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Creating an Appropriate Phonics Instruction Environment
You can significantly improve the reading skills of your students or children by creating a phonics instruction environment that’s conducive to reading. Studies show that a phonics instruction environment’s ambience heightens our senses and focuses our attention on even the slightest of details.
Since reading often requires us to pay attention to an extensive amount of detail, we can only expect great things from a room filled with books, magazines, flash cards, and everything that suggests reading is a primary focus. But that phonics instruction environment needn’t be stoic.
Inspire to Read
You can inspire anyone to read with a brightly designed room filled with the gifts that reading bears. Bookshelves full of adventurous stories and racks overflowing with activity-filled magazines are just a couple of ideas. A big globe or wall map gives readers the opportunity to learn about new destinations. A large blank chalkboard and chalk give young students the opportunity to happily scrawl their first attempts at communicating with the written word. Even video games can be encouraging!
(Yes, we said the “VG” word!) Almost all of today’s video games surprisingly require a good grasp of the literary world to play, and we can’t think of a single child who could resist the opportunity to play one even if it’s filled with rich vocabulary and entertaining comprehension. Of course, the computer compels students to read as well. Point and click can only go so far before an eager reader can properly manipulate a pc.
But these are just, “things.”
To make a phonics instruction environment bustle with learning, these “things” have to be used on a regular basis – and not just for the sake of using them. A strategy that we continuously find useful is letting our discussion dictate the course of our research, and then seeking out the answers to questions through the tools we have at our disposal.
A student may have heard about a flood in a remote part of the world for example, and have some questions about it. Right then and there, we locate that area on the globe and then seek out opportunities to learn new words from reading about that area in an encyclopedia.
Reinforce Your Belief
It’s just as important for our students to see us reading as well. It’s one thing to dictate the importance of reading and give instruction on how to read. It’s a confirmation however, for students to see us put our eyes where our mouths are and apply the usefulness of reading to our personal lives.
All of the choices we make about our living and working spaces build a phonics instruction environment that reinforces our beliefs. If you believe literacy is important, and you want your students to demonstrate that importance, make sure your surroundings are filled with props and activities that foster those beliefs and expressions.
External Resources:
1. Shared Reading for Today’s Classroom
2. Facilitating Literacy Environments Through Technology
3. Technology-Mediated Learning Environments for Young English Learners
What is word study? Word study = phonics + spelling + vocabulary instruction fave!