How to Teach New Sounds

 Hi friends!

I have always had the fortune of working with some incredibly talented and knowledgeable colleagues who have taught me much in terms of best practice. Through observations, my own professional development and reading, I have development a specific and effective way of structuring my phonics instruction. 

I have had great success with this method and have honed it over a few years of practice. I have often started the school year with 30% of my class reading below standard, and finished the school year with less than 5% still below level. It works. 

My phonics instruction block is a quick 20-25 minute session that keeps students engaged and learning a bunch. In this post I am going to outline minute-by-minute my method of phonics instruction.

0-3 minutes

Review Phase

Using flashcards, go over previous sounds learned. This is also a great way to watch students individually to see if they are confidently answering or 'going along' with what other students are saying. Frequent and spaced retrieval of information is absolute key to retention. 

3-5 minutes

Introduction Phase

Introduce the sound you are going to teach by writing it on your whiteboard. I like to cover it with my hand and each time I take my hand off, students have to say the sound. We do this around 7-10 times to really make sure students are getting the sound correct. Here is where you give immediate responsive feedback to students about their pronunciation of the sound. I also sometimes like to accompany with cued articulation. I also explicitly tell students the sensations they should feel and where the parts of their mouth should be. For example for 'v', their teeth should touch their bottom lip and they should feel a vibration when they touch their throat. 

5-8 minutes

Multi-Sensory Learning Phase

I distribute whiteboards and a marker among students. There are several ways to do this efficiently such as having 2-3 helpers, having a quick line up system, or having the materials on the floor before starting. Do what suits your classroom best and keeps the pace of the lesson quick. 

Students will write the new phoneme on their whiteboard ten times, saying the matching sound each time. 

This section definitely requires a bit of behavior management. Sometimes the temptation to scribble on the boards can be pretty high! I ask students for 'listening boards', where markers are capped, hands are empty and behind backs, and boards are face down on their laps. 

8-12 minutes

Small Scale Application Phase

Continuing on the work with the whiteboards, I will often use this part of the lesson to do one of two activities - car park sounds, or a spelling PowerPoint. 

Car park sounds - I have a list of words using today's phonics focus that change 1-2 sounds each time. Students write the first word on their whiteboards, I then give them another word but they don't rub out the first word. They must listen to what sound changes and rub out only the changing sounds to replace them

Spelling PowerPoint - I have around 10-15 pictures of words that contain today's phonics focus. Students say the word to match the picture and write it on their whiteboards. 

12-20 minutes

Large Scale Application Phase

I love dictation. There is no better way than dictation for students to practice everything they have just learned in the last 15 or so minutes. Settled at their tables with their notebooks, I have a pre-prepared sentence that includes several instances of our focus phoneme. I say the sentence once to students, then read word by word. Students place their hands on their heads when they have finished writing each word so I don't leave anyone behind. Once we are finished, a volunteer reads the sentence to the class. I tell students how many instances of the phoneme they need in their sentence, and ask them to underline the sound each time individually. Finally, students draw a picture to match their sentence.

While students draw, I visit every student individually and review their work. This is so I can provide responsive, immediate feedback on their work. I will ask them to sound out words they have missed and make corrections where needed. I don't generally focus on any mistakes other than what today's lesson focus was. 

And that's it my friends! I keep this the same every day - I want students to find it predictable and have nothing else to concentrate on except the explicit instruction. I hope you have found this post helpful and have some new ideas to try in your classroom. It only takes 20 minutes a day to really catch and help every single student in your class with their decoding and spelling skills. 

Let me know in the comments below if you have tried this with your class!