Chunk Lists

As a language warm-up some days, I present the students with a "chunk," a frequently used cluster of letters (also known as a phoneme or rime.) They work to think up words that end in that chunk, and we make a list of them. We add each list to a growing "Chunk Wall" above the chalkboard. I often draw the chunk from the list of phonograms in the appendices of Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas. They helpfully identify the 37 most frequently used phonograms by putting asterisks by them.

Encoding and Decoding

An article in the September, 2008, issue of Educational Leadership (a publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) looks at how phonics are taught and should be taught. In her article, “Why Phonics Teaching Must Change,” author Jeannine Herron refers to recent reading and brain research for clues on how children can learn to read efficiently. The focus of the article is the difference between decoding (going from printed letter to sound in reading words) and encoding (going from sound to letter in constructing words.) She concludes that phonics instruction should “focus on students constructing words before trying to read them.” In programs where children are encouraged to construct the spelling of words so that they may write, this is already happening. That is one of the pluses of using a writing workshop model in working with young children. See my earlier post, “Hiss Joins the Party” for one description of how that can be encouraged.