Phonics They Use: Words for Reading and Writing (3rd Edition) - Softcover

An invaluable resource for any teacher in search of new ideas! The new edition of this bestseller is packed with new activities and strategies for teaching reading. It weaves together the complex and varied strategic approaches needed to help students develop reading and spelling skills. Written by well-known author Patricia Cunningham, Phonics They Use 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 most is when students use phonics for decoding a new word, for reading and spelling a new word, and for writing. Rather than subscribe to a single theory, the book stresses a balanced reading program— incorporating a variety of strategic approaches—tied to the individual needs of children.

• Full chapter on developing phonological and phonemic awareness, including activities designed to develop the concept of rhyme and teach blending and segmenting as well as activities using children's names.
• Includes classroom-tested ways to develop fluency as well as a Fluency Development Lesson that can be easily included in any teaching setting.
• Includes assessment devices which focus not just on what children know about phonics but on what they actually use while reading and writing.

“It is one of the few phonics texts that achieves the goal of helping teachers to gain the basic phonics knowledge they need to teach to children.” Jeanne Cobb, Eastern New Mexico University

“For many, “phonics” will finally make sense after reading this book.” Mary Jane Eisenhauer, Purdue North Central

Patricia M. Cunningham

The day I entered first grade, I decided I wanted to teach first grade. In 1965, I graduated from the University of Rhode Island and began my teaching career teaching first grade in Key West, Florida. For the next several years, I taught a variety of grades and worked as a curriculum coordinator and special reading teacher in Florida and Indiana.

From the very beginning, I worried about children who struggled learning to read and devised a variety of alternative strategies to teach them to read. In 1974, I received my Ph. D. in Reading Education from the University of Georgia. I developed the Making Words activity while working with Title One teachers in North Carolina where I was the Director of Reading for Alamance County Schools. I have been the Director of Elementary Education at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina since 1980 and have worked with numerous teachers to develop hands-on engaging ways to teach phonics and spelling. In 1991, I published Phonics they Use: Words for Reading and Writing, which is currently available in its fourth edition. Along with Richard Allington, I published Classrooms that Work and Schools that Work.

Dottie Hall and I have worked together on many projects. In 1989, we began developing the Four Blocks Framework, a comprehensive approach to literacy which is used in many schools in the United States and Canada. Dottie Hall and I have  worked together to produce many books, including the first Making Words books and the Month by Month Phonics Books. These Making Words by Grade Level books are in response to requests by teachers across the years to have making words lessons with a scope and sequence tailored to their grade level. We hope you and your students will enjoy these making words lessons and we would love to hear your comments and suggestions.