I had the absolute pleasure of joining Sara Marye, The Stellar Teacher, and podcast host, for the 120th episode of the Stellar Teacher Podcast.
Sara does a fantastic job handpicking the hottest topics and gathering expert hosts to bring you the latest happenings in the education industry.
And this one’s – a doozy.
So, I thought I’d share some of the key insights from our discussion.
It centered around how to get those struggling readers of yours – unstuck.
…Even if you teach older students.
Because let’s face it:
Teaching reading is hard!
And there are far too many children in our schools struggling to read, comprehend, and write fluently.
So this episode is loaded with tips on how to crack the code with your struggling readers.
And you can put these tips into practice immediately – regardless of your current curriculum constraints.
In this post you’ll learn:
- Why you may have students two or more grade levels behind in reading.
- The missing piece that makes traditional phonics instruction ineffective.
- An easy step-by-step process for introducing students to say, spell, read.
And if you’d like to jump into the podcast first, you can click the image or button below.
Otherwise…
Let’s dive right in!
NOTE: During the podcast, the term “say, spell, read” is used to refer to a phonics approach that organizes the English reading/writing system around students' existing knowledge of sounds and language, also known as Speech to Print or Structured Linguistic Phonics.
Past Approaches to Literacy Have Put Our Students at a Disadvantage
Have you ever found yourself with students in 4th, 5th, or even 10th grade – two or three grade levels behind in reading – and not have a clue of how to fix this problem?
That’s where I found myself at the beginning of my career as a 6th-grade ELA teacher.
And ever since then,
I became obsessed with finding solutions for students and educators like yourself dealing with this obstacle.
And that’s what led me on the journey to creating Reading Simplified.
Along with colleagues, I found effective, more efficient ways to address the needs of my students.
My mission is to support you by:
- Reducing the overwhelm around the research; and,
- Helping you deliver effective and efficient instruction that will accelerate ALL your student’s reading achievement.
But, the road hasn’t been an easy one.
So, let’s take a look at some of the issues concerning phonics instruction.
The Elephant in the Classroom
Think about your students for a moment.
You may have a group of stellar readers.
And you likely have a group of mediocre readers that can get along.
But you’re really worried about your readers who are getting further and further behind because of their lack of decoding skills.
And if you’re teaching 5th, 7th, or even 10th grade you’re probably thinking – we don’t even teach phonics in this grade…so what am I supposed to do?
Sound familiar?
So how are students advancing into higher grade levels despite lacking basic reading skills?
Well, for decades now, we've had two big movements on how to teach kids to read words.
And that's been Whole Language, which morphed about 20 years ago into something that's been called Balanced Literacy.
And then there's also been a strand of systematic phonics instruction and even a couple of varieties of that.
Another term that is maybe more well-known would be Speech to Print.
But that is often associated with Louisa Moats' very influential and important book, which does include some of these elements – but not everything.
So that's not quite a perfect overlap.
And as we have discovered, our kids are not doing well with either approach.
We know that systematic phonics is definitely going to get kids back onto the path.
But here’s the problem:
Most teachers in the classroom right now were not taught in college these basics about the code and how to reveal the code to beginners – or struggling readers of any age.
How are you going to learn a whole new paradigm while you're on the job?
And now more than ever – it's a crazy job.
We're asking teachers to move mountains with our children.
On the other hand,
Maybe you have a decent curriculum, but there are so many activities to choose from, you don’t know where to begin…
So it feels impossible to get to the heart of your student’s blending problem.
And, as a result, we become as ineffective as our approaches.
So what do you do when you’re stuck with an ineffective phonics curriculum?
Drip Fashion Phonics Is Ineffective: Expose Students to Advanced Code Sooner
It isn’t unusual for a phonics scope and sequence to spend 13 weeks on short vowel sounds.
And what about more advanced elements like long vowel sounds, which can often pose a challenge for kids?
The majority of traditional phonics programs teach long vowels and these other concepts in a drip fashion.
They may teach the “oa” spelling of the long /oa/ sound one day, a few weeks later they may teach the “ow” spelling, and sometime later “oe.”
That phonics approach is organized by spelling with an adult's lens on the code.
An adult can handle that disconnect because they already have all the schema and these interconnections in their brain.
But for the beginner, it's pretty meaningless.
In the podcast, I use this analogy:
Imagine teaching students about one planet at a time without ever showing a picture of the entire solar system.
Can you see how disconnected that approach would be?
And imagine a child trying to wrap their mind around that concept one planet at a time.
We don't teach anything else, haphazardly and randomly but we teach phonics information that way.
This is what Sara had to say”
And I think…especially within literacy, everything is so connected, you know, phonics is connected to fluency, which is connected to comprehension and that's connected to writing. You know, everything is just connected, but we teach things in silos.
So what is the most effective way to teach long vowels like /oa/ and /ee/?
The fastest approach is to build words around one sound by immediately introducing all of the most common spellings that represent that sound.
And so what we're doing is giving them the concept that one sound can have multiple spellings.
A lot of teachers and a lot of programs are afraid of this because they think that kids can't handle that.
And no, they cannot immediately learn all those spellings, but they can handle the concept –
Because the brain is remarkably adaptable.
The image below shows a student using a Reading Simplified Sort It sheet.
Students are exposed to six different spellings of the /er/ sound all at once.
As they read the passage, they sort words with the /er/ sound into the column that has the spelling match.
We call that sound-based decoding.
With this approach, you give students early access to the concept that one sound can have multiple spellings.
And guess what?
Kids grasp the concept quickly, and they love doing that activity!
So let’s take a look at why this is such an effective approach.
Cracking the Code: Why Speech To Print Makes Sense
Structured Linguistic Literacy begins with what students already know – which is oral language with some level of meaning attached.
So the logical thing to do – is leverage their existing knowledge of language to help them crack the code.
My discussion on the podcast covers this in more depth – But here's a quick example of what this framework looks like.
Using The Triangle Framework to Make Brain Connections
The “Triangle Framework” model is so effective for helping children unlock the code because it begins with activating information they already know before adding any new information.
Most children come to school with an understanding of the word cat.
They can say it, and they could point one out.
The link they’re missing is what letters make the sounds, /c/ /a/ /t/.
With this framework,
You use their already established knowledge of Semantics (system of meaning) and Phonology (system of sounds) as connections to Orthography (knowledge of a language’s spelling system).
So let's organize the code based on what they bring, which is organizing it by sound.
And then tack on this new thing they have to learn through schooling which is called orthography, or spelling.
That's the third point in the triangle.
What they don't know are the spellings or the phonics information.
So we're going to organize the code based on sounds at the most fundamental initial level to show them how the code works.
A Step-by-Step Process For Using Speech to Print
Here are some simple steps to get you started with Speech to Print by applying the Triangle of Reading Model.
You can modify this process to fit the needs of older students by adjusting the words you choose.
Step 1: Create meaning with a familiar word
For the Speech to Print approach, we start with a word the child already knows.
Or maybe we define it and show them a picture.
For example, if they don't know the word mat, we talk about the word mat.
I wipe my feet on the mat.
This process works best when you choose a word that has a beginning sound you can elongate like “m” and really focus on the sound, /mmmmmmm/.
Step 2: Connect meaning to sound
Next ask the student, “What do you hear at the beginning of mmmat?”
The point is to get them to realize that there's an /m/ sound at the beginning.
We actually call this activity Build It.
So as you say, “mmmat,” you point to lines on a board, or to lines drawn on cardstock or a table to represent each of the three sounds.
Then repeat while you drag your finger across the three lines.
Again, you want them to realize that there's an /m/ at the beginning.
And that's not something that comes easily.
But it doesn't take much coaching with this type of elongation and exaggeration for them to realize, oh yeah, I can pull that apart.
And if they can't do it with a lot of coaching, then you just say, “Well, I hear mmm, can you hear mmm? Okay, we're on the right path.”
And then you just do a few more repetitions and eventually they get it.
The most important thing is to be patient and not give up too early. After all, learning language takes time!
And once they realize the /m/ sound, you can start adding other sounds, like mmmap or mmmud.
And that's the first phoneme.
Step 3: Connect sound to spelling
Finally, show the letter cards /m/ /a/ /t/ (jumbled), and ask them which one they think makes the /m/ sound.
Ask them to point to it, make the sound, and pull the card down to the line in the first position.
You repeat this until they have spelled the entire word.
And so now you’re tacking on that spelling element.
This entire process is to help them notice the stuff that's actually already in the brain.
Because a part of their brain does recognize the sounds in mat.
They may not realize that mat is three sounds, but they are processing it at some level because they know that mat is different from bat or mitt.
The Speech to Print approach organizes phonics instruction based on what they already know to reveal the alphabetic principle.
It starts with meaning that’s connected to sounds and then you attach that to print.
So you’re organizing phonics instruction based on the child and what they're already bringing to the equation.
So they pick up the alphabetic principle much more quickly because they're ready for it.
And not only do they pick up the alphabetic principle, but they also develop phonemic awareness more quickly.
In the podcast, you’ll hear examples of a couple of really powerful activities for building this schema.
Conquer The Code in 12 Weeks
So how do we decide what to teach and when?
We know for effective, explicit instruction in word recognition we need a logical scope and sequence.
Research, however, doesn't give us a definitive answer for an optimal sequence.
Generally, we start with the basics and gradually add more complexity.
Diane McGuinness' book, Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It: A Scientific Revolution in Reading outlines a system organizing the reading code into basic and advanced categories.
Her work has highly impacted my career.
The basic code includes short vowels, consonants, consonant digraphs like /th/ and /ng/, and double letters, which are reliable and easy to learn.
However, the advanced code includes long vowel sounds and sounds like /er/ that have multiple spellings, which can be more difficult to master.
And how soon we introduce that advanced code is a tricky issue.
Because with the Reading Wars, we've been pushing against reading as natural versus reading as hard work.
News Flash:
Reading Isn’t Natural – It’s Hard Work
However – they both have… some elements of truth.
Learning how the code works takes explicit instruction – it’s not a natural process.
But after a certain point,
The brain actually picks up most of these patterns.
And particularly all the irregularities that readers come across – on their own.
This happens even faster, of course, when someone's listening to them and giving them feedback.
And we need that to be – you. 🙂
This falls in line with part of David Share’s Self Teaching Theory.
Which is:
Once a child has sufficient phonics knowledge, phonemic awareness, and a decoding approach, then they teach themselves a lot about the code.
These concepts still may be new to you and unsettling.
And you’re not alone.
Researchers who studied Phono-Graphix¹ shared your concerns.
But after further analysis of this approach,
This is what was determined:
“An initial concern on the part of the researchers had been the teaching of spelling alternatives and code overlap at advanced code level, on the grounds that these concepts might be too difficult for the students to grasp. However, the majority of the students proved not to have any difficulty grasping the concept of spelling alternatives for the same sound. Neither did they have difficulty with the concept of code overlap, where one symbol can represent multiple sounds. At final testing, retention of sound pictures was good, as evident in final performances on the code knowledge task. It was noted that five of the ten students were able to identify vowel digraphs on the final test that had not been explicitly taught during the withdrawal sessions. This may suggest that the students were actively building their own knowledge of spelling alternatives as they met words in other situations,” Wright & Mullen (2006). Dyslexia and the Phono-Graphix reading programme, p. 6.
Kids can handle it!
Even kids in special education – even four-year-olds – handle this approach with enough repetition.
So with Reading Simplified, when we teach the basic code, we use the 26 consonants and the five short vowels.
We add a few consonant digraphs but not too much.
They learn the basic code quickly with our activities like Read it, Build it, and Switch it.
Then we move into the advanced code.
But we don't teach them every spelling for the /o/ sound.
We teach them the most common, high-frequency spellings like /oa/ /ow/ /o_e/, /o/, and /oe/.
And we do activities like this with /oa/ for one week:
- Sort by spelling with Sort It
- Guided oral reading with lots of /oa/ words
- Rereading for fluency so they're getting these /oa/ spellings in the brain and recognizing more and more /oa/ words.
Then we teach a new sound the following week.
And in just a few weeks, they have a nice solid collection of phonics information.
With this strategy,
If everything goes along at a nice clip – of course, it's fine to slow down and repeat – it could be as fast as 12 weeks.
And at that point –
They are going to teach themselves most of the rest of the code.
So when they come to the quirkiness of “ough,” and all the things that can be, they will learn it in the context of print with the guidance of a teacher along the way.
The Case For Phonics Instruction In Older Grades
So, let’s get back to the dilemma of having older students that are struggling readers.
During the podcast, Sara (The Stellar Teacher) specifically asked me,
So any suggestions for teachers that are sort of in that stuck place of I teach fifth grade, and I want to teach the standards, but I have kids that are really, really struggling, and I want to give them the tools to be successful?
This is a common problem most teachers face at some point in their careers.
But as Sara points out in the podcast,
You’ve got standards you’re expected to teach and stay on track with during the year.
– With grade-level content.
So how do you proceed when a student can’t even read the grade-level content?
This is so challenging!
Because the most pressing need for that child is to be caught up with reading.
It is the most essential thing for the entire school day.
And I would love for you to have the backing of your administration that when you have a large number, or even one or two kids that are significantly below grade level –
Nothing else matters as much as catching that kid up.
So I have a couple of suggestions for you…
Quickly Diagnose Struggling Older Readers in 2 Steps
Step 1: Determine the student's reading level
Having some kind of measure of their actual reading level is very helpful.
My first recommendation is to give them an Snapshot Informal Reading Assessment.
Have them read something that's grade level and find out at what grade level they can comprehend at or above 70%.
Or you could use the San Diego Quick Assessment here on our site.
That's just a list of words, and it's been standardized.
So reading that list of words is pretty effective at predicting comprehension.
Because there’s a high level of correlation between reading that list of words and other comprehension measures.
So, that’s an easy way to find their level.
Step 2: Examine the student's sound-based decoding approach
If the student is way below grade level,
Their foundational skills are most likely weak at the sound-based decoding level.
In this situation, you can give a nonsense word assessment.
This will reveal what their sound-based decoding level is –
Because they cannot have memorized a nonsense word!
So how many words should they be able to read in grade level content?
As a rule of thumb, it depends, of course, on the text.
But imagine this:
If you were to open up the New York Times, and got confused on just ONE out of every 20 words –
Do you think you would keep reading?
Probably not.
Because it’s mentally taxing, and the loss of meaning will compound the more you read.
So, the natural thing to do is give up.
Phonics on the Fly: Integrating Phonics Instruction When There's No Time (or Freedom)
So once you’ve got a decent idea of your students’ reading levels, and you know they’re behind with some basic coding, you can do a couple of things off to the side with groups that are kind of leveled by the depth of the students’ challenges.
And with these activities, you can actually see an improvement in as little as five to 10 minutes.
No kidding.
Switch It
The quickest way to start this quick hit of phonics instruction is to use Switch It.
So, as I discussed earlier for introducing code to younger students using the word mat, you begin by putting letter sound cards on the board.
The difference is, add more letters than sounds in the word and start at a pretty high level.
For example, you can start with a word like stand and change it to a regular word, or you can change it to a nonsense word to add some challenge.
So you could change stand to spand, and spand to strand.
And if it’s a real word, quickly define it.
By moving these letter sounds around while saying the sounds, your students are going to get better at processing sound-symbol connections, and phoneme-grapheme connections.
And this is what’s missing and needed for multi-syllable words.
Kids think it's a game and you can do it in less than five minutes once they’ve gotten the gist.
Then you keep pushing ahead.
Do five sounds, then move them to six sounds.
And if they can do six sounds, throw in nonsense words.
And be sure to add short vowels in the mix because if they’re struggling readers, it’s highly likely they don't know the short vowels.
Sort It
Another thing that can be really helpful is to give these students that advanced code knowledge they don't have.
So it could be as simple as our Sort It activity where students sort multiple spelling for one sound.
For example, begin by having your students read some words that have the /oa/ sound like boat.
So, they read and say the word boat, and then put it in the column with the “oa” spelling.
It’s important they say “boat” as they write the word.
Then you could use the word snow.
They find the column with the “ow” spelling.
Then you use more words like snow, toe, or home, and continue the process of saying the word as they write it in the correct column.
And just that repetition and constant exposure is going to help solidify this foundation that is so essential to their reading success.
After that, ideally, they read something with multiple spellings of /oa/ at their level, if you can find that type of material.
And if you can’t, we have an entire curriculum for these activities at Reading Simplified.
So if you get stumped, or you don’t want to go on a hunt to find stories with the specific sound spellings you’re working on, we can help.
Reading System With Fewer Decisions and More Focus
Our Goal with Reading Simplified is to solve some of the major problems that we know teachers have. (And maybe you’re one of those teachers.)
Problem 1: You don't have a great curriculum.
Problem 2: You don't have a diagnostic thinking process.
So, we provide a streamlined approach and focus on a handful of “super powerful activities” that integrate multiple sub-processes simultaneously.
We get it – busy teachers like you don’t need the overwhelm of pouring through hundreds of activities to find something that works.
And…who’s got the time?
So, we’ve done all that for you.
Because the truth is,
If you know your student has a blending problem – having 10 activities to choose from is actually not helpful.
It's much more helpful to have one activity that will work immediately and know which one it is – because you don't have time for all the decision-making.
We offer busy teachers a path that focuses on fewer activities with powerful and rapid results.
In fact, our entire scope and sequence is on one page.
And you have three Streamlined Pathways to choose from based on what your students already know about the code.
You don’t have to go back to the beginning.
You rapidly build from what they know.
With this approach, you can give older striving readers quick access to the code for whatever reason it didn’t stick the first-time.
What To Do if You're Stuck With a Mandated Curriculum
So, if you’re in a position of having a very strict curriculum to follow.
That’s ok.
You can still work this process in – with ease.
Let’s say your curriculum tells you on Monday to teach /oa/.
Just give your students several of the spellings all at once and have them sort by the spelling.
Then go read things with the /oa/ sound – and maybe that means you just make up some sentences.
The boat was stuck in the snow with Joe.
And you throw in as many /oa/ spellings into a sentence that they need.
And then they write the words and say the sounds as they do it.
Because when a child writes snow, and they say /oa/ as they write, that links that information in their brain – Orthographic mapping.
So you can basically accelerate your students.
And let’s face it:
After the mess COVID left many of our students in, there's nothing we need more than acceleration.
So you're using your curriculum – but you're boosting it to get faster results.
Final Thoughts
The Speech to Print approach is an effective phonics instruction approach whether you're teaching a four-year-old just beginning, a fifth grader, or a 10th grader who needs to strengthen their reading foundation.
And I’m here to support you in your crazy busy journey as a teacher with:
- A research-based system
- Effective and efficient instruction
- Accelerating ALL your students' reading achievement
Your job isn’t for the faint of heart.
This approach not only works – it works fast and it simplifies your instruction.
We’re here to answer any questions you may have, so please feel free to comment back.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the Speech to Print reading approach.
¹ The model of our written code established by Dianne McGuinness and the Phono-Graphix curriculum established by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness are the “grandmothers” of most Structured Linguistic Phonics approaches.
