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Why we use Traditional Phonics at TCA

We teach Traditional Phonics at Trinity Classical Academy because we believe it to be the best approach for teaching children to read. It is direct and simple in nature. In practice, traditional phonics places reading first as its goal. Spelling is a product of the reading process, but not its main goal of our instruction as it is in several other phonics curricula.

While there are more involved phonics curricula, Traditional Phonics keeps the learning of

letters and sounds simple. In traditional phonics students initially learn one sound for each letter. The most common consonant sounds and the short vowel sounds are taught first. Often a “key word” is used to provide the correct letter sound. Once these letter/sound correspondences are learned students begin blending and reading short consonant/vowel/consonant (CVC) words such as cat. Extensive practice is provided with this beginning concept. In this way students immediately apply and practice what they have learned and understand why they are learning what they are learning. More importantly, it begins to activate or wire those parts of the brain that are needed for reading and prepares students for more advanced reading concepts.

These advanced concepts include learning the additional sounds for a and c among other letters, multi-letter spelling patterns, and syllables. The Traditional Phonics approach is part of a larger teaching method known as explicit phonics. Throughout its long and somewhat controversial history reading has proven itself to be best learned through explicit phonics. But what exactly is explicit phonics? Explicit phonics is a specific teaching technique that consists of several important components, all of which must be in place for learning to occur:

  • It is teacher directed with instruction stated clearly and in detail.

  • It includes Phonemic Awareness which teaches the understanding that words are made up of sounds. Phonemic awareness is one of two basic skills recognized as an early indicator of how well students will learn to read during the first years of instruction. It is taught as an oral language task in which students listen to and identify rhyming sounds, beginning sounds, end sounds, and middle sounds within words.

  • It incorporates Alphabet Recognition which is the recognizing and naming of letters in all their various forms.

  • It identifies letter-sound correspondence and spelling patterns and teaches how these letters and groups of letters are linked to their sounds.

  • It is synthetic, meaning it blends sounds.

  • It is systematic, meaning it works from simple skills to more complex skills. These skills are preeminent even after students have grasped basic proficiency.


Reading comprehension is the goal of learning to read and involves a number of elements,

one of them being word recognition. Word recognition is the piece that must be in place for

further skills to occur. It is the foundation of reading. This word recognition must be a part of an explicit phonics method, one that is simple and direct, and one that places reading first.

Traditional Phonics encompasses all these components and Trinity Classical Academy believes it is the best method for teaching reading.


Mrs. Carin Harner

Literacy Specialist & Curriculum Advisor

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