Literacy Learning: Phonological Awareness & Phonics

Literacy Learning: Phonological Awareness & Phonics

Foundational Skills for Reading, Equity, and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms

Course Details

Course Type:

• Self-Paced, Fully-Facilitated
• Cohort, Fully-Facilitated

Course Length: 10 Hours

Course Access:

• Self-Paced: Each course includes 45 days of interactive access. If you purchase multiple courses within a single concentration at the same time, your total access period will be extended (e.g., two courses = 90 days, three courses = 135 days, etc.).
  
  Upon enrollment, your dashboard will initially display 45 days per course. By the next business day, your end date will be adjusted to reflect the correct total access period based on the number of courses purchased.
  
  After your enrollment period ends, you will continue to have read-only access to your courses.
• Cohort: Participants will follow a set start and end date, determined by their school district.

Course Description

This course provides a deep exploration of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics—core foundations of early literacy development. Educators will examine the history and theories that have shaped reading instruction in the United States and investigate how past debates, linguistic diversity, and evolving research influence contemporary practice. Participants will explore the connections among sound awareness, language development, and reading comprehension while considering how families, culture, multilingualism, and teacher beliefs shape literacy learning.

Educators will learn practical, equitable strategies for teaching phonological awareness and phonics, including hands-on activities, multisensory routines, and approaches tailored for multilingual and neurodiverse learners. The course also emphasizes inclusive assessment practices, phonics generalizations, and instructional adaptations that support all students in developing decoding skills. By the end of the course, participants will be equipped to implement research-aligned, culturally responsive foundational skills instruction that enhances belonging, access, and literacy achievement.

Course Objectives

Participants will be able to:

Foundations of Phonological Awareness & Language

• Distinguish between phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics.
• Understand the connection between phonological awareness and reading comprehension.
• Discuss factors that make English a challenging language to learn.
• Describe how multilingual learners can use their first language knowledge to learn English.
• Explain how oral language development and multilingual exposure shape sound and word awareness.
• Reflect on how teachers’ awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity impacts classroom practice.

Teaching Phonological Awareness

• Apply a variety of strategies to build phonological awareness.
• Design hands-on sound activities that engage all learners, including multilingual and neurodiverse students.
• Add visual, movement-based, and language supports to make lessons clear and accessible.
• Create quick, fair assessments that reflect students’ strengths and needs without penalizing accents or dialects.

Phonics Knowledge & Instruction

• Explain what students from diverse linguistic backgrounds need to use phonics effectively.
• Describe key phonics generalizations for the English language.
• Explain how to teach phonics generalizations and address English spelling irregularities.
• Develop strategies for synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, onset and rime instruction, and decoding by analogy.
• Create a lesson plan that teaches students to decode text using phonics.

Assessment, Equity & Instructional Decision-Making

• Explain how phonics and phonological awareness assessments can measure learning equitably.
• Interpret and evaluate assessment data to identify trends, determine student needs, and guide equitable literacy instruction.
• Describe key features of inclusive phonics instruction to ensure accessibility for all learners.
• Identify ways to adapt phonics and phonological awareness instruction based on assessment data.
• Analyze how incorporating linguistic diversity and culturally responsive practices strengthens equity, belonging, and literacy achievement.

Professional Reflection

• Reflect on literacy practices and beliefs.