Teachers need to constantly differentiate their instruction for their students. Everyone comes into their classroom at the start of the year at a variety of different levels and abilities, all needing very personalized instruction in order to succeed. It can feel very overwhelming to try and figure out what each of your students' needs may be, so it's best to find a few simple ways to differentiate in order to meet the needs of your students. One of the best ways to differentiate phonics instruction is to incorporate writing in your lesson.
Differentiating your phonics lesson with writing
My favorite way to challenge my students who are already proficient in the phonics skill we are practicing is to incorporate writing into the phonics lesson. Let's say you are practicing blending CVC words. For those students who are already blending CVC words fluently, you can challenge them by incorporating writing. Here are a few examples of exactly how you can do that to differentiate any phonics lesson.
Example 1: Using a word in a sentence orally
If your students are not quite ready to write sentences, you can still practice forming complete sentences. After a student blends a word, have them use it in a sentence. For example, if the word is “sun”, they might say “The sun is shining bright.” You can take it a step further and have them count the words in the sentence or have all your students use the word in a sentence.
Example 2: Writing the word in a sentence
For those students who are already writing sentences independently, I had them use a whiteboard during phonics lessons. While we were practicing blending or spelling words, I would also ask them to write a full sentence using the words down. When I did this, I had the rest of my class do the first example, where they were thinking of a sentence and saying it orally. You can also model writing a sentence using a phonics word and then have students copy it onto their whiteboard.
Example 3: Practicing word families as a writing prompt
One of my favorite activities to practice this was writing word family rhyming sentences. This activity worked well as both a whole group lesson and a small group center activity. I would give each student a word family, like -at, -ig, -op, etc. First, they would brainstorm 4 words that belonged to the same word family. Then, they would use 2 words in a rhyming sentence. For example, if the word family was -ig, they may write down ‘pig', ‘wig', ‘dig', and ‘big'. They could write a sentence like ‘The pig can dig in the mud.' or ‘Look at that pig with a wig'. You can do this as a simple writing activity, but I also have a free St. Patrick's Day-themed activity.
Students write the words on the shamrock, then write the sentence using the words in the word family. Try out this freebie here:
You can also do all of these options with your entire class, not just students who are proficient at the phonics skill. It is a simple way to integrate writing instruction within your phonics lesson.
I hope these tips will help you differentiate phonics instruction in your class and offer more personalized instruction for your students!
