Situating Phonics in a Wider Context

Presented by Joanne Mannion

If you have wondered how phonics instruction fits into the bigger picture of teaching children to read and write, this was an excellent workshop to attend. Joanne Mannion, is a first grade teacher at the Franklin Early Childhood Center in the Hewlett-Woodmere School District, provided a valuable and insightful look at phonics instruction in the elementary curriculum.

Ms. Mannion began the session by contrasting the traditional teaching of phonics in isolation to the more effective use of teaching phonics within the context of word solving. Phonics refers to the letter-sound relationship in reading and writing. Phonics and spelling are interrelated processes, and both involve readers and writers in word solving. Phonics-in- Context instruction recognizes that while children need to know letter-sound relationships, they also need a wide range of language knowledge and strategies in order to word solve. Therefore phonics is most effectively taught as part of reading and writing events and largely based on reader and writer needs.

Ms. Mannion cited Regie Routman, from her excellent book, Conversations, saying, the finest teachers I know teach phonics in reading-writing-listening-viewing contexts throughout the day. Using every opportunity that presents itself (some planned and some teachable moments), they use authentic language to teach phonemic awareness and phonics. Also cited was the work of Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas from their groundbreaking book, Word Matters. In this book they described the eight principles of literacy learning in which children need to:

• understand the purposes of literacy so they can understand and enjoy literacy.
• hear written language so they can learn its structure.
• become aware of the sounds of language to use as a tool in becoming literate.
• experience working with written symbols so they can look at letters in learning to read and write.
• explore words and learn how they work.
• learn conventions of print and how books work.
• read and write continuous text so they can expand their knowledge about letters, sounds, words, and language.
• develop flexibility and fluency to enhance comprehension and enjoyment of reading and writing.

The workshop was designed to illustrate how to use phonics in a balanced literacy program of shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, read-alouds, a print-rich environment, spelling and word study. Ms. Mannion went through each of these different types of instruction and illustrated how phonics can be integrated into each. She brought along different types of books, Big Books, manipulatives, word lists, word webs, graphic organizers, charts, and poems, and gave examples of how she used each of these tools in teaching children how to use phonics in their word solving strategies.

I found this part of her presentation very helpful. She gave the workshop participant a lot of insight into her use of these literacy tools and how to incorporate them into phonics instruction. Even though I had seen many of the tools she used before, such as word magnets and flip-books, Ms. Mannion showed us how she teaches with these tools in each part of her literacy instruction. In addition, she recommended some wonderful childrens books and showed us how she taught with the books.

This was a wonderful workshop for providing different word solving strategies to young readers and writers. Ms. Mannion did a superlative job with her informative, easygoing manner of demonstrating how to use phonics within the context of a balanced literacy program.