3 Mistakes Teachers Make when Teaching Phonics // ideas for teaching phonics in K-2 classrooms

hi everyone it's susan jones today i have a fun video for us where i am going to share three common mistakes that are made when teaching phonics and don't worry i'm gonna also teach you how to fix those mistakes i've been uploading quite a few literacy videos in the past couple months and some of my favorites are how to teach sight words according to the science of reading i did another recent video about phonological awareness activities and i did a fun one with some literacy dice games that are super simple you just grab some dice and they're great ways to reviews different skills that one looks like this right here you can actually see all of my literacy based videos in this playlist right here i will link it down in the description in case you want to see what other topics i go into but as i was thinking about more literacy type videos to make i came across this idea as i was starting to notice some of the things i might have been doing wrong and wanted to share with you so before i dive into these three common mistakes if you happen to be making any of these don't feel bad about yourself we're just gonna learn something new i've made all these mistakes in the past too and we will see how to fix it going forward so if you're ready for this video give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel and let's get started common mistake number one when teaching phonics is that you forget to focus on vocabulary fluency and comprehension we know just how important a solid phonics foundation is along with phonemic awareness and phonological awareness so we spend a lot of time focusing on phonics and getting our young students to actually be able to decode words but we must remember why we want to teach our students that they can decode for meaning right so while you are definitely supposed to continue focusing on phonics there are some simple ways that we can integrate fluency comprehension and a little vocabulary to give your students more well-rounded instruction another thing to remember that many of your students who are struggling to decode and struggling with their phonics are likely also struggling in vocabulary it makes complete sense that we are really just teaching them to decode decode decode because you know of course if they cannot decode the words they cannot understand what they are reading but we can make this more well-rounded by front loading them with any vocabulary that might be in their decodable passage let's say there are some simple activities we can do to get students really thinking about their comprehension fluency and vocabulary while still focusing on phonics instruction too so let me just give you a few ideas if you're working on phonics and you're teaching students to decode when you get to a nice decodable text for them to read either a passage or a story you can have them retell the story after they finished it a simple retelling of the story will get them to think about okay what did i actually decode here what did i actually read after retelling you could ask them some simple questions think of those question words who what where when depending on the grade level will depend on the difficulty of the question that you ask them but even with the most simple decodable passages there are usually characters there might be a setting there might be a what happened was there a problem in the story was it solved students can answer these questions to show that they understood what they read to take it even one step further you could have students write down a response so after they have read their story maybe they want to add on to it they can get a piece of paper and add on to their own story maybe they want to write a different ending to the story that they read if there were any vocabulary words inside the passage that really stick out to you as the teacher definitely pull them out to discuss i would first front load those before they go into their decodable passage unless it is decodable that vocabulary word or afterwards you can again discuss it and have them write a sentence using that vocabulary word to show that they know what it meant so three quick things to keep in mind when you are reading a decodable phonics passage number one have them retell what happened number two ask them some simple comprehension questions just to check in and number three you can extend their learning with either the vocabulary or the story itself by having them write a response i knew in my own teaching especially with my kindergarten and first grade students that i would spend a ton of time focusing on straight decoding and those phonics skills because again i wanted my students to be able to decode before they could understand but knowing that i needed to make a switch i actually made an entire product last year these decodable comprehension passages you can see here that they are very simple to read and the comprehension questions are equally as simple but after the students have read the story three times and they put move the little stars over they can actually answer the comprehension questions and they can pick the little image that matches the story as well by having students not only read the story over and over to practice their fluency check in to answer some comprehension questions and then also find an image that matches what happened in the story it was an easy way for me as the teacher to make sure that they were not only decoding everything but of course understanding what they read as well i created a bunch of those for all sorts of different phonics skills i will link them in the description in case you want to take a look common mistake when teaching phonics number two is that we focus too much on words in isolation we do of course want to break it up so we want to start with the sound let's say it's ch we will explicitly teach them what ch is a digraph that makes ch and then we will go into words we'll have them even manipulate different words we might have them do some word sorts but many times we can often forget to make those words authentic and that means by putting them in some real text that tells a story because while of course it is vitally important for students to be able to decode that one word we want them to see that word in an authentic manner where they would actually see it in real life to be able to decode and read thankfully this one is an easy fix after you have students focus on that sound after you have them focus on all the different words that have that sound in it to decode then you want to give them some decodable sentences before moving into decodable passages this scaffolded type of instruction is a great way to build their confidence and again keep increasing the rigor of students being able to decode these words and again moving them towards that more authentic text once your students feel confident decoding those individual words you'll just want to generate a couple easy sentences for students to read with those words in it now just be careful when you are creating those sentences that you're not adding some more difficult words inside the sentences this is a mistake i was definitely guilty of in the past i would not look super closely at the other words that were being used in the passage instead i would try to focus on just the skill at hand and in doing that i was actually introducing all these other words that my students couldn't decode yet and therefore really kind of decreasing their confidence that they had when they were trying to read the words they may have been able to pick out that ch word and decode that but again they couldn't read it authentically because i had introduced too many other difficult words if that makes sense if you're looking for a resource to help out with this i just recently came out with my one page decodable sentences unit it looks like this and here you can see that students will up at the top they will review some of the focus skills that you are talking about and then students will have to read the words with that skill in it so they'll move from the skill down to the actual individual words and then you have some sentences here that are simple for students to go ahead and read decode and comprehend and then to extend it a little further because i like to use these in intervention groups i will have a place for students to encode two words and also a place for them to draw a picture of one of the sentences and drawing the picture really ties in with tip number one because i can see if they comprehend what they're reading you can definitely make your own sentences but i wanted to share that resource because it is a great one for combating this common mistake and i'll go ahead and link that in the description in case you want to check it out okay and common mistake number three when teaching phonics is that you forget to review sounds you've previously taught so we know the importance of a systematic phonics meaning that you are teaching in a systematic scope and sequence right so you want to start with the letter sounds make sure your students master all the letter sounds before moving on to cbc words and as of right now there's no set in stone scope and sequence that is you know perfect for first grade let's say for example i often see consonant blends so beginning consonant blends and digraphs i see them flip-flopped quite a bit in different experts research and i've taught them in both orders and didn't really see a difference in terms of which one needs to be taught first so take that or leave it what's most important is that you actually have a scope and sequence that you plan to follow to make sure that all those skills get taught throughout the year but what's most often forgot is after you teach those skills we tend to just go on to the next one and we start focusing on that skill decoding encoding decodable sentences whatever the steps are but we forget to go back and review the skills we've previously taught when we forget to review these skills our students often aren't reaching mastery with them they are just getting exposure to new sounds which is great they're getting practice but we really need them to master those old skills so how can we go ahead and fix this if you are using something like those one page decodables that already has i think you saw at the top it had the four review sounds so those will have not only the target skill at hand but they will also have skills previously taught for students to review and those will be actually in the sentences as well so something about that sentence unit that i created is all of the sentences only have sounds that were taught previously so it goes in its own systematic order so when you are doing this yourself you'll want to do something similar so let's say you have your own phonics smile group in front of you you will not only want to review the main skill at hand or teach them a new skill but you'll also want them to review the sounds of two or three or even four old sounds that they've also learned after reviewing the sounds if you go into something like a word sort you can have the new skill be one skill to sort and the other category can be an old skill you've already taught maybe you've already taught the digraph ch so that might be one category for students to sort and then you're also introducing long e spelled in a few different ways so students can read the words in front of them if they notice that it has a long e sound they can move it to one pile and if it has the digraph ch they can move it to another pile and then you can even try to find some words that maybe have both or misfit words that don't really belong so they can talk about that too i love doing word sorts that could actually be its whole own video so if you want to see something like that leave me a note in the comments so if you're in a small group phonics lesson you can review both new and old sounds then you can integrate the spiral review in your word work part if they're manipulating sounds through a word sort if you're having them write down the words that you say aloud you can do old words and new words so they're practicing both skills and then of course when you go into those decodable sentences you'll want to try to pick ones that have some old patterns in them too along with the new patterns being really cognizant and aware of what you're actually putting in front of your students allows you to make sure that you're kind of reviewing the old skills along with the new ones and giving them the best phonics instruction you can so there you have three mistakes that are commonly made when teaching phonics now remember if you make some of these mistakes one of them two of them all three of them don't beat yourself up it is totally fine that's why they again are commonly made mistakes just try to take the ways to fix it and try to implement them into your classroom try to focus on just one of those mistakes first and try to make it a little bit better then move to the next one in the next one as always i hope you enjoyed this video if you did please give it a thumbs up so i know make sure you are subscribed to my channel and click that bell that way you're notified of every new video see you in the next one bye [Music] you

Channel: Susan Jones Teaching

Views: 11,390

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Keywords: how to teach phonics, phonics activities, effective reading instruction, how to teach phonics to children, how to teach phonics to 4 year old, how to teach phonics to kindergarten, how to teach phonics to kids, teaching phonics to kindergarten, teaching phonics to kids, teaching phonics for beginners, phonics activities for grade 2, phonics activities for grade 1, phonics activities 1st grade, phonics activities for kindergarten, susan jones teaching, science of reading

Id: IKli1h3Padw

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021