Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Hooked on Phonics

I think we are all familiar with The Jackson Five’s song “ABC,” but is “ABC” really as “easy as one, two, three?”  Phonics instruction is typically used in schools to increase student literacy.  Dow and Baer define the purpose of phonics in their book Self-Paced Phonics as assisting “children in systematically decoding words that are unknown to them by teaching them the relationships that exist between letters and speech sounds.”  So, what are some of the basics of phonics? 

A consonant blend is two or more consonants coming together in which all sounds are heard (examples: fl, br, and st). 

A consonant digraph is two consonants that represent one sound (examples: ch, ph, sh).

A vowel digraph is 2 vowels that represent one of their sounds (examples: the “ee” in sheet and the “ow” in crow).

A schwa is the name of the short “u” vowel sound represented by the symbol “ə” (examples: the “a” in about and the “i” in pencil).

A dipthong is two vowels together that represent one sound (examples: the “oi” in coin, the “oy” in toy, the “ou” in found, and the “ow” in cow).

The Open Syllable Generalization states that when a syllable ends with a vowel letter, the long sound is usually heard (examples: so, hi).

The Closed Syllable Generalization states that when a syllable ends with a consonant letter, the short sound is usually heard (examples:  hot, call)

The r-controlled vowel sound is when a single vowel is followed by the letter “r,” the vowel sound is influenced (examples: car, stir).


These are just a few of the basics.  Although there are still exceptions to the rules of phonics and phonics is not always as “easy as one, two, three,” phonics can still be helpful in increasing literacy in young children.

What are you reading?

As we grow up, we learn to read novels and then text books. We learn that reading text is all about reading words on a page. But, is it really?

According to Kallus, text is more than this but, rather, includes so much more from the arts to signs to movement.

Almost anything can be argued as text and it is important to recognize that when we think about the question, "are you literate?" If we are reading 'text,' are we not literate? Gone are the days with the traditional standard of reading as the world around us opens the doors to new types of reading we did not realize were even imaginable.

New Literacies

What is literacy to you?

Technology has always been shifting since the beginning of history. With the invention of scrolls, books, pencils, and other recording devices began the spread of information across people, cultures, and time itself. In a way, it’s thanks to technology that we even have a beginning to recorded history! However, things have changed in the last 100, 50, 25, 10, and even 5 years of our current history. New literacies are becoming accessible through new technologies every day.

So what are the future implications of using new literacies in the classroom? 


As John F. Kennedy once stated, "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." As new technologies continue to be introduced, we as teachers must embrace them in order to effectively prepare our students for success.