The Components of a Structured Phonics Lesson Part 2

Last week, we talked all about creating a structured phonics lesson. I shared with you that my phonics lessons are broken down into three main categories.

Review and Warm Ups
Explicitly Teach New Phonics Skills
Application of Skills

We also talked about the importance of making sure our lessons are explicit, systematic, and consistent. If you missed this part one, you should go back and read it first.

Today we are going to take a look at how to explicitly teach new phonics skills and how to ensure our students are applying those skills in print.

Explicitly teach new Phonics Skill

There are SO many activities out there for teaching phonics, but we have to remember that CONSISTENCY piece. I would encourage you to choose 4-5 solid activities and stick to them. Be sure that the activities you choose are strong. When I say strong I mean:

They connect sound to symbol.
They encourage decoding and encoding.
They focus on the phonics skill you are teaching.
They have built-in review.
They are easy for you and the students to do.

Here are some of my go-to activities. You can read all about them here.

Word Chaining
Phoneme Grapheme Mapping
Segment and Write
Fluency Grids
Picture Sorts

I also love these activities because they are universal! I don’t have to spend a ton of time printing, laminating, and cutting materials. I can easily print them once and reuse them over and over.

Once we have explicitly taught a phonics skill, it is time to apply it. We do this through the use of decodable texts and dictation. Let’s take a look at both.

Decodable Text

A decodable text is carefully sequenced to incorporate letter-sound correspondences that have been previously taught to a reader. These texts come in a variety of forms, but their ultimate goal is to give students practice on their phonics skills in context. Sometimes, your students need you to gradually release them. I typically follow this progression:

Word Level
Sentence Level
Text Level

This allows students to practice phonics skills, while gradually increasing the number of words they see on the page. If you want to learn more about decodable text, you can read my post here.

Dictation

Dictation is the action of saying words aloud, that can be typed or written down. Dictation can also be done at different levels. I use the following types of dictation in my small group all the time.

Sound Dictation
Word Dictation
Sentence Dictation

When we practice this alongside our phonics lessons, students recognize the connection. However, this (just like reading) does not come naturally to our students. Here are three ways to help your students transfer this knowledge.

TIP #1 EXPLICITLY MODEL ENCODING AND DO IT FREQUENTLY

Take time each day to write sounds, a word, or a sentence with your students. As you are writing, think aloud for your students. This allows them to actually see and hear the process that you will be asking them to practice.

TIP #2 REVIEW PREVIOUSLY TAUGHT PHONICS PATTERNS

Sometimes we forget to spiral or review previously taught phonics patterns. The truth is, reviewing is often what helps it stick. When I am working on an encoding lesson, I try to include both old patterns and new patterns.

TIP #3 USE SOUND BOXES

Using sound boxes is a great way to start encoding with your students. Sound boxes allow students to apply their phonemic awareness skills as they push chips to sound out the word, and then connect phonics to writing as they write the sounds they hear inside each box. I love using this activity in kindergarten once they have a few consonants and at least one vowel under their belt.

As you can see, there are a lot of moving pieces when it comes to teaching phonics. But, every single component is important.

Did you know that with the right tools at your fingertips, you can plan a phonics lesson in less than 5 minutes???

YUP! It’s true.

With all of the noise on social media about the Science of Reading and phonics instruction, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed (even overstimulated).

What we really need to do is focus on delivering explicit, systematic, and consistent phonics lessons to our students without any fluff.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t still have fun, it just means we need to keep our routines clean and clear so that our students can grasp the concept and we don’t spend HOURS planning!!

I am here to tell you that it is possible! If you enjoyed this blog post, click the links below, and get to planning!!

Step 1: Watch this short video.

Step 2: Download this free editable template.

Step 3: Watch the Phonics Roadmap Recording

Step 4: Snag the phonics bundles you need at 40% OFF this week only (Code: YESPLEASE)