As students are taught grapheme-phoneme correspondences, they are increasingly able to use this knowledge to read and spell words. Students apply their knowledge of the relationship between letters and sounds to sound out words in reading, and spell words in writing.
When reading words, students identify the graphemes of a word, match them to phonemes, and blend phonemes together to form a word. When spelling words, students segment a word into its phonemes, and represent each phoneme with a grapheme.
These skills develop hand-in-hand with students’ growing phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge. As phonemic awareness approaches automaticity, students are able to apply blending and segmenting with ease, supporting word reading and spelling. As students learn more grapheme-phoneme correspondences, they are able to read and spell more complex words.
With the increasing accuracy, automaticity, and integration of phonics and phonemic awareness, students are able to read a wide variety of words with different structures. Single-syllable words with simple structures are easier for beginning readers; words get increasingly more complex, including multisyllabic words.
Reading and spelling CV, VC, and CVC words made of phonics patterns they have learned
Reading and spelling CVC, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC, and CVCe words made of phonics patterns they have learned
Consolidating phonics knowledge in word reading and spelling increasingly complex multisyllabic words, with developing automaticity
Applying word reading and spelling skills to complex multisyllabic words, with increasing automaticity
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applying grapheme-phoneme correspondences (see B2.3) to word reading and spelling:
applying grapheme-phoneme correspondences to word reading and spelling:
applying phonics to read the individual syllables of multisyllabic words:
adjusting for close approximations when reading words such as by flexing vowel sounds, adjusting syllable stress and schwa (unstressed vowel sound), known as set for variability
Harnessing phonics and phonemic awareness in decoding in spelling is crucial to not only reading and spelling words, but also for skilled reading comprehension and written composition.
To understand a text, students must read it fluently with effortless word recognition. In the past, many believed words were memorized as whole, visual units. Instead, words are stored for permanent retrieval through analysis of the sequence of phonemes, graphemes, and meaning (Ehri, 2022). Applying phonics and phonemic awareness in reading and spelling is critical to effortless word recognition.
For developing readers, it is important that they continue to use decoding skills when working with complex text involving multisyllabic words. Words with many syllables typically carry meaning in content-area texts (Honig et al., 2018), so students benefit from strong decoding skills to comprehend texts across multiple domains and disciplines.
Instruction should capitalize on phonemic awareness instruction. Highlight to students that working with the sounds of language supports them in reading and spelling words, and explicitly encourage them to blend sounds in reading and segment sounds in spelling.
Since phonics is more effective when taught systematically (National Reading Panel, 2000), use the scope and sequence of phonics instruction to inform words students read and spell. Phonics instruction should be purposefully linked to word reading and spelling tasks and should also inform text choices for beginning readers. Beginning readers should read decodable text since it offers targeted practice for the grapheme-phoneme correspondences they are learning.
The relative difficulty of words depends on many factors, including the number and sequence of sounds. Take care to consider students’ phonics knowledge and phonemic awareness skills in selecting words. For example, if a student has been taught to blend only 3 phonemes, they likely would not be able to read a word with 5 phonemes like stamp: /s/ /t/ /a/ /m/ /p/→stamp.
Decoding is not simply for the primary grades! Provide students with explicit instruction and practice in decoding multisyllabic words, especially with subject-specific texts in older grades.
“The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning.”
Growing Success, 2010, p. 28
Assessment of phonics and decoding are powerful ways for educators to support improved student outcomes. A variety of sources of insight into students’ application of phonics knowledge and understanding, including early reading screening, diagnostic assessments, and progress monitoring, can be used as assessment for learning to drive evidence-based explicit and systematic instruction.
Since the application of phonics knowledge and understanding predicts future reading skills, assessing students’ decoding can be done through early reading screening. Many evidence-based screening tools include phonics subtests for young students, including ‘words read correctly’ scores on nonsense word fluency measures.
For older, struggling readers, diagnostic assessments can be used to identify which specific grapheme-phoneme correspondences can be taught. This is an important component, often necessary to meet the needs of students who struggle with reading, including those with dyslexia.
For students who are at-risk, progress monitoring with decoding measures, such as nonsense word fluency, is a powerful way to ensure that instruction or intervention is best meeting the needs of students.
In writing, educators may consider using a spelling inventory as assessment for learning. These tools can typically be administered to the whole class with a list of words. Students’ spelling is scored with a scoresheet that allows for a close examination of their understanding of sounds, spelling patterns, and morphology.
In this PaTTAN webinar, Michael Hunter outlines a flexible strategy for reading and spelling multisyllabic words. Students identify the vowels in words to determine the number of syllables and where to break the word.
In this video, Linda Farrell demonstrates a lesson focused on teaching a flexible strategy for decoding multisyllabic words.
Linda Farrell explains the process readers go through when they decode new multisyllabic reading. In the video, she highlights set for variability, where a reader flexes sounds to adjust close approximations.
Linda Farrell highlights an instructional approach to teaching multisyllable words with silent “e” and vowel teams in this brief video.
Dr. Stephanie Stollar explains set for variability in this brief video. Set for variability is the set of skills that allow students to correct close approximations while decoding.
Phonics instruction should be explicit and systematic – but what exactly does that mean? This article clarifies these commonly used terms.
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