RICA Domain 2- Competency 6 (Phonics and Sight Words:Instruction and Assessment)

A first grade teacher provides students with explicit,systematic phonics instruction to promote their reading development. When designing activities to teach letter-sound correspondences, the teacher should:

• provide reading opportunities for students to practice sounds in context after studying the sounds in isolation
• make certain that students have mastered vowel sounds before focusing on consonants
• ensure that students master the spelling of practice words using the target sound before teaching a new sound
• include instruction in related consonant blends when introducing individual consonants

Several first graders have mastered sounding out and blending words that follow simple short-vowel phonics patters.their teacher would like to help them begin to develop whle-word reading (i.e automatic word recognition) of words that follow this patterns.Which of the following instructional approaches would be most effective for this purpose?

• using teacher read alouds followed by echo reading and then choral rereading
• scheudling frequent silent independent reading practices of word lists based on the students' oral language vocabualry
• providing modeling and guided student practice sounding out simple, regular words subvocally and then reading them aloud normally
• exposing students to common environmental print to provide frequent exposures to everyday words and phrases

Explicit phonics instruction consists of:

• sound by sound decoding
• sight word recognition
• parts of speech
• letter formation

-start with sentences
-look at words and end up with the sound-symbol relationship that is the focus of the lesson (e.g.  -sh)
The following instructional approach is an example of:

• Pat-to-Whole Lessons(synthetic phonics)
• Whole-to-Part lessons (analytic phonics)

-begin with the sound (e.g. "sh"), then children blend the sounds to build words (e.g. fish, cash, dish)
This instructional approach is 

• Part-to-Whole Lesson (synthetic phonics)
• Whole-to-Part lessons (analytics)

What are some ways of helping struggling readers acquire phonics,sight word and spelling help?

• more time and focus on key phonic skills
• provide additional practice with word work
• manipulate letters as they learn the sounds
• all of the above

An activity not recommended for teaching phonics is:

• rhyming families
• word sorts
• retelling
• magnetic letters

Phonics should be taught through:

• workbooks
• in context through mini lessons
• games
• flash cards

Implicit phonics instruction is not:

• A. a series of mini lessons on selected skills, when appropriate
• B.based on teachable moments
• C. a program such as Zoophonics
• A and C

Explicit strategies for helping students master the spelling of high-frequency sight words include:

• visual 
• auditory( pronouncing each letter in the word)
• tactile (write words on various surfaces with bare fingers)
• all of the above