Teaching Reading: Mastering the Fundamentals – Alphabetics, Phonics & Phonemic Awareness (Guide #1)

Word recognition requires that young readers master 

1) the letters; 

2) their sounds; and

3) how those sounds bolt onto letter combinations that form words. 

These three skills are the heart of foundational reading skills. The term Alphabetics is used to discuss the letters of the language, called graphemes, while Phonemic Awareness is the term for being able to distinguish its individual sounds (phonemes). Phonics is the consolidation of the previous two, where a reader learns to discern the sounds of letter combinations (grapheme-phoneme correspondence). Because they are deeply intertwined, these foundational skills are taught together.

This guide, #1 in the 4-guide series Teaching Reading: Mastering the Fundamentals by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, is about the development of grapheme-phoneme correspondence for elementary readers. It provides teachers with helpful guidance including five concepts for early teaching of alphabetics, principles of phonemic awareness instruction, the best sequence for phonics instruction, and key ideas for word recognition foundational skills.