Phonics, Naturally ─ Reading & Writing for Real Purposes

Children are incredible learners; even before arriving at school, they deftly absorb and interconnect the symbols and sounds of their world. In Phonics, Naturally, teacher-researcher Robin Campbell explores how K-1 teachers can extend this innate ability to interrelate phonic components to help all students develop literacy knowledge through purposeful, context-based lessons.

Campbell emphasizes how immersion in a highly literate classroom filled with print and language stimuli allows kids to intuitively build accurate letter-sound relationships, and he offers a framework for teaching phonics in the course of your normal literacy instruction via proven instructional strategies like:

• early mark making
• read-alouds
• playing with language in rhyme and song
• writing and reading in a variety of genres
• exploring environmental and classroom print
• using students' own names.

Then Phonics, Naturally offers extensive ideas for meaningful lessons to use in conjunction with these strategies. Campbell shows how each activity specifically addresses one of the four key aspects of phonics knowledge:

• letters and alphabet
• phonemic awareness
• onset and rime
• letter-sound relationships.

In addition, samples of student work demonstrate firsthand how immersion in print and speech works dynamically with children's prior knowledge of letters, important words from their memories, and invented spellings to enhance their knowledge of phonics.

Take Robin Campbell's advice, connect your classroom to your students' own amazing ability to relate letters and sounds, and see them learn phonics, naturally.

Robin Campbell is Emeritus Professor of primary education at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He was previously a primary school teacher and head teacher, and he has written eight books about young children learning to read and write at home and in school, including, most recently, Read-Alouds with Young Children (International Reading Association, 2001).