Thunderbolt of phonics

Marisa O’Neil

Gloomy clouds threatened to drop a light drizzle at Whittier

Elementary School on Friday, but inside Yun Im’s second-grade class,

students stayed warm and dry and read about more extreme weather.

The class, like all Newport-Mesa Unified elementary schools, uses

the new Houghton Mifflin language arts series to teach reading. The

district chose the phonics-based program to improve students’ reading

and comprehension. Students spend at least two hours a day reading.

In Im’s class on Friday, they read about a child who was afraid of

thunderstorms.

First, they warmed up with a little phonics.

Im went through each letter of the alphabet, spelling out

combinations and pronouncing words and learning about things like

consonant diagraphs -- “th” and “ch,” for example.

“It’s two letters put together to make a new sound,” 8-year-old

Jesse Monoroy explained.

After that, they broke into groups to read a story called

“Thundercake.”

“A girl is afraid of thunder,” 8-year-old Ashley Batres said of

the story. “And her grandma tries to take her fears away.”

Im worked with one group, asking them questions about the story

and reading it through with them.

At another table, 8-year-old Gaby Ramirez sat quietly, filling out

a workbook with more questions about the story. On one page, she drew

a thunderstorm of gray clouds with three yellow thunderbolts

extending down to verdant grass.

Nearby, a separate group sat on the floor, listening to the story

on headphones. They took turns fiddling with the headset controls and

laughing among themselves at an inside joke.

Bryan Aldaco, 8, flipped through the book’s pages and came across

a recipe for an actual thundercake.

“Mmm, this looks good,” he said.

Ricardo Juarez, 8, had a differing opinion.

“The cake has chocolate and sugar and flour in it,” Ricardo said.

“And it has tomatoes. I hate tomatoes.”