A Fresh Look at Phonics: Interview with Wiley Blevins, Ph.D

In this week's podcast we talk phonics instruction with Wiley Blevins! Dr. Wiley Blevins is a world-renowned expert on early reading, and author of the seminal book Phonics From A to Z and A Fresh Look At Phonics, among many other works. He has taught in both United States and South America, and he regularly trains teachers throughout Asia. He holds a doctorate in education from Harvard University and has worked with numberous educational scholars, including Jeanne Chall, Isabel Beck, Marilyn Adams, Louisa Moats, Dianne August, and others.

In this weeks episode, Dr. Blevins will join us to talk about his book A Fresh Look At Phonics. I just finished reading this book and it's made a huge difference to my understanding and teaching of Phonics this year. One of my favorite parts of Blevin's book is how it breaks down the components of phonics in a way that demonstrates the systematic order we should be teaching in. With his permission, I've posted a few of my favorite tables from the book. First, a table of alphabet letters in order of utility, and then a table of the most frequent spellings of English sounds. I've also shown an example of one of Blevin's blending lines from his book. I loved the way that he builds differentiation into his blending lines, as well as review and repetition.

I highly suggest that you get yourself a copy of Blevin's book to help guide your instruction this year. I'm so happy that I've read it!

This set of guided readers teach students to become independent readers as they practice sight words and decoding skills.

One thing that I am changing in my instruction this year, based on my reading, is building in more opportunities for my students to practice the skills they are learning. To that end, I've created decodable sight word sets based on the most common sight words and the Wonders sight word/letter sound progression. I will use these this year to make sure my students get the independant practice they need.

Sight Word Kindergarten Readers First 12 Common Sight Words

$5.00

Also available on TPT

This set of books is speciﬁcally designed to use with the Wonders reading curriculum, or for anyone looking for great sight word readers that follow a logical sequence of sight word introduction, and the practice of decoding words made only from letters as they are introduced.

The sight word order for this set of readers is: a, and, for, he, is, she, in, it, that, the, was, you,

The letter order for this set of readers is: m, a, s, p, t, i, n, b, c, o, f, h, d, r, g, e, l, k

Contents Include the Following 24 guided readers.

A Map
A Map (With pictures to add)
For
For (With pictures to add)
Dad
Dad (With pictures to add)
Cat and Bat
Cat and Bat (With pictures to add)
Mop
Mop (With pictures to add)
In It
In It (With pictures to add)
That
That (With pictures to add)
The Pet Show
The Pet Show (With pictures to add)
It is For
It is For (With pictures to add)
Was That?
Was That? (With pictures to add)
Hide and Seek
Hide and Seek (With pictures to add)
Me and You
Me and You (With pictures to add)

Sight Word Kindergarten Readers for Wonders Units 1-5

$4.00

Also Available on TPT

This set of books is designed to use with the Wonders reading curriculum, or for anyone looking for great sight word readers that follow a logical sequence of sight word introduction, and the practice of decoding words made only from letters as they are introduced.

The sight word order for this set of readers is: I, can, the we, see, a, like, to, and, go, you, do, my, are, with, he

The letter order for this set of readers is: m, a, s, p, t, i, c, n, d, i, o, h, e, f, r

Contents Include the Following 15 guided readers.

I Can
Can
We
See
Big Things
I like
Map
To
The Twins
Go Cat
Mop
Do You?
My Family
Are You?
He Sees

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Kathy CraneSeptember 8, 2018