It can be so easy to get pulled in multiple directions when teaching reading. From all the different assessments, the data, making sure students are in the right small group or intervention and then questioning if our students, or even our own child, are getting what they need. I’m all for simplifying so that’s what this is about. Focusing on what is truly needed to read and how to get there if working with a struggling reader.
Do they know letter names and sounds?
Ideally, we want students to know all their letters and their sounds. Even if they only know a few they are ready to start working on the next step. This happens in every kindergarten class- you keep teaching new letters and the sounds they represent as you work on phonemic awareness and phonics with the letters and sounds they do know.
Can they manipulate sounds?
Phonemic awareness is what students start working on next even if they only know 1 letter. Knowing that one letter and the sound it represents students can start to hear that sound in words. As students know more letters and sounds they can start to practice manipulating sounds in words.
- Can they isolate sounds?
- Can they identify beginning sounds of a word?
- Can they identify ending sounds of a word?
- Can they identify medial sounds of a word?
- Can they identify words with the same sounds?
- Can they change 1 sound in a word and make a new word?
Having these skills helps get to orally blending (putting sounds together) and segmenting (taking sounds apart) words.
Students don’t necessarily need to know all the letters and the sounds they represent when doing these tasks orally. Once students do know letters and sounds they represent they can start doing some of these tasks in print.
Can they blend and segment words?
Of all the phonemic awareness skills, being able to blend and segment words is the most important to building their reading skills. Orally blending and segmenting are the building blocks to decoding and encoding (reading and writing) words.
As soon as students know letters they should also start working with them in print. So if a child knows these 6 letters they should be able to see words with those letters and blend the words then move to reading the words.
Once students start working with words in print they are doing phonics. They are solidifying those letter -to-sound connections.
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
As students learn more and more letters and sounds, the first three steps are repeated again and again so students grow their ability to read more and more words to further develop their word recognition skills.
In addition, depending on the letters and sounds students know, irregular words with those letters and sounds should be taught so they can recognize those words as well.
Can Students Read Connected Text?
This doesn’t mean they have to be reading a whole book or large text. It can be as simple as reading phrases and simple sentences.
Take the student above who knew 6 letters.
Can Students Read Fluently?
This means can a student read in a natural rhythm to talking with pauses, phrasing and expression.
When they reach this level, they are demonstrating fluency. They aren’t having to stop and decode most words. If they do, they can go back and reread without decoding again and again.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
Reading connected text happens again and again as they move from just simple phrases and sentences to decodable poems, short stories, and books. They continue to build up their fluency.
As students are able to do each step with more and more letters and sounds, they can branch out into books beyond decodables.
Can students comprehend what they read?
At this stage no matter what students are reading, they are spending less time on the task of reading and more on what they are reading. Now the focus shifts to do they understand what they are reading. Can they answer simple questions about the text?
These are examples of questions students could answer even when reading a few simple sentences fluently.
- Who/ what is this about?
- Name a character.
- Where did it take place?
- What was the problem?
- How did it get fixed?
- How are they different?
- How are they alike?
- What color was ____?
- How did ____ feel when ___ happened?
To more complex questions:
- How is this like the book we read today?
- Is this like the _____ you did?
- What other character is this like?
- Can you name another animal that does that?
With the simple sentences above: Pat is a tad sad. Sap is on his mat.
Students can answer it is about Pat. He is sad because there is sap on his mat. You could ask them how he could fix it which connects to how they know how to solve a problem.
Simplifying It All Down…
It makes it seem so easy when simplified like this, when I know so well that for many it is not. Yes, in a perfect world it is like this for all students. As I’m writing this, I can think of a handful of students who were consistently stuck at the first two steps. It took months for some and over a year for others. I can also think of students stuck building up their fluency.
Or maybe you are thinking about a student and thinking they might be able to do more than the current invention program is saying they can? Or maybe they don’t actually have those skills yet? Or maybe you are a parent with a struggling reader and frustrated with the support they are getting at school?
Need A Quick Reading Snapshot
I put this quick reading snapshot together that I know I would have liked to use for some students where reading was getting hard and pressure to read was wearing on them to see what they actually can do.
It is a simple way to take a step back and see if there are areas that they really do need help with. It could be they are still struggling identifying medial or even ending sounds seems simple but I know can be a stumbling block for students.
Leave A Comment