Phonics Guru

Sunday, July 31, 2011 (2:13pm CST)

Face first was right, no time for “vision” writing, or learning Chinese, or going for a run.  Within 24 hours, I was assigned 10 fellows to read all of their lessons for the upcoming week, give them feedback, and start observing lessons. This was all well and good until I opened up the first phonics lesson (hmmmm….), the second lesson (ummm?), and the third lesson (ok).  I turned to the Program Manager next to me and asked, “How much phonics instruction did these fellows receive?” The Program Manager then informed me that they received very little training on phonics as no one on staff has been taught how to teach phonics before, but it is required. I quickly realized while I could give my fellows lots of feedback on their lessons to solve a temporary problem, I would not be getting at the root of the issue and would be giving immense amounts of feedback a ritual. I was directed to the woman in charge of the content team and asked her what I could do to assist the fellows in their planning and teaching of phonics, other than give feedback to my fellows.  I was immediately invited to join the Content Team as the “Phonics Guru.”

“Phonics Guru” was never a title I ever thought I would have. As a student, I struggled immensely with reading and with phonics specifically. In college, I never received any sort of formal teaching phonics instruction in my Elementary Education degree. Upon teaching 1^st grade and Kindergarten was my first exposure to the variety of approaches, techniques, and strategies that exist in this specific literacy domain. In the past two years, my phonics instruction has evolved, really in every sense of the word. I started out with the good old-fashion alphabet without curriculum. When curriculum joined the classroom, it was very basic and slow-paced, not truly meeting the potential of the students in the classroom. I then entered Kindergarten where I was asked to help develop the Scope and Sequence of objectives taught for the rest of the school year for phonics, being handed a Words Their Way book. As the year continued, phonics instruction improved immensely, however, it was separate from the rest of literacy instruction. It was this past year with the problem-solving skills and experiences of those on my wonderful Kindergarten team that we were truly able to infuse phonic into every part of literacy in the classroom. So now I am here, and simply by virtue of the fact that I know what phonics is, I am asked to plan all phonics instruction for the upcoming school year.

This might be hard to balance with those 10 fellows I was just assigned, their 20 daily lesson plans, and three daily observations. After talking with my new boss (for whom I am very excited to work), we decided that I would take this week to dedicate to planning for the Content Team and act as a sort of freelance phonics consultant for fellows and their lessons. Those fellows who sought me out for advice in planning or problem-solving phonics in their classroom could meet with me one-on-one. In going back to my room to see which books I had brought that were relevant to phonics instruction, I could not be more thankful that those which made the cut to be in my overweight luggage were my Words Their Way books that I had purchased only weeks before leaving and had revolutionized my understanding of how to teach phonics.

Within two days, I had Scope and Sequenced the phonics, reading, sight words, and writing instruction for the upcoming year and given all of the fellows a phonics instruction workshop. I was ready to get some fellows to counter balance my content planning! On Thursday, I was assigned 6 fellows who would be mine for the rest of Summer Institute. Thursday afternoon I met with all of them. We decided to call ourselves “The Bright Spots” because while Teach for China is new any everyone might be experiencing their learning curve, we are going to be the Bright Spots that everyone looks to and thinks, “well, that group isn’t having any trouble, what are they doing right?”  All of us are really excited to be working with each other and are ready to build a team culture radiating optimism, assistance, cooperation, and problem-solving.  Since our first deadline on Friday evening, I have been glued to my computer screen reading 30+ lesson plans for next week and am ready to receive a whole new batch this evening! Let the teaching begin!