The science of reading is reshaping how students learn the foundations of literacy, shifting from sight words and context clues to phonemic awareness and comprehension. By emphasizing evidence-based practices, teachers are better equipped to help students reach full reading mastery—though not all kids are benefiting equally.
With 5.3 million English language learners comprising 10.6% of public school students nationwide, there is a growing need to ensure literacy programs are intentionally designed to serve this significant population.
Regardless of their age when they start to learn English, if students don’t catch on to phonics right from the start, they are likely to experience literacy gaps that follow them as they transition from learning to read to reading to learn. They may struggle with comprehension, stamina and fluency because they are still focused on decoding.
Oregon set out to address this challenge in 2015 with a landmark law aimed to improve outcomes for English learners. Under the grant-funded English Learner Outcome Program, I serve as an English learner specialist with the InterMountain Education Service District, supporting smaller districts with fewer than 20 English learners.
Many of our young newcomers speak Spanish, but we also have some who speak Marshallese as well as indigenous languages such as Chukchi from the Arctic and K’iche from Mexico.
Helping a language-diverse group of students navigate the complexities of English phonetics, with its inconsistent pronunciation, irregular grammar and unpredictable sound-to-letter mapping, is difficult for any district. The challenges only multiply in schools with a limited number of ESOL-endorsed teachers, and few, if any, dedicated EL teachers, and a scarcity of translators and interpreters.
Identifying an accessible solution is essential to overcoming these barriers and ensuring equitable literacy outcomes for all students.
Where phonics meets play and discovery
During an elementary school learning walk in 2022, my fellow EL educators and I were drawn to wall posters in one classroom highlighting some of the trickiest letter combinations in English. Designed by an ESSA Tier 1-certified phonics resource, the teaching method connects the posters’ visual reminders to an oral storytelling component, helping students make sense of complicated phonics patterns.
For example, a story used to teach the combinations /er/, /ir/ and /ur/ involves cars that slam on their brakes to make an “errrrr!” sound. The unexpected scenarios and accompanying screech capture students’ imagination and spark the brain’s natural learning process through multisensory techniques.
Our students may bring different backgrounds and cultural experiences to the classroom, but each of them can relate to riding in a vehicle and feeling the brakes kick in.
Visual reminders of these stories are especially helpful when students stumble over a tricky new word that contains phonics they haven’t encountered yet. Most reading instruction doesn’t introduce /er/, /ir/ and /ur/ patterns until second grade, but if a kindergartener spots a word with one of those combinations, referring them back to the story of the car braking helps them understand the logic between letter sounds.
This level of flexibility is especially important as students progress to longer, multisyllabic words within more complex sentences. The phonics principles remain the same, and the stories give teachers a quick and simple way to refresh students on foundational concepts or fill in gaps for students who might have missed key phonics instruction along the way.
But literacy reminders don’t have to end at the classroom door. As EL specialists, we have worked with districts to place posters in lunchrooms and hallways so kids see them in different parts of the building. Seeing these reminders in multiple settings helps reinforce phonics lessons and gives students a quick resource they can revisit anytime they need support.
Ensuring tools are accessible to every district
What is especially significant to districts is that supplemental EL education doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive. The schools that the InterMountain Education Service District serves use a variety of literacy programs, which means we are committed to recommending resources that are curriculum-agnostic and integrate seamlessly with instruction to minimize teachers’ workloads.
We have also leveraged multiple grants to provide educators with access to training and expert-led professional development.
In addition, because measurement and accountability are key components of the English Learner Outcome Program as well as other grant-funded initiatives, we’re continually looking at multiple data points with different phonics screeners to ensure kids demonstrate growth toward reading at grade level. However, it’s also important to identify and close as many gaps as possible even among students who are demonstrating growth.
EL students face a barrage of potential barriers as they work their way toward reading mastery. Making the journey more joyful through memorable songs, characters and visuals helps ease the frustration young learners experience, breaking down the confusing rules of English phonics into engaging, relatable moments.
With all the phonics tools educators try, sometimes the right solution is a story about cars and screeching brakes to capture students’ attention.
