Phonics instruction can easily be integrated with quality literature selections. Share a story or poem with students and follow-up with appropriate response and extension activities. With the whole class or a small group, focus on a short rhyme, refrain or phrase from the story or poem which contains an important or common phonics generalization. Guide students' application of phonics knowledge and skills by locating phonics generalizations in reading selections, classroom displays or labels. Encourage and guide the application of phonics generalizations in collaborative and independent writing activities.
Students learn phonics from various experiences with printed language.
Frequent and purposeful reading and writing experiences offer students richer opportunities to learn, apply and reinforce their phonics skills than do many isolated practice experiences. Knowledge of phonics increases and reinforces awareness of the sound-symbol regularity in the English language. Patterns and consistencies are important to language learners and users. Early emphasis upon a limited number of common patterns is preferable to the direct instruction of many phonics patterns or rules to beginning readers and writers. The most useful phonics patterns are those that have the highest rate of consistency and use.