Mary Jo Fresch talks about her newest book, The Phonics Handbook. It is a valuable resource for teachers in any phonics program. It provides up-to-date, research-based answers to all your phonics questions.

An Interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito

I first met Mary Jo at an NCET conference in St. Louis. She and David Harrison had just released their newest book, and they were introducing it at the conference. The picture includes me, David Harrison, Mary Jo Fresch and Glenda Nugent. She was my co-editor for The Missouri Journal.

LINK to blog

This was one of my first experiences seeing how authors roll out their new books. It was an exciting time. I was able to attend their sessions and do both a Missouri Reader article and a blog about their new book. It was a great learning experience. In the years since, I have written about several more of her books. See her website to find out what the books were all about. They were first and foremost teacher-friendly professional books with tons of great teaching ideas.

With this latest book, she takes things to the next level. The book’s title is The Phonics Handbook. On the one hand, if you are looking for research-based answers for the questions the kids often ask about phonics as you teach, the answers are in the book and easy to find. On the other hand, if you are looking for a standalone book to use in teaching your own phonics program, she identifies teaching strands and provides sample lessons. Let’s learn more about Mary Jo and hear what she has to say in the interview. You can use the information in the talking points graphic to move to the part of the interview that interests you the most.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (Taken from her website)

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Mary Jo has a very useful webpage with lots of practical teaching resources. Here is a screen capture of her site. To use the menu bar below (decodable poems, etc.), go to her website LINK.

While you’re on the site, be sure to explore the professional books she has. I especially like the partner poems and word ladders. They give students a chance to apply and use the phonics strategies they learn in a fun, engaging way.

Conclusion:

While Mary Jo has resources appropriate for both beginning and intermediate students, I think teachers at the middle school (and even high school) levels will find that, if they use this book, they can determine which phonics to teach at those levels. I also highly recommend that, if you are a middle school teacher trying to figure out a phonics program that will help your students learn the sound-symbol relation and to internalize and use them, you add this book to your professional library. In the meantime, whether you are a beginning teacher just learning about how to teach sound-symbol relations or a veteran teacher needing a research-based answer to the questions students often pose about words during lessons, I think you’ll find that Mary Jo’s new handbook will be a useful addition to your professional library.

Until next week, Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam

Copyright 2025 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Copyrighted materials for Mary Jo Fresch were used with permission. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.