Parts of a Phonics Lesson - SOR Aligned with 3 freebies!

The Science of Reading is the collection of extensive research that tell us the most effective way to teach reading. (Read more here: The Reading League). In kindergarten and first grade, a main part of this is PHONICS instruction. In this post, I will teach you the recommended parts of a daily phonics lesson.

Researchers recommend that you allot 30-45 minutes daily to phonics instruction. In this block, you are teaching foundational skills for decoding words. Decoding is breaking the code of the English language, also known as sounding out words. Balanced Literacy (now a bad word in the world of literacy instruction) pushed the thought that we could use the pictures and the context clues to essentially guess what unknown words are. This is called the 3-cueing system (anyone remember the Beanie Baby reading strategies?--read more about that here: The Reading League.) This 3-cueing system should be eliminated from beginning reading instruction for good. The only cue we need to give a stuck reader is: SOUND OUT THE WORD!

Since most educators did not learn all of this in college (shame on our teacher prep programs), my goal is to educate and make it as simple as possible to follow the research in your explicit phonics instruction. 

Below I have given you a peek into my SOR aligned kindergarten phonics lesson slides. HERE IS A FREE WEEK TO TRY IT OUT! The slide examples are not all from the same lesson. This is a project that I am working on and will be adding to as I complete and tweak the lessons as I teach them this year.

The first part of a phonics lesson should be telling the students the goal of the lesson.

This introduction to the lesson follows the good teaching practice of stating the objective of the lesson.

Next up is phonological awareness. To learn more about what this it, click here: phonological awareness. The most recent research says that the main focus of phonological awareness should be on blending and segmenting, and that it should be a relatively short chunk of time. A curriculum like Heggerty is probably overkill. I have used and am a fan of Tools 4 Learning by Mary E. Dahlgren, Ed.D. This program was acquired by 95 Percent Group. Click below to see it on their website.

Spiral review has been a long-used, highly effective practice to review previous learning before adding to it. The is also sometimes called interleaved practice. In phonics lessons, this can be done through drills like using flashcards. My review slides are like digital flashcards.

This includes reviewing sight words or heart words.

After reviewing previous learning, it is time to add new learning. One of the most important parts of explicit phonics instruction is using a logical scope and sequence. Here is what I use: 

 Click to download the freebie.

As you can see, it is very scripted which is what makes it explicit. Students need to be taught these skills. We tried learning through exposure with Balanced Literacy. It didn't work. Explict phonics instruction does work! 

Of course the reason for reading is to understand. We can teach and expand the vocabulary included in the other parts of the lesson. Using real pictures is the best way to help students make mental images of what words mean. The sentence we will be reading together is 'We went to the shop.'

The guided practice can look different depending on the objective of the lesson and how many days students have been exposed to the concept. My scope and sequence allows 2-5 days for each concept. This guided practice is showing students that in plural words that have t and p, the s says /s/ and in words that have g, n, and b, the s says /z/. 

Here is another type of guided practice from a later lesson in the year on /sh/.

Phonics lessons need many opportunities for students to decode and encode words with the new concept. Decoding is reading and encoding is spelling. 

Using manipulative letters like magnet letters are another way for extended practice. The teacher talk is alternating between having the student decode and encode for practice on both.

These trays are dollar store cookie sheets. I wrote the alphabet on them with sharpie. The letters came from here: Abecedarian ABC, LLC

When students are just learning letter sounds, the dictation can simply be individual letters like this:

Click to see this resource in my store.

Later, you can dictate words. I like to use Elkonin boxes for dictation. Here is a sound mapping mat I use: 

Click to get it for free.

Here is another example of dictation of heart words: 

This girl loved to pretend her name was Barbie! :)

As students learn more, you can dictate sentences. 
Here is a dictation paper freebie with different sizes of lines to accommodate different skill levels:

Reading text is the final part of a phonics lesson. Some experts recommend reading multiple sentences and passages as soon as students know enough letter sounds and heart words to make sentences. As a classroom teacher, I have tried this, and it was very frustrating for my students. I also struggle with pushing kids too much too fast. So, I have chosen to delay this until the second half of kindergarten and only for those who are ready. There are many decodables becoming available. Here are some that I have used successfully.

UFLI

My Nerdy Teacher

Deedee Wills


This part of the lesson is for practice of all the skills new readers are learning. PLEASE use decodables instead of leveled readers in kindergarten and first grade. Leveled readers are part of Balanced Literacy and are not helpful to beginning readers who are learning to decode. 

Comprehension should not be taught using decodables. These simple texts are not challenging enough to improve comprehension skills. Use read-alouds to teach comprehension. I will address this in a future blog post. 

I hope this helps you along your SOR journey!