Discover Phonics - PROGRAM SAMPLER

10 PHILOSOPHY AND RESEARCH Today, there is an extensive body of knowledge and research upon which to base early literacy instruction. Teaching students to read is crucial, as it affects all other academic achievement. According to Moats (2020), “By the year 2000, after decades of multidisciplinary research, the scientific community achieved broad consensus regarding the essential components of effective reading instruction. Two decades later, hundreds of additional studies have refined and consolidated what is known to bolster reading achievement.”This program capitalizes on research to create an engaging literacy environment for all students. Discover Phonics prepares students with the knowledge and skills grounded in the Science of Reading , so they become successful readers. Students gain an evidence-based knowledge of the core components of reading (phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension). The primary focus of this curriculum is on two essential building blocks of reading: phonemic awareness and phonics. As students develop necessary core knowledge and skills, they are simultaneously set up to develop the joy of reading! Through proven strategies that incorporate poetry, music, art and movement, children can enjoy learning to read in exciting ways! Phonemic Awareness It is important for students to notice and work with individual sounds in spoken words before moving to written forms. This is called phonemic awareness. It involves being able to isolate, identify and segment sounds. Students begin blending sounds to form words. This is done at the listening and speaking level first. That is what distinguishes it from phonics. Research indicates those who develop phonemic awareness learn to read and spell more efficiently (National Reading Panel, 2000; Kame'enui et al 2002; Foorman et al, 2016 ). Research specifically supports activities that focus on the following areas as effective—all of which are explicitly included in this curriculum: Phoneme manipulation Students engage in ways to work with phonemes in words by manipulating the phonemes. The manipulation includes: blending phonemes to make words, segmenting words into phonemes, deleting phonemes fromwords, adding phonemes to words, or substituting one phoneme for another to make a new word. Blending Students combine individual phonemes to form words by blending the phonemes. They also are blending when they combine onsets and rimes to make syllables and combine syllables to make words. Segmenting Students break words into their individual phonemes to segment the words. They also segment words into syllables and syllables into onsets and rimes. (National Institute for Literacy, 2003). Phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when children are taught to manipulate phonemes by using the letters of the alphabet. Phonics Students must develop knowledge of the sound- system relationship. Phonics instruction teaches children the relationships between the letters (graphemes) of written language and the individual sounds (phonemes) of spoken language. Students then learn to use these relationships to read and write words. Research has consistently proven that explicit instruction in phonics is an essential. This curriculum helps teachers to explicitly and systematically: • instruct students in how to relate letters and sounds, how to break spoken words into sounds, and how to blend sounds to form words; • help students understand why they are learning the relationships between letters and sounds; • help students apply their knowledge of phonics as they read words, sentences, and text; • help students apply what they learn about sounds and letters to their own writing;