In Grade 1, phonological and phonemic skills are extended and refined. As children encounter words they cannot read, they are taught to use their knowledge of letter sound associations and to blend the phonemes into meaningful, spoken words. Segmenting the sounds of the spoken words and representing them with letters are taught and practiced frequently as children grow in their spelling abilities. Knowledge of letter names is highly associated with success in beginning reading. In Invitations to Literacy children learn to recognize letters accurately and quickly.
Letter names are, in most cases, good clues to letter sound associations.
Children become familiar with concepts of letter, word, sentence, and the relationships of printed and spoken words. They develop the understanding that there is a correspondence between the number of words printed and the number of words read, and they are taught to use this concept to track print. In Invitations to Literacy children are taught these words and have frequent opportunities to practice them in reading for fluency and in their writing. All essential phonic elements are taught. They have many opportunities to practice and apply these learnings in a variety of ways, including manipulating letters to build words and applying phonics skills to decodable texts and to writing.