Simple Ways to Incorporate Phonics Into Small Groups

Finally! A professional book that helps teachers incorporate phonics skills in guided reading lessons. I wish I would have had this book when I was first trying to figure reading and word study groups out. Jan Richardson and Michele Dufresne have made it simple in their newest book, The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics.

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Recently, Scholastic reached out to me to read and review the book The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics. I could not pass that opportunity up and wanted to find out new ideas for helping my students and other teachers with new ways to help students learn various phonics skills.

As a classroom teacher, I was always trying to find ways to incorporate word study into my guided reading groups, but it was tough! Many times our teachers put word study and phonics instruction to the side to make room for reading and comprehension skills.

But in my recent Orton-Gillingham training, I have learned that skipping phonics instruction can be detrimental to a child's learning to read. And this book gives teachers simple ways to incorporate these skills into every day lessons.

Phonics instruction should be integrated into small group lessons in various different ways. The quick and simple activities make the small group time more meaningful for the students as they learn to decode and encode words.

I love that the book breaks down lesson ideas by reader type and feature to help create and implement activities for your small groups. Check out this charts which helps teachers prepare their lessons for their students. And an example of an activity to go with it!

The only thing I would love to see in this book is the use of more controlled text. Phonics and word study instruction should not stand alone. When students learn a feature, they should be able to practice that feature with the text they read. Beginning readers should only have words they know or can read. All readers should have access to practicing those features through reading of the words and word hunts. See my post here on why word hunts are so important!

Overall, the phonemic awareness and phonics activities presented in this book will help all teachers enhance their phonics instruction in their small groups.

Scholastic has been amazing with allowing me to read, review, and give away their newest professional books. And I have a copy to give away to one lucky winner! Enter the Rafflecopter below to win your very own copy of The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics.

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Scholastic sent me a free copy of this book to review on this blog. All opinions are my own.