Author Description

Written by an outstanding scholar, Phonics They Use seamlessly weaves together the complex and varied strategic approaches needed to help students develop reading and spelling skills.Long-positioned and long-respected as a bestseller by both pre-service and practicing teachers of reading, this affordable text offers a coherent collection of practical, hands-on activities that provide a framework for teaching phonics. The Fourth Edition continues to emphasize that what matters is not how much phonics students know but what they actually use when they need phonics for decoding a new word, for reading and spelling a new word, and for writing. Rather than subscribe to a single theory, Pat Cunningham stresses a balanced reading program—-incorporating a variety of strategic approaches--tied to the individual needs of children. Packed with new activities and strategies for teaching reading, this book is an invaluable resource for any new or veteran teacher.Now teachers have access to a new grade-level series Making Words that offers fresh multi-level activities and lessons for the kindergarten through fifth grade classroom. Based on the active and innovative approach to making words that teachers and their students have grown to love in Phonics They Use, this new series is the best resource you can have on hand for motivating your students to learn words!Take a Peek at What's New to the Edition!New Chapter on Making Words in Kindergarten (Ch. 4) describes and provides sample lesson plans on how teachers can make each kindergarten student a letter of the alphabet, using a big letter card, to teaching them how to begin to form words. New Chapter on Making Words in Upper Grades (Ch. 11) describes and provides sample lessons on how making words has been adapted for use of older students in upper grades, by emphasizing the prefixes, suffixes, roots and spelling changes that are the important decoding and spelling patterns for polysyllabic words. Inclusion of hints and suggestions for English Language Learners scattered throughout the chapters, which help make phonics and spelling instruction more successful for ELLs as they learn to read and write. These “For English Language Learner” boxes include a variety of ways teachers have adapted the Phonics They Use activities to include their children learning English.