Knowing the names of the letters and the sounds the letters represent are two different skills that do not need to be taught together.
Phonics instruction in the Being a Reader program incorporates the research-based best practice of teaching spelling-sound correspondences in differentiated small groups at point of need. The Common Core State Standards describe it in this way: “Instruction should be differentiated: good readers will need much less practice with these concepts than struggling readers will. The point is to teach students what they need to learn and not what they already know—to discern when particular children or activities warrant more or less attention.”
Letter names are used in the Being a Reader small-group lessons when teaching high-frequency words. Teaching the letter names lessons during the first weeks of the school year will help most students learn letter names and prepare them for small-group instruction.