Grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) refers to the association between a grapheme (a letter or cluster of letters) and its corresponding phoneme, and vice versa. It may also be called letter-sound correspondence. Understanding this relationship enables students to read by relating graphemes to phonemes and blending phonemes together to sound out words, and to spell by breaking words into phonemes and representing each phoneme with a corresponding grapheme, with automaticity. Learning these skills occurs largely in the context of learning about decoding and spelling of written words.
A child’s understanding of phonics usually develops progressively in response to systematic and explicit instruction. Students are taught grapheme-phoneme correspondences, and how to use these relationships to read and spell words. Without this code-based instruction, the majority of students will struggle with reading and/or spelling.
Phonics instruction has its greatest impact on beginning readers in Kindergarten and Grade 1 and should be implemented in those grades (National Reading Panel, 2000). For students who struggle with reading accuracy, including those with dyslexia, intervention must focus on phonics to support improved word reading.
Understanding the relationship between simple and high-frequency graphemes (letters or combinations of letters) and the phonemes (units of sound) they represent
Understanding the relationship between simple, high-frequency, and complex graphemes (letters or combinations of letters) and the phonemes (units of sound) they represent
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Phonics lays the foundation for reading comprehension. By learning phonics, students develop the ability to decode words. Decoding allows students to read words, sentences, and eventually, texts accurately.
The human brain is not wired to read. Intentional, structured phonics instruction can help to prevent reading failure for early readers, remediate older, struggling readers, and improve reading and spelling proficiency for all (Tolman et al., 2020).
Weak phonics instruction in early grades can impact students’ reading ability as they move through the grades. Initially, students may appear to be strong readers when reading simple text with pictures, however their reading ability is likely to decline in later grades as texts become more complex (Moats, 2020).
It is important to remember that phonics instruction is one part of comprehensive reading instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000), but not the entirety of a language program.
Phonics lessons should be systematically and explicitly taught, following a scope and sequence that builds from more simple to more complex concepts. Explicit instruction is characterized by direct modelling, guided practice, and purposeful individual practice.
Lessons might include the following steps:
(adapted from Honig et al., 2018)
“The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning.”
Growing Success, 2010, p. 28
Assessment of phonics is a powerful way for educators to support improved student outcomes. A variety of sources of insight into students’ grapheme-phoneme 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 phonics is critical knowledge that predicts future reading skills, assessing students’ knowledge and understanding can be done through early reading screening. Many evidence-based screening tools include phonics subtests for young students, including correct letter sounds 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 phonics, 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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