Valerie Miller -CCSS Collaboration: Phonics Through fluency

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Phonics Through fluency

So I tried a few new things with phonics last year, and I think it worked out really well. I needed to add more fluency practice into my day and I did not know where to put it. So, I thought of phonics. After introducing the phonics of the week and sorting words by phonics chunk, nouns/verbs, singular/plural etc... I decided to add fluency to the mix. I wrote passages that had the chunk that we were studying. I wrote several versions with the chunk inside so that the kids would have 4 new passages a week (Friday was review/test day). I also wrote 2 versions of each passage (one at a lower level and one at a higher level). I wanted the kids to have as many opportunities with the words as possible. During word work (Daily 5 time) later they would also have the opportunity to find the phonics chunks in texts. I also was having a hard time fitting sight word practice into the day. So I had the kids sort out the phonics chunk and pull out and sort sight words. This latter part, the sight words, gave me more than I bargained for. Since the kids were reading the passage, pulling out the sight words, and writing the sight words daily they became SUPER at writing and reading those sight words, and I loved that it was all in the context of a story. We added other things like phonics games in word work Daily 5, but for the most part the fluency routine and sorts were the bulk of it. This class I had did remarkable on our end of the year fluency and I think teaching phonics this way was part of it. If interested I added some links to the units on TPT. I just bundled the long vowel units in 2 versions (1 just a few no prep games/centers and 1 with a large variety of centers/games). I'm going to write units for the short vowels this summer so I can start my year with it. Below is one story from the oo unit that one of my students highlighted. They then wrote the words in the sort. I like the written sorts because it really helps them with their fine motor and writing fluency.