Ahhh, phonics instruction. It’s such a special experience in a child’s education! Helping kids learn how to read and write is fascinating, rewarding, and developmentally necessary.
Unless it’s not.
If you’ve been trying to help your child or student(s) learn phonics but aren’t seeing reasonable progress, you may need to rethink some of the methods being used.
Nobody’s perfect. There’s always room for improvement, whether it be for students, teachers, or parents. However, several common phonics mistakes in teaching can result in ineffective (and sometimes, detrimental) learning outcomes.
Here are the mistakes to avoid so you can pivot your approach and equip your students with the literacy skills they deserve.
Neglecting Decoding
It used to be common practice in phonics to take a “top-down” approach, beginning with whole words and breaking them down. Some instruction methods today still focus on similar methods. Those involving memorization of whole words or sight words neglect the process of decoding (sounding out words using letter-sound knowledge). Plus, these top-down methods push students to guess words they don’t know, which comes with a whole other set of problems.
Decoding is the most practical and effective skill to teach early readers because it gives them a way to tackle unfamiliar words on their own while still welcoming guidance from parents and teachers. It builds confidence and provides an avenue to overcome new challenges as the child learns phonics.
Reading decodable books is one way that students can put their budding phonics skills to practice. These are books that follow concepts the child has been taught so far. Students can typically read decodable books with great accuracy and then move on to a more advanced book as they grasp new concepts.
Once decoding skills become quick and automatic, students can move onto reading phrases or short sentences. This movement from words to sentences builds fluency and confidence as kids advance from decoding words to sentences, and then whole passages.
Ignoring Vocabulary
Phonics instruction should always be connected with meaning. While children are learning to decode, always discuss the meaning of the words they are reading. Connecting words to meaning while decoding helps with memory and builds language comprehension skills.
It makes sense why: children can’t comprehend the text if they don’t know how to decode the words. At the same time, expanding their vocabulary has also been shown to improve reading development.
Introduce vocabulary words to your child or student so that when they decode new words in print, they’ll be able to successfully comprehend what they’re reading.
Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training
Some phonemic awareness skills, like segmenting and blending, are crucial in learning to read and spell. Several reading programs advise spending a great deal of time on building phonemic awareness skills. Sometimes this instruction is entirely oral and does not use written letters (graphemes).
A recent (2021) study found that “At present, recommendations to spend instructional time on advanced phonemic awareness training outside of print, or that students should develop “phonemic proficiency” to become proficient readers, are not evidence-based” (p. 31).
Focusing on important phonemic awareness skills such as segmenting and blending to spell and read words is advisable. This instruction is better when paired with letters (graphemes).
Lacking Consistent Review of Previous Instruction
If your instruction follows a scope and sequence, great job. To achieve mastery, students need to constantly go back and practice the skills they’ve already learned. You can’t just teach new skills and then move on.
Create opportunities for kids to practice the concepts they’re learning, being careful not to present a rule and then never bring it up again. Use lessons that contain the smallest concept (such as -at endings, -ack endings, or both) and scaffold them into more challenging words or even sentences if the child is at that level.
Repeated review gives students a chance to strengthen the main skills they’re focused on learning but also recall the simpler skills they learned previously.
Failing to Differentiate Instruction
Differentiation is crucial for many students, especially struggling readers or children with learning disabilities. While proven phonics strategies are effective for a majority of learners, not all kids obtain the required skills through standard lessons.
Parents and instructors can seek differentiated instruction to address a child’s learning needs. There are several ways to intervene and/or accommodate a student (or group of students) who may be struggling with phonics so they can still become successful readers. Options include multisensory learning, adapting how a lesson is taught, extending timed tests, or providing one-on-one support.
Following a Phonics Curriculum That Isn’t Explicit or Systematic
Most kids can’t learn to read on their own. The extensive science of reading has proven this. Students need explicit instruction—especially when developing fundamental literacy skills.
Avoid a type of phonics instruction that:
- Requires rote memorization of whole words
- Encourages guessing strategies via context cues (i.e. look at the picture to guess the word)
- Fails to prioritize decoding skills
- Disregards phonemic awareness practice
- Relies heavily on sight words
- Lacks consistent, effective instruction
- Resists differentiated instruction options for struggling students
There are multiple approaches to teaching phonics, several of which can supplement students’ learning when used appropriately. But to instruct phonics in a way that most children can master, teaching must be systematic (following a sequential, logical order) and explicit (providing direct rules, explanations, and guided applications).
Phonics is complex. So, if this list of mistakes to avoid during instruction seems overwhelming, it’s because it can be!
That’s why we’re here.
To find more credible insights related to phonics and literacy development, explore the resources from phonics.org.
