The Research Base For Month-by-Month Phonics

The Month-by-Month Phonics books for each grade level contain a variety of motivating, multilevel activities. These activities are also research-based. Recent research reviews (National Reading Panel, 2000; Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Stahl, 1998) have suggested that the most effective phonics instruction is planned and sequential, explicit and systematic. Month-by-Month Phonics meets all of these criteria.

Month-by-Month Phonics is Explicit

It is generally agreed that phonics instruction can be explicit or implicit. Marilyn Adams (1990) defines “explicit phonics” as “the provision of systematic instruction on the relation of letter-sounds to words” (p. 49). She defines “implicit phonics” as “the philosophy of letting students induce letter-sounds from whole words” (p. 49). Month-by-Month Phonics is not an “implicit phonics” program that expects children to “induce letter-sounds from whole words.” At all levels of the program, children are explicitly taught letter-sound relationships and how these relationships transfer to decoding and spelling unfamiliar words. In kindergarten, children learn letter names and letter-sounds and are expected to begin using letter-sounds during shared reading and writing before they are taught any sight words. In first grade, children learn the most common consonant and vowel patterns and apply these to decoding and spelling words. In second grade, less common vowel patterns are focused on and all the patterns taught in first grade are reviewed. Children also learn that some vowel patterns have two or more common patterns and learn to distinguish these as they read and write words in Reading/Writing Rhymes lessons. In third grade, children continue to work with complex vowel patterns and are taught explicitly how to combine their visual checking with vowel patterns to spell words correctly in an activity called, “What Looks Right?” Common prefixes and suffixes are taught and children learn to use these morphemic parts to decode, spell and access meanings for polysyllabic words. This emphasis on using morphemic parts to decode, spell and build meaning for polysyllabic words is continued in the upper grades as students use roots, prefixes and suffixes as keys to unlocking thousands of polysyllabic words. Explicit instruction on the patterns of English spelling is evident in all the Month-by-Month Phonics activities. More important, perhaps, students are explicitly taught how to use letter patterns to actually decode and spell new words when they are reading and writing.

Month-by-Month Phonics is Planned and Sequential

It is generally agreed that phonics instruction can be planned and sequential or provided as the need arises. According to the Learning First Alliance (2000):

When the Chair of the National Reading Panel testified of their findings before a congressional subcommittee, he said:

The instruction in Month-by-Month Phonics is not “embedded,” “incidental,” or “implicit,” and does not wait to “highlight elements as they happen to appear in a text.” Rather, it is planned and sequential because, each month at each grade, there is a planned sequence of lessons with specific letters, sounds, and words given for the teacher to use. In the program, the children begin by learning phonemic awareness, letter names, and sounds. They progress to learning digraphs, blends, and vowel patterns in one- and two-syllable words. They continue to progress to decode and spell polysyllabic words.

In addition to being planned and sequential, Month-by-Month Phonics is also “multilevel.” While targeting specific phonics/spelling elements, each lesson also provides opportunities for children to learn a variety of important understandings about letters and sounds—including some that are easier than the lesson focus and some that go beyond the focus. In every Making Words lesson, children are encouraged to stretch out words and put the letters together to form words—an activity that helps children develop the segmenting and blending phonemic awareness skills. The words made in the middle part of a Making Words lesson are words that contain the targeted phonic/spelling element. The first words in each lesson, however, are easier words and allow children to review or re-learn previously taught patterns. The last words in every Making Words lesson—including the secret word that can be made with all the letters—are more challenging words and are included to provide opportunities for advanced children to extend their knowledge of letters and sounds. When we sort words in a Making Words lesson, we sort on a variety of levels. Sorting out words that share a root, prefix or suffix helps children begin to pay attention to these important morphemic parts—even before that becomes a major focus of instruction. Words can also be sorted by beginning letters to support the development of that knowledge for children who haven’t quite mastered that yet. We always sort for rhyming words and transfer those rhyming patterns to decode and spell new words. Sorting words and decoding and spelling new words allows all children to notice a variety of patterns and move forward in their understandings about how our English alphabetic system works. Throughout the program, teachers are reminded of how the activities are designed to be multilevel and how to maximize the effectiveness of the activities for children at all different levels of understandings about words.

The National Reading Panel report did not offer any research-based solution to the problem of children being at different levels in their word knowledge, but they did acknowledge the universality of the problem and the dilemma all teachers face.

Month-by-Month Phonics is Systematic

It is generally agreed that phonics instruction can be systematic or nonsystematic. Marilyn Adams contrasts “systematic phonic instruction” with “emphasis on connected reading and meaning” (p. 42), and with “meaning emphasis, language instruction, and connected reading” (p. 49). The instruction in Month-by-Month Phonics is systematic because a separate time slot is set aside each day for teaching phonics. During this time the focus is on phonics and word study, rather than on the other essential components of a comprehensive literacy program. The instruction in Month-by-Month Phonics is also systematic because it includes regular guidance for the teacher in how to coach students to apply the phonics they are learning during connected reading and writing.

What does the research say about the form systematic phonics instruction should take? Again, we turn to the National Reading Panel Report and to Stahl et al for guidance.

The National Reading Panel Report (2000) concluded that:

The National Reading Panel Report (2000) went on to conclude that:

Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Stahl (1998) discuss two kinds of “early and systematic phonics instruction” (p. 344), “traditional” and “contemporary.” Making Words, one of the main kinds of phonics instruction in Month-by-Month Phonics, was included by Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Stahl (1998) in the “contemporary” kind of systematic phonics instruction. The National Reading Panel Report (2000) cautioned their readers not to conclude that newer phonics instructional programs are inferior to the ones they examined in their meta-analyses:

Some people associate systematic phonics instruction with decodable text because many synthetic forms of systematic phonics instruction include decodable text. The National Reading Panel (2000) did not conclude that phonics instruction must have decodable text in order to be considered systematic. Rather, the Panel concluded that research does not support the need for decodable text when teaching systematic phonics:

Recently, questions have been raised again about the best format in which to deliver phonics instruction. The National Reading Panel Report (2000) reviewed research on this question and concluded that:

The Type of Systematic Phonics Instruction in Month-by-Month Phonics

The National Reading Panel (2000) described several different types of effective phonics instruction including analogy phonics, onset-rime phonics, phonics through spelling and phonics in context. Month-by-Month Phonics combines analogy phonics, onset-rime phonics, phonics through spelling, and phonics in context.

Analogy and Onset-Rime Phonics
Both analogy and onset-rime phonics programs teach children to use parts of written words they already know to identify new words. The parts used are the beginning letters (onsets) and the rhyming pattern (rime). Some of the original research which resulted in the Month-by-Month Phonics activities was done by Patricia Cunningham early in her career (Cunningham, 1975-1976; 1979; 1980; 1992; Cunningham & Guthrie, 1982). In this research, analogy-based decoding strategies were investigated and found to be effective in teaching children to decode words. Recently, several research reviews have affirmed analogy strategies, along with other strategies, as effective ways to teach decoding.

In analogy phonics, children decode and spell new words by thinking of known words with similar patterns. In onset/rime phonics, readers decode and spell words by dividing between the onset and rime, pronouncing both chunks and then blending these two pronunciations together. Here is an example of how these two decoding strategies might work:
Imagine a reader who comes upon the word “primp” for the first time. If this reader knows the sounds usually associated with pr and imp, she will blend the sounds of these two chunks together to pronounce the word. She has decoded the new word primp by dividing between the onset—pr and the rime—imp, pronounced these two chunks and then recombined them to produce the word.

Now imagine another reader encountering for the first time the word, primp. This reader also divided between the onset and the rime and thinks of the pronunciation for pr but this reader doesn’t have a pronunciation stored for the rime—imp. This reader then does a quick search through his word store for words he knows that have the imp rime. He thinks of shrimp and chimp and uses these two known words with the same rime to pronounce the imp rime. He then blends the onset, pr with the rime, imp and pronounces the word primp. Analogies are “likenesses” or “similarities. When we ask someone to think of an “analogous” situation, we are asking them to think of a similar situation. When children decode words by analogy, they use similar words to generate pronunciations for new words.

Many of the activities in Month-by-Month Phonics focus children’s’ attention on the onsets and rimes in words and how they can use these to decode and spell new words. During these activities children learn to use both onset/rime phonics and analogy phonics.

During a Making Words lesson, the first part of the lesson in which children combine letters to spell words incorporates a spelling approach to phonics. The Sort and Transfer steps of a Making Words lesson incorporate onset/rime and analogy phonics. Words are sorted according to their rimes into rhyming words. Children are then shown two new words that have the same rime as some of the sorted words. They use the sorted words to pronounce new words with the same rime. To show children how to use rimes to spell words, the teacher pronounces two words that rhyme with some of the sorted words and children spell the new words using the patterns from the sorted words.

Three other activities used in Month-by-Month Phonics also teach children how to use the onset/rime and analogy decoding strategies. Children use onset and rime patterns to decode and spell new words in Rounding up the Rhymes, Reading/Writing Rhymes and Using Words You Know

Phonics Through Spelling
Phonics-through-spelling programs teach children to transform sounds into letters to write words.

Making Words, one of the main kinds of phonics instruction in Month-by-Month Phonics, was included by Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Stahl (1998) in the “contemporary” kind of systematic phonics instruction they called a “spelling-based approach.” During the first step of a Making Words lesson, children manipulate letters to spell words called out by the teacher. This is clearly a spelling-based approach to decoding.

In addition to providing children with a spelling based approach to decoding, every Making Words lesson helps children develop phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to “mentally” manipulate sounds in words—to hear when words rhyme and create rhymes and to segment words into sounds and blend those sounds back together to form words. During Making Words activities, children are encouraged to stretch words and explicitly represent each phoneme they hear with a letter, from left-to-right through the word. Because these activities teach children to hear the phonemes in words, use letters, and have children add, delete, and replace letters to spell different words, they also teach phonemic awareness in a way that is consistent with another conclusion of the National Reading Panel (2000):
“Instruction that taught phoneme manipulation with letters helped normally developing readers and at-risk readers acquire PA [phonemic awareness] better than PA instruction without letters.” (2-4)

Other activities in Month-by-Month Phonics can also be classified as spelling-based approaches. These include Changing a Hen to a Fox, Word Sorting and Hunting and What Looks Right?

Phonics in Context
Phonics in context approaches teach children to use sound-letter correspondences along with context clues to identify unfamiliar words they encounter in text. Using knowledge of beginning letter (onset) sounds along with context is the major purpose of another Month-by-Month Phonics activity, Guess the Covered Words. In this activity children are presented with sentences and paragraphs in which some words have been covered. They make guesses at each word without being able to see any of the letters. Next, the teacher uncovers the beginning letters—all the letters up to the vowel. Children now guess words that make sense and have all the correct beginning letters. Children quickly learn that just “guessing” at a word is not a very productive strategy, but that using both the context and all the beginning letters will often allow you to come up with the correct word.

Recent Research Supporting Month-by Month Phonics Activities

Since the publication of the Stahl et al and National Reading Panel research reviews, several studies have been published that support the kind of systematic phonics instruction in Month-by-Month Phonics. Davis (2000) found that spelling-based decoding instruction was as effective as reading-based decoding instruction for all her students, but more effective for the children with poor phonological awareness. Juel & Minden-Cupp (2000) noted that the most effective teachers they observed of children who entered first grade with few literacy skills combined systematic letter-sound instruction with onset/rime analogy instruction, and taught these units to application in both reading and writing. McCandliss, Beck, Sandak, & Perfetti (2003) investigated the effectiveness of Isabel Beck’s instructional strategy, Word Building, with students who had failed to benefit from traditional phonics instruction. Word Building is very similar to Making Words, Changing a Hen into a Fox, and Reading/Writing Rhymes, three of the phonics instructional activities in Month-by-Month Phonics. They found that the children who received this word building instruction demonstrated significantly greater improvements on standardized measures of decoding, reading comprehension, and phonological awareness.