How to Make an Online Phonics Lesson for Distance Learning?

I would recommend making some crucial decisions before you even start planning your lesson such as deciding which program you want to use to teach your online lessons and which program you want to use to create your online lessons. Below you will find a brief discussion about the different options available. Then I will look at how to plan an online lesson by looking at the outcome, length, games, and activities (introduction, warm-up, practice, production, and ending).

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What Virtual Classroom will you use to Teach Phonics Online?

There are a wide variety of Virtual Classrooms available and they are vastly different, HERE is a list. I will briefly take a look at Zoom as I use it regularly to teach. You might ask yourself why it is important to know which Virtual Classroom you are going to use before you start and the answer is simple. All the different virtual classrooms have different functions and limitations. If your lesson is designed with a function that your Virtual Classroom does not have, your lesson will be difficult to teach.

Zoom is a free Virtual Classroom and the reason why I prefer it over others is because of the 'annotate' function. When you click on the annotate function, the teacher and the student can draw on the screen, but only the teacher can activate the animations. This limits the interactions that you can have, but this can be overcome by using the pencil tool to circle and draw. You can also record and share your lessons, there is a chatbox, a reward system, and game apps that can be used to make your lessons fun. These functions are important if you are teaching younger students that might not be able to speak a lot and have short attention spans.

What Program will you use to design your Online Phonics Lesson?

It is important to take the time to decide which program, app, or website you will use to create your Online Lesson. There are many different programs available, HERE is a list. Personally, I prefer using PowerPoint as it has the most options to design images and create interactive content with animations. It is, however, worth noting that not all virtual classrooms offer the option for students to activate animations, therefore it is important to also know what virtual classroom you will use for your lesson as mentioned above.

What will be the content and outcome of my Phonics Online Lesson?

I always start with the content that I want to teach and the outcome I want to achieve. Within phonics, there are different things you can teach. You could start with a lesson on the alphabet, short vowels, word families, consonant blends, or long vowels and consonant and vowel digraphs. Your student's level will determine the content that you need to teach. Things to consider when figuring out their level are their age and previous experience. Let’s say for example you are going to teach the letter A and that your student has no previous phonics experience. Then, you would need to think about your outcome for this lesson. Do you want the student to read, write and remember the letter and the sound? Do you want them to read the letter or short words that start with the letter or contain the letter as well? Your outcome could be: By the end of this lesson the student will be able to recognize the letter A, know the name of the letter and its sound, read the letter and sound, and write both the capital and lowercase form and read short words containing the letter. By incorporating not only reading but also writing into your lesson, you can also use a wider variety of activities and create more opportunities for repetition which increases the possibility of you succeeding in reaching your outcome. As we all know, in order to increase retention and to make your lesson effective for a wide variety of students, it is essential that you incorporate different senses and learning styles.

How long should you make your Online Phonics Lesson?

The length of your lesson is very important as it will determine how many activities and what kind of activities you will need to use in your lesson. My suggestion is to make a 25 min long lesson, it is a good length as most kindergarten and foundation phase learners have a much shorter attention span as opposed to older learners, HERE is a link for more information about attention span. If your student is super young and they have no experience in a formal classroom, I would suggest a fifteen-minute lesson, but it is really up to you and your student.

What kind of activities and games should you use in your Online Phonics Lesson?

What you need to do is decide how you are going to teach your content. If you don’t have experience in teaching the age group that you are going to teach and you basically know nothing about them, it might be worth looking at the developmental stage and skills by clicking HERE. Why is it important to know this? Well, different age groups have different developmental skills and abilities. If you make your lesson too difficult then your student will lose interest and vice versa if you make it too easy. It is a balancing act and understanding your student should be a priority.

How should you start your Online Phonics Lesson?

Start off with a slide that explains what is expected from them in class. Specifically, with regards to what they can do if they don't understand the teacher and what environment they should be in for the best results. You could also communicate this to the parents before the start of the lesson but it is always good to also have that ready in a slide form to jog their memories.

Every lesson needs an introduction to orientate the student and get them into the right frame of mind. You can start with either a short introduction where you introduce yourself and enquire what the student’s name is and how they are doing. This is great for building rapport and also for making your students feel comfortable and relaxed as having a lesson with a total stranger can be daunting for them as well as for you. I like to follow up with a song, HERE you can find song options. You can easily download the song and insert it into your lesson. Most students like singing and it might be a good way to get them excited about the lesson but for some students, singing can be very tedious and it is best to find out from the parent what your student's likes and dislikes are before you start creating your lesson.

Create a cover page for your Online Phonics Lesson. This can be the slide that introduces the lesson content, and what you are going to teach. In the example mentioned before, I would have a big letter A feature on this slide. In terms of design, it is up to you, you can choose to buy designs or create your own, Here you can find design options. Adding images that are related to what you are teaching to your cover page creates learning opportunities. You can direct your student's attention to these design elements and elicit vocabularies such as colors and numbers.

How to elicit your target vocabulary in your Online Phonics Lesson?

A warm-up activity is a fun activity where you can get your student to interact with you but also discover what you will learn together. There are lots of different activities that you can use such as tracing the picture, guessing what the picture is, choosing a puzzle piece to complete a picture, or matching pictures, etc., click HERE to see some examples of what I did in my lessons. This activity could be followed by reading and saying the target word or letter.

How to practice target vocabulary in your Online Phonics Lesson?

There are different activities you could use to practice identifying, reading, and saying the target letter or words. You could practice writing the letter i.e. air write it with your finger and count the strokes, HERE are more writing activities. Chants are a great way to practice new sounds and letters in a fun way, HERE you can find letter chants. If you add movements like clapping your hands while you chant or stomping your feet, your student will start to enjoy the chant even more and hopefully remember the letter and the sound. Songs are great to help your student remember a sound and a letter, HERE you can find letter songs. A short story can also be used to introduce the song's lyrics.

How to assess whether your student reached your outcome for your Online Phonics Lesson?

At this point, you should informally test if your student has reached the outcome of your lesson. In order to assess this, you need a game or activity where your student can demonstrate the ability to read and produce the letter and sound. Personally, I believe that the aim of phonics is to teach students to read and that is why at this point I would opt for a fun reading game. You could make a Bingo card, a board game, a maze, a memory game, etc., HERE you can find examples.

How to end your Online Phonics Lesson?

Before you say goodbye, I would recommend reviewing what you have learned in the lesson with a slide that shows the letter that you focused on. This visual reference will help your student remember. Another thing you could add when you are teaching the alphabet is something like a footprint to elicit what letter you will learn next. You could end with a song, HERE you can find some options. If you want to, you could supplement the lesson with some worksheets, HERE you can find worksheet options. It is always a great idea to reinforce a lesson with a worksheet to make sure the student retains what they have learned.

I hope this helped you to create your own wonderful and exciting Online Phonics Lessons. Please subscribe to get updates on my free products and latest blogs.