For years, I considered myself a balanced literacy teacher. But I never considered myself anti-phonics. Of course I believed in phonics instruction. Of course I taught phonics.
Or did I?
Looking back, I made some pretty big mistakes when it came to phonics instruction. Mistakes that held some of my students back from becoming the strong readers they could have been.
Here are the biggest ones:
Mistake #1: Teaching phonics "as it came up"
Instead of following a systematic scope and sequence, I taught phonics during shared reading when students got stuck on words. This left massive gaps in their knowledge.
Mistake #2: Skipping phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness was barely on my radar, even though it's one of the strongest predictors of reading success.
Mistake #3: Not giving enough practice with new patterns
I'd teach a phonics skill, then have students read leveled books full of patterns they hadn't learned yet. When they got stuck, I told them to use context clues instead of sounding out.
Mistake #4: Not systematically teaching students how to read longer words
I had no systematic way to help students tackle multisyllabic words. "Find the chunks you know" was my only strategy.
The truth is, these mistakes hurt my students. They deserved better systematic instruction, and I wish I'd known then what I know now.
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