An introduction to systematic and explicit phonics.

3. Early success in acquiring reading
skills usually leads to later
successes in reading as the learner
grows, while failing to learn to read
before the third or fourth year of
schooling may be indicative of life-
long problems in learning new skills.

4.  According to UNESCO, one-fifth of
the world’s adult population can not
make informed decisions because of
their lack of literacy skills.
 According to former Undersecretary
Juan Miguel Luz, “We are graduating
people who learn less and less.”

5. Reading is acquiring meaning from
written texts.
Reading is a paradox because it
looks so simple, yet, it is so difficult to
learn.

6. “Reading and literacy skills are some of the
most important skills a child with learning
disabilities and other reading difficulties can
master during the early years of schooling,
because reading skills are the basis for
subsequent mastery of almost every subject
area.” -William N. Bender and Elizabeth J.
Larkin

7. • Reading is not natural (Moats, 1999).
• Reading is a cultural invention (Pinker, 2004).
• Failure in one’s ability to read results in
unpleasant experiences for children with reading
difficulties and it hinders academic achievement
(Stanovich,1994).
• Exposure to print is a good predictor of general
knowledge skills (Stanovich and Cunningham,
1998)

8. • Instruction should be based on explicit
and systematic phonics (National
Reading Panel, 2000)
• Young readers need phonological
instruction in early literacy instruction
• Teaching of reading should be based
on evidence-based practices.

10. • Reading is complex to learn and
complicated to teach.
• A positive attitude in teaching reading
is simply not enough.
• In teaching reading, you have to know
all the steps and, most importantly,
recognize the missteps (Carnine and
colleagues, 2010).

11. • Systematic entails that lessons are
carefully sequenced and planned
• Explicit means that a teacher is telling
the children what he or she is trying to
teach.
• At present, publishers use the term
systematic and explicit phonics the
wrong way.

12. • Systematic instruction has 2 important
terms: scope and sequence.
• Scope includes the content of the
phonics instruction.
• Sequence defines an order of teaching
letter-sound correspondences.
• Lessons are carefully planned and
sequenced.
• Systematic is across a period of time.

13. • Typical letter sequence taught in
schools: a, b, c, d, e, f, g…..
• Carefully sequenced introduction of
letter sounds: a, m, t, s, i, f…..
• Letter sounds with great utility are
taught first and similar letters are
sequenced far apart to avoid confusion

14. • Teaching kids directly what they need
to learn.
• Instruction is scaffolded to ensure
mastery and success.
• Teacher follows a My Turn-Together-
Your Turn model in teaching.
• There is provision for error correction

15. • My Turn: I will sound out this word:
/s/-/a/-/t/ “sat”.
• Together: Sound out this word with
me: /s/-/a/-/t/ “sat”
• You Turn: Sound out this word: /s/-/a/-
/t/ “sat”

16. • Phonemic Awareness Skills
• Phonics and Word Identification
• Explicit instruction on reading fluency to
enable kids to read fast and accurately
• Explicit strategies on vocabulary and word
analysis.
• Explicit and guided instruction on reading
comprehension

17. • The DIBELS measures assess the 5 Big Ideas in
early literacy identified by the National Reading
Panel:
• Phonemic Awareness
• Alphabetic Principle
• Accuracy and Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension

18. • Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear,
identify, blend, segment and manipulate
individual sounds in spoken words.
• Phonemic awareness instruction helps all
children improve their reading, including
normally developing readers, children at risk
for reading difficulties, disabled readers,
preschool readers and elementary readers
(National Reading Panel, 2000)
• Focus only on blending and segmenting.

19. • Systematic and explicit phonics
instruction is most effective for children
with learning disabilities when
combined with synthetic phonics
(National Reading Panel, 2000)
• Systematic synthetic phonics improve
spelling abilities of children

20. • Children learn meanings of words
indirectly by engaging in
conversations, listening to adults
and reading on their own.
• Direct instruction is useful alongside
natural word learning.

21. • Guided, repeated oral-reading
procedures that improve reading fluency
have a positive impact on word
recognition and comprehension
• Fluency can be improved by having
students read and reread at a certain
number of times or until a certain level
of accuracy and speed are reached
(National Reading Panel, 2000)

22. • Fluency instruction leads to gains in
comprehension. (RRSG, 2002)
• Text comprehension can be
improved by instruction that helps
readers use specific
comprehension strategies (National
Reading Panel, 2000)