Here’s my list: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Sight Words, and Comprehension/Oral Reading Fluency
Maybe you are looking for ways to add to what you are already doing with a student, or you might be seeking out a new, full curriculum. Either way, I hope I can help you enrich your reading teaching journey.
But, before we dive in to those ideas, keep this in mind….
In order for a student to learn to read, one important PRE-STEP would be to make sure they have mastered letter-sound association. In other words, do they know the names of each letter of our alphabet? Do they know the main sounds that each individual letter makes? If not, it is SO worth your time to just play with that aspect. There are tons of resources out there that encourage students to learn about the letters: coloring worksheets, writing, tracing, sand trays, and the list goes on. One of my all-time favorites is using simple letter puzzles that include picture clues for the sounds of the letters too. While working the puzzle-playing with the child, engage in discussion about the letter names, the sounds they make, and the words that use them (especially words that start with that sound).
Once we’ve established with the student each letter name and sound, you are good to move on the next phases of early reading skills:
PHONEMIC AWARENESS:
My observation is that this skill often doesn’t get enough attention in reading curriculums. Sometimes it gets overlooked altogether. If you are considering a new curriculum, or tweaking one you already have, this type of task set can easily become add-on exercises if not already included in your regular routine. Phonemic awareness basically involves recognizing the individual sounds (or phonemes) within any given word. Practicing this as a separate skill sometimes is helpful to use made-up words, so as to avoid the temptation to try and identify the letter names used to spell the word (if they already know how to spell it), rather than picking out each sound. Although, some phonemic awareness exercises go hand-in-hand with teaching phonics, such as blending or segmenting the sounds within a word. The difference between phonics and phonemic awareness, though, is that when teaching in “phonics mode” you are making sure the student knows the exact letters used to spell or read a word; an example would be that the word “cat” starts with the letter c rather than the letter k. However, when we are in “phonemic awareness mode”, we want to try to get the student to focus only on sounds and not letter names at all. So, using the same example of the word “cat” we would emphasize the three individual sounds of the word: /k/+/a/+/t/ = “kat” (no mention of spelling with letter names is involved). Then, if we took the first sound away, we would have a new word: /a/+/t/ = “at”. Phonemic awareness exercises should go beyond that basic skill set of sounding out words. We also want to challenge the student to hold on to each sound in their head well enough to move those sounds around, delete some, and add some new sounds. This is what truly heightens their phonemic awareness. For some further examples, if we switched the beginning and ending sound of the word /k/ /a/ /t/, we would end up with /t/+/a/+/k/ = “tak” (pronounced as “tack” not “take”). Or if we went back to /k/ /a/ /t/ and inserted an /n/ in the third position, we would end up with /k/+/a/+/n/+/t/ = kant (pronounced as “can’t”).
Activities to enhance phonemic awareness:
- Play “What is the New Word?”, an auditory game where you use sound deletions of a word and ask your student what the new word is. Example:
You: “What is the new word if we take “L” out of “play”?
Student who answers correctly: “Pay”
2. Color code words by sounds.
Have handy a pile of varied colored manipulatives. You should have 4 or 5 different colors and a few of each color. You could use something like Unifix cubes, counting bears, or even colored cut-out squares from construction paper.
The idea is to SAY a word to your student and focus on the sounds, not the spelling. The reason for this, again, is because the goal here is really to just heighten their awareness of each sound we hear in a word, not so much as a spelling tool per se. Some examples:
If you start off with “bed” it might look like: ▨ ▨ ▨
Then you ask the student to change “bed” to “beb”: ▨ ▨ ▨
Next, you might ask them to change it to “eb”: ▨ ▨
You should start off with just two or three sounds to manipulate at a time, and gradually increase to more sounds as your student appears to be ready.
Remember, this is focusing on sounds, not actual spellings. So the word “beach” would have three colors, one representing the b, another representing the long e sound, and a third color representing the ch sound. So it would look something like this: ▨ ▨ ▨
Then “peach” as the next step could look like this: ▨ ▨ ▨
NOTE: Every time you start a new string of words or sound groups, the choice of colors assigned to a sound can start over.
3. Play “I Spy”.
You say to your student, “I spy with my little eye, something in the room that starts with a /t/.” Then they have to guess what it is. Then continue on by adding more sounds to the clue if they need more hints. You can also let the student have a turn at being the hint-giver.
PHONICS:
If you are reading this article, you probably already have an idea of what phonics is. For our crazy and complicated English language, it is a culmination of a TON of rules to guide us in learning to read and spell words….well, many of our words…but then we also have a bunch of words that break those rules. How many rules are there? Lots. I have done my best to put most of them all into one document, which can be used as a guide or reference tool. If you want to stop over at my store, you can grab a copy for yourself. Most reading curriculums will teach and apply many of the phonics rules and attempt to expose the learners in a logical order. Sometimes rules might be skipped in one curriculum altogether but not in another, and for sure there is not only one right way that all of these rules must be presented. On the other hand, I also strongly suggest that once you land with a particular curriculum choice, try to be as consistent as possible with it, and give it a chance. I say this because switching up a curriculum from one approach to another and with a different order of introducing new rules too often can really muddy the amount of progress you are able to make with a student. Even that being said, I am all for combining a few different curriculums at once, in a methodical way, to make it a more exacting fit for a unique individual.
Some of my favorite phonics practice and reinforcement strategies:
- I like published curriculums that introduce one new phonics pattern or pattern group at a time, and guide the student to practice reading/spelling words with such patterns in isolation as well reading them in context. Each new lesson should continue to review previously learned patterns too. Usually, a few new sight words are introduced within each lesson as well, and these words should also be repeated for more practice in the later passages.
2. Many times extra practice phonics readers can be found at a local library or for purchase. You would just pick and choose books that include the patterns you need to hone in on at the moment.
3. Often work books can be easily found that help to reinforce isolated phonics patterns, which may focus more on spelling isolated words.
4. You might be able to find phonics games for purchase, or make up some of your own that can reinforce patterns you have been working on. For example, you could create some simple playing cards, out of construction paper or card stock, with one word on each card that includes a specific sound or pattern. Make a matching set of two for each word you want to play with. Then use 12, 16, or 20 cards to play a matching memory game or “Go Fish” where the goal is to acquire as many matching sets as possible. You are engaging your student with reading as well as visual memory with such games.
SIGHT WORDS:
When someone mentions sight words, they are usually referring to one of two things…or both: 1) words that are definitely not phonetic and must be memorized in order to read them or spell them correctly; 2) words that are phonetic but used so frequently that it makes sense to memorize them without needing to sound them out early on. Sometimes reading curriculums have their own set and order of introducing important sight words. There are also a few lists that are easily accessible by Googling “most commonly used words list” or “frequently used word lists”. Obviously, the approach to teaching a new reader to know these words has to be different than the phonics sounding-out approach. Yes, it helps to remind the learner that the beginning and ending letters and sounds of a word help to decipher what it is. But eventually, mastery comes from looking at the entire letter sequence of a sight word, swiftly and completely. Some students have an easier time memorizing whole words than phonics. Others are the complete opposite. In either case, we all need to learn some of both.
Ways I like to teach sight word mastery:
- Just as mentioned above, you can create card games with whatever words you are practicing with your student.
2. There is the old classic strategy of flash cards. Yes, they still work! The key with any type of memorization exercise is to study only a few at a time. Less material, for 5 minutes a day, more frequently throughout the week gets the job done. I will often have a set of flashcards for an individual student, and I store their index cards in their own plastic file card box. I separate them into two sections: “mastered” and “currently learning”. Each day, if they demonstrate automaticity, I put a little start on the back. After about 5 stars, that card goes in the “mastery” section. But it is good practice to review those mastered words from time to time too.
3. Air writing with a twist: I will take a particularly difficult word a student is trying to memorize, and have them write it in the air (on our imaginary white board with their pointer finger as the marker). Make sure they are vocalizing the letter name as they copy from the written prompt I have in front of them. When you think the student is ready to have success without looking at the visual prompt, let them try the air writing/spelling without any help. Success? Then go to the next step: air writing that same word backwards. Yes, backwards. This will indicate if they are truly able to hold on to the image of the whole word in their mind. Make sure you end this little session with your student spelling the word correctly and forward.
4. Another fun and often helpful exercise is to have the student practice writing the word being studied on graph paper. Make sure the size of each square is appropriate for your student’s typical writing. Once the word has been written, have the student outline the box shapes that go around the word. Then have the student duplicate the shape as well as the spelling within that box shape. After you’ve done a few, you can create a puzzle where you have provided several shapes and a word bank. Your student then has to match and write each word that goes into the correct shape.
COMPREHENSION & ORAL READING FLUENCY:
When a person is first learning to read a sentence or short story, they are toughing it out and so hyper focused on reading each word correctly, they often will sound very choppy. When this happens, it is hard for them to also hold on to the meaning of what is being read. So, it is important to check to see whether or not the student is able to glean the meaning of the content being read. But even for the not-so new reader, comprehension is very important to keep in mind and to monitor.
Best practices to consider when thinking about your student’s reading comprehension:
- For the very early reader and non-reader, it is a very good practice to read aloud to them or with them. I encourage parents to read to their children as long as they are able to; this also goes for parents of fluent readers. There is a sweet connection in those moments, even at the older levels. As for the newer readers, you are also modeling fluent reading, language cadence, and proper expression with pauses at appropriate punctuation marks if they are following along with you.
2. “Shared reading” is another very good strategy for beginning readers. This is where you and your student take turns reading sentences or paragraphs. If you are working with someone who is really having a hard time, you can also use the “cloze” method. This is where you read most of the passage, but pause periodically to let the student fill-in-the-blank to read one or two words at a time.
3. When your student is reading in that staccato, choppy way, it is a good idea to have them go back and re-read it again. I always try to make sure they know this is not punishment for poor reading, but rather, “OK, you were able to eek out all those hard words! Now, let’s go back and re-read it for smoothness.”
4. If you are reading several paragraphs together, it will be a good idea to check in with the reader and ask them to tell you what they think is going on in the story. Sometimes even orally fluent readers can check out mentally and just read the words on the page, not cluing in to what the content is saying. This can be true for more advanced readers. Does it ever happen to you as an adult? It does for me sometimes! If you are unsure that your student is comprehending what they are reading, you might have them do a quick oral re-tell.
5. Using context clues is another strategy that can be beneficial for a student in a couple different ways. They stumble on to a word that is difficult to sound out or identify, but they are paying attention to the meaning of the content. Sometimes, looking at the beginning and end of a word, linked with knowing what is going on in context of the passage, will be enough to guide them to figure out the correct word independently. Use of context clues is also helpful for a more advanced student who is struggling with not the decoding aspect of the word, but the meaning of a word they have never heard of. Again, using the context around the word and sentence might be enough to aid them in deciphering the meaning of the new word.
6. There might be another issue going on with a student who is having a difficult time with comprehension, regardless of whether the decoding skills are in place or not. For many people, maybe most people, visualization of what is being read can be automatic. However, once in a while, I come across an individual who I discover does not visualize content naturally. Some people need to specifically need to be trained to do this. If you have a student in this camp, you can start off by modeling your own thinking of imagining what you see, and gradually guide them with questions that force them to “see” what is going on in the story using their own imagination as well.
