Alphabetic Principle

The alphabetic principle is the idea that letters, and groups of letters, match individual sounds in words

The five components of reading are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension along with integrating spelling and writing instruction with reading instruction

Alphabet Principle Plan of Instruction

• Teach letter-sound relationships explicitly and in isolation

• Implement opportunities for students to practice letter-sound relationships daily

• Cumulatively review previously taught sound-letter relationships while providing practice time for new sound-letter relationships

• Plan opportunities early and often for children to apply their new and expanding knowledge of sound-letter relationships

• When teaching upper and lowercase letters, be sure to expose children to different fonts so that they can fluently identify them

Decoding

• Decoding is the ability to pronounce words based on their written letter

  • The child identifies the letter then takes the letter symbol and links it to the corresponding sound

  • The child then understands how the sounds and letters work together and blends them to create words

• Strategies include:

  • Vowel sound combinations

  • Morphological elements (prefixes, suffixes, root words)

  • Syllable types

  • Syllable division strategies

  • Syntax and semantics to support word identification and confirm meaning

Letter-Sound Relationships

• As students move into the decoding phase, the alphabetic principle should expand to include groups of letter and vowel sound combinations

  • Digraphs are two letters that make one sound

    • /s/ + /h/ = /sh/

  • Vowel teams are two or more vowels that together make one sound

    • /ea/ in read

  • Blends are two letters that together still produce their sounds

    • /fr/ in frog

  • Students need to see the groups of letters, hear the sound they make, and see a picture example of a word that matches