Why you should NOT start with letter names when teaching a student to read…
Every year you have students walk in your pre-k or kindergarten classrooms who you hope are eager to learn to read. You have approximately 185 days to teach them to identify every upper and lowercase letter in the alphabet, the sound (Who I am kidding?) sounds they make, and then teach them to blend those sounds together to make actual words. No pressure right?!?! So you pull out your weekly units that you have used for years and get right to work. You pull out those letter flash cards and start with your first letter of the year. You go over that letter every day at circle time and review words that begin with that letter. You pull out letter crafts and coloring sheets and keep practicing that letter. You might even pull out those letter writing practice sheets. You do this with each letter and hope that you have enough time to teach students to start to blend those letter sounds together to start reading before your time is UP!
This post is for the brave teachers out there. Those who are not afraid of a challenge. Those who are not afraid to step out of their comfort zone to try something new for the good of their students. I taught 20 pre-k students for 8 years just as I described above (Not that this way is a bad way to teach). Many of my students learned most of their letters. It just seemed as if learning letter sounds was a bit more of a challenge. A few years ago I took a leap and tried something different. I was starting at a new school which had never had a pre-k program. The pressure was on to show this school and community just how great pre-k programs are. I had gone to a training a few months prior and had gotten an idea. I wrestled for months about whether I should try something new in hopes that it would be better or just stick with what I new worked ok. If you want to give your students more than just “ok”, then keep reading.
Phonics in the dark…(no you do not literally turn out the lights.)! I went to a conference and listened to someone speak about phonics in the dark. I was intrigued by this concept. I knew that the whole concept would not work for my classroom needs, but I decided to adapt it and see what would happen. In August when my students walked in my classroom, I did not pull out my files from the previous years. I did not pull out those letter flashcards. I decided to teach letter sounds first without even letting students see the letter. I did make flashcards, but they were just a different type. I wrote lowercase letters and put them in sounds brackets (ex. /m/, /f/, /t/) and we focused on the sound instead of the letter name. Some students would say “that’s an m”, but I would just say something like “yes it is, good job” and keep right on talking about the letter sound. I did at least 3 sounds per week. Everything we did with those letters focused on the sound they made instead of their name. We had picture cards and listened for the beginning sounds. Once we mastered hearing and identifying beginning sounds, we moved on to ending sounds in words. I won’t lie...hearing and identifying the sound in the middle of words was not an easy task. I planned it so all letter sounds had been taught by Christmas break and we could start working on letter identification in January. I was so nervous that this would not work and then I would not have enough time left in the year to go back and teach the way I had in previous years. Guess what??? It worked. When we came back in January and started working on letter identification, the students had much more success than I had seen in previous years. I do not know why it worked, but it DID!!! It was so much easier for students to get letter names. At the end of the year, I had more students who knew all of their letter sounds and names than in previous years. I had some students who were even blending sounds to read words. Past students had never wanted to play in the reading center over the sand and water table. I had students begging to go to the reading center. Literacy was at an all time high in my pre-k classroom from that point on.
As I finish this post, let me leave you with the question that pushed me out of my comfort zone. Do students really need to know letter names to read???
