Teachable Moments During Phonics

Carla Stanford: During your phonics lesson, you are going to have so many opportunities to watch your students, to observe what they're doing and how they're learning and what their brains are doing. And this is your moment to really hone in and lean into the teachable moments. What did I see? Where can I instruct next? So really understanding that throughout the lesson — listening game, all the way through to the end — there are going to be teachable moments and we can really capitalize on that and leverage this opportunity. If we set our classroom up in a space where we're all in this together, we're doing this work together. And I like to say mistakes are good food. When we make mistakes, they help us get better. And by setting a classroom culture that really leans into mistakes are good food, and my teacher really is looking for those teachable moments, sets us up to constantly be instructing throughout the lessons.

Narrator: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the AFT; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; and anonymous donors.