Lessons in Phonics: The Importance of Instruction Being Both Explicit and Systematic

Explicit Instruction & Systematic Instruction: Why Should Educators Utilize Both Instruction Techniques 

Phonics lessons are essential for young children in early childhood classrooms, I discussed why in my previous post What is Phonemic Awareness and Why is it Important. In this post, I will focus on lessons in phonics and discuss instructional strategies that increase student comprehension, engagement, and success. 

Phonemic awareness is a crucial factor in determining student academic success and teaching phonics can be done in several ways, but that does not mean that all methods of phonic instruction are equally beneficial to students. The two instructional techniques I would like to discuss with you all are explicit instruction, which means “the initial introduction of a letter-sound relationship, or phonics skill, is directly stated to students” (International Literacy Association, 2019), and systematic instruction, which includes “a review and repetition cycle to achieve mastery and goes from the known to the new in a way that makes the new learning more obvious and easier for students to grasp” (International Literacy Association, 2019). Explicit and systematic instruction are two independent ideas, educators lead lessons, introduce or review content, and assess student comprehension, in different ways depending on which technique is being utilized, but educators should not use one without the other, both instructional methods should be implemented during class lessons over phonics. It is important that explicit and systematic instruction are both utilized when teaching because one does not work without the other. Educators cannot exclusively use the explicit method of instruction because young children cannot develop, or continue to develop, phonemic awareness without opportunities to experiment with language, review past material, and actively engage with the content themselves. “Reading is not achieved through banking education; nor are knowledge and skills simply transferred from one person’s brain to another’s” (Souto-Manning, Martell, & Ladson-Billings, 2016. pg. 82), meaning that educators cannot just introduce students to new concepts or ideas explicitly, we must also provide ample opportunities for students to actively engage with, and make discoveries about the coursework on their own, “the goal must be to teach to mastery rather than just exposure” (International Literacy Association, 2019). Furthermore, educators cannot exclusively rely on the systematic instructional method because it involves building off of the prior knowledge students have, and since, oftentimes, students need to be introduced to concepts relating to phonics, for example, the relationship between the letter and sound, explicitly by their teacher educators cannot attempt to teach phonics in a systematic way without first using the explicit instructional method. To lead a lesson that builds off of the prior knowledge students have over a certain concept or idea, educators, first, need to explicitly introduce students to the content they will need to expand on to guarantee that they have the proper schemas in place or they will not be able to comprehend the new material they are being introduced to.

Phonics Instructional Failures: Two Common Causes

Phonemic awareness is a crucial component in student academic success, it is our responsibility as early childhood educators to help our young learners develop, practice, and learn phonics, so when our students leave our classroom and advance academically they have the skills they need to be successful. Teaching phonics can be difficult, there are various reasons why a lesson over this content can fail, the ten most common being: Inadequate or Nonexistent Review and Repetition Cycle, Lack of Application to Real Reading and Writing Experiences, Inappropriate Reading Materials to Practice Skills, Ineffective Use of the Gradual Release Model, Too Much Time Lost During Transitions, Limited Teacher Knowledge of Research-Based Phonics Routines and Linguistics, Inappropriate Pacing of Lessons, No Comprehensive or Cumulative Mastery Assessment Tools, Transitioning to Multisyllabic Words Too Late, and Overdoing It [Especially Isolated Skill Work] (International Literacy Association, 2019). I have selected two of the common phonics instructional failures from the list of ten provided to elaborate on and discuss below. 

Limited Teacher Knowledge of Research-Based Phonics Routines and Linguistics

Limited teacher knowledge of research-based phonics routine and linguistics is a common phonics instructional failure within early childhood classrooms. To successfully teach a lesson over phonics, educators must have a complete understanding of, not only what they are teaching, but how to teach it. If educators don’t know how to lead lessons over phonics correctly, this could mean they failed to use both systematic and explicit instructional methods, students comprehension of the content can be negatively impacted, this is because teaching phonics is a multistep learning process in which students gradually build on their prior knowledge to learn new information and, over time, achieve content mastery. Early childhood educators must be knowledgeable “about the acquisition of decoding strategies, vocabulary expansion, and spelling techniques” (Fountas and Pinell, 2019), so they can teach these concepts in a strategic, comprehensive way. Moreover, teachers with “a background in phonics or linguistics are better equipped to make meaningful instructional decisions, analyze student errors, and improve the language and delivery of instruction” (International Literacy Association, 2019), as well as being better equip to model language for their students. 

Inadequate or Nonexistent Review and Repetition Cycle

Another common cause of lessons in phonics failing is an inadequate or nonexistent review and repetition cycle. As I discussed in my first paragraph, one component of teaching phonics is utilizing systematic instruction, which includes review and repetition of content to achieve mastery (International Literacy Association, 2019). If a teacher were to attempt to give a lesson without review and repetition, or a limited amount of either, they will fail to systematically instruct their students, which would make the material less comprehensive. If phonics lessons are not reviewed it could also inhibit students ability to achieve mastery over the subject because “when a new skill is introduced, it should be systematically and purposefully reviewed for at least the next 4–6 weeks… only then can students transfer the skill to all reading situations” (International Literacy Association, 2019), meaning without review and repetition, students may become familiar with the content, but they will not be able to transfer their knowledge and apply the skills they have been taught to their coursework, making the lesson unsuccessful. 

Providing a Blueprint: Examples of Instructional Failures and Successes

There are four lesson scenarios below, two will provide examples of failed lessons, representing the two common phonics instructional failures I discussed above, and two successful or authentic lesson scenarios, in which I edited out the instructional mistakes to showcase how to improve and create a comprehensive and successful lesson in phonics.

Limited Teacher Knowledge of Research-Based Phonics Routines and Linguistics

Failed Lesson 

A kindergarten teacher is leading a lesson in phonics with her class, the goal of the lesson is to help students recognize and know the relationship between specific letters and the sound they represent. The teacher is holding up alphabet flashcards, modeling the sound each letter represents, while the students repeat the sound. The teacher holds up the flashcard for the letter ‘P’ and models the sound for the students, but she fails to clip the sound (Anderson, 2020) and in doing so fails to model the correct /p/ sound and, instead, makes a /puh/ sound. After the class has completed this portion of the lesson, the students move to word work and writing practice, and they must incorporate words beginning in or containing the letter ‘P’. As the teacher walks around the room she notices her students are spelling the words that include the letter ‘P’ incorrectly, several of the spelling mistakes are the letter ‘U’ placed behind the letter ‘P’. 

Successful and Authentic Lesson 

A kindergarten teacher is leading a lesson in phonics with her class, the goal of the lesson is to help students recognize and know the relationship between specific letters and the sound they represent. The teacher is holding up alphabet flashcards, modeling the sound each letter represents, while the students repeat the sound. The teacher holds up the flashcard for the letter “P” and models the /p/ sound for the students. After the class has completed this portion of the lesson, the students move to word work and writing practice, they must incorporate words beginning in or containing the letter ‘P’. As the teacher walks around the room she helps and checks in with her students, many of them asking for help with spelling. When a student asks their teacher for help spelling the word ‘pet’, the teacher encourages them to try sounding the word out, the student can make the individual sounds of the known letters correctly and spell the word with minimal help. 

Inadequate or Nonexistent Review and Repetition Cycle

Failed Lesson 

A kindergarten teacher has been practicing the alphabet and introducing both the upper and lowercase versions of each individual letter to her students. Each letter has its own week, this week the students are working with the letter ‘E’. The teacher is introducing the upper and lowercase letter ‘E’ by reading the book Elephants Cannot Dance by Mo Williems because it has both versions of the letter written in the text multiple times, allowing her multiple opportunities to point out the connection between the upper and lowercase form to her student. After the read aloud, the teacher continues letter work with her students by having them find the letter ‘E’, in both upper and lowercase, within the classroom. As the week goes on, the students focus more on the letter-sound relationship and do not review the relationship between the upper and lowercase letters. Letter 'E' week is complete the students move on to the next letter, ‘F’, and do not review the letters covered during past weeks. 

Successful and Authentic Lesson 

A kindergarten teacher has been practicing the alphabet and introducing both the upper and lowercase versions of each individual letter to her students. Each letter has its own week, this week the students are working with the letter ‘E’. As the teacher begins the lesson she, first, has her students review the letters that they have covered before ‘E’ week, she writes the upper and lowercase versions of letters A through D on separate sticky notes and places them on the whiteboard, she then selects individual students to come up to the board and match the lowercase letters with its uppercase counterpart. After the review is finished, she writes the letter ‘E’ on the whiteboard in both cases before reading the book Elephants Cannot Dance by Mo Williems, so students have a point of reference as the text is being read. As the teacher reads the book she points out the two forms the letter ‘E’ can be written in. After the read-aloud is over, the teacher finished up her lesson by asking her students to go around the room and find the letter ‘E’ in both cases. For the rest of the week, even as the students work on the letter-sound relationship, the teacher continues to begin her phonics lesson with the upper and lowercase matching game, as well as having her students point out both upper and lowercase ‘es’ during shared reading and read aloud, while she identifies and highlights upper and lowercase letters they learned in previous weeks. As the next week begins and students start working with the letter ‘F’ and the teacher continues to review the material from weeks prior with her students.