ISSUE BRIEF:
“The Science of Learning to Read Words: A Case for Systematic Phonics Instruction”
Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1) pp. S45-S60 | doi: 10.1002/rrq.334
Copyright 2020 International Literacy Association
Ehri (2020) offers a rationale for implementing systematic phonics instruction to help students learn essential skills for reading words. Research has shown that readers enhance their memory of sight vocabulary words through spellings attached to how a word is pronounced and what it means. This process of associating sounds (i.e., phonemes) to corresponding letters or letter combinations (i.e., graphemes) and a word’s meaning contributes to key foundational reading skills such as fluency and comprehension. Implementing systematic and explicit phonics instruction where students can engage in storing written words from memory and recalling these words from memory to help with future reading is considered a principal aim of beginning reading instruction.

A Case for Systematic Phonics Instruction
Systematic phonics instruction, particularly in the primary grades, provides foundational skills that launches students into further reading and spelling where they focus their attention on comprehending and communicating meaning. A systematic approach includes:
  • An agreed-upon scope and sequence of letter-sound correspondences
  • Phonemic awareness instruction that focuses on segmenting and blending spoken words
  • A routine for decoding unfamiliar words
  • Spelling instruction that is connected to phonics and phonemic awareness instruction
  • Extended opportunities to practice in text (sentences and books) with a high degree of decodability to build sight vocabularies
  • Extended opportunities to read words in meaningful contexts
  • Building knowledge of larger units in words (i.e., morphemes, syllables) with older readers to read, spell, and understand the meaning of multi-syllabic words.
 
Ehri’s word reading approach is supported by more than four decades of empirical research and should not be “mischaracterized as only skill and drill, with little attention to meaning” (p. S57). Instead, her approach is aligned to approaches that are differentiated and individualized to particular readers’ needs. Although most beginning readers benefit first from more emphasis on code-focused work (that includes meaning-based work as well), readers will move into more emphasis on meaning-based work (that includes some code-focused work as well). In short, Ehri’s approach provides “both structured phonics- and meaning-based instruction tailored to individual students’ phase of development” (p. S57).

Developmental Phases in Learning to Read Words
Ehri proposes four phases of learning to read words. Each phase is characterized by the predominant type of knowledge that readers use to read and spell words.
  • Pre-alphabetic phase: Readers rely primarily on visually salient cues and context cues but not letter-sound cues to read and write words. For example, they might read McDonalds by seeing the logo.
  • Partial alphabetic phase: Readers begin to use their knowledge of letter names and sounds to read and spell but cannot decode unfamiliar words. For example, they might write c for ‘cat’. The key foundational skills to move from the pre-alphabetic to the partial alphabetic phase include the following:
  • Learning letter-sound associations requires learning shapes and sounds and forming associations between the two. This process is most efficient when shape-sound mnemonics (e.g., the letter s drawn like a snake to represent the first sound in the word)
  • Developing phonemic segmentation skills is most effective when using pictures of the mouth that show how we articulate sounds (e.g., showing a picture of a mouth’s shape when making the sound for p.), then how to segment a word into phonemes (e.g., /p/ /a/ /t/ for pat), and then using letters to spell the word (p-a-t).
  • Full alphabetic phase: Readers have acquired decoding skill and can fully analyze letter-sound connections within words to read and spell them from memory. For example, they can sound out a word or read it by connecting parts (e.g., /c/ + /at/).
  • Teaching students spelling connected to phonemic awareness and phonics is the bond that leads to more effective and efficient decoding abilities.
  • Using spelling also more efficiently facilitates vocabulary learning (i.e., meanings) of written words.
  • Consolidated alphabetic phase: Readers have acquired many sight words in memory and, as a result, have also acquired larger consolidated spelling patterns (i.e., syllables and morphemes). They use this consolidated knowledge to read and spell multi-syllabic words and bond them to memory.

Why does this approach to systematic phonics instruction work?
In order for readers to become fluent and able to focus their attention on comprehending a text’s message, they must be able to read a large vocabulary of words from memory by sight (i.e., words recognized quickly and automatically). However, this process of learning words by sight is not most effectively accomplished by just memorizing whole words. Rather, beginners learn to read words as sight words by “bonding their various word’s identities together to form single lexical units [i.e., whole words] in memory” (p. S46). These word identities are as follows:
  • Orthographic (spelling)
  • Phonological (pronunciation)
  • Morphological (word roots and affixes)
  • Syntactic (grammatical function in sentences)
  • Semantic (meanings)
 
In order for the written form of a word to be connected to the knowledge we have about how to use a word when speaking, “readers must bond spellings to pronunciations by applying their knowledge of letter–sound relations to connect letter units to sound units within specific words. The letter–sound units might be grapheme– phoneme units, onset-rimes, syllables, or morphemes depending on a reader’s knowledge of the writing system” (p. S46). Bonding written words with syntax and meaning thus requires readers to read words in text–sentences and longer texts/books–where syntactic and semantic identities are activated when the spellings are seen. Connections form and become stronger as readers have more opportunity to read and write the words. This applies to all words, not just high-frequency or irregularly spelled words.