What We Know About How To Teach Phonics By Patricia M. Cunningham

Everyone seems to be in agreement that phonics is an important element in teaching a student to read. In the article, What We Know About How to Teach Phonics by Patricia M. Cunningham and James W. Cunningham, they discuss what is known about teaching phonics. Then, the authors give some suggestions that would benefit both teacher and student in regards to phonics as well. In response to what we already know, students need cognitive clarity with anything they are learning. Basically, they need to know the end goal and what they are going to do to get there. Next, students should always be engaged in the material that is presented to them. This way they are fully interested in learning. Third, material needs to be multi-level to meet the needs

of different types of learners and intellects. Those elements were just for good teaching. Things that are important to teach phonics are; phonemic awareness, sequential decoding, using patterns and analogies to decode, and morphemes. Some important aspects the article also listed are that students should read and write as much as possible, and phonics should be taught in a variety of ways. The final conclusion to the article is that the best way to teach phonics is to base it on what we know about the best learning methods along with what we know on how the student’s mind operates.
The article gave a good walk through on good teaching methods and things that benefit phonics leaning. I particularly liked the section on morphemes, learning about how we compare large words to other words so that we can get an idea on how to say a word properly. It used the example of desertification, comparing that to modification and unification when you break the word into desert and ification. Something everyone does on a regular basis spelled out for you to understand how and why. Based on what I have learned on good teaching methods, I should ultimately use that to help instruct my students when it comes to phonics.