Making Sense of Phonics: The Hows and Whys

This bestselling book provides indispensable tools and strategies for explicit, systematic phonics instruction in K-3. Teachers learn effective ways to build students' decoding skills by teaching letter-sound relationships, blending, word building, multisyllabic decoding, fluency, and more. The volume is packed with engaging classroom activities, many specific examples, and research-based explanations. It offers a complete phonics assessment and clear guidelines for sequencing instruction to give every student a strong foundation for reading. More than 30 reproducible forms and word lists are included in the appendices; the companion website features a wealth of supplemental teaching resources.

New to This Edition
*Six additional chapters covering key topics, including assessment, phonemic awareness, orthography, and automaticity.
*A complete phonics assessment with administering and scoring guidelines.
*Companion website with rich supplemental resources, including word/syllable cards, assessment tools, and illustrated stories featuring target words, which teachers can project or print for classroom use.
*More classroom examples and "Your Turn" activities, plus expanded word lists.

See also Bringing Words to Life, Second Edition: Robust Vocabulary Instruction and Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples, by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan, which provide essential tools for K-12 vocabulary instruction.

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