• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Courses
    • Teaching Every Reader
    • Teaching Every Writer
  • Subscriber Freebies
  • About
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • Member Login

The Measured Mom

Education resources for parents and teachers

  • Alphabet
  • Reading
    • Structured literacy
    • Printable Books
    • Pre-Reading
    • Phonics
    • Sight Words
    • Comprehension
    • Fluency
    • Vocabulary
  • Writing
    • Grammar
    • Handwriting
    • Spelling
    • Writing in Pre-K
    • Writing in K-3
  • Math
    • Counting
    • Number Recognition
    • Addition & Subtraction
    • Colors, Shapes & Patterns
    • Visual Discrimination
    • Time, Money & Measurement
    • Place Value
    • Graphs
    • Multiplication & Division
    • Fractions
    • Problem Solving
  • Book Lists
    • Letter of the Week
    • Early Childhood Themes
    • Pre-Reading Skills
    • Math Concepts
    • Writing Mentor Texts
    • Versions of Familiar Tales
    • Holidays and Seasonal
    • History
    • Leveled Book Lists
  • Join Membership
Home
  • Shop
  • Blog
    • Alphabet
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Math
    • Book Lists
  • Podcast
  • Courses
    • Teaching Every Reader
    • Teaching Every Writer
  • Subscriber Freebies
  • About
  • Membership
  • Contact

PSPKK1233 Comments

What is sound-symbol association in a structured literacy classroom?

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sharing is caring!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

It’s time for another post in our structured literacy series! Today we’ll look at teaching sound-symbol association.

Have you been following along with our series about structured literacy?

We’ve defined structured literacy, compared it to balanced literacy, and explained how to teach phonology in a structured literacy classroom.

Today we’re going for the big one … sound-symbol association.

What is sound-symbol association?

We’re teaching kids to associate sounds (phonemes) with symbols (graphemes).

In other words?

Phonics.

Like it or not, phonics has been a hot button topic for decades.

These days, nearly everyone agrees that kids need phonics. We just disagree about the why, what, when, and how.

Let’s tackle the “why” first.  Why do we need to teach phonics? Don’t some people learn to read by reading whole words?

Here’s the thing.

Why we need to teach phonics

Skilled readers use phonics to read words. 

This isn’t intuitive.

I know it feels like you’re reading words as wholes as you breeze through this blog post. But if you were truly doing that with everything you read, you’d have images of over 30,000 words in your brain at once. Scientists tell us that’s just not possible.1

(And even if it were possible, how could we explain that you read the same words in different fonts, or in miXeD CAses? You’d need images of all of those in your brain too.)2

Scientists tell us that skilled readers are actually (very, very rapidly) matching the sounds to the letters as they read. While we may refer to context to help us define a word or understand the text, we solve words by matching the phonemes to the graphemes (i.e., we use phonics).

This means that even that rare number of people (around 5%) who learn to read without direct instruction3 are using phonics. They just figured it out on their own.

It helps to know how the brain learns to read.

I published a whole podcast episode about this, but here’s the quick version: our brains are not “hard-wired” to read. We have to train them to read. We do this by helping different parts of the brain work together to allow us to sound out words and permanently “map” them into our sight word vocabulary.

What phonics skills do kids need to learn?

As we stated earlier in this series, a key feature of structured literacy is that instruction is systematic, sequential, and explicit.

This means that we need to know the order that we’re going to teach phonics skills. And we’re going to follow it. (This doesn’t mean we can’t differentiate as needed, but we’re not going to be haphazard about phonics instruction.)

A suggested sequence for teaching phonics skills

There is no universal sequence for teaching phonics skills; every program is different. There is not one right way.

Likely, you have a phonics curriculum. You should follow its scope and sequence.

But if you’re looking for ideas, here is a possible order.

  • Consonants and short vowel sounds … taught in an order that allows children to start reading short words as soon as possible
  • CVC words
  • Beginning digraphs (thin, ship, chat, etc.)
  • Double final consonants (fill, kiss, etc.)
  • Beginning and ending blends (frog, stun, band, dust, etc.)
  • Simple suffixes (cats, bigger)
  • CVCE words (bake, dime, etc.)
  • Y as a vowel (fly)
  • Long vowel teams (weed, rain, toad, etc.)
  • R-controlled vowels (cart, fork, bird, fur, germ)
  • Diphthongs and other long vowel patterns (saw, boy, haul, coin)
  • Prefixes and suffixes (redid, unpack, careless, sitting)
  • 6 syllable types are taught throughout the above sequence as appropriate (open, closed, silent e, vowel team, r-controlled, consonant+le)

When do kids need phonics instruction?

Kids need phonics instruction after they have at least some level of phonemic awareness. They must understand how to break words apart into their individual sounds (phonemes) and how to blend those phonemes to make words.

Phonics will not work if kids do not have phonemic awareness.

Assuming kids have the necessary pre-reading skills, you can start teaching phonics as young as preschool.

I always taught my kids all their letters and sounds before teaching them to read.

But if your students have phonemic awareness, you can go ahead and teach beginning reading while you teach the letters and sounds.

Just make sure you teach the sounds in an order that allows your learners to read words quickly (for example, teach the short sound of a early on so they can read simple three-letter words).

Kids definitely need structured phonics lessons in kindergarten, first, and second grade. Older, struggling readers will need focused phonics in third grade and beyond.

How should we teach phonics?

We teach daily focused phonics lessons that look something like this, as recommended by Wiley Blevins.4

  • Begin with review. Have children reread a passage or brief story from a previous lesson.
  • Do quick phonemic awareness exercises.
  • Directly teach the new sound/spelling relationship
  • Model how to blend words with the new sound-spelling and give children practice blending words.
  • Have children build words using letter cards or magnetic letters.
  • Provide decodable text with words that are decodable based on sound-spellings that have been previously taught.
  • Dictate words using the new and previously learned sound-spellings for children to write.

Did you catch that last bullet?

We want to make sure that our phonics instruction includes both decoding and encoding. Encoding is the spelling piece. It’s helping kids break words apart into sounds, and it’s a crucial part of phonics instruction in a structured literacy classroom.

Final thoughts

In today’s post we discussed why we need to teach phonics. We looked at a possible sequence for teaching phonics skills, noted that children need phonics instruction in K-2 (and perhaps later), and we looked at the recommended pieces of a phonics lesson.

Stay tuned for the rest of our series!

CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTABLE VERSION OF THIS BLOG POST

 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

 

  1. “How We Remember Words and Why Some Children Don’t” presentation by David Kilpatrick
  2. Equipped for Reading Success, by David Kilpatrick
  3. Nancy Young’s Ladder of Reading
  4. Phonics from A to Z, by Wiley Blevins

Free Reading Printables for Pre-K-3rd Grade

Join our email list and get this sample pack of time-saving resources from our membership site! You'll get phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension resources ... all free!

Sharing is caring!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Reading, Phonics, Science of reading, Structured literacy Tagged With: third grade, kindergarten, first grade, second grade

You May Also Enjoy These Episodes:

Games for a-e words 25 low-prep sight word activities How to implement Readers Theater
Do’s and don’ts for using decodable texts with beginning readers
The difference between balanced and structured literacy

Reader Interactions

3 Comments

  1. Elizabeth Bain

    September 23, 2021 at 3:34 pm

    HI!

    I recently found your site and stumbled upon the Structured Literacy series. I have a son who is struggling, this is what has developed the somewhat obsession I now have with learning everything I can to help him. The other blog posts in this series has a printable download and I’m wondering if there’s anyway, this one can also be made into one. I’m on the go all the time and I like to take readings with me, and highlight (I’m a bit “old school”).

    I appreciate all the teachings and lessons you both have given on structured literacy!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      September 24, 2021 at 11:05 am

      Thank you for your interest and your request, Elizabeth! We’ve added a pdf version of the blog post at the end of it. 🙂

      Reply to this comment

Trackbacks

  1. What is Structured Literacy? - This Reading Mama says:
    April 20, 2021 at 6:17 am

    […] Sound-Symbol Association – Helping learners make the right connections between letters and their sounds so they can […]

    Reply to this comment

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Grade Level Key

  • PS Preschool (ages 2-3 years)
  • PK Pre-K (ages 4-5 years)
  • K Kindergarten
  • 1 1st grade
  • 2 2nd grade
  • 3 3rd grade

Hello, I’m Anna!

Welcome to The Measured Mom. I’m so glad you’re here!

Meet Our Team

Free Reading Printables for Pre-K-3rd Grade

Join our email list and get this sample pack of time-saving resources from our membership site! You'll get phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension resources ... all free!

Shop these popular reading resources!

Editable Reading Games for Every Season – MEGA PACK!

$24.00

Phonics Books & Games – Complete Set

$49.00

Reading response sheets & Early chapter book lists

$18.00

Shop All Resources

Members get more!

The Measured Mom Plus is the perfect online membership for Pre-K to third grade educators.

Learn More

Love Freebies?

Subscribing to our email newsletter is completely free. And when you do, you'll get access to our library of subscriber freebies! Sign up below to get access to a wonderful variety of math and literacy resources.

Join our online courses and get the tools you need to teach every learner in K-2!

Confidently teach every reader in your classroom. Still have time to live your life.

Learn More

Get everything you need to teach writing well, including over 200 ready-to-use lessons.

Learn More

Listen and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher

Check out these recent podcast episodes:

  • My response to Jan Richardson & Michele Dufresne, Part 1
  • 6 Things to remember about the science of reading
  • What order should we teach the letters of the alphabet?
More Episodes

Check out these FREE email courses...

Get strategies and tools to teach a particular topic with a free 5-day email series! Just click an image to sign up. We recommend signing up for just one at a time.

For Pre-K Educators

How to teach letters and sounds to preschoolers

How to teach letters and sounds to preschoolers

Learn my must-follow tips for teaching the alphabet in this free 5-day email series!

How to teach phonological & phonemic awareness

How to teach phonological & phonemic awareness

Learn how to develop this important pre-reading skill with a free 5-day email series!

How to teach preschool math

How to teach preschool math

Learn exactly what to teach your preschoolers in this free 5-day series!

For Kinder & 1st Grade Educators

How to teach kids to sound out words

How to teach kids to sound out words

Learn my top strategies for teaching kids to "sound it out"

How to teach sight words

How to teach sight words

Get strategies and tools for teaching sight words to young learners!

Tips for teaching phonics

Tips for teaching phonics

Sign up for our free 5-day email series to learn what phonics skills to teach and how to structure your phonics lessons!

For 2nd & 3rd Grade Educators

How to build reading fluency

How to build reading fluency

Learn smart strategies for helping your learners become fluent readers with this free 5-day series!

How to teach writing in 2nd & 3rd grade

How to teach writing in 2nd & 3rd grade

Learn the most important writing skills to teach to 2nd & 3rd graders in this free 5-day series!

How to build reading comprehension

How to build reading comprehension

Discover the essential reading comprehension strategies for 2nd & 3rd grade and how to teach them!

“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” –Matthew 6:33

Copyright © 2023 The Measured Mom •  All rights reserved  •  Privacy & Disclosure Statement  •  Site Design by Emily White Designs