The Nelson Phonics-in-a-Box approach
Nelson Phonics-in-a-Box 1 introduces the 26 alphabet letters (graphemes) that are used to construct the 44 common speech sounds (phonemes) that make up the English language. Box 1 focuses on the letter–sound relationships in five small collections of letters. These letter sets have been purposefully sequenced to enable students to build upon their phoneme–grapheme correspondences quickly, and to blend two and three phonemes together to make many simple VC (vowel-consonant) and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.
Nelson Phonics-in-a-Box 2 consolidates this understanding with an in-depth focus on consonants sounds, beginning with the common double consonant sounds ff, ll, ss and zz, continuing through to consonant digraphs and consonant blends. Box 2 also ensures that students understand the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes) by exploring common onset and rime word combinations.
Nelson Phonics-in-a-Box 3 explicitly introduces short and long vowel phonemes and graphemes, including irregular vowel sounds.