#31 The Do's and Don'ts of Letter Sounds

Dec 18

These days, we’re often told what not to do while teaching reading, but what we’re often lacking is what we should replace those “don’t do” activities with. Well, I have a list of don’ts that are accompanied by a list of do’s when it comes to specifically teaching letter sounds.

Don’t teach one letter a week.

If you were teaching one letter sound per week, that’s 26 weeks. This pace is simply too slow. We need our students to read words ASAP.

DO teach one letter per day.

These are combos of consonants and short vowels. A few consonants should be taught alongside a short vowel. This is so students can practice phoneme blending and segmenting ASAP.
While we do this, remember to pull in cumulative review.

DON’T teach the letters in order.

There’s no need to go down the line of the alphabet in order.

DO teach letters in a thoughtful, meaningful order.

While looking at what letters you’d like to teach, consider a few things first:

Take a look at what letters are visually similar (b, d, p, q / m, n). We should not teach these close together. These are too easy for students to get mixed up.
Look at if letters have the same articulation. Are the letters formed similarly in the mouth? For example: the letters g and k have the same articulation. This can be confusing, so we want to ensure that we separate sounds with similar articulation.
Teach high-utility sounds first (sounds that occur frequently in words). These letters include m, s, t, a. If we teach these first, students can begin to decode words faster. Sounds that aren’t as frequent are x, z, v. These ones should be taught last.

DON’T assume that students have correct pencil grip or letter formation.

Students need lots of repetition on how to hold their pencils and form these letters.

DO teach letter formation early.

Students must be fluent readers and writers. Ensure that you give students enough practice daily (10-15 min will suffice) so they can create neural-pathways that are vital for learning to read.

DON’T teach a letter and then move on.

Students need lots of repetition and practice when they are building these early foundational skills.

DO incorporate cumulative review into our lessons every single day.

As we introduce a new letter sound, we must circle back and teach the previously learned sounds. We do this with:

Visual drills: In whole group, small group, or one-on-one, grab a deck of grapheme cards that contain the sounds that you’ve previously-taught. Before you teach the new letter, review the previously-taught ones. Simply show the students the letters and have them say the sounds. Once the new letter is taught, put it in the stack to incorporate it into your cumulative review.
Auditory drills: Students get a piece of paper, sand tray, or whiteboard and you ask them to write the corresponding sound. You may say, “Write the letter that says /mmm/.” Students will write the letter m correctly and repeat the sound.
Blending drills: Model good blending by showing students how to segment sounds and blend them back together. Do this together by putting in sounds that have been previously-taught.

DON’T use picture cues that don’t truly make the sound that’s being taught.

Coarticulation occurs when phonemes are spoken together to produce words and the phonemes in those words are affected by the speech sounds that precede or follow them. An example of this is the word grapes. If we’re teaching the letter g and use the word grapes as an example, students will naturally think that g says /grr/ because that’s what they’re hearing in the word grapes.
DO ensure that the pictures you’re choosing accurately represent the letter sound.