English Language Development

Figure 3.32. An Elkonin Box with Letter Tiles

r a m p

Children experiencing difficulty with phonological awareness are provided additional or intensified
instruction because this insight is crucial for reading and writing development. As noted previously, a
careful progression of instruction is important. Two- and three-phoneme words containing continuous
sounds (such as as and man) are typically easier to blend and segment than words containing
noncontinuous sounds (such as tap and bug). Children experiencing difficulty benefit from explicit
attention to the manner and place of articulation of sounds. Thus, using mirrors to observe how
different sounds are made by the mouth, followed by an explicit discussion, can be a productive
approach. Differentiated instruction is crucial and should move from what children know to what they
still need to learn.

Phonics and Word Recognition

In terms of decoding and word recognition, children entering grade one ideally possess two
critical skills: (1) a developing understanding of the phonological basis of spoken language, and (2)
knowledge of letter-sound correspondences. Some children combine the two skills intuitively. They
use their awareness of sounds in spoken words with their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences
to identify and blend the sounds represented in a printed word, and thus, generate a word. A priority
of grade one instruction is for children to develop the alphabetic insight and use that insight and
accompanying skills to decode words independently and, with practice, automatically. Decoding is
essential to reading unfamiliar words and is a critical benchmark in a child’s reading development.

Decoding instruction in grade one:

• Ensures children can blend sounds to generate words


• Progresses systematically from simple word types (e.g., consonant-vowel-consonant), word
  lengths (e.g., number of phonemes), and word complexity (e.g., phonemes in the word,
  position of blends, stop sounds) to more complex words


• Includes explicit modeling at each of the fundamental stages (e.g., associating letters with the
  sounds they represent, blending sounds to generate whole words)


• Sequences words strategically to incorporate knowledge of letter-sound and spelling-sound
  correspondences


• Provides practice in controlled connected text in which children apply their newly learned skills
  successfully (i.e., decodable text)


• Includes repeated opportunities to read words in contexts in which children apply their
  knowledge of letter-sound and spelling-sound correspondences and which leads to automaticity
  with words


• Teaches necessary sight words to make more interesting text accessible
  As noted previously, instruction in phonics and word recognition is carefully sequenced so less
  complex understandings precede more complex ones and new learning is built upon previously
  acquired knowledge. Furthermore, it is paced in accordance with individual students’ progress.

One technique for facilitating children’s command of the alphabetic principle is to engage them in
building words, which directs their attention to each grapheme in a word. Notably, it is not uncommon
for children who experience difficulty with decoding to demonstrate accurate decoding of the initial

Grade 1 Chapter 3 | 249