Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech.
The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech. It’s sometimes called “sounding out” a printed word.
Learning that there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters allows children to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words, and to begin to read with fluency .
Children are taught, for example, that the letter ‘n’ represents the sound /n/, and that it is the first letter in words such as nose, nice and new. When children understand sound–letter correspondence, they can sound out and read (decode) new words.
Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Calista, an early stage first grade reader, on short vowel sounds, blending and manipulating sounds, reading whole words, and fluency. From our Looking at Reading Interventions series.
TranscriptLinda Farrell: What do we call that vowel sound? You say …
Linda Farrell: You got it!
Calista is in first grade at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. She’s an early stage reader who sounds out letters accurately. And she can blend those letters together to form words.
Linda Farrell: Calista, could you please read this column.
Reading expert Linda Farrell is helping Calista take the next step toward fluent reading … reading each word as a whole rather than one sound at a time. Their time together will include work on short vowel sounds, blending and manipulating sounds, reading whole words, and fluency. Ms. Farrell starts by making sure Calista has a strong foundation in her short vowel sounds.
Linda Farrell: We’re gonna learn some motions. Can you hold an apple in your hand? And when I ask you the short ‘a’ sound, you’re gonna say, /aaa/. Say it.
Linda Farrell: Now watch me. /Aaaaaa-pul/. You do it.
Linda Farrell: Okay. That is going to remind you of the short ‘a’ sound. That’s our motion, so say, /aaa/.
Linda Farrell: And when I ask you what the short /a/ sound is, you’re gonna go /aaaa/. Do it.
Linda Farrell: For short ‘e,’ go like this. Watch me. Go /eeeeeh-j/.
Linda Farrell: So we want to start out by making sure she’s solid with her short vowel sounds. So that’s the first thing we did. And she did know her — when I said, “What’s short ‘a’?”, she knew it. She had to think a little bit. So what we did is we want her to — when she can’t remember the vowel sound real easily, we want to not have to give it to her. We want her to have a scaffold to learn it. So we taught Calista the motions that go with the vowel sound, so that if she can’t remember a vowel sound — what is the short ‘o’ sound? — then all she has to do … I can go like this and remind her, or she can go, oh, it’s /ah/, it’s octopus.
Linda Farrell: I tell you what we’re gonna do. We are gonna go to short ‘o.’ Are you ready? Okay. Here we go. /Aaaaahc-tuh-pus/.
Linda Farrell: Now we’re not gonna say the /k-tuh-pus/ part. We’re just gonna say /aaah/.
Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘o’ sound?
Linda Farrell: And make the motion.
Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘a’ sound?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘o’?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we’re gonna learn short ‘u.’ You ready for short ‘u’? /Uuu-p/. Do it.
Linda Farrell: And the first sound in up is /uuu/.
Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘u’ sound?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘a’?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘o’?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘u’?
Linda Farrell: The vowel motions that we teach are purposefully motions. They aren’t static, because if I say /a/, /eh/, /i/, /ah/, /u/, you can hardly hear the difference between those sounds. /A/, /eh/, /i/, /ah/, /u/. And children who have phonological awareness difficulties, which is the biggest one of the — it is the biggest problem in reading issues — they don’t hear the vowel sounds easily. Listen to this: /aaaa/, /eeeeh/, /iiiii/, /aaah/, /uuuu/. They sound different. So we want to encourage the children not to say /a/. We want them to say /aaaa/; therefore, the motion that we use — which is holding an apple and then move it across the front of your body, left to right, motion of reading, /aaa/, and then /pul/ is what the rest of the word is, but we only say the first sound — everything encourages them to draw out that sound.
Linda Farrell: Now we’re gonna learn short ‘i.’ Are you ready for short ‘i’?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Watch this. I went stomping … I went hiking, and I stomped and tromped in some poison ivy, and, boy, do I /iiiiiii-ch/. Do it. Do this.
Linda Farrell: /Iiiiiii-ch/. Do it.
Linda Farrell: Now, you have to smile real big when you say itch. Go /iiiiiiiii-ch/.
Linda Farrell: Do it again. Short ‘i’ sound.
Linda Farrell: Okay. And itch is the guide word. I made a mistake. I should have told you that /i/ is just like this: /iii/. We don’t even say the /ch/ part, just do this: /iii/.
Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘i’ sound?
Linda Farrell: Make it go /iiiiii/.
Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘a’ sound?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘i’?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘i’?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘a’?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘o’?
Linda Farrell: Short ‘u’?
Linda Farrell: You know your short vowel sounds!
Linda Farrell: Calista was very confident with her vowel sounds. She knew them. I would still have worked on them a little bit more, but she was confident enough for me to move on to the next step. So the next step with a kid who’s reading sound by sound isn’t really intuitive. It’s often a phonological problem. It isn’t a problem with the letters. The kid knows the letters. I know the letter sounds. I can blend the letter sounds into a real word. What they aren’t doing is thinking the sounds in their mind. They’re turning that word — if it’s hug, they look at it and they go /h/, /u/, /g/. And they are never getting the full visual picture of that word. To them it’s always an ‘h-u-g,’ a /h/, /u/, /g/. Not hug. So they haven’t moved to where they can read the whole word without breaking it into phonics. And that’s a step that we’re going to have to teach her to do, which is one of my favorite things to do, because it’s just, they just go from being really slow readers to just being normal readers once they can get this phonological representation.
Linda Farrell: We’re going to do something that we call sound chaining. Okay? I’m going to show you how it works. So I say, “Miss Linda, show me the sounds in ‘lip,’” so I go /l/, /i/, /p/, lip. You touch and say.
Linda Farrell: Okay. What’s the first sound in lip?
Linda Farrell: ‘L’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?
Linda Farrell: What’s the next sound in lip?
Linda Farrell: ‘I’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?
Linda Farrell: Okay. And when I ask you, you point to it, okay? So what’s the first sound in lip?
Linda Farrell: What’s the next sound in lip?
Linda Farrell: And the last sound in lip?
Linda Farrell: And what’s the …
Linda Farrell: Okay. So that’s lip. If I want to change lip to sip, I take out the /l/, and I put in a /s/. Touch and say sip.
Linda Farrell: What if I wanna change sip to tip?
Calista: You take away this one and add this one.
Linda Farrell: Okay. So what did I take out? Sip to tip. Say sip to tip.
Linda Farrell: Which one did I take out? If this is sip, take out …
Calista: The /s/ and add the /t/.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now I wanna change tip to Tim.
Linda Farrell: So let’s touch and say tip.
Linda Farrell: Now touch and say Tim.
Linda Farrell: Which one’s different?
Calista: The last one.
Linda Farrell: So what do I take out of tip to change tip to Tim?
Calista: The last one.
Linda Farrell: And what sound do I take out?
Linda Farrell: ‘P’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Take it out. And what do I put in to make it Tim?
Linda Farrell: ‘M’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?
Linda Farrell: Okay. So now I’ve got Tim. Touch and say Tim.
Linda Farrell: I wanna change Tim to Tom.
Linda Farrell: When we work with sound-by-sound children, we make sure that they know the difference between letters and sounds and that they can manipulate sounds. Once they can blend and segment sounds confidently, we move to manipulating. How do we do that? We work with colored tiles. They don’t have letters on them, because we want the child to have no distraction with letters. What we want is the child to be thinking about sounds.
Linda Farrell: Touch and say tap.
Linda Farrell: Can you change tap to tape?
Ms. Farrell gives Calista plenty of quiet time to think about which sounds are changing.
Linda Farrell: Let’s check that because … one thing you did right is there’s always only one tile that changes. Let’s touch and say tap.
Linda Farrell: Touch and say tape.
Linda Farrell: Which one’s different?
Calista: Hmm. Middle.
Linda Farrell: Yeah. What sound do you take out of tap?
Linda Farrell: ‘A’ is the name of the letter. What sound do you take out of tap?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Take it out. And what sound do you put in to make tape?
Linda Farrell: Touch and say.
Linda Farrell: What sound was that?
Linda Farrell: It was /ay/. Okay. So you put in the sound /ay/. If I want to change tape … sorry, yes … tape to take, which one do I change?
Calista: This one.
Linda Farrell: Yes. What sound do I take out of tape?
Linda Farrell: What sound?
Linda Farrell: Yeah. Okay. And what sound to I put in to make it take?
Linda Farrell: Now this time, when I ask you to make a change, keep your mouth closed and think about it. Okay? Okay. So don’t open your mouth. You can think the sounds in your head. So we’ve got take to make. Okay. Look down. You can look down. Take to make. Can you say take to make?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Which one changes? Keep your mouth closed. Don’t … you have to think the sounds, okay?
Linda Farrell: Okay. So take out /t/. And what are you going to put in for make? What sound?
Linda Farrell: /M/. Okay. Can you change … now, again, mouth closed. Okay. But I’m gonna ask you to say make to mate. Say that. Make to mate.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Close your mouth, and think about which one. When you know, touch it.
Calista: [points to the letter]
Linda Farrell: Okay. What sound comes out of make?
Linda Farrell: Yep. What sound goes in for mate?
Linda Farrell: Okay …
Linda Farrell: One of the things Calista does is I say, “What’s the first sound?” and she gives me the name of the letter. And we’ve got to get sound-by-sound children to think in terms of … there are letter sounds, and there are letter names, because the name of the letter, the first letter in phone is ‘p,’ but the first sound in phone is /f/. And if she doesn’t get the difference automatically and quickly, she’ll always be struggling with reading. It’s easy to teach. It’s no big deal. And I think that you see Calista make great strides in her reading.
Now we’re at the point where Ms. Farrell will push Calista to a higher level of reading — from reading words sound by sound to reading whole words.
Linda Farrell: Could you please read this column?
Linda Farrell: Students who read sound by sound see a letter, make it a sound, see a letter, make it a sound, see a letter, make it a sound. So this is what’s happening. What that keeps her from being able to do is develop a visual imprint of words and word patterns on her brain. And you never look at the word as a whole. We’re trying to get Calista to look at the word as a whole, as opposed to looking at it letter, by letter, by letter.
Linda Farrell: Now what I’d like you to do is I want you to go back, and this time keep your mouth closed before and think the sounds and don’t open your mouth until you know what the word is and can read it. Okay?
Linda Farrell: Keep going.
Calista: Add. Pal. And. Mud.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Phew. You got pretty good there, didn’t ya, closing your mouth.
You can sense the wheels turning in Calista’s mind as she works silently to sound out the letters and put the sounds together into a word. Next comes work on fluency.
Linda Farrell: Let’s start right here.
Calista: Can. The. Lad.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now go back and read it. Again.
Calista: Can. The. Lad.
Linda Farrell: Now can you go back and read it, Can the lad? Okay. Read it.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Calista: Be. In. The. Mud.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Read it like you’d say it.
Calista: Be in the mud.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now read the whole sentence.
Calista: Can the lad be in the mud.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Can you read that one?
Calista: Kim was hot. And got a fan. Kim was hot and got a fan.
Linda Farrell: Okay. We’re gonna go and read a couple of sentences now. Those were phrases, and they turned into sentences. Could you please read this sentence?
Calista: Gus. Got. Mud. On. The. Rug.
Linda Farrell: Okay. And now we’re gonna go read a passage. Okay. What’s the title?
Linda Farrell: Okay?
Calista: Don was a lad. Pip was a pup. Don and Pip had a run. The sun was hot.
Linda Farrell: She was getting faster as she closed her mouth. She made more mistakes than she would make if she read sound by sound. She didn’t make that many mistakes, but she did make more mistakes. But that’s okay, because that’s what happens when you start changing a habit, is you go backwards a little bit. She’ll eventually, and I think fairly quickly, be a much faster reader and a much more proficient reader.
Linda Farrell: Do you ever read a book that you like?
Linda Farrell: Calista made a lot of progress in this lesson, and she is on her way to being a top-notch reader.
We’d like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.
Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary … and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools.
We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Produced by Noel Gunther
Edited by Christian Lindstrom
Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec
Camera: Richard Chisolm
Audio: Dwayne Dell
For more information about teaching reading, please visit
Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.
© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.
Launching Young Readers
Reading 101 Learning Modules
Looking at Reading Interventions
Looking at Reading Interventions
Reading 101: A Guide for Parents
Reading and Writing SOS
Why Some Kids Struggle
Linda Farrell: Okay. We’re gonna have a lesson. And we are gonna have some fun …
Today reading expert Linda Farrell will be working with Aiko, a second grader here at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland.
Ms. Farrell will help Aiko with telling the difference between the letters ‘b’ and ‘d,’ keeping her eyes on the text rather than looking up to think of words, and reading words with short vowels.
Linda Farrell: Do you ever get your ‘b’s and ‘d’s mixed up?
Linda Farrell: Sometimes? Well, let’s see if we can’t fix that.
Linda Farrell: Aiko confuses ‘b’s and ‘d’s. She’s in the second grade. And it’s going to get in the way of her reading. So we have to fix that problem. Lots of children confuse ‘b’s and ‘d’s. They look alike. It’s a ball and a stick. So we know we have to straighten that out, because that’s going to hurt your reading because there are lots of words with ‘b’s and ‘d’s.
Linda Farrell: We’re gonna work on fixing that. So we’re gonna learn about our ‘b’ hand. Have you ever used your ‘b’ hand?
Linda Farrell: They have a ‘b’ hand. Their ‘b’ hand, it looks like a ‘b.’ Here’s the circle. Here’s the line. And we teach them to not guess and to slow down and compare your hand to the letter.
Linda Farrell: This is your ‘b’ hand, okay? So I’m gonna put this little rubber band on you, so you can remember which one’s your ‘b’ hand. So which one’s your ‘b’ hand?
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Linda Farrell: I don’t tell a kindergartener, a first grader, or a second grader, “It’s your left hand,” because they don’t know which one is their left hand. Sometimes I don’t even know which one’s my left hand. When we first teach it, we put something on their hand. We might put a sticker. I put a rubber band on Aiko’s hand so that when I say, “Where’s your ‘b’ hand?” she’s got something that reminds her. Three lessons she won’t need the rubber band anymore. She’ll know what it is. Some kids get it right away.
Linda Farrell: Would you put your ‘b’ hand up like this … and make a fist. And then put your finger out. Okay? That is your ‘b’ hand. And I’m gonna show you why it’s your ‘b’ hand. Go like this. We put this down here. And this letter is a ‘b.’ And your hand looks like this letter. Can you see that? We have the circle right here. Where’s the circle on the letter? Point to the circle on the letter. And where’s the circle on your hand? Yeah. Right there. Where’s the stick on the letter? Show me a stick on your finger. This is your ‘b’ hand because the stick is on the same side of the circle as your finger. So your finger and your, and the stick are on the same side of the circle.
Linda Farrell: Lots of kids get ‘b’s and ‘d’s mixed up — kindergarten, first and second grade. It does not mean that they have dyslexia. Students who have dyslexia have phonological processing issues. They do not differentiate sounds easily. Their problems are primarily related to phonological awareness. ‘B/d’ is about shapes. That is not about sounds.
Linda Farrell: Will you put your ‘b’ hand by the ‘b’? Yep. And is your finger on the same side of the circle as the stick or on a different side of the circle?
Linda Farrell: The same side. Yeah. Let’s go down here. Is this a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?
Linda Farrell: Okay. And when you answer, I want you to look down here and compare it. Here’s what you did. You went [looking upward]. Well, you’re not gonna figure it out unless you look and you compare. Okay. So you have to look and say, “Ooh, I can tell.” So is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?
Ms. Farrell’s explicit lesson about recognizing the shape of the letter ‘b’ will take some time to sink in for Aiko. And there’s a common habit she’ll need to deal with. When Aiko is working on identifying a letter, she often looks up to think, looking away from the letter.
Linda Farrell: The answer to what is an incorrect letter or an incorrect word is in the print. And we have to teach Aiko to keep her eyes on the print, on the words, when she’s reading, or the letters. I’ve worked with many kids that have this same difficulty. And I’ll say, “Keep your eyes on the words,” and they can’t do it, because their habit is so strong that they can’t try to do what I’m asking them to do and remember to keep their eyes down. So we just practice keeping your eyes down.
Linda Farrell: We’re gonna practice looking down here, okay? So I’m gonna ask you a question, and you can’t look up until I go like this [pounds fist], okay? So you keep looking down. Don’t look up. Look down. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist] Now you can look up. Okay. Let’s try it again. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist]
Eventually, Aiko will need to have images of words stored in her brain. This is critical to the immediate word recognition necessary for fluent reading. When students say a word without looking at it, they miss opportunities to develop those images.
Linda Farrell: So hold your hand up here. So I’m gonna go ‘a,’ cause I don’t need my ‘b’ hand. But do I need my ‘b’ hand for that letter?
Linda Farrell: Yes, I do, cause that’s a ‘b’ or a ‘d.’ So I have to put my ‘b’ hand and … let me see. Is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’? Which one do you think? Ohp. Where are you gonna look?
Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay. Is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?
Linda Farrell: Let’s try that. Put your ‘b’ hand next to that. Okay. Is your finger on the same or a different side?
Linda Farrell: Different. So is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?
Linda Farrell: Yes. And we’re gonna keep looking down. Remember? You don’t get to look up until I stomp. Okay? So now, I want you … we’re gonna go just right to here. Okay? So watch me. ‘a, d, s, b.’ You do it. Okay. Put your hand up here for the ‘a.’ Okay. Do it.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. See how far away your hand is? You gotta go like this. And you know where you looked when you read? You looked at me. But where are you supposed to be looking?
Linda Farrell: Yep. At the letter. So. Okay. So we did those four. You do these four.
Linda Farrell: And this is isolated practice. I see lots of teachers who use a ‘b’ and ‘d’ hand or a ‘b’ hand. But they only do it when the kid misses a word. So, “Oh, you read ‘bog’ as ‘dog.’ Use your ‘b’ hand.” You don’t have to use your ‘b’ hand. If it’s not “bog,” it’s “dog.” We’ve gotta have isolated practice to rewire the brain … to stop guessing and start looking. And that’s what we did with Aiko. Aiko has pretty significant ‘b/d’ issues. With this kind of practice, she could solve her ‘b/d’ issues, I believe, in three to four weeks if we did this every day.
Linda Farrell: You got it. Do you think you can do 10 in a row?
Linda Farrell: I think you can. Let’s try it. Okay.
Linda Farrell: [whispering] Hand down. Is your finger on the same side or a different side?
Aiko: Different, so it’s a ‘d.’
Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay.
Linda Farrell: Ten out of 10! That’s …
After a little more practice with ‘b’ and ‘d,’ Ms. Farrell will help Aiko work on another skill … reading short vowel words without sounding them out aloud first. And Aiko will need to lean on her new skills … distinguishing between ‘b’ and ‘d’ using her ‘b’ hand, and concentrating on looking down at the words while she thinks.
Linda Farrell: Can you just read these words right here?
Linda Farrell: Could you read these words right here please?
Linda Farrell: Could you check and see if that’s a ‘b’ or a ‘d’? Use your ‘b’ hand. Is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?
Linda Farrell: It is a ‘d.’ So what’s …
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Linda Farrell: What’s the word?
Linda Farrell: Look down. Always keep your eyes on the words.
Linda Farrell: Okay. You got five words right. Can you touch and say that word?
Linda Farrell: It is hug. Read them all again.
Linda Farrell: Okay. You got six out of six right. When you read this word, you went /k - i - t/. Did you hear yourself do that? Okay. It’s okay. I want you to do that in your head. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna close our mouth until we’re ready to read the word. It goes like this. [pause] Did. [pause] Ad. I have to think those sounds in my head. So can you do that? Let’s read these.
Linda Farrell: [whispering] Mouth closed.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. Two things: you got five right. Can you? What’s that word?
Linda Farrell: It is kip. And the other thing is, you looked up. So we’re gonna practice looking down. Okay. You’re gonna look down, look down here until I stomp, okay? [pounds fist] You can look up. Okay? Do it again. [pounds fist] Now you’re gonna read, and you can’t look up until I stomp, okay? So remember, you’re not gonna look up until I stomp, so I’ll hold this, okay? So start reading.
Linda Farrell: [pounds fist] That was perfect. You kept your eyes down the whole time. Can you check and see if that’s a ‘b’ or a ‘d’? Use your hand. Use your ‘b’ hand.
Linda Farrell: Yeah. So what’s the word?
Linda Farrell: It is. We’re gonna go over here … and again, don’t look up until I stomp. So read those.
Linda Farrell: You can use your ‘b’ hand, right there.
In one short lesson, Aiko has made a lot of progress. She’s learning to keep her head down as she reads, focusing on the letters. She’s using her ‘b’ hand to help her identify her ‘b’s and ‘d’s more accurately. And she’s reading words as a whole rather than sound by sound. As she practices and works toward mastery of these skills, her reading will get better and better.
Linda Farrell: Mud. You kept your eyes down and you got ‘em all right! Six out of six! Yes!
We’d like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.
Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary … and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools.
We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Produced by Noel Gunther
Edited by Christian Lindstrom
Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec
Camera: Richard Chisolm
Audio: Dwayne Dell
For more information about teaching reading, please visit
Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.
© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.
