Creating the Best Phonics Scope and Sequence: Phonics Rules for Teachers Episode 8

Learn the best order to teach sounds to your students and what makes a strong phonics scope and sequence. In this video, Martha explains step by step the order an ideal phonics curriculum would follow and why.

A classroom teacher with 10 years of experience, Martha Moore hosts the Phonics Rules for Teachers Podcast. Drawing from her personal journey, she shares insights on transitioning from traditional teaching methods to a phonics-centered approach and the impact it has on students' reading and writing.

Each week , Martha shares a simple phonics rule, strategy, or background information and how you can teach it in your classroom.

For resources to go along with this series, visit the Phonics Rules for Teachers landing page: https://www.myprimaryparadise.com/prft/

Transcript

Do you want to know the best order to teach sounds? Come on, let's take a [Music] look.

Welcome to Episode 8 of Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them. I'm Martha, and this week we are going to be talking about the best order to teach letter sounds. That's right, I'm going to be sharing the secret with you to creating the best scope and sequence.

You might be wondering, is there one correct order to teach letter sounds? Is there one best phonics scope and sequence that you should be following in your classroom? Well, I'm here to tell you today, the answer is no. There is not one best, perfect order to teach phonics sounds to your students. However, there are some principles that you can follow so your students are successful.

Today we're going to take a look at some of the things to keep in mind when you're developing a phonics scope and sequence and why the order you teach sounds does matter. But rest assured, there isn't one single perfect way to teach phonics sounds. As long as you are following a logical sequence when you are teaching phonics sounds with your students, it will help them grow with their decoding and their encoding skills.

While there isn't one perfect way to teach sounds to your students, there are four principles to keep in mind when you are developing a scope and sequence for your classroom or for your school.

1. The sounds that you teach should progress from simpler sounds to more complex sounds. Just like we don't start our kindergarteners learning algebra, when we're teaching phonics sounds, you're going to start with the more simple sounds.
2. The sounds should progress from more common to less common. While "ey" for example can spell the long "a" sound, it's only used in a small percentage of words. The goal with following a logical scope and sequence is to get our students applying their knowledge so that they are able to read and write. This is why we start with simple and more common sounds and then move to more complex sounds or sounds that are less common.
3. The scope and sequence should be consistent across grade levels. Developing a scope and sequence should be a schoolwide initiative. It's important that it's aligned vertically so your first graders can pick up where your kindergarten left off. You don't want sounds to be missing because it's assumed that another grade has taught those sounds. It's also important to have some overlap at the beginning and the end of the year to account for potential summer slide or gaps in knowledge.
4. The scope and sequence should be a roadmap and not a law. Lastly, when creating a scope and sequence, it's important to realize that not all children progress at the same time. If a grade 2 student hasn't mastered all of the grade one sounds, that doesn't mean you just keep plugging along for them. It should be used like a roadmap. If someone's a bit further back on the route, they need to work where they are now.

Let's take a look at what order should a strong scope and sequence follow. While the exact order of many scope and sequences vary a bit, there are some guiding principles that most scope and sequences follow that make a scope and sequence strong.

Again, we start with the simpler and more common sounds and work towards the more complex and less common sounds. A strong scope and sequence is going to begin with single letter consonant sounds and short vowels. The exact order in which you teach these sounds might vary a bit, but no matter what exact order you follow, you should have some vowels mixed in with the consonant sounds so that students can begin to build words and read words right away.

Some factors to consider when you're deciding the order of single letter sounds are these:

• Don't teach similar sounds too close together. Although I do think that teaching "C" and "K" very close together makes sense because they are the exact same sound when we're talking about the most common sound that they represent.
• Be sure to teach vowels right along with the consonants that you are teaching so that way students are able to read and build words right away.
• Don't spend too long on a single sound, but do work on the sounds in context.
• And as you're learning new sounds, be sure to continue to practice with the old sounds that your students have already learned.

And teach closed syllables at the same time that you're teaching short vowels and single letter sounds.

Here's an example of an order that I would use to teach single letter sounds and short vowels:

• If you'd like to see the entire sample scope and sequence written out, you can find it in my "How the Heck to Teach It: Phonics Rules for Teachers" supplementary resource.

When you're choosing which single letter sounds and which short vowels to teach, you want to start with the most common sounds and work towards the least common sounds. That will give students the ability to get started using the words and the sounds in context right away.

After students have learned the single letter sounds and short vowels, you can move on to consonant digraphs. A digraph is two letters that represent one sound. You can also continue to focus on closed syllables. The consonant digraphs that I recommend starting with would be "sh," "CH," "th" (which can be voiced and unvoiced), "CK," "ng," and "wh."

After teaching consonant digraphs, once your students have a strong understanding of short vowels and closed syllables, I like to move on to long vowels. First, before teaching anything else, I like to talk about open syllables. Open syllables are a great way to introduce long vowels because they connect very well with closed syllables.

I've already spoken a little bit about open and closed syllables in previous videos, so you can check those out. I will also be talking really deeply into how to teach closed syllables and open syllables in future episodes.

After you've taught open syllables, you can move on to the silent "E" spelling pattern. Most of the time, the silent "E" spelling pattern produces a long vowel sound. At the same time as you're teaching these spelling patterns, a silent "E," "i silent E," "o silent E," and so on, you can also talk about the other jobs of silent "E."

From there, I like to move on to vowel teams. There are a lot of vowel teams in the English language, and some of those vowel teams produce long vowel sounds, some produce diphthong sounds, and some produce short vowel sounds.

Again, our goal is to start with the most common spelling patterns and then move to the less common spelling patterns. For example, it makes sense to start with spelling patterns like "ea," "ai," "ay," and then save the spelling patterns that are a bit less common for later on, like "ey."

Here's an example of the order that I would teach the vowel teams. Again, you can see this completely written out on the supplementary resource.

From there, you can introduce R-controlled spelling patterns. This is also a great time to introduce the R-controlled syllable. You could also teach R-controlled spelling patterns while you are teaching vowel teams, or you can save it for after. Some curriculums even teach R-controlled spelling patterns before they teach vowel teams. Again, the goal is just to move from more common sounds to less common sounds.

When I'm teaching R-controlled spelling patterns, I like to teach "AR," then "or," and then "er," "ur," "ir," and "air" in that order. "Er" is the most common spelling pattern for the "r" sound, so I teach that one first and then continue again to the least common sound, which is "air."

Finally, you can move on to less common spelling patterns. These spelling patterns might be, for example, "ph," "ea" that says "a." Some of these spelling patterns might be spelling patterns that you've already taught, but you're going to teach other sounds that those spelling patterns can represent. Again, the goal here is to go from the most common and simplest sounds to the less common and more complex sounds.

Once students have a good understanding of most of the spelling patterns in the English language, you might be wondering where do we go from here? What do we do with our second graders and our third graders and beyond? Well, there is still a lot more to unpack and there's still a lot more to learn. After your students have a good understanding of these types of spelling patterns, then you can move on to things such as prefixes, suffixes, and begin to talk about the morphology of the English language. But that's a video for another time.

Now I hope you feel confident to create a phonics scope and sequence for your classroom or your school going from the most common patterns and the simplest patterns to the least common patterns and the more complex patterns. If you would like to get an example scope and sequence and more resources to go along with "Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them," check out my "How the Heck to Teach It" resource, which is available at the link in the description. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and if you have any comments or questions about what you learned today, please drop them below. Thank you so much for joining me for this week's episode of "Phonics Rules for Teachers and How the Heck to Teach Them." I'm Martha Moore. See you next time. [Music]