Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics - Teaching Guide

Teaching Guide

An interactive guide to teaching Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics

What makes this program unique, and offers the classroom teacher greater efficacy, are the multi-layered and cohesive lessons. Through explicit instruction, they join all the literacy activities to the lesson’s phonic focus.

to Literacy: PHONICS

Flyi ng Start

to Literacy: PHONICS™

What is the program?

Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics follows an explicit and systematic sequence of skills and knowledge from common sounds of consonants and vowels to less common letter-sound correspondences. It is an explicit teaching program that will engage your students and support their literacy development. All the key components of a rich literacy program are covered.

Students are encouraged to: explore oral language with rhymes and chants, build vocabulary, and engage in phonological awareness activities.

How is Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics organised?

There are seven units across three modules supported by carefully sequenced and fully supported lessons.

Each module has a comprehensive and supportive Teacher Resource Book as its base.

Seventy engaging Decodable Texts (10 per unit) match the teaching sequence and support the students as they put what has been learnt into practice.

Supportive Teacher’s Notes contained within every Decodable Text.

Module One has the added support of The Big Book of Rhymes and a set of illustrated Alphabet Cards.

Module One

Teacher Resource

Units One–Three

Common sounds of consonants and vowels

Module Two

Teacher Resource

Units Four–Five

Double letters, adjacent consonants and long vowels

Module Three

Teacher Resource

Units Six–Seven

Less common letter sounds

• Teacher Resource Book

• Decodable Texts × 30: 10 texts per unit

• The Big Book of Rhymes

• Alphabet Cards

• Teacher Resource Book

• Decodable Texts × 20: 10 texts per unit

• Teacher Resource Book

• Decodable Texts × 20: 10 texts per unit

What else do the lessons cover?

Writing instruction provides opportunities for teaching phonemic awareness and letter knowledge.

Assessment is built into the program to organise students for learning, and to monitor their progress.

All essential teaching support materials are in the Teacher Resource Books. They are also conveniently available as free downloads at FSTLphonics.com.au

The complete scope and sequence for the program an be downloaded here.

What makes Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics unique

What makes this program unique, and offers the classroom teacher greater efficacy, are the multi-layered and cohesive lessons. Through explicit instruction, they join all the literacy activities to the lesson’s phonic focus. Teaching phonemic awareness and phonics are incorporated into the same lesson plan, along with a daily review and the modelling and practice of fluency. All lessons are supported by content-rich Decodable Texts.

How can the program be used?

Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics is straightforward and supportive and can be used: as a catch-up program for students to review their letter-sound knowledge, for small-group work for differentiated class instruction, for whole-class instruction.

Is everything I need in the Teacher Resource Books?

The Teacher Resource Books are at the centre of the Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics teaching program, and are a supportive guide through it. They provide teachers with lesson plans, assessment tasks for placement and review, writing, comprehension and consolidation activities. They show everything you need for each of the lessons in a single view. The Teacher Resource Books guide you and provides all the teaching support material for assessment, review and the full range of activities for each lesson. Teacher resources can be printed from the book or downloaded from the website.

Is there step-by-step support?

The Teacher Resource Book explains everything about teaching the program step-by-step. It supports by providing: an overview of program content, an assessment overview, activities in each lesson, ideas on planning your literacy instruction and a full scope and sequence.

Overview of program content See a sample of a Teacher Resource Book

High-utility words: What are they?

High-utility words are those that are used frequently. In Module One, students are taught words that are useful for their early reading and writing, such as the, I and this come and me

How are high-utility words taught?

High-utility words need to be explicitly taught. Sound–letter charts are used for this explicit instruction. Consider the word this—it is a word that students need to know for reading and writing, yet it is not decodable in Module One. It can be taught as follows:

• Draw a sound–letter chart on the whiteboard. (Always draw one or two more spaces than needed so that students do not guess the number of sounds based on the number of spaces.)

• Have students tap the three sounds in the word: /th/ /i/ /s/.

• Place a dot in a box on the top row of the chart to indicate each sound. Write the letter(s) that represent each sound on the bottom row of the chart.

• • • th i s

Point out any letter–sound correspondences that the students have already learnt. For example, at this stage of the program, in the word this students know that i makes the /i/ sound and s makes the /s/ sound, so they can decode those parts of the word. You can then tell them the letters that make the /th/ sound. Students have many opportunities to practise newly learnt high-utility words. Note: The representation of sounds in words used as examples in this book may vary depending on local pronunciation.

Morphology

Morphology is the exploration of the meaningful units in words (morphemes).

It enables students to read and write new words. Teaching morphology includes adding prefixes and suffixes to base words and investigating how this changes the meaning of the word.

Most words in Module One are CVC words, but students are introduced to some simple plural forms. They learn that the letter s can be added to the base word to create a plural, such as dog–dogs

Fluency: How can it be developed?

Reading carefully sequenced sentences and books builds fluency and confidence.

Fluency occurs when your students:

• make the connection between phonemes and graphemes (sounds and the letters or letter combinations that make these sounds)

• store letter–sound connections in their long-term memory

• can automatically retrieve the words as they need them

• attend to punctuation

• read with phrasing and expression.

In each lesson, students are taught both decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling). Practice with reading and writing words and sentences builds fluency in both areas.

Attending to punctuation and phrasing increases when students read sentences.

As students build their bank of words, their reading will become more fluent as they attend to reading phrases and sentences with expression.

Comprehension

Comprehension understanding spoken and written language is the goal of literacy instruction.

Listening comprehension is enhanced when students listen to literature, chants and rhymes and make meaning of what they hear.

Reading comprehension is developed when students first read the practice sentences in the lessons and then the Module One decodable texts Students are encouraged to read the books first to decode words and then to build fluency and comprehension.

Literal, inferential and evaluative comprehension questions in the teaching notes of each decodable text encourage students to develop their understanding of the text.

Where do I start?

A good place to start is with ASSESSMENT.

Assessment is built into the program to organise students for learning, and it can also be ongoing to monitor their progress.

At the start, assess: beginning sounds, letter names, letter sounds, high-utility words and decoding CVC words.

Compile assessment data on the Assessment Summary for each student. From the Assessment Summary, you can plan teaching for individual support, small-group or whole-class teaching.

The Teacher Resource Book guides you through the process, step-by-step.

How do I start my Lesson?

Each Lesson supports the explicit and systematic teaching of phonological awareness, phonics, morphology and high-utility words. Start with your phonic focus and move through the Lesson Plan sequentially.

Just follow the sequence of the Lesson and print off or download any assets you need for the Lesson. They are all contained in the Teacher Resource Book.

View a LESSON PLAN

Sound (phoneme) long /a − / vowel sound

Letters (graphemes) ai and ay

Oral language development

Say it Goal

• To increase oral language awareness, rhythm, rhyme and vocabulary.

Sing the rhyme and have everyone join in. Emphasise words with the long / a – / vowel sound made with the letters ai and ay. Clap the syllables as you sing. Alternatively, tap each syllable or use finger clicks.

Oral language development

Say it

Goal

• To increase oral language awareness, rhythm, rhyme and vocabulary.

Sing the rhyme and have everyone join in. Emphasise words with the long /a – / vowel sound made with the letters ai and ay. Clap the syllables as you sing. Alternatively, tap each syllable or use finger clicks.

See the Unit Five, Lesson 1 reproducible rhyme on page 83.

Rain, Rain, Go Away Rain, rain, go away, Come again some other day. Little Rory wants to play. Rain, rain, go away.

Rain, rain, go to Spain, Never show your face again.

Vocabulary

Explain the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. For example, Spain is a country in Europe. Never show your face again is wordplay pretending that the rain has a face. Change the name Rory to that of different students in the class and use this as an opportunity to count syllables.

Review

Review the following sounds and letters learnt in Unit Four. ff, ll, ss Review the FLoSS rule: the letters f, l and s can be doubled at the end of one-syllable words. This rule also applies to the letter z at the end of one-syllable words. the consonant digraphs ck, sh, ch, ng and th. Remind students that a digraph is two letters that make one sound. Show each Word–Picture card and have students say the sound. Then have them turn to a partner and take turns saying words that contain each digraph.

See the Word–Picture cards on pages 103–111.

Phonological awareness Hear it

Goals

• To build syllable awareness.

See the Unit Five, Lesson 1 reproducible rhyme on page 83.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Phonics Write it

Rain, rain, go away, Come again some other day. Little Rory wants to play. Rain, rain, go away.

Rain, rain, go to Spain, Never show your face again.

High-utility words

Phonological

Hear it Goals

• To build syllable awareness.

• To hear a word and

• To add a sound to to make a word.

• To say a word and sounds to create a

Syllable awareness

Say and clap the syllables and students to repeat after you. dai–sy → daisy cray–on → crayon a–way → away ho–li–day → holiday

the words eat and animal and say them slowly. Write the word eat and say: I can hear the sounds /e – / /t/. Draw a sound–letter chart to show the sounds in the word. Say: I will put a dot in a box for each sound that hear. Then will write

Segment into syllables

and clap the syllables and then say the word. Ask students to repeat after you. dai–sy → daisy

→ crayon a–way → away ho–li–day → holiday Segment into syllables Say a word and ask students to segment it into syllables.

(Note: These words are compound words.)

Vocabulary

Explain the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. For example, Spain is a country in Europe. Never show your face again is wordplay pretending that the rain has a face. Change the name Rory to that of different students in the class and use this as an opportunity to count syllables.

the words several times. Check for accuracy.

Write the word animal. Have students say the letter names, arm tap the sounds, air write the word and practise writing the word several times. Check for accuracy.

Consolidate learning

Hear and write Say: I am going to read a sentence to you. Listen to

Review

Review the following sounds and letters learnt in Unit Four.

• ff, ll, ss

Review the FLoSS rule: the letters f, l and s can be doubled at the end of one-syllable words. This rule also applies to the letter z at the end of one-syllable words.

• the consonant digraphs ck, sh, ch, ng and th.

Remind students that a digraph is two letters that make one sound. Show each Word–Picture card and have students say the sound. Then have them turn to a partner and take turns saying words that contain each digraph.

See the Word–Picture cards on pages 103–111.

Say a word and ask students (Note: These words are compound birthday → birth–day driveway → drive–way sideway → side–way raincoat → rain–coat playground → play–ground

Add a sound

Say a rime. Ask students to sound to the beginning to rime add to beginning ay /p/ ain /p/ aint /p/ ait /w/

Change a sound

Have students repeat a word change the first sound and Demonstrate this task first.

word change sound rain /r/ to /p/ nail /n/ to /s/ chain /ch/ to /m/

Sound (phoneme) long /a / vowel sound Letters (graphemes)

Activities in each lesson

Phonological awareness

Develop phonological awareness through auditory activities that focus on the sound of the letters introduced in the lesson. Students learn to hear the beginning, middle and final sounds in words, how to change the sounds in words to create new words and how to identify syllables in words.

Oral language development

Extend oral language awareness by focusing on the rhythm, the words that rhyme, clapping and clicking the syllables and by using varied oral-reading expression, such as loud and soft, fast and slow. Repeat the chant many times, focusing on rhyme, syllables and the beginning sounds in words.

Vocabulary

Find a word or words in the rhyme to explicitly teach to your students. Define the word using student-friendly language. Use the word in a sentence and then encourage the students to use the word in a sentence of their own.

Review

Progressively review the letter–sound correspondences taught in previous lessons to practise retrieving information.

Letters

ai and ay

Oral language development

Say it Goal

• To increase oral language awareness, rhythm, rhyme and vocabulary.

Sing the rhyme and have everyone join in. Emphasise words with the long /a – / vowel sound made with the letters ai and ay. Clap the syllables as you sing. Alternatively, tap each syllable or use finger clicks.

See the Unit Five, Lesson 1 reproducible rhyme on page 83.

Rain, Rain, Go Away Rain, rain, go away, Come again some other day. Little Rory wants to play. Rain, rain, go away.

Rain, rain, go to Spain, Never show your face again.

Vocabulary

Explain the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. For example, Spain is a country in Europe. Never show your face again is wordplay pretending that the rain has a face. Change the name Rory to that of different students in the class and use this as an opportunity to count syllables.

Review

Review the following sounds and letters learnt in Unit Four.

• ff, ll, ss

Review the FLoSS rule: the letters f, l and s can be doubled at the end of one-syllable words. This rule also applies to the letter z at the end of one-syllable words.

• the consonant digraphs ck sh ch ng and th. Remind students that a digraph is two letters that make one sound. Show each Word–Picture card and have students say the sound. Then have them turn to a partner and take turns saying words that contain each digraph.

See the Word–Picture cards on pages 103–111.

Phonological awareness

Hear it Goals

• To build syllable awareness.

• To hear a word and segment it into syllables.

• To add a sound to the beginning of a rime to make a word.

• To say a word and then change one of its sounds to create a new word.

Syllable awareness

Say and clap the syllables and then say the word. Ask students to repeat after you. dai–sy → daisy cray–on → crayon a–way → away ho–li–day → holiday

Segment into syllables

Say a word and ask students to segment it into syllables.

(Note: These words are compound words.) birthday → birth–day driveway → drive–way sideway → side–way raincoat → rain–coat playground → play–ground

Add a sound

Say a rime. Ask students to repeat the rime and add a sound to the beginning to create a word. rime add to beginning word ay /p/ pay ain /p/ pain aint /p/ paint ait /w/ wait

Change a sound

Have students repeat a word after you. Ask them to change the first sound and then say the new word. Demonstrate this task first. word change sound new word rain /r/

Sound (phoneme) long /a − / vowel sound

(graphemes)

Phonics

Encourage students to connect a sound to a letter(s) and to write words that have the letter(s) making the sound the lesson is focusing on.

Phonics

Write it

Goals

• To identify and connect the long /a – / vowel sound with the letters ai and ay

• To generate and write words that have the letters ai and ay making the long /a – / vowel sound.

• To recognise the suffixes ful ing s and ed and to add these to a base word.

Words with ai and ay

Point to the letters ai in the word snail on the Word–Picture card. Say: The two vowels ai make the long / a – / vowel sound.

Point to the letters ai in the word snail on the Word–Picture card. Say: The two vowels ai make the long / a – / vowel sound. Make a list of words that include the letters ai making the long /a – / vowel sound.

-ain -ail -aim -ait -aid -aint

rain nail aim wait laid saint pain rail claim strait paid paint train sail gait maid faint

on the Word–Picture card. Say: The letters ay also make the long / a – / vowel sound. The letter y acts as a vowel in this word family. Make a list of words that include the letters ay making the long /a – / vowel sound.

Point to the letters ay in the word play on the Word–Picture card. Say: The letters ay also make the long / a – / vowel sound. The letter y acts as a vowel in this word family. Make a list of words that include the letters ay making the long /a – / vowel sound.

ay day clay spray way ray say tray pay play stay

See page 112 for Word–Picture cards.

Write words

Write a sentence on the whiteboard that uses one or more words with the letters ai and ay making the long /a – / vowel sound. For example, We can play with the toy train.

Ask a student to circle the words that have the letters ai and ay making the long /a – / vowel sound. Have students write these words and two or more others. Check for accuracy.

Morphology: Suffixes

Use the word play as a base and add suffixes to show how the meaning changes.

play + ful = playful

play + ing = playing

play + s = plays

play + ed = played

play + s = plays play + ed = played

Unit Five

1 Unit Five Lesson 1

High-utility words

See it, say it

See it, say it Goal

Goal

• To learn the new high-utility words eat and animal

High-utility words are useful words and many of these need to be taught explicitly. Sound–letter charts are used for explicit instruction of high-utility words.

Say: We are going to learn two new words. Show the words eat and animal and say them slowly.

Write the word eat and say: I can hear the sounds /e – / /t/. Draw a sound–letter chart to show the sounds in the word. Say: I will put a dot in a box for each sound that I hear. Then I will write the letter or letters that represent each sound. Point out the letter–sound correspondence that students already know: t making /t/.

• • ea t

Support students as they learn the word: say the letter names in the word; arm tap the word; and air write the word. Have students practise writing the words several times. Check for accuracy.

Consolidate learning

Write the word animal. Have students say the letter names, arm tap the sounds, air write the word and practise writing the word several times. Check for accuracy.

Consolidate learning

Hear and write

Say: I am going to read a sentence to you. Listen to the words in the sentence as I read them. Think about the sounds you hear in each word and the letters that make those sounds.

Read the decodable sentence: I play in the rain. Repeat each word slowly and then have students write the sentence. Check for accuracy.

Say: I am going to read a sentence to you. Listen to the words in the sentence as I read them. Think about the sounds you hear in each word and the letters that make those sounds. Read the decodable sentence: I play in the rain. Repeat each word slowly and then have students write the sentence. Check for accuracy.

Read it

Use the activities provided to consolidate learning in pairs, small groups or individually. Practising new knowledge and skills will help students develop accuracy and automaticity when reading and writing.

Morphology

To practise reading words with ai and ay making the long /a – / vowel sound, have students read:

• the Unit Five, Lesson 1 Practice sentences on page 98

• the decodable text, Tails

Further consolidation

See page 121 for further activities.

Encourage students to read and write new words and learn how spelling rules, making compound words and adding suffixes or prefixes change the meaning of words.

How long does it take?

Each lesson can be taught across four blocks, each taking approximately 30 minutes. If needed, include a further 30-minute block to review any content missed by students, provide extra instruction or complete further consolidation activities.

Block 1 Language, vocabulary and review

Block 2 Phonological awareness and phonics

Block 3 Phonics and writing

Block 4 Consolidate learning

This teaching session covers:

• oral language, reading rhymes and discussion

• vocabulary building

• review of previously learnt content.

This teaching session covers:

• phonological awareness activities

• learning the letter–sound correspondence

• writing words or sentences.

This teaching session covers:

• morphology

• reviewing and learning new high-utility word(s).

Students practise and apply new learning and develop fluency. They work in small groups, with a partner or individually, to consolidate their learning through:

• dictation

• reading sentences

• reading decodable texts.

When are decodable texts used?

After completing the Lessons in each unit, students should spend about 15 minutes each day reading decodable texts. This can be done in small groups, with a partner or with the teacher.

Model how to read one of the texts before students progress to reading with support and then independently.

When reading aloud, model how to blend each sound from left to right. Then focus on supporting students to develop comprehension and build vocabulary through group discussion.

Students could also take the books home for further reading practice.

The Module One Decodable Texts can be read after teaching each unit to practise decoding and word recognition.

The Modules Two and Three Decodable Texts can be read after each Lesson to practise the sound taught.

What is the next step after Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics?

Once you have taken your students through this Flying Start to Literacy: Phonics, their decoding skills will have developed beyond the common sounds of consonants and vowels, double letters, adjacent consonants and long vowels and into the less common letter-sounds.

They are now reading independently.

But as they develop and their decoding skills grow, they need to master fluency and comprehension. They also need to build knowledge about their world by reading content-rich books.

Build Literacy Learning is an explicit and systematic literacy program to build young readers’ skills and knowledge. Build Literacy Learning is a structured literacy program built around a curated collection of texts organised into topic sets.

Explicitly taught Text Study Units build on students’ existing knowledge to create new knowledge networks, and provide comprehensive teaching and learning related to the language structures and content in the books they are reading. They support decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, writing and word building.

Students will be able to read the books, comprehend what they read, build word knowledge and write about the topic.

This work is protected by copyright law and under international copyright conventions, applicable in the jurisdictions in which it is published. The trademark “Flying Start to Literacy” and Star device is a registered trademark of EC Licensing Pty Ltd in the US and in other jurisdictions. The trademarks “Flying Start to Literacy: PHONICS” and Star device and “Eleanor Curtain Publishing” are owned by EC Licensing Pty Ltd and registration is pending in Australia and New Zealand.

While the publisher has made every effort to acknowledge copyright holders, any omissions should be emailed in the first instance to info@ecpublishing.com.au, including all details for appropriate acknowledgement at the next reprint.

Developed by Eleanor Curtain Publishing

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