Chapter 4. Phonics: Breaking the Code to Words
Constance Beecher and Emily Hayden
“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” – Walt Disney
Keywords: decoding, phonics, phonemes, graphemes, morphemes, consonants, vowels
Iowa Core State Standards (Please check your state standards)
Phonics falls under the foundational standards of literacy.
Iowa Core Standards for Literacy
Phonics and word recognition. RF.K.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
- Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant.
- Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
- Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
- Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
RF.1.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
- Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.
- Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.
- Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.
- Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.
- Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.
- Read words with inflectional endings.
- Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.
RF.2.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
- Distinguish long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one-syllable words.
- Know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams.
- Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.
- Decode words with common prefixes and suffixes.
- Identify words with inconsistent but common spelling-sound correspondences.
- Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.
RF.3.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
- Identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and derivational suffixes.
- Decode words with common Latin suffixes.
- Decode multisyllable words.
- Read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.
During word-study time in Ms. Hradecká’s first-grade class, you can find three busy homogenous groups. Children are grouped with others who are working on the same level of phonics principles. She follows Bear et al.’s (2008) “circle-seat-center” routine (p. 70). While Group 1 is doing a teacher-directed word-study lesson in a circle, Group 2 is working on literacy activities in centers, and Group 3 is doing word games and activities independently at their seats. After 10-15 minutes, the groups rotate. Group 2 joins the teacher, Group 3 moves to the centers, and Group 1 returns to their seats.
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