Demonstration of a phonics lesson transcript
Elaine Stanley:
We are demonstrating a standard phonics lesson. For the purposes of the demonstration, Rebecca's going to be the student and I'll be the teacher.
Rebecca McEwan:
Got my whiteboard and my marker ready.
Elaine Stanley:
Beautiful. Okay.
Usually we would begin with an area of phonemic awareness that you want to develop with your students, but because we really went into that in quite some detail in Topic 1, we won't do that part today just because of the time issues. But, we'll put the link in the chat now for the phonological awareness slides so you can go back and have a look there to access those.
https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness-lesson-activities/
Before I start, one important factor to really take note of is that to set yourselves up for success with this lesson structure, the classroom setup is a really important aspect. It's really important during explicit instruction lessons that every student is facing you, they can see you really clearly, and you can see them and what they're doing during the lesson, and you can have that direct interaction between teacher and students at all time. That's really the direct aspect of explicit instruction.
Rebecca McEwan:
That'll mean as well that, in the setup, you want to give yourself space to actually move over to students. It's not all just about standing in the front and staying there on the spot, but you actually want to get out to your students and give them that interaction.
Elaine Stanley:
Some people like to set their tables up in rows so that they can actually move in between and go and actually have direct contact with each individual student. Some people like to do a horseshoe shape with their desks so you can see everybody at the same time. Both of those work really effectively.
Teacher:
We're going to start with our learning intention for this lesson. We are learning about letters and sounds so that we can read and write words. Today we are learning about the letters sh. That's one of our digraphs that we've spoken about before; two letters that make one sound. You will know you've been successful today if you can say the sound for s h, read a word with s h, and write a word with s h.
We are beginning with the 'I do' part of the lesson. Your job is to look, listen and learn while I do, and I'm going to write my letters and say the sounds. s h says /sh/. s h says /sh/. s h says /sh/.
Now we're moving to 'We do’, so you are going to join in with me. Can you get your textas ready? All right, everybody, off we go. s h says /sh/.
Teacher and student:
s h says /sh/. s h says /sh/. s h says /sh/.
Teacher:
Wonderful. You can wipe your board and park your texta. It's the 'I do' part of the lesson again. I'm going to use my letters and sounds to read some words. All right, here we go. I can see /f/, /i/, /sh/. Fish. My first word is fish. Fish. /w/, /i/, /sh/. Wish. Fish. Wish.
Elaine Stanley:
You would go through each word. We'll just scoot through some parts just because of time again. So we'll show the students doing that as well.
Teacher:
Now it's the ‘We do’ time, so you are going to help me to read some words and using our letters and sounds. Off we go.
Student:
/sh/, /o/, /p/. Shop.
Teacher:
Reread, and that one.
Student:
Shop. /d/, /a/, /sh/. Dash.
Teacher:
Reread.
Student:
Shop, dash, /sh/, /i/, /n/, shin.
Elaine Stanley:
Beautiful. Now we're still in the word level, but we're doing the spelling now, so we've done reading, now we're moving to spelling.
Teacher:
I'm going to use my letters and sounds to spell a word now, so I need my whiteboard and marker. But first I'm going to use my word stretcher to help me stretch out this word. I can see my word is ship. /sh/-/i/-/p/. Ship.
Let's see what sounds I can hear. /sh/, /i/, /p/. I'm going to write my word on my board. My sounds were /sh/, there's my s h. /i/, /p/. I always know to check my writing, check my spelling and make sure it says what I wanted to do. So I'm going to check my sounds. /sh/, /i/, /p/. Ship. I'm happy with my word there.
Elaine Stanley:
Then we would go through the same process with crash and brush, and then it's the student's turn.
Teacher:
We'll do the 'We do' together. Everybody, you're going to help me now to write some words, to spell some words. We're starting with our first word. We need everybody's word stretcher ready. I'm just waiting for everybody to get their word stretcher ready. Our first word is flash. Off we go.
Teacher and student:
/f/-/l/-/a/-/sh/. Flash.
Teacher:
Can you tell me what sounds you can hear? Everybody's finger-spelling fingers up in the air.
Student:
/f/-/l/-/a/-/sh/.
Teacher:
Good. Off you go. You can write your word.
Elaine Stanley:
Then I might be roaming around, just helping students and making sure everybody's doing that word correctly and efficiently and using their stretching. I might point out if somebody's done a letter backwards and say:
Teacher:
Just use your letter strip at the top of your board to make sure your letter is around the right way. Check your f. Oh, we've missed a sound here. Let's stretch it again together. /f/-/l/-/a/-/sh/. Flash. What sounds can you hear? /f/. /l/. Don't forget your /l/ in your word. /f/-/l/-/a/-/sh/.
Wandering around, checking everyone.
Teacher:
Beautiful. I think we’re ready. I'd like everybody to chin their board. Let's see how we went. What was our word everyone?
Student:
Flash.
Teacher:
Flash. Beautiful. Well done. Okay, you can wipe your board and park your texta.
Elaine Stanley:
Then we would do the same with dish and flush. They would love that one.
Teacher:
Now we move onto introducing our irregular word for this lesson. Our irregular word that we are learning today is put, so I'm going to put that word into a sentence. Oh, I just did. I'll make another one as well. So, put. Let me think. I put my book into my bag to take home.
First thing I do is think about the sounds I can hear in ‘put’. In that word I can hear /p/, /u/, /t/. Three sounds. I'm going to draw my sound lines. /p/, /u/, /t/. We've got that word there. I'm just going to write it here so we can have a look.
In the word put, let's see which parts we know. It starts with /p/. We know that p says /p/, so I'm going to put that part in. /p/-/u/-/t/. I can hear the /t/ sound at the end, and we've learned that t makes a /t/ sound so I'm going to put that letter in.
Now let's have a look at this middle bit. We've got the u here that makes that /u/ sound. That's the part that's irregular for us because we haven't learned that sound for the letter u, so that's the bit we need to remember. I'm going to practise my word. /p/-/u/-/t/. Put. p-u-t spells put.
Elaine Stanley:
Then you would get the students to practise exactly the same process in the 'We do’, and put the word into their own sentence as well.
Moving into the 'I do' for the reading for the sentence level. This is my part again of the lesson. What I would do is model reading the words and using my sounds for any words that have the new letter–sound correspondence or any that we've just learned recently. Then when I've read the sentence, I would show/model rereading for fluency as well.
We'll model that with the students doing it with me.
Teacher:
Everybody, the 'We do' part, we're going to read our sentence. Let's read our words. When we've come to a word that's got our new sound, we're going to sound it out, so I will raise my hand to show when we sound out.
Student:
The /f/, /i/, /sh/, fish, the fish was on the /d/, /i/, /sh/, dish.
Teacher:
Reread.
Student:
The fish was on the dish.
Teacher:
Beautiful. Well done. Good job.
Elaine Stanley:
Moving into writing for the sentence level. This is the point in the lesson where, with sentence dictation, we're going to dictate a sentence to the students and they get to apply their letter–sound correspondence that they've just learned into spelling words within the sentence. For this part of the lesson, I'm going to demonstrate how you might differentiate the task to match the needs of different students in your grade.
First of all, for the 'I do' part, I would model writing a sentence. So, my sentence might be ‘The shop on the ship was shut’ and I would model thinking about a capital letter at the start, finger spaces between words, stretching and using my sounds for any words that have the new sound or that I need to, and a full stop at the end. We're going to do that with the students.
Teacher:
Okay, sentence dictation now everybody, time for that. We want everybody to get their whiteboards ready. Can you get your whiteboards ready?
Elaine Stanley:
I'm just going to name some students that have particular needs that we're going to really think about.
Teacher:
Sam, can you get your whiteboard? I'm going to write s h nice and big for you, and I want you to trace over those letters and say the sound. Can you do that for me and I'll come back to you in a minute?
And Sadie and Marco, I want you to wait for me, so don't start yet.
Everybody else, our sentence today is ‘The brush hit my shin’. Just to talk to you a minute about the shin. The shin is the part of your leg under your knee. If something hit your shin, it might actually hurt because it's quite a bony part of your leg. So, ‘The brush hit my shin’. That's our sentence for today. Can you say it to me, please? Repeat after me.
Student:
The brush hit my shin.
Teacher:
One more time.
Student:
The brush hit my shin.
Teacher:
Beautiful. Now we're ready to write our sentence, but what do we need to remember to do? Rebecca, can you tell me?
Student:
A capital letter to begin.
Teacher:
Beautiful. Yes. What else?
Student:
Spaces in between words.
Teacher:
Don't forget those.
Student:
And a full stop at the end of a sentence.
Teacher:
Yes. And what do you do if you're not sure about how to spell a word?
Student:
Stretch out the word and use finger spelling.
Teacher:
Beautiful. ‘The brush hit my shin.’ Off you go. Everybody if you're ready.
This group here at the back, you can actually extend on your sentence for me. I want you to write ‘The brush hit my shin and…’, and you can add to your sentence and we'll share some at the end.
Sadie and Marco, we are going to stretch out a word together. Let's get our word stretchers ready. Our word is brush. Let's stretch it. /b/-/r/-/u/-/sh/. Brush. What sounds can you hear? /b/. What's that sound? /b/-/r/-/u/-/sh/. Good. Do it one more time. /b/-/r/-/u/-/sh/. Brush. What sounds? I want you both to write that word for me.
Sam, let's come back to you. Trace it one time and tell me, /sh/. Beautiful. Now I've got these picture cards for you. You are going to sort those for me, and I want you to sort out the ones that start with a /sh/ sound. You're going to stretch them, and you're going to listen for that /sh/ sound at the beginning.
I'm just wandering around having a look at people doing their sentence. I think we are just about ready. We're going to get everybody to chin their board for me please. Let's have a look. The brush hit my shin. I can just see here we need to think about our capital at the beginning. Can you fix that one up? Looks good. And Sadie and Marco, I can see your words. Beautiful. You can put that down and wipe it and park your texta for me.
Elaine Stanley:
So, pretty full, but you get round to everybody and you cater at their point of need during that part.
Once you have completed all of those parts of the lesson, you're moving into the check for understanding. You can do this in a number of different ways. Against the success criteria, students need to show you they can say the sound for s h, they can read a word with s h and they can write a word with s h. So, that's your check.
What you might do is write s h on your board and maybe three different words. You can go around to students, ask them to tell you the sound, and then read one of the words and you can alternate so that they don't hear what the person next to them said.
You can also have students numbered because they sit in the same spaces all the time, so they know if they're number one or number two. You can say, number ones, you are writing this word. They stretch it and write it. Number twos, you're writing this word. So again, they're not right next to each other and they can copy each other's work, you want to make sure each child's doing it.
You could actually put pictures on the PowerPoint or on the big screen and they choose one of the pictures and stretch the word and write it.
The other way you can do a check for understanding is actually do a written worksheet which follows the same process of the instructional model. You would lead students through the process again and you can see how they're going without as much guided practice from you, to see how they do through those parts of the instructional model.
It's good to do that sometimes periodically because it gives you a written record of how students are progressing in their skills and knowledge over time. If you take one in March and then a month later you do another one, you can really see that progression.
This is also really useful to use in a small-group setting as well, because really you're going to repeat that instructional model, but go through the parts and give more guided practice to students, so it can be really good for that.
Through your check for understanding, you are going to make a decision about whether your students are ready to move on. Usually it's recommended about 80% of your students, of your grade, should be showing understanding of the content and application through the lesson for you to decide most students have really understood that learning and are ready to move on to independent practice.
There's a list here of independent practice tasks – that's actually contained in our instructional model documents. We'll just put the link for that in the chat now.
https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/phonics-instructional-model-for-reading-and-spelling/
Also as part of that, you can see there's lots of different activities. It's really important to make sure that students are familiar with these activities at this stage and that nothing's new, so the format of the activities is familiar to them, they're not learning a new activity. All they need to do is practise the new content.
One of those things is a phonics games template, which we'll put in the chat, and you've also got it as a handout. That's really useful for you to have because you'll be able to teach students those games over time if you would like to, and they can use those for independent practice.
https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/phonics-pair-game-templates/
Also, at this point in the instructional model, it might be your time while students are doing independent practice to pull out a small focus teaching group and work with them at a greater level of support through the content.
Rebecca McEwan:
So those students that weren't necessarily in the 80%, who need more of your guided practice.
Elaine Stanley:
Yes, that Tier 2, yes.
The link for this standard lesson that we've just gone through is going into the chat now, but it's also in your resources on the topic page.
https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/sample-phonics-lesson-standard/
When you get a chance to have a look at these slide sets, you will notice that if you look in the notes section, there are notes for teachers, it's instructions on how to work your way through the lesson. There's also the words that you might use and also sentences that you might use. It's all in there for you as well.