and skills—and an inspiring accomplishment! We too often take for granted that young children can learn and use language creatively in just a few short years. With this oral language foundation laid from birth to age 5, most children come to written language in kindergarten with the same enthusiasm.

It is wonderful to see a lively, chatty, and interested children want to look at books, listen to them being read, and then begin to notice how texts and print work. Early experiences with books and lap reading—in homes, in preschools, at daycares—serve to invite children to become readers.

This excitement in children is paired with the challenge of educators helping them transition from the natural learning of oral language to the complex, multidimensional process of reading.

We don’t have the time for approaches that are ineffective or difficult to implement. Educators need to understand how children best learn to read, write, and communicate so all children not only have access to grade-level work, but have strategic ideas for how to motivate and involve children most efficiently and effectively to make up for the unfinished learning of recent years. With valuable tools, teachers can strengthen their understanding, broaden their outlooks, and lead lively small groups. Students in these groups are invited to practice skills and read great texts that evoke deep thinking and provide the kind of differentiation that helps them grow into strong, confident readers. An early reading curriculum should plan for variability of learners and be adaptive to students with the texts read for instruction and assessment (Hiebert et al., 2020).

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A primary reason for attending school is to learn to read. Although acquiring oral language tends to happen informally—without explicit goals or planned instruction—learning to read generally requires far more intentionality. Some critical literacy skills rely on natural human characteristics, such as language and curiosity, but reading and writing do not come naturally for most learners (Lyon, 1998; Seidenberg, 2017). Proficient reading and writing take time and effort, not to mention effective teaching and targeted, quality materials. Most students need well-organized instruction, extensive exposure to print, and considerable practice to be able to read and write proficiently (Moats, 2020). Indeed, a sizeable portion (approximately 30%) of students struggle to accomplish the task of becoming literate and may need additional, differentiated instruction and materials (Paige et al., 2018).

Supporting students for whom reading is a challenge is a major concern for many educators, especially those whose goal is to attend to such difficulties in the early grades so children become successful, avid, lifelong readers.

© 2022 Learning Without Tears

Beginning Reading is a Complex Task Beginning reading is a crucial, foundational step in becoming literate. Considerable research points to it being especially challenging in English, which is a quasiregular language. There are many subskills to learn and apply, including: phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, letter-sound relationships—also called graphemephoneme correspondences (GPCs), rapid letter and letter-unit recognition, orthographic pattern awareness, and word-reading automaticity. These building blocks should all function to support making meaning of texts— comprehension. In the IES What Works Clearinghouse “Practice Guide on Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade,” there are four key recommendations to help students develop skills with the goal of comprehension: 1) teaching academic language and vocabulary; 2) developing awareness of sounds and linking them to letters; 3) teaching students to decode, analyze words parts, and recognize words; and 4) ensuring that students read connected text every day to support fluency and comprehension (Foorman et al., 2016).

It is now widely acknowledged that reading is a multifaceted process and initial reading instruction should be focused on the research-based practices of decoding and orthographic mapping (Ehri, 2020). Many dedicated scholars have examined reading processes and their research outcomes comprise what we now call the science of reading (Castles et al., 2018; Petscher et al., 2020). Given how extensive the initial steps of reading development are, we might more aptly delineate the science of beginning reading or the science of teaching beginning reading (Cabell & Hwang, 2020; Shanahan, 2020). The solid research base facilitates how to teach young children to read and informs current teacher training, professional learning, and curriculum development.

Skilled readers are sophisticated. Their interest and motivation combines with strong cognitive and language competencies, efficient word recognition processes, orthographic awareness, and frequent encounters with texts. Strong reading instruction, in turn, should integrate various domains of reading and view students as active and engageable—or better yet, engaged readers (Duke & Cartwright, 2021). Important research over the last 40+ years has elucidated reading competence and concluded that skilled readers exhibit adequate phonological processing abilities and that weak readers often do not (Ehri, 2020; Griffith & Olsen, 1992; Stanovich, 1980).

This makes phonemic awareness (PA)—auditorily © 2022 Learning Without Tears

distinguishing the sounds in words—a key first step in reading instruction. PA training involves children identifying, deleting, or manipulating targeted phonemes. Most importantly, PA activities should focus on blending and segmenting sounds to sharpen children’s phonological processing and to prevent future reading difficulties (Yeh, 2003).

... reading instruction should be focused on the research-based practices of decoding and orthographic mapping.

Phonics for Moving from Language Awareness to Proficient Reading Letters and Sounds Reading in English requires understanding the alphabetic principle—the code that informs how letters represent sounds. Phonics teaches children to crack the code by learning GPCs, which support word reading in the simplest to the most complex texts. Even accomplished readers on occasion encounter a new word that they initially decode to determine its pronunciation and then confirm by checking its meaning.

A sequenced and systematic approach to learn phonics provides a progression for children to recognize patterns and make connections as they encounter new words.

The initial goal is for children to understand that the 26 letters in the alphabet are used in various configurations to represent the 44 sounds used in spoken English. The 21 consonants represent 24 articulated sounds of English (using our lips, teeth, and tongue). Therefore, the English letter-sound system is not a 1-1 relationship. Because English has some more readily-learned and consistent sounds, those letters are often introduced first (e.g., m, t, s, p). At the same time, children learn to name and form these letters as they reinforce the sounds by using picture cards, exemplar words, and instruction on how to write letters.

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Phonics instruction can be multimodal by highlighting the visual shapes of letters, the sounds they represent, words that start with targeted sounds, and how to combine strokes to write them.

Decoding Knowing the consonants is a good way to start to read and write whole words but is insufficient. Students need to connect consonants sounds that are “glued together” by vowels. Blending consonant and vowel sounds in words is the process of decoding. A basic principle for students to learn is every syllable includes a vowel sound, making the teaching of syllable patterns a logical step from learning how single sounds blend and how words can be segmented into phonemes. With knowledge of just a few consonants and a few short vowels, beginning readers can read dozens of words (e.g., mop, map, pot, top, pat, tap, sat, last, past, tiptop, etc.). Children practice identifying the sounds of letters in words to understand how spoken language is written. However, letters and sounds are not used equally or consistently in English. It makes sense to teach and practice those that are higher in utility, monitor students’ success, and then group students for additional practice to target needs before moving on to other, less-frequent elements (Seymour et al., 2003).

Phonics becomes increasingly more visible to reading success as children learn the vowel sounds. They begin with the concept of a short vowel sound when the vowel is in the middle of two consonants, in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words—that produce closed syllables. After they have learned the short vowel sounds in each closed syllable, they generally move on to progressively learn the varied functions of each of the five vowels (a, i, o, u, e) and semivowels (w, y). Instruction focuses on how these letters are utilized to represent 20 vowel variants with clear characterization of each articulated sound. Along with short vowel sounds, English uses long-vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, diphthongs, and digraphs. It benefits teachers to appreciate the value of vowels. When a curriculum emphasizes that vowels are more frequent, more complicated, and less distinguishable than consonants—while used in practically every syllable—teachers can model how to attend to vowels in ways that support students in effectively learning.

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Encoding While students are learning the phonemes that make up words, they are simultaneously learning the graphemes that represent them. Children make greater gains in reading when instruction combines encoding (breaking words into letters to spell) with decoding. Children manipulate letters in tactile practice, as well as written pencil-and-paper writing to make phonics more tangible and meaningful.

Evidence-based practices support having students spell words they learn to read phonetically. Studies have shown that encoding builds on phonemic awareness training and decoding practice to enhance both reading and spelling performances of students (Weiser & Mathes, 2011).

Word building with manipulatives and word/sentence dictation are appropriate practice activities. Using plastic letters or tiles and making words in computerbased activities can be engaging, too. At the same time, handwriting also merits instruction and practice and should be included in instruction. All these activities are good practice options for helping young learners to consolidate their alphabetic knowledge.

Phonics instruction can be multimodal by highlighting the visual shapes of letters, the sounds they represent, words that start with targeted sounds, and how to combine strokes to write them. © 2022 Learning Without Tears

Building fluency helps students transition from word work to making meaning.

From Word-Level Reading to Reading Connected Text Knowing the most common letter-sound relationships enables children to begin reading. Once they can decode words, they move from what Ehri (2020) calls partial to full alphabetic awareness. Children are now regularly reading words, recognizing them in sentences, and writing words (considering that spelling is an application of that knowledge). The shift to attending to all letters and applying an expanded knowledge of word configurations to recognize known and unknown words takes more time in a less-transparent language and benefits from a well sequenced program (Lysaker et al., 2011).

Decoding and word-level analysis should eventually be replaced by accurate and fluent word recognition. How do teachers help students get there? We provide them with extensive opportunities to read words with the graphemephoneme correspondences and spelling patterns they’ve learned in connected text. Connected text may mean a single sentence to start, but as students grow as readers, they’ll soon be ready for repeated readings of short but meaningful stories and informational texts. When these texts have a high volume of words students can decode, they are on their way to independent reading. Building fluency helps students transition from word work to making meaning. Fluency is a combination of accuracy and appropriate speed. Fortunately, fluency is relatively easy to measure and monitor in oral reading. Fluency development generally requires repeated readings of connected texts with some attention to intonation and pacing. In other words, fast reading is not the goal.

Fluency pertains to sufficiently fast reading with appropriate expression that indicates the reader is attending to the intended message, including punctuation, to demonstrate adequate comprehension.

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Following the Sequence of Foundational Skills Compared to some other alphabetic systems, the English written code is relatively deep and opaque, which means that letters are less consistent in how they represent sounds and that there are many spellings (phonograms) to learn and apply. For example, the letter g functions differently in English (e.g., gate, change, laugh, sign). A scope and sequence is, therefore, designed to introduce letters and sounds in a carefully determined order to build orthographic knowledge and account for variations within the system.

Research (Gonzalez-Frey & Ehri, 2021) demonstrates viable sequences for phonics instruction that teachers can use to introduce letters and sounds that enable beginning readers to decode familiar words. Careful decoding helps students gain letter, sound, and word awareness. This enables them to eventually see the letters as orthographic units that can be stored in memory, allowing more automatic word recognition (Ehri, 2014). This process is facilitated by seeing words in print, sounding out (segmenting) the lettersound pairings, and blending them as units. Again, spelling words reinforces orthographic mapping, what Ehri (2020) refers to as amalgamation of word identities and enables a reader to retrieve words as sight words—visual units—at increasing rates that promote reading fluency.

Reading Flexibility The alphabetic code, spellings, and word meanings are truly complex, to the degree that what seems simple to proficient readers actually requires that students develop what has been described as “graphophonological-semantic cognitive flexibility” (GSF) (Cartwright et al., 2020; Duke & Cartwright, 2021). “[GSF is] a bridging process that involves the ability to simultaneously consider and actively switch between the letter–sound (graphophonological) and meaning (semantic) features of printed words. . . Numerous studies have shown that GSF predicts variance in reading ability above and beyond various assessments of word recognition and language comprehension in children and adults” (p. S31).

Researchers have investigated the way strong readers process new words. For example, “flexibility with [a] partially decoded word is referred to as the reader’s set for variability or the reader’s ability to go from the decoded form to the correct pronunciation of the word (Petscher et al., 2020, p. 274).

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For example, flexible readers “allow” a phonetic decoding of /w/ /short a/ /s/ to arrive as the word was with a medial schwa sound as it is commonly pronounced. Children begin to apply the graphemephoneme correspondences for the letters they’ve learned and to adjust for the irregular parts of word. This aspect of recognizing irregularly pronounced, high-frequency words is now known as, “heart words.” This tolerance for variability has been shown to be a stronger predictor of reading common words than PA beyond the primary grades (Steacy et al., 2019). With flexible decoding and word consciousness, good readers exercise a metalinguistic awareness that is worthy of teacher attention as it can be developed in early readers (Duke & Cartwright, 2021).

Instruction on building flexible readers shouldn’t be overlooked. Learning phonics enables us to read by probability, which means that we can apply the sound of a grapheme when encountered in an unfamiliar word and most likely be correct. For example, if we see a b in a word, we tend to assign it the /b/ sound and in most cases that reliance on the letter-sound connection helps us to be able to read the word. However, if we already know the word cab or that a b that follows an m can sometimes be silent in English words, we might encounter the word stab and substitute the initial sound of cab (using the rime, -ab) or see lamb and read it by associating it with comb. This shows that readers can read by applying phonics probabilistically or by analogy (comparing new words to known words). Reading by probability (sometimes referred to statistical reading) and analogy can be useful.

For example, what would help you read uncommon words, such as taradiddle or metanoia? Students need to adjust by using flexible thinking to read new words, including a focus on onset and rimes (e.g., f+ast, l+ast, p+ast, bl+ast), which can support more rapid recognition of letter units and whole words.

Morphological Awareness Extends Phonics and Semantic Knowledge We recognize that readers and writers of English need to know and attend to more than basic letter-sounds.

As phonics are solidified, it’s time for students to also see the relevance of units within words. English is morphophonemic in nature, consisting of multiple spellings and orthographic patterns that represent varied etymologies. These variations increase the number of syllables in words. For example, the word jump is considered completely phonetic; each letter represents a highly frequent sound and if decoded accurately, the reader can efficiently discern /j/u/m/p/ is the written version of the spoken-word jump. With phonics instruction, students blend the sounds together (rather than over-segmenting them), to connect the consonant sounds with the short vowel sound and say the final blend (-mp) to read the word.

However, the word judge, although phonetic, requires more orthographic knowledge to decipher. The reader needs to know the spelling pattern -dge as an alternate representation of the sound /j/ used after short, single, vowels. Orthographic elements following short vowels is another characteristic of English phonics and why English is considered to have a deeper orthography. Let’s take it a step further with the word judgment, which requires decoding or recognizing the root word (i.e., judge) and having the morphological awareness that -ment—an easily decodable suffix–carries meaning as a noun marker.

Again, applying probability or analogy requires some flexibility in using letter and word knowledge as a part of reading. Instruction can promote this flexibility. For example, it is inaccurate to tell students that every letter has a single sound or that vowels are only long or short in English.

Helping students to be more strategic in their word work supports them as problem-solvers.

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Reading English necessitates awareness and skill to decode consonants, vowels, and orthographic units (letter combinations, such as -dge). Students also need to apply morphological awareness across syllables. More spelling patterns should be taught and practiced so students can read and write English fluently.

Exposure to decodable texts to practice phonic and morphological elements as they are taught, as well as application in a wide variety of texts allows students to cement the basic elements and enlarge their linguistic repertoires (Ehri, 2020).

Building Vocabulary: Reading Words to Increase Semantic Knowledge As if there isn’t enough for a student to learn, between phonetic and morphological complexities, another major challenge to proficient literacy in English is the size and diversity of its lexicon. The Anglo-Saxon and Latinate/Greek origins of English words contribute to the extensive English vocabulary and its relative polysemy (many words with multiple meanings), making English a daunting vocabulary system. It’s especially cumbersome for multilingual learners. Academic vocabulary is critically important to comprehension and a key element in successful content learning. Fortunately, attending to vocabulary affords practice of phonemic awareness, phonics, morphology, conceptual meaning, and linguistic awareness Dehaene & Cohen; 2011 Duke & Cartwright, 2021). Word work activities can extend from decoding familiar words to inferring meaning of unfamiliar words that support learning across the curriculum. One example is the word run, which is easy to read and well-known by English-speaking children. However, the word requires developing semantic knowledge because it takes on context-specific meanings as world knowledge increases.

Eventually, readers will encounter the word related to dogs (dogs run), entertainment (rerun), elections (run for office), and so on. At such point, the issue is not decoding the word, but discerning or inferring its polysemous meaning in context.

Vocabulary provides a bridge between word reading and comprehension, which means students should develop a word consciousness that goes far beyond basic decoding.

Efficient word reading in English includes the ability to decode polysyllabic words, which often include affixes.

Prefixes and suffixes add meaning to words so polysyllabic word reading requires both phonetic and semantic © 2022 Learning Without Tears

processing. Understanding of syllable patterns can greatly advance reading proficiency, but instruction should also include attention to how morphological elements change or add meaning.

Part of linguistic awareness includes attending to different kinds of vocabulary, including high-utility words common in conversation, academic vocabulary that characterizes school texts, and discipline-specific words that are often rare, but critical for comprehending specialized topics (Cervetti et al., 2016). Building rich vocabularies, which is done by reading well-crafted texts, promotes conceptual knowledge while broadening and strengthening semantic networks that support listening and reading comprehension (Willingham, 2006).

Goals for Learning Foundational Skills in the Service of Comprehension Reading instruction should build a strong foundation while also stretch to keep the goals for literacy within view.

These goals are far-reaching and can include: •

making meaning of texts;

•

discerning the ideas of others shared on a page or screen;

•

learning about self and others vicariously through the words and pictures;

•

interacting with important concepts and ideas;

•

consuming texts that enrich one’s thinking.

Meeting these comprehension goals requires that students have extensive exposure to connected texts and that they’re involved as active readers (Duke & Cartwright, 2021).

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Targeting only word-level reading results in being shortsighted and may miss opportunities for students to develop engaged reading. Authentic reading should focus on recognizing words, inferring their meanings, and constructing an understanding based on syntax—the order of words used to convey ideas.

Educators should be mindful about providing time to move beyond isolated, rule-based phonics practice to give experience with the more authentic process of reading connected texts to construct meaning. Instructional conversations and key questions can support this important meaning-making process. These readings and conversations can be powerful not only in the progress students make in reading but their motivation to learn.

Talk around text is a critical, interactive, process and is often most beneficial when done in small groups. Text talk allows readers to apply their developing reading skills and affords social interactions with an adult and among peers. These instructional conversations help children expand knowledge of the world and themselves—the ultimate purpose of reading (Huttenlocher et al. 2010). As noted by Cabell and Hwang (2020), “young children develop language through frequent, fine-tuned conversational interactions with adults who provide them with exposure to sophisticated vocabulary and advanced language models” (p. S100). An additional benefit of talking about texts is its possible influence on Theory of Mind, a psychological construct related to how humans grow to understand that they and others think and feel in individual ways (Lysaker et al., 2011). When talking about texts and exploring characters and their motives, readers can develop empathy with characters and an understanding of the choices they make to handle their circumstances—key aspects of a curriculum that helps children foster positive habits in their own lives.

As readers acquire content knowledge of the social and natural world (Connor et al. 2017; Grissmer et al., 2010), they can gain insight into their own hopes and dreams. Moving from reading and talking about texts to writing in response to texts is a logical and powerful extension of fundamental literacy instruction. Reading in the Information Age warrants attention to varied text genres and digital modes. Fortunately, even early readers are interested in a variety of texts. “Enhancing vocabulary and content knowledge simultaneously through content-rich ELA instruction can have a synergistic effect on reading development” (Cabell & Hwang, 2020, p. S101). Curricula should infuse content information—using narrative and informational texts that expose students to content knowledge. When instruction focuses on these texts, along with the words and the concepts they represent , students can build world knowledge, especially in grades in which 8

science and social studies too frequently receive minimal attention (Cox et al. 2017). Carefully constructed decodable texts, that are crafted to meet multiple criteria, helps early readers access content knowledge while they practice productive reading skills and strategies (Cheatham et al., 2014). With more exposure to varied texts, students strengthen their ability to process them and discuss their content.

Accomplishing the Task—Becoming Readers, Writers, Thinkers Successful reading entails many reader and textual factors. Is the reader motivated? How difficult is the text? What skills are needed to read the words and make meaning? What is the context for the reading? Such factors play a role and in schools, teachers should be equipped with options for factoring them into reading instruction. The teacher’s role is instrumental in determining how to achieve successive and successful reading encounters that students need to develop literacy. A well-sequenced literacy program that adheres to the science of reading can allow teachers to focus on reader factors, lessening the many decisions that teachers need to make. Stronger programs also allow teachers to focus on students at the point of need. A program that includes dynamic assessment enables teachers to target instruction and accommodate the asynchronous progress common among beginning readers to help all students make forward progress.

Attaining proficiency in reading and writing necessitates an organized approach that accounts for the key components, sequences skill development, and includes a diverse amount of high-quality texts that afford rich interaction. Researchinformed resources guide novice and experienced teachers in providing more effective and sophisticated reading instruction. A research-based, structured program that helps teachers enact effective and efficient instruction should be a practical outcome of the science of reading.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Kathleen (Kit) Mohr is a Professor of Language and Literacy at Utah State University, where she directs the Ph.D. in Education program. Dr. Mohr developed an interest in language and literacy development while teaching at elementary schools in Texas and California.

She has written and contributed to numerous scholarly publications and is currently focusing her teaching at the graduate level and researching how to accelerate language and literacy development in young children.

© 2022 Learning Without Tears

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