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Orthographic mapping is the key to skilled reading.

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Orthographic mapping is the key to skilled reading.

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This blog is a must-read!

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Updated: Feb 25, 2022

With 160 published papers, Linnea Ehri has been one of the most influential and cited reading scientists in the past 40 years. One of 14 members of the U.S. National Reading Panel (1997-2000), she served as Chair of both the Phonemic Awareness and the Phonics subgroups of the Panel. (The full report of the Panel can be found .)

Ehri earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California in Berkeley. She is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where she was a member of the faculty in Educational Psychology and in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Since the 1970s she has conducted scientific research on how children learn to read. Her findings have provided support for the theory described below. For a portrayal of the course of her research findings and their implications for instruction, see .

Ehri distinguishes 4 ways to read words:

"The first three ways help us read unfamiliar words. The fourth way explains how we read words we have read before. One way is by decoding, also called phonological recoding. We can either sound out and blend graphemes into phonemes, or we can work with larger chunks of letters to blend syllabic units into recognizable words. Another way is by analogizing. This involves using words we already know to read new words - for example, using the known word, bottle, to read throttle. Another way is by prediction. This involves using context and letter clues to guess unfamiliar words. The fourth way of reading words is by memory or sight. This applies to words we have read before. We can just look at the words and our brain recognizes them."[1] [boldface mine]

[: If you're unfamiliar with the terms "decode," "blend," "encode," "segment," "grapheme," or "phoneme," you can find easy-to-understand definitions . Understanding these terms is a necessity for reading this blog.]

"Given that there are multiple ways to read words, consider which way makes text reading most efficient. If readers know words by sight and can recognize them automatically as they read text, then word reading operates unconsciously. In contrast, each of the other ways of reading words requires conscious attention. If readers attempt to decode words, to analogize, or to predict words, their attention is shifted from the text to the word itself to identify it, and this disrupts comprehension, at least momentarily. It is clear that being able to read words automatically from memory is the most efficient, unobtrusive way to read words in text. Hence, building a sight vocabulary is essential for achieving text-reading skill." [2]

If you're a skilled reader, you'll likely read every word in this blog effortlessly - by sight. A mere glimpse of each word will immediately link to that word's pronunciation and meaning. The brain's ability to do this is astonishing. How does it happen?

"Consider the feat that skilled readers perform when they read words by sight. They are able to recognize in an instant any one of many thousands of words. They recognize one unique word and bypass many other similarly spelled words. For example, consider all the words that must be overlooked to read the word "stick" accurately: not only stink, slick, and slink, which have similar shapes as well as letters, but also sting, sling, string, as well as sick, sing, and sink. Moreover, skilled readers can remember how to read new sight words with very little practice. Memorizing arbitrary associations between the shapes and meanings of words cannot explain how skilled readers do what they do. Sight word reading must involve remembering letters in the words. These alone are the distinctive cues that make one word different from all the others." [3]

But without connecting that specific sequence of letters to something already in the brain, sight word learning would be a difficult and onerous task, something akin to memorizing sequences of arbitrary digits, such as phone numbers. Here's where orthographic mapping comes into play.

Orthographic Mapping (hereafter: OM) might be an unknown term for some readers. The prefix ortho means "correct," while graphy has to do with writing. So a word is orthographic if it is spelled or written according to accepted convention ( Cambridge Dictionary). The word "mapping" implies a word's spelling is connected or associated with something else - and that is indeed the case.

"Words that have become sight words are read from memory. Sight of the word immediately activates both pronunciation and meaning. To build sight words, OM is required. Readers must form connections between spellings and pronunciations of specific words by applying knowledge of the general writing system. When readers see a new word, and say or hear its pronunciation, its spelling becomes mapped onto its pronunciation and meaning. It's the connections that serve to 'glue' spelling to pronunciations in memory." [4]

"It is in performing this grapheme-phoneme analysis for individual words that the spellings of words penetrate and become attached to readers' knowledge of spoken words in a way that links written language to the central mechanisms [in the brain] governing spoken language." [5]

In her recent study showing how grapheme-phoneme analysis is critical even for a transparent language (Portuguese), Ehri sums up the situation for learning to read English this way. Note the emphasis on decoding:

"Learning to decode involves transforming graphemes into phonemes and blending them to pronounce words with recognizable meanings (Beck, 2006). Share (2008b) described decoding as a self-teaching mechanism that readers can apply to unlock the identities of unfamiliar words as they are reading text. Ehri (1992, 1998, 2014) proposed a connectionist theory and presented evidence to show how decoding enables readers to store written words in memory so that the words can be read by sight. When readers apply their grapheme-phoneme knowledge to decode new words, connections are formed between graphemes in written words and phonemes in spoken words. This bonds the spellings of those words to their pronunciations and meanings and stores all of these identities together as lexical units in memory. Subsequently, when these words are seen, readers can read the words as single units from memory automatically by sight. Decoding letter by letter is no longer needed to read the words." [boldface mine] [6]

Examples given by Ehri are the words ISLAND and SWORD where only the S and W, respectively, remain unsecured [7]. Elsewhere [8], Ehri suggests that assigning spelling pronunciations to words with silent letters or unstressed vowels can help to connect and secure these letters in memory, for example, pronouncing LISTEN as "lis - ten" rather than "lis - in," or CHOCOLATE as "choc - o - late" rather than "choc - lut."

Before a child ever begins the process of learning how to read, thousands of what Ehri calls amalgams already exist in the child's memory - one amalgam for every word in the child's spoken or listening vocabulary. Each amalgam contains, at a minimum, two identities: the word's pronunciation and the word's (semantic) meaning. Some amalgams may already contain morphological (word roots and affixes) and syntactic (grammatical function in sentences) identities as well. OM can be viewed as a process whereby written words (spellings) are added to the amalgams already in memory.

"In order for written words to be added to the amalgams in memory, readers must bond spellings to pronunciations by applying their knowledge of letter-sound relations to connect letter units to sound units within specific words...The first few times a student reads a word, these connections are formed and stored in memory. Subsequently, when the word is seen, these connections are activated in memory to read the word. Once words' identities are amalgamated in memory, readers can read them as whole units quickly and automatically with all of their identities activated. When practiced in this way, words become recognized from memory by sight. This supplants the need for guessing or decoding words." [9]

Sight words, properly learned via OM, penetrate the brain's language system and provide a visual, but now alphabetic, representation of speech phonemes:

"According to amalgamation theory, when students learn to read and spell words, a visual alphabetic representational system for speech is acquired and used to store words in memory. Letters in spellings come to penetrate and represent phonemes in pronunciations in the brain." [10]

Now let's take a look at the skills necessary for specific spellings to be added to the amalgams already in memory. In other words, let's look at what skills are needed for OM to take place.

1. Letter recognition (shapes, names, upper versus lower case).

2. Knowledge of letter-sound relationships, not only for the 24 consonant sounds of English, but also for the 20 vowel sounds. In her research, Ehri refers to these relationships as "alphabetic knowledge," "grapheme-phoneme correspondences," or "grapheme-phoneme relations."

3. Two specific phonemic awareness skills needed for decoding and spelling words: blending separate phonemes to form whole spoken words, and segmenting whole spoken words into constituent phonemes. Decoding requires blending the sounds of letters to read words. Encoding requires segmenting the phonemes in spoken words to spell them. [ Note: For Ehri, the ability to segment spoken words into phonemes is facilitated by helping beginners detect the sequence of mouth positions and movements involved in producing those phonemes, for example, segmenting "bat" by feeling the lips closed for /b/, then open for the vowel, then the tongue tapping the roof of the mouth for /t/.]

4. Repeated practice using decoding and encoding skills to read and spell words.

Here's Ehri in her own words. Note her reference to David Share, one of Ehri's peers. (The two have known each other throughout their careers and have communicated on a regular basis.) Share would certainly agree with the above 4 prerequisites. (See my blog on his Self-Teaching Hypothesis .)

"To form connections and retain words in memory, readers need some requisite abilities. They must possess phonemic awareness, particularly segmentation and blending. They must know the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences of the writing system...Then they need to be able to read unfamiliar words on their own by applying a decoding, analogy, or prediction strategy. Application of these strategies activates orthographic mapping to retain the words' spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in memory. David Share referred to this as a self-teaching mechanism. With repeated readings that activate orthographic mapping, written words are retained in memory to support reading and spelling." [11] [boldface mine]

Six years later, Ehri says it this way:

"Acquisition of sight word learning ability requires that students learn regularities of the writing system beginning with grapheme-phoneme relations, phoneme segmentation, and decoding skill, so graphemes become connected to phonemes within spellings of specific words in memory." [12]

Ehri specifies the type of instruction necessary to ensure that the skills needed for OM are explicitly taught. Notice the phrase "produced or heard." The student himself can produce the word, by decoding it, or the word can be produced for him, in which case he will need segmentation skills.

"Use of alphabetic [letter-sound] knowledge to connect spellings to pronunciations and retain sight words in memory is an internal process that is activated spontaneously when words are seen and their pronunciations are produced or heard...What sort of instruction produces spontaneous OM? First, it entails teaching students the knowledge and skills that enable connections to be activated when words are seen and read. This includes teaching the writing system, beginning with grapheme-phoneme relations, teaching phonemic segmentation, and teaching a decoding strategy for reading novel words. Second, it entails having students practice using these skills to read and spell words." [13]

"Share (2004) reported that even one exposure to words enabled Israeli third graders to retain information about the spellings of specific words in memory, and this memory persisted a month later. Sight word learning this rapid and lasting is possible only because readers possess a powerful mnemonic system in the form of alphabetic knowledge that is activated when words are read."

"To summarize, readers learn to process spellings of words as phonemic maps that lay out elements of their pronunciations visually. Beginners become skilled at computing these mapping relations spontaneously when they read new words. This is the critical event for sight word learning. Grapheme-phoneme connections provide a powerful mnemonic system. They provide the glue that bonds letters in written words to their pronunciations in memory along with meanings. Once the alphabetic mapping system is known, readers can build a vocabulary of sight words easily." [14] [boldface mine]

Naturally, the above skills needed for OM take time to develop. And, at least initially, sight words accruing from OM build up slowly, word by word. Ehri describes 4 phases that students typically go through on their journey from immature to mature forms of reading and spelling. Take a look at how Ehri portrays these 4 phases in her most recent research paper:

"Ehri (2005) portrayed the development of decoding and sight word reading as a sequence of overlapping phases, each characterized by the predominant type of connection readers form to link spellings of words to their pronunciations in memory."

"Development begins with small graphophonemic units that later become consolidated into larger syllabic units. In the pre-alphabetic phase, nonphonological visual cues may be formed but are idiosyncratic and easily forgotten. Use of systematic alphabetic cues emerges in the partial alphabetic phase when readers form partial grapheme-phoneme connections, such as initial and final letters, to store words in memory. However, readers in this phase lack the ability to decode novel words."

"In the full alphabetic phase, knowledge of the major grapheme-phoneme relations and decoding skill are acquired and enable readers to form more complete grapheme-phoneme connections to fully bond spellings to pronunciations in memory. This makes word reading much more accurate. In the consolidated alphabetic phase, grapheme-phoneme subunits are consolidated into larger graphosyllabic and graphomorphemic units that readers can use to decode multisyllabic words and to form connections that secure the words in memory." [15] [boldface mine]

Note how she views these phases as applying not only to sight word development, but to decoding skill as well. Decoding, as we'll see, is the primary (though not the only) way orthographic mapping occurs.

Note, too, there is one non-phonetic, pre-alphabetic, initial phase, followed by 3 alphabetic phases: partial, full, and consolidated. Let's take a look at each of these phases in turn.

I won't spend much time here. Ehri herself describes this phase as the "default" phase of learning to read. It's the way children will attempt to "read" before they've had any competent instruction. Here are some examples:

A child "reads" the word TRASH when the word is affixed to a trash can, but can't read the word in isolation.

A child "reads" the word "McDonald's" if it's attached to golden arches, but can't read it if the arches are absent.

A child "reads" the word STOP but can do so only if it's embedded in a red octagon.

A child "reads" an entire favorite story - but does so by heart.

A child remembers the word SPOON as the word with 2 "eyes" in the middle, but then may "misread" words such as MOON, SOON, BROOM, GOOF, FOOD, and WOOD as the word SPOON.

A child "reads" a word by naming an accompanying picture on the page. For example, the word WHEELS might be depicted by a car, but then a child "misreads" WHEELS as CAR.

What's true about pre-alphabetic reading is that, however it's done, it makes no use of the sound value of any letters in the word's spelling.

"Because most written words do not contain easily remembered cues, children in this phase are essentially nonreaders. Of course, they can pretend read stories they have heard many times, and they can guess words from pictures. However, all of their feats of reading are performed by using cues that do not involve the alphabetic system." [16]

Let's move on to Ehri's 3 alphabetic phases. It's here that genuine reading begins to occur, and that genuine sight words begin to accrue.

"Segmentation training enabled students to function at the partial alphabetic phase in their word reading. In contrast, students who received no segmentation training showed little ability to read words on posttests and, hence, remained at the pre-alphabetic phase. These results support the claim that letter knowledge and phoneme segmentation skill are central in enabling readers to move from the pre-alphabetic phase to the partial alphabetic phase of word reading development." [17]

Remember how the pre-alphabetic child (above) might remember SPOON as the word with two "eyes"? In the partial phase, the scenario might look like this. The child comes across the word SPOON in a simple text. The child knows some letter-sound correspondences, including those for S and N. Let's say the child predicts the word SPOON successfully from context, or from a picture, or from the word's first and last letters. (Or, if all that fails, perhaps the teacher simply tells him the word.)

In any case, now the child has the pronunciation of SPOON in his head and the spelling of SPOON right in front of him. Will SPOON become a sight word for him? It might, but only if he has some basic segmentation skills. He needs to be capable of hearing the "sss" sound at the beginning of the word and the "nnn" sound at the end. If he can hear those two sounds, and make the connections between them and the letters S and N, SPOON can become an imperfect sight word for him.

Worse, if the child predicts the word incorrectly (and receives no correction) or if he does not have simple segmentation skill which allows him to hear /s/ and /n/ in the spoken word, he will have learned nothing in this encounter with the written word SPOON. Next time he sees it, he'll be starting from scratch. Ehri says it this way:

"Children progress to the partial alphabetic phase when they learn the names or sounds of alphabet letters and use these to remember how to read words. However, they form connections between only some of the letters and sounds in words, often only the first and final letter sounds, which are easier to detect, for example, the letters s and n to read SPOON...They may confuse similarly spelled words such as SPIN and SKIN having the same boundary letters. They are limited to forming partial connections because they are unable to segment the word's pronunciation into all of its phonemes. Also they lack full knowledge of the alphabetic system, especially vowels. Because of this, partial phase readers have much difficulty decoding unfamiliar words." [19]

It's easy for a child to get stuck in this partial alphabetic phase - even for years at a time. How? He can be in a reading program that doesn't teach all the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences in a systematic manner - especially those having to do with the 20 vowel sounds of English. He can be in a program that delays, teaches poorly, or never teaches, the strategy of transforming graphemes into phonemes, and then blending those phonemes to decode unknown words into complete pronunciations with recognizable meanings.

Such children are forever "predicting" what the word might be, based on partial alphabetic cues or context cues. And such word-guessing can quickly become an unbreakable habit. "Not only novice beginning readers but also older children with a reading disability qualify as partial alphabetic phase readers." [20] The relevant question here is: Do readers get stuck in the partial alphabetic phase due to poor instruction, and/or due to some congenital condition such as dyslexia? And, in either case, how do we help such children?

Ehri has no expectation for how long this partial alphabetic phase might last. "If beginners quickly acquire the skills necessary for the next phase, they may not exhibit partial alphabetic stage reading." In other words, "Instructional method influences how long beginners show evidence of the partial alphabetic stage." [21]

The full alphabetic phase emerges when beginners acquire more complete knowledge of the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences of the writing system, plus the crucial skill of decoding [22] [23] [24]. With these 2 skills firmly in place, complete connections can be made between all the letters seen in the written forms of words and all the phonemes detected in their pronunciations.

A distinguishing characteristic of full phase readers is "the ability to decode words never read before, by blending letters into a pronunciation. This knowledge enables full-phase readers to form fully connected sight words in memory." [25] Sixteen years later, Ehri says it this way: "Decoding letters into blended sounds helps readers figure out words they have not read before. Reading them a few times moves the words into memory so they can be read by sight." [26] [Note: Ehri states some version of this in nearly every one of her research papers. Decoding - blending all a word's sounds, left to right, into a complete pronunciation - leads to orthographic mapping, and to fully-connected sight words in memory.]

The advantages to students in this phase are enormous. Sight words are no longer "imperfect." SPOON won't be confused with SKIN, or SPIN, or any of the other similarly-spelled words listed above. That's because now, all 4 graphemes in SPOON (S, P, OO, N) have consciously been linked to the 4 phonemes which, when blended together, form the word SPOON.

Does segmenting also have a role in this full alphabetic phase? It does. In the previous phase, partially-connected (imperfect) sight words could be created only if the student had some segmentation skill. That's because decoding was not yet a possibility in the partial phase. The question here is this: Can a student segment her way into a fully-connected sight word instead of using decoding as just described?

She can. But if decoding is not used, then someone other than the student herself must pronounce the word (or she must correctly guess it). Assuming this is done, and assuming she has full segmenting ability (can detect all a word's phonemes) and has knowledge of the graphemes symbolizing these phonemes, she can then make the complete connections necessary for accurate sight word creation. The very act of seeing graphemes in a word's spelling helps her detect the separate phonemes in the word's pronunciation.

: In reading your various articles, my understanding of OM is that it is neither tied exclusively to decoding (blending/synthesis), nor to encoding (segmenting/analysis). Rather, OM is a connection-making process. The connections need to be at the phoneme/grapheme level (at least initially, prior to the consolidated phase) and the connections that need to be made explicit are between the graphemes seen in a printed word's spelling and the phonemes heard in that word's pronunciation.

: In the partial phase, Phase 2, decoding is not yet possible, so naturally, segmentation is the only way the partial connections can be made. The teacher says the word, and the student must have enough letter knowledge and phonemic awareness segmentation skill to make "some" salient connections - typically between the initial letter in the printed word and the initial phoneme heard.

: This is an improvement over Phase 1 but is still subject to all kinds of errors, chiefly because the connections are only partial. (A lot of words, for example, start with B, or start with B and end in T)

: When (and if) a student finally becomes capable of through-the-word decoding, Phase 3 begins to open up for him. Now, for the first time, complete "connections" can be explicitly examined by him - indeed, must be explicitly examined by him so that he can pronounce the word. In Phase 3, it seems to me - and in line with David Share's Self-Teaching Hypothesis - that blending/synthesis becomes the chief mechanism for OM, rather than the segmenting/analysis of the previous partial phase.

: Yes. When readers decode words on their own, this enables them to form connections and retain the spelling-pronunciation bonds in memory. But also if readers encounter a new word and someone reads it to them, or the context allows them to predict the word accurately, connections can be formed as well, provided students' grapheme-phoneme knowledge is activated and applied to that word. In our orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning studies, we found that simply exposing students to the spellings of new words as they heard their pronunciations and meanings, without drawing attention to spellings, enhanced their ability to remember pronunciations when no spellings were present. Students recalled pronunciations much better in this condition than when they were not shown spellings as they studied the words. In the spelling exposure condition, decoding was not necessary because the words were pronounced as soon as they were seen. We argue that grapheme-phoneme connections were activated spontaneously when the words were heard and seen. In one study though, we found that having students actively decode the spellings produced greater memory for pronunciations than simple exposure to the words. So decoding enhances memory. [boldface mine]

Directly above, Ehri makes reference to "orthographic facilitation of vocabulary studies." In one such study [27], low SES urban first graders were compared to see how well they learned new vocabulary under 3 different conditions:

"In the decoding condition, students sounded out and blended spellings during study and feedback periods but not when memory for pronunciations and meanings was tested. In the exposure-only condition, spellings were shown, but no attention was drawn to them. In the no exposure condition, words were learned without spellings but were spoken extra times. Students practiced recalling words over several test trials with feedback. Results revealed that students who decoded spellings learned pronunciations and meanings better than students who were only exposed to spellings. Seeing spellings enhanced learning more than not seeing them."

"These findings support the theory that exposure to spellings activates grapheme-phoneme connections to better secure spellings to pronunciations along with meanings in memory. These connections are activated implicitly when spellings are simply exposed, but the connections are strengthened when spellings are explicitly decoded...Students should be shown spellings and should decode them." [28] [Boldface mine]

Decoding, not segmenting, is the key to building a large sight word vocabulary. Decoding, not segmenting, is the key to David Share's Self-Teaching Hypothesis. While it's true that either decoding or segmenting (in conjunction, of course, with letter-sound knowledge) can create a fully-connected sight word in the full alphabetic phase, only decoding is capable of creating the 50,000 sight word lexicon of the skilled reader.

The full alphabetic phase gradually (and automatically) morphs into the consolidated alphabetic phase as more and more fully-connected sight words are retained in memory.

As sight words accumulate for a given reader, letter patterns that recur in multiple words start to consolidate in memory. These letter strings represent the same phoneme blend when they're decoded. Soon, the reader begins to recognize them by sight. Though not words, these fragments become consolidated units in memory. Such units can be rimes (-EST, -ANK, -OAST, -UST), prefixes (ANTI-, PRE-, NON-, UN-), or suffixes (-ING, -MENT, -NESS, -TION).

Suppose the same student subsequently comes across the unknown word CHEST. Decoding will now happen faster because only 2 entities must be blended, /ch/+/est/, rather than four, /ch/+/e/+/s/+/t/. Quickly, CHEST becomes a new sight word for this student. The same thing will happen when PEST, NEST, REST, and ZEST are first encountered.

You can see how this consolidation process will allow sight words to start accumulating rapidly in this fourth and final phase. The student is now on his way to becoming a skilled reader - someone fully capable of building a 50,000 sight word mental dictionary by the time he's off to college.

Where to begin? Since this is already a lengthy blog, I will focus on just two areas.

Having read thus far, the reader can now perhaps better appreciate why trying to teach children to read via onset-rime before teaching them to analyze and map those rimes at the phoneme-grapheme level is not supported by reading science. Onset-rime involves reading words using larger, consolidated chunks of graphemes forming the rime unit, for example, -ENT in TENT, RENT, and SENT. It's a form of reading by analogy. It belongs in Ehri's fourth and final stage where rimes become "consolidated" after having been analyzed on the grapheme-phoneme level.

Nonetheless, in many Balanced Literacy classes, onset-rime is taught in the partial alphabetic phase, before decoding is even a possibility. How do educators suppose this can work? Let's look at an example of what would actually have to happen.

First, the child must somehow memorize a word (let's say it's TEACH) as an unanalyzed whole, that is, before any work is done at the grapheme-phoneme level. T is considered the onset; the vowels and everything following the vowels are the rime - in this case EACH. TEACH is now supposed to act as the "keyword" that will unlock the entire rhyming EACH family.

Suppose the child now comes across the unknown word BEACH. How is she to read it? She must recall the sight word TEACH, subtract the T sound (tuh?), replace it with a B sound (buh?) and read the new word. But how is she to recall TEACH? She doesn't (yet) know the sound of BEACH, so she can't recall TEACH by its rhyming relationship to BEACH. She must recall TEACH by noticing that the two words both end in the same letter sequence E-A-C-H. How likely is that to happen? Also, how likely is it that a student in the partial alphabetic stage will have the phonemic awareness skill, or the working memory capacity, to substitute a B sound for the T sound?

It gets worse. This 300 total covers only single-syllable words. Many more rimes exist only in multi-syllable words (e.g. ULT in ADULT, RESULT, and CONSULT; ECT in DEFECT, RESPECT, and SELECT).

Why do teachers attempt early onset-rime instruction? Many simply don't know better. They're unfamiliar with Ehri's research. Worse, their professors at whatever teacher college they attended were also unaware of Ehri. Many teachers genuinely believe that since children can hear and distinguish syllables easier than they can hear and distinguish phonemes, syllables (including rimes) should be taught prior to grapheme-phoneme decoding.

Portuguese is a more transparent language than English. Portuguese syllable structure is simpler than English syllable structure. There are fewer monosyllables in Portuguese, and the boundaries between syllables are clearer, so it is easier for beginners to detect the separate syllables in spoken words and map them onto spellings. Nonetheless, Ehri's most recent study showed that, even in Portuguese, "teaching students to decode using small grapheme-phoneme units was much more efficient than teaching students to decode using larger syllabic units." [30] In other words, "small grapheme-phoneme units emerge first and are needed to form larger syllabic units." [31]

Here's what Ehri thinks:

"It is important to note that sight word reading during the partial alphabetic phase is an imperfect process that occurs among beginners who lack full knowledge of the alphabetic system and phonemic segmentation skill. There are no expectations about how long this phase will last. If beginners quickly acquire the skills necessary for the next phase, they may not exhibit phonetic cue [partial stage] reading." [32]

Ehri calls attention to the fact that German-speaking Austrian children show little evidence of undergoing the partial alphabetic phase. She speculates:

"This may be the case because German is a transparent writing system, so decoding is relatively easy to learn. In addition, from Day 1 in school, Austrian children receive systematic phonics instruction that teaches them the alphabetic system." [33]

Ehri also notes that Portuguese-speaking children taught with a whole-word method did exhibit partial alphabetic reading, while those taught with a phonics method did not. The latter group started right in with decoding.

"Instructional method influences how long beginners show evidence of the partial alphabetic phase and how quickly they acquire use of full grapheme-phoneme connections." [34]

Referring to her own phase theory, Ehri says:

"We expected that teaching students in the pre-alphabetic phase to decode [simple] syllables by sounding out and blending grapheme-phoneme constituents would enable these students to read more like readers in the full alphabetic phase, whereas teaching students to decode whole syllables and single grapheme-phoneme relations would limit these students' movement to the partial alphabetic phase." [emphasis added] [35]

Ehri's expectations were confirmed in her recent instructional study comparing three ways Brazilian beginners are taught to read words. The three ways are: decoding at the grapheme-phoneme level, decoding at the level of whole syllables, and teaching grapheme-phoneme relations, but without decoding. Those taught how to decode at the grapheme-phoneme level far surpassed the other two groups:

"Present findings support these views. Students taught to use grapheme-phonemes to read CV syllables far outperformed the other two groups on posttests in decoding longer pseudowords, in remembering how to read a set of 12 longer words over several learning trials, and in recalling their spellings more accurately." [36]

So the partial alphabetic phase, according to Ehri, can be short-to-nonexistent, or it can be quite lengthy. The main determinant is "instructional method."

"Sight words" would be understood as words to be learned consciously through rote-memorization, rather than learned automatically through OM. Lists of such words would be given out to students and their families to be memorized.

"Look at the picture" would be viewed as a "strategy for word-solving."

Beginners would be expected to read whole words, whole syllables, and rimes before they acquired knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondences and decoding skill.

Phonemic awareness training would be done without letters, even though both reading and spelling obviously involve letters.

Beginners would be encouraged to guess the identity and pronunciation of a word based on its context, position in the sentence, and/or its first letter. It would be called three-cueing.

Children would be provided with reading materials that have lots of words they can't possibly read. That way they could practice their three-cueing strategy.

Meaning, rather than the alphabetic code, would be emphasized at the start of instruction even though knowledge of that code forms the basis for extracting meaning from print.

"Discovery" would take precedence over explicit teaching when aspects of the code are finally taught.

In teaching the code, more emphasis would be placed on easier-to-learn consonant sounds than is placed on those 20 harder-to-learn vowel sounds, even though vowel sounds occur in every syllable.

How would Ehri evaluate such an instructional method? Well, as Chair of the Phonemic Awareness Subcommittee for the U.S. National Reading Panel, she produced a final report that said, no less than 15 times: phonemic awareness training should consist in blending and segmenting - and both should be done with letters.

"Our findings challenge instructional approaches claiming that beginners can learn to read whole words before they have acquired knowledge of grapheme-phoneme relations. Without this knowledge, students would remain in the pre-alphabetic phase. Our findings challenge the view that prereaders will move into reading through exposure to and practice in reading authentically written, meaningful storybooks without much attention paid to teaching them foundational skills. Without this, progress will be halting and limited. Students may not function beyond the partial alphabetic phase. Our findings challenge the strategy of teaching students that guessing words using syntactic and semantic cues is better than decoding words using graphic cues. Guessing does not build students' lexical memory to support word-reading accuracy and automaticity." [37]

What, then, would an instructional method look like if the goal was to minimize, or even eliminate, the time children spend as partial alphabetic readers? We can begin to answer this question using a simple process of elimination. The instructional method we seek would not, per Ehri, employ word-guessing. (Even Balanced Literacy guru Jennifer Serravallo recently came to this conclusion.) It would not, per Ehri, use early onset-rime or any other type of analogy phonics.

So the instructional method we're looking for - if our goal is to minimize time spent in the partial phase - can't include guessing from pictures, guessing from context, guessing from the first letter, early onset-rime, analogy phonics, or analytic phonics. What remains? I can think of only a single method: systematic synthetic phonics.

Taught using synthetic phonics, students waste no time on word-guessing, on rote-memorization of sight words, on phonemic awareness training without letters, or on discovery learning. Instead, they start learning letter-sound relationships, explicitly taught by a competent teacher, on Day 1. As soon as some (say, 7-10) of those relationships are mastered, students are taught how to decode words using those letters and sounds.

Segmentation is also taught in synthetic phonics, not so much for its use in the "imperfect" partial alphabetic stage, but for its use in spelling and, as Ehri points out, for its use in creating fully-connected sight words when the word is not decoded, but rather is pronounced for the student.

One of the prerequisites for OM to occur is practice. This, too, is an essential part of synthetic phonics - a method that fully embraces decodable readers. Here's Ehri: "Decodable books provide beginners with practice in applying the grapheme-phoneme relations that they have learned to decode words and to build their sight vocabularies." [39]

"The ability to decode new words marks entry into the full alphabetic phase. A synthetic procedure for decoding words is to say the phoneme corresponding to each grapheme and then blend them to pronounce the word. Learning this procedure is hindered when schwa vowels are added to stop consonants and have to be deleted during blending." [40]

(For more information on the schwa sound, see .) Here's an example of what Ehri is saying: To successfully read the word CAT, a student might attempt to blend "cuh" + "ah" + "tuh." But CAT is not a blend of these 3 sounds. The student must eliminate the "uh" part of both "cuh" and "tuh" in order to successfully decode CAT. Some students have difficulty doing this. So Ehri and a colleague, Selenid M. Gonzalez-Frey, conducted a study [41] to see if this difficulty might be overcome. Note this study is done with kindergartners (Year 1 of formal schooling in the US).

"We compared two methods of teaching decoding to kindergartners in the partial phase who knew letter sounds but could not decode nonwords. Students were taught to decode CVC nonwords containing continuant consonants, which allowed phonemes to be stretched and connected without interruption from schwa vowels ("sssaaannn"). Students in the connected condition were taught to stretch and pronounce phonemes without breaking the speech stream before blending. Students in the segmented condition were taught to stretch and say each phoneme but to break the speech stream between phonemes ("sss-aaa-nnn") before blending. Following learning to criterion, students completed a transfer test to decode 20 CVCs with stop consonants that are harder to blend because of intrusion from schwa vowels when stops are pronounced in isolation. Results showed that during training, kindergartners who received connected practice learned to decode the nonwords more quickly, and on the transfer test, they read nonwords with stops more accurately than the segmented group. An error analysis revealed that breaking between phonemes caused students in the segmented condition to forget initial phonemes during blending. These findings suggest how to teach decoding more effectively to help students move into the full alphabetic phase." [42] [Boldface mine.]

One country (so far) in the English-speaking world has formally adopted synthetic phonics as the way to teach beginners to read. That country is England. The decision was due to the 2006 which concluded:

"Because our writing system is alphabetic, beginner readers must be taught how the letters of the alphabet, singly or in combination, represent the sounds of spoken language (letter-sound correspondences) and how to blend (synthesize) the sounds to read words, and break up (segment) the sounds in words to spell. They must learn to process all the letters in words and 'read words in and out of text'. Phonic work should teach these skills and knowledge in a well defined and systematic sequence." [Paragraph 45]

"Having considered a wide range of evidence, the review has concluded that the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming and much strengthened by a synthetic approach, the key features of which are to teach beginner readers: * grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound) correspondences (the alphabetic principle) in a clearly defined, incremental sequence * to apply the highly important skill of blending (synthesizing) phonemes in order, all through a word to read it * to apply the skills of segmenting words into their constituent phonemes to spell * that blending and segmenting are reversible processes." [Paragraph 51]

I'll end this blog by asking Ehri to sum up her own long and successful career researching how children learn to read. I especially like this quote because it so clearly shows the centrality of decoding in Ehri's thinking.

"In sum, the theory and research presented in this article show that teaching students to decode unfamiliar words and enabling students to store spellings of familiar words bonded to their other identities in memory should be central goals of beginning reading instruction. Decoding is a means of getting spellings of words into memory so they can be read by sight. Being able to connect letters in spellings to sounds in pronunciations spontaneously when spellings of words are seen and heard also serves to retain words in memory. Both decoding and letter-sound mapping skills require knowledge of the alphabetic writing system. Gradual acquisition of this knowledge propels students through the alphabetic phases to become skilled readers." [43] [Boldface mine.]

Please note: Stephen Parker's FREE stand-alone phonics books for reading teachers and parents can be downloaded .

Dr. Linnea Ehri who read the initial drafts of this blog and offered many suggestions, all of which have been incorporated into this final draft.

Dr. Pamela Snow, friend and mentor these past 3 years. Without her, there would be no Parker Phonics. Dr. Snow also offered many helpful suggestions for this blog.

Sir Jim Rose, for his constant encouragement and for his assistance promoting this blog throughout his circles of influence - especially in England.

[2] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p170.

[5] Ehri, (1998) "Grapheme-Phoneme Knowledge," p14.

[6] Sargiani, R., Ehri, L.C., & Maluf, M.R. (in press). Teaching beginners to decode consonant-vowel syllables using grapheme-phoneme subunits facilitates reading and spelling compared to teaching whole syllable decoding. Reading Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.432 . p2-3.

[7] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p171.

[8] Ehri, L.C. (2020). The science of learning to read words: A case for systematic phonics instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(1), S45-S60. Special Issue: The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions . https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/rrq.334. p4 .

[9] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p2-3.

[10] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p10.

[11] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p7.

[12] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p3.

[13] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p19.

[14] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p172.

[15] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p3.

[16] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p173.

[17] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p10.

[18] Ehri, L.C. (2005). Development of sight word reading: Phases and findings. In M. Snowling & C. Hulme,(Eds.), The science of reading, a handbook(pp. 135-154). UK: Blackwell. p145.

[19] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p173.

[20] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p174.

[21] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p145.

[22] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p146.

[23] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p184.

[24] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p16.

[25] Ehri, (1998) "Grapheme-Phoneme Knowledge," p21.

[26] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p5.

[28] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p11.

[29] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p8.

[30] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p15.

[31] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p16.

[32] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p145.

[33] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p145-146.

[34] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p146.

[35] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p4.

[36] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p16.

[37] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p13.

[38] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p13.

[39] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p11.

[40] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p9.

[42] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p8.

[43] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p13-14.

With 160 published papers, Linnea Ehri has been one of the most influential and cited reading scientists in the past 40 years. One of 14 members of the U.S. National Reading Panel (1997-2000), she served as Chair of both the Phonemic Awareness and the Phonics subgroups of the Panel. (The full report of the Panel can be found .)

Ehri earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California in Berkeley. She is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where she was a member of the faculty in Educational Psychology and in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Since the 1970s she has conducted scientific research on how children learn to read. Her findings have provided support for the theory described below. For a portrayal of the course of her research findings and their implications for instruction, see .

Ehri distinguishes 4 ways to read words:

"The first three ways help us read unfamiliar words. The fourth way explains how we read words we have read before. One way is by decoding, also called phonological recoding. We can either sound out and blend graphemes into phonemes, or we can work with larger chunks of letters to blend syllabic units into recognizable words. Another way is by analogizing. This involves using words we already know to read new words - for example, using the known word, bottle, to read throttle. Another way is by prediction. This involves using context and letter clues to guess unfamiliar words. The fourth way of reading words is by memory or sight. This applies to words we have read before. We can just look at the words and our brain recognizes them."[1] [boldface mine]

[: If you're unfamiliar with the terms "decode," "blend," "encode," "segment," "grapheme," or "phoneme," you can find easy-to-understand definitions . Understanding these terms is a necessity for reading this blog.]

"Given that there are multiple ways to read words, consider which way makes text reading most efficient. If readers know words by sight and can recognize them automatically as they read text, then word reading operates unconsciously. In contrast, each of the other ways of reading words requires conscious attention. If readers attempt to decode words, to analogize, or to predict words, their attention is shifted from the text to the word itself to identify it, and this disrupts comprehension, at least momentarily. It is clear that being able to read words automatically from memory is the most efficient, unobtrusive way to read words in text. Hence, building a sight vocabulary is essential for achieving text-reading skill." [2]

If you're a skilled reader, you'll likely read every word in this blog effortlessly - by sight. A mere glimpse of each word will immediately link to that word's pronunciation and meaning. The brain's ability to do this is astonishing. How does it happen?

"Consider the feat that skilled readers perform when they read words by sight. They are able to recognize in an instant any one of many thousands of words. They recognize one unique word and bypass many other similarly spelled words. For example, consider all the words that must be overlooked to read the word "stick" accurately: not only stink, slick, and slink, which have similar shapes as well as letters, but also sting, sling, string, as well as sick, sing, and sink. Moreover, skilled readers can remember how to read new sight words with very little practice. Memorizing arbitrary associations between the shapes and meanings of words cannot explain how skilled readers do what they do. Sight word reading must involve remembering letters in the words. These alone are the distinctive cues that make one word different from all the others." [3]

But without connecting that specific sequence of letters to something already in the brain, sight word learning would be a difficult and onerous task, something akin to memorizing sequences of arbitrary digits, such as phone numbers. Here's where orthographic mapping comes into play.

Orthographic Mapping (hereafter: OM) might be an unknown term for some readers. The prefix ortho means "correct," while graphy has to do with writing. So a word is orthographic if it is spelled or written according to accepted convention ( Cambridge Dictionary). The word "mapping" implies a word's spelling is connected or associated with something else - and that is indeed the case.

"Words that have become sight words are read from memory. Sight of the word immediately activates both pronunciation and meaning. To build sight words, OM is required. Readers must form connections between spellings and pronunciations of specific words by applying knowledge of the general writing system. When readers see a new word, and say or hear its pronunciation, its spelling becomes mapped onto its pronunciation and meaning. It's the connections that serve to 'glue' spelling to pronunciations in memory." [4]

"It is in performing this grapheme-phoneme analysis for individual words that the spellings of words penetrate and become attached to readers' knowledge of spoken words in a way that links written language to the central mechanisms [in the brain] governing spoken language." [5]

In her recent study showing how grapheme-phoneme analysis is critical even for a transparent language (Portuguese), Ehri sums up the situation for learning to read English this way. Note the emphasis on decoding:

"Learning to decode involves transforming graphemes into phonemes and blending them to pronounce words with recognizable meanings (Beck, 2006). Share (2008b) described decoding as a self-teaching mechanism that readers can apply to unlock the identities of unfamiliar words as they are reading text. Ehri (1992, 1998, 2014) proposed a connectionist theory and presented evidence to show how decoding enables readers to store written words in memory so that the words can be read by sight. When readers apply their grapheme-phoneme knowledge to decode new words, connections are formed between graphemes in written words and phonemes in spoken words. This bonds the spellings of those words to their pronunciations and meanings and stores all of these identities together as lexical units in memory. Subsequently, when these words are seen, readers can read the words as single units from memory automatically by sight. Decoding letter by letter is no longer needed to read the words." [boldface mine] [6]

Examples given by Ehri are the words ISLAND and SWORD where only the S and W, respectively, remain unsecured [7]. Elsewhere [8], Ehri suggests that assigning spelling pronunciations to words with silent letters or unstressed vowels can help to connect and secure these letters in memory, for example, pronouncing LISTEN as "lis - ten" rather than "lis - in," or CHOCOLATE as "choc - o - late" rather than "choc - lut."

Before a child ever begins the process of learning how to read, thousands of what Ehri calls amalgams already exist in the child's memory - one amalgam for every word in the child's spoken or listening vocabulary. Each amalgam contains, at a minimum, two identities: the word's pronunciation and the word's (semantic) meaning. Some amalgams may already contain morphological (word roots and affixes) and syntactic (grammatical function in sentences) identities as well. OM can be viewed as a process whereby written words (spellings) are added to the amalgams already in memory.

"In order for written words to be added to the amalgams in memory, readers must bond spellings to pronunciations by applying their knowledge of letter-sound relations to connect letter units to sound units within specific words...The first few times a student reads a word, these connections are formed and stored in memory. Subsequently, when the word is seen, these connections are activated in memory to read the word. Once words' identities are amalgamated in memory, readers can read them as whole units quickly and automatically with all of their identities activated. When practiced in this way, words become recognized from memory by sight. This supplants the need for guessing or decoding words." [9]

Sight words, properly learned via OM, penetrate the brain's language system and provide a visual, but now alphabetic, representation of speech phonemes:

"According to amalgamation theory, when students learn to read and spell words, a visual alphabetic representational system for speech is acquired and used to store words in memory. Letters in spellings come to penetrate and represent phonemes in pronunciations in the brain." [10]

Now let's take a look at the skills necessary for specific spellings to be added to the amalgams already in memory. In other words, let's look at what skills are needed for OM to take place.

1. Letter recognition (shapes, names, upper versus lower case).

2. Knowledge of letter-sound relationships, not only for the 24 consonant sounds of English, but also for the 20 vowel sounds. In her research, Ehri refers to these relationships as "alphabetic knowledge," "grapheme-phoneme correspondences," or "grapheme-phoneme relations."

3. Two specific phonemic awareness skills needed for decoding and spelling words: blending separate phonemes to form whole spoken words, and segmenting whole spoken words into constituent phonemes. Decoding requires blending the sounds of letters to read words. Encoding requires segmenting the phonemes in spoken words to spell them. [ Note: For Ehri, the ability to segment spoken words into phonemes is facilitated by helping beginners detect the sequence of mouth positions and movements involved in producing those phonemes, for example, segmenting "bat" by feeling the lips closed for /b/, then open for the vowel, then the tongue tapping the roof of the mouth for /t/.]

4. Repeated practice using decoding and encoding skills to read and spell words.

Here's Ehri in her own words. Note her reference to David Share, one of Ehri's peers. (The two have known each other throughout their careers and have communicated on a regular basis.) Share would certainly agree with the above 4 prerequisites. (See my blog on his Self-Teaching Hypothesis .)

"To form connections and retain words in memory, readers need some requisite abilities. They must possess phonemic awareness, particularly segmentation and blending. They must know the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences of the writing system...Then they need to be able to read unfamiliar words on their own by applying a decoding, analogy, or prediction strategy. Application of these strategies activates orthographic mapping to retain the words' spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in memory. David Share referred to this as a self-teaching mechanism. With repeated readings that activate orthographic mapping, written words are retained in memory to support reading and spelling." [11] [boldface mine]

Six years later, Ehri says it this way:

"Acquisition of sight word learning ability requires that students learn regularities of the writing system beginning with grapheme-phoneme relations, phoneme segmentation, and decoding skill, so graphemes become connected to phonemes within spellings of specific words in memory." [12]

Ehri specifies the type of instruction necessary to ensure that the skills needed for OM are explicitly taught. Notice the phrase "produced or heard." The student himself can produce the word, by decoding it, or the word can be produced for him, in which case he will need segmentation skills.

"Use of alphabetic [letter-sound] knowledge to connect spellings to pronunciations and retain sight words in memory is an internal process that is activated spontaneously when words are seen and their pronunciations are produced or heard...What sort of instruction produces spontaneous OM? First, it entails teaching students the knowledge and skills that enable connections to be activated when words are seen and read. This includes teaching the writing system, beginning with grapheme-phoneme relations, teaching phonemic segmentation, and teaching a decoding strategy for reading novel words. Second, it entails having students practice using these skills to read and spell words." [13]

"Share (2004) reported that even one exposure to words enabled Israeli third graders to retain information about the spellings of specific words in memory, and this memory persisted a month later. Sight word learning this rapid and lasting is possible only because readers possess a powerful mnemonic system in the form of alphabetic knowledge that is activated when words are read."

"To summarize, readers learn to process spellings of words as phonemic maps that lay out elements of their pronunciations visually. Beginners become skilled at computing these mapping relations spontaneously when they read new words. This is the critical event for sight word learning. Grapheme-phoneme connections provide a powerful mnemonic system. They provide the glue that bonds letters in written words to their pronunciations in memory along with meanings. Once the alphabetic mapping system is known, readers can build a vocabulary of sight words easily." [14] [boldface mine]

Naturally, the above skills needed for OM take time to develop. And, at least initially, sight words accruing from OM build up slowly, word by word. Ehri describes 4 phases that students typically go through on their journey from immature to mature forms of reading and spelling. Take a look at how Ehri portrays these 4 phases in her most recent research paper:

"Ehri (2005) portrayed the development of decoding and sight word reading as a sequence of overlapping phases, each characterized by the predominant type of connection readers form to link spellings of words to their pronunciations in memory."

"Development begins with small graphophonemic units that later become consolidated into larger syllabic units. In the pre-alphabetic phase, nonphonological visual cues may be formed but are idiosyncratic and easily forgotten. Use of systematic alphabetic cues emerges in the partial alphabetic phase when readers form partial grapheme-phoneme connections, such as initial and final letters, to store words in memory. However, readers in this phase lack the ability to decode novel words."

"In the full alphabetic phase, knowledge of the major grapheme-phoneme relations and decoding skill are acquired and enable readers to form more complete grapheme-phoneme connections to fully bond spellings to pronunciations in memory. This makes word reading much more accurate. In the consolidated alphabetic phase, grapheme-phoneme subunits are consolidated into larger graphosyllabic and graphomorphemic units that readers can use to decode multisyllabic words and to form connections that secure the words in memory." [15] [boldface mine]

Note how she views these phases as applying not only to sight word development, but to decoding skill as well. Decoding, as we'll see, is the primary (though not the only) way orthographic mapping occurs.

Note, too, there is one non-phonetic, pre-alphabetic, initial phase, followed by 3 alphabetic phases: partial, full, and consolidated. Let's take a look at each of these phases in turn.

I won't spend much time here. Ehri herself describes this phase as the "default" phase of learning to read. It's the way children will attempt to "read" before they've had any competent instruction. Here are some examples:

A child "reads" the word TRASH when the word is affixed to a trash can, but can't read the word in isolation.

A child "reads" the word "McDonald's" if it's attached to golden arches, but can't read it if the arches are absent.

A child "reads" the word STOP but can do so only if it's embedded in a red octagon.

A child "reads" an entire favorite story - but does so by heart.

A child remembers the word SPOON as the word with 2 "eyes" in the middle, but then may "misread" words such as MOON, SOON, BROOM, GOOF, FOOD, and WOOD as the word SPOON.

A child "reads" a word by naming an accompanying picture on the page. For example, the word WHEELS might be depicted by a car, but then a child "misreads" WHEELS as CAR.

What's true about pre-alphabetic reading is that, however it's done, it makes no use of the sound value of any letters in the word's spelling.

"Because most written words do not contain easily remembered cues, children in this phase are essentially nonreaders. Of course, they can pretend read stories they have heard many times, and they can guess words from pictures. However, all of their feats of reading are performed by using cues that do not involve the alphabetic system." [16]

Let's move on to Ehri's 3 alphabetic phases. It's here that genuine reading begins to occur, and that genuine sight words begin to accrue.

"Segmentation training enabled students to function at the partial alphabetic phase in their word reading. In contrast, students who received no segmentation training showed little ability to read words on posttests and, hence, remained at the pre-alphabetic phase. These results support the claim that letter knowledge and phoneme segmentation skill are central in enabling readers to move from the pre-alphabetic phase to the partial alphabetic phase of word reading development." [17]

Remember how the pre-alphabetic child (above) might remember SPOON as the word with two "eyes"? In the partial phase, the scenario might look like this. The child comes across the word SPOON in a simple text. The child knows some letter-sound correspondences, including those for S and N. Let's say the child predicts the word SPOON successfully from context, or from a picture, or from the word's first and last letters. (Or, if all that fails, perhaps the teacher simply tells him the word.)

In any case, now the child has the pronunciation of SPOON in his head and the spelling of SPOON right in front of him. Will SPOON become a sight word for him? It might, but only if he has some basic segmentation skills. He needs to be capable of hearing the "sss" sound at the beginning of the word and the "nnn" sound at the end. If he can hear those two sounds, and make the connections between them and the letters S and N, SPOON can become an imperfect sight word for him.

Worse, if the child predicts the word incorrectly (and receives no correction) or if he does not have simple segmentation skill which allows him to hear /s/ and /n/ in the spoken word, he will have learned nothing in this encounter with the written word SPOON. Next time he sees it, he'll be starting from scratch. Ehri says it this way:

"Children progress to the partial alphabetic phase when they learn the names or sounds of alphabet letters and use these to remember how to read words. However, they form connections between only some of the letters and sounds in words, often only the first and final letter sounds, which are easier to detect, for example, the letters s and n to read SPOON...They may confuse similarly spelled words such as SPIN and SKIN having the same boundary letters. They are limited to forming partial connections because they are unable to segment the word's pronunciation into all of its phonemes. Also they lack full knowledge of the alphabetic system, especially vowels. Because of this, partial phase readers have much difficulty decoding unfamiliar words." [19]

It's easy for a child to get stuck in this partial alphabetic phase - even for years at a time. How? He can be in a reading program that doesn't teach all the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences in a systematic manner - especially those having to do with the 20 vowel sounds of English. He can be in a program that delays, teaches poorly, or never teaches, the strategy of transforming graphemes into phonemes, and then blending those phonemes to decode unknown words into complete pronunciations with recognizable meanings.

Such children are forever "predicting" what the word might be, based on partial alphabetic cues or context cues. And such word-guessing can quickly become an unbreakable habit. "Not only novice beginning readers but also older children with a reading disability qualify as partial alphabetic phase readers." [20] The relevant question here is: Do readers get stuck in the partial alphabetic phase due to poor instruction, and/or due to some congenital condition such as dyslexia? And, in either case, how do we help such children?

Ehri has no expectation for how long this partial alphabetic phase might last. "If beginners quickly acquire the skills necessary for the next phase, they may not exhibit partial alphabetic stage reading." In other words, "Instructional method influences how long beginners show evidence of the partial alphabetic stage." [21]

The full alphabetic phase emerges when beginners acquire more complete knowledge of the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences of the writing system, plus the crucial skill of decoding [22] [23] [24]. With these 2 skills firmly in place, complete connections can be made between all the letters seen in the written forms of words and all the phonemes detected in their pronunciations.

A distinguishing characteristic of full phase readers is "the ability to decode words never read before, by blending letters into a pronunciation. This knowledge enables full-phase readers to form fully connected sight words in memory." [25] Sixteen years later, Ehri says it this way: "Decoding letters into blended sounds helps readers figure out words they have not read before. Reading them a few times moves the words into memory so they can be read by sight." [26] [Note: Ehri states some version of this in nearly every one of her research papers. Decoding - blending all a word's sounds, left to right, into a complete pronunciation - leads to orthographic mapping, and to fully-connected sight words in memory.]

The advantages to students in this phase are enormous. Sight words are no longer "imperfect." SPOON won't be confused with SKIN, or SPIN, or any of the other similarly-spelled words listed above. That's because now, all 4 graphemes in SPOON (S, P, OO, N) have consciously been linked to the 4 phonemes which, when blended together, form the word SPOON.

Does segmenting also have a role in this full alphabetic phase? It does. In the previous phase, partially-connected (imperfect) sight words could be created only if the student had some segmentation skill. That's because decoding was not yet a possibility in the partial phase. The question here is this: Can a student segment her way into a fully-connected sight word instead of using decoding as just described?

She can. But if decoding is not used, then someone other than the student herself must pronounce the word (or she must correctly guess it). Assuming this is done, and assuming she has full segmenting ability (can detect all a word's phonemes) and has knowledge of the graphemes symbolizing these phonemes, she can then make the complete connections necessary for accurate sight word creation. The very act of seeing graphemes in a word's spelling helps her detect the separate phonemes in the word's pronunciation.

: In reading your various articles, my understanding of OM is that it is neither tied exclusively to decoding (blending/synthesis), nor to encoding (segmenting/analysis). Rather, OM is a connection-making process. The connections need to be at the phoneme/grapheme level (at least initially, prior to the consolidated phase) and the connections that need to be made explicit are between the graphemes seen in a printed word's spelling and the phonemes heard in that word's pronunciation.

: In the partial phase, Phase 2, decoding is not yet possible, so naturally, segmentation is the only way the partial connections can be made. The teacher says the word, and the student must have enough letter knowledge and phonemic awareness segmentation skill to make "some" salient connections - typically between the initial letter in the printed word and the initial phoneme heard.

: This is an improvement over Phase 1 but is still subject to all kinds of errors, chiefly because the connections are only partial. (A lot of words, for example, start with B, or start with B and end in T)

: When (and if) a student finally becomes capable of through-the-word decoding, Phase 3 begins to open up for him. Now, for the first time, complete "connections" can be explicitly examined by him - indeed, must be explicitly examined by him so that he can pronounce the word. In Phase 3, it seems to me - and in line with David Share's Self-Teaching Hypothesis - that blending/synthesis becomes the chief mechanism for OM, rather than the segmenting/analysis of the previous partial phase.

: Yes. When readers decode words on their own, this enables them to form connections and retain the spelling-pronunciation bonds in memory. But also if readers encounter a new word and someone reads it to them, or the context allows them to predict the word accurately, connections can be formed as well, provided students' grapheme-phoneme knowledge is activated and applied to that word. In our orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning studies, we found that simply exposing students to the spellings of new words as they heard their pronunciations and meanings, without drawing attention to spellings, enhanced their ability to remember pronunciations when no spellings were present. Students recalled pronunciations much better in this condition than when they were not shown spellings as they studied the words. In the spelling exposure condition, decoding was not necessary because the words were pronounced as soon as they were seen. We argue that grapheme-phoneme connections were activated spontaneously when the words were heard and seen. In one study though, we found that having students actively decode the spellings produced greater memory for pronunciations than simple exposure to the words. So decoding enhances memory. [boldface mine]

Directly above, Ehri makes reference to "orthographic facilitation of vocabulary studies." In one such study [27], low SES urban first graders were compared to see how well they learned new vocabulary under 3 different conditions:

"In the decoding condition, students sounded out and blended spellings during study and feedback periods but not when memory for pronunciations and meanings was tested. In the exposure-only condition, spellings were shown, but no attention was drawn to them. In the no exposure condition, words were learned without spellings but were spoken extra times. Students practiced recalling words over several test trials with feedback. Results revealed that students who decoded spellings learned pronunciations and meanings better than students who were only exposed to spellings. Seeing spellings enhanced learning more than not seeing them."

"These findings support the theory that exposure to spellings activates grapheme-phoneme connections to better secure spellings to pronunciations along with meanings in memory. These connections are activated implicitly when spellings are simply exposed, but the connections are strengthened when spellings are explicitly decoded...Students should be shown spellings and should decode them." [28] [Boldface mine]

Decoding, not segmenting, is the key to building a large sight word vocabulary. Decoding, not segmenting, is the key to David Share's Self-Teaching Hypothesis. While it's true that either decoding or segmenting (in conjunction, of course, with letter-sound knowledge) can create a fully-connected sight word in the full alphabetic phase, only decoding is capable of creating the 50,000 sight word lexicon of the skilled reader.

The full alphabetic phase gradually (and automatically) morphs into the consolidated alphabetic phase as more and more fully-connected sight words are retained in memory.

As sight words accumulate for a given reader, letter patterns that recur in multiple words start to consolidate in memory. These letter strings represent the same phoneme blend when they're decoded. Soon, the reader begins to recognize them by sight. Though not words, these fragments become consolidated units in memory. Such units can be rimes (-EST, -ANK, -OAST, -UST), prefixes (ANTI-, PRE-, NON-, UN-), or suffixes (-ING, -MENT, -NESS, -TION).

Suppose the same student subsequently comes across the unknown word CHEST. Decoding will now happen faster because only 2 entities must be blended, /ch/+/est/, rather than four, /ch/+/e/+/s/+/t/. Quickly, CHEST becomes a new sight word for this student. The same thing will happen when PEST, NEST, REST, and ZEST are first encountered.

You can see how this consolidation process will allow sight words to start accumulating rapidly in this fourth and final phase. The student is now on his way to becoming a skilled reader - someone fully capable of building a 50,000 sight word mental dictionary by the time he's off to college.

Where to begin? Since this is already a lengthy blog, I will focus on just two areas.

Having read thus far, the reader can now perhaps better appreciate why trying to teach children to read via onset-rime before teaching them to analyze and map those rimes at the phoneme-grapheme level is not supported by reading science. Onset-rime involves reading words using larger, consolidated chunks of graphemes forming the rime unit, for example, -ENT in TENT, RENT, and SENT. It's a form of reading by analogy. It belongs in Ehri's fourth and final stage where rimes become "consolidated" after having been analyzed on the grapheme-phoneme level.

Nonetheless, in many Balanced Literacy classes, onset-rime is taught in the partial alphabetic phase, before decoding is even a possibility. How do educators suppose this can work? Let's look at an example of what would actually have to happen.

First, the child must somehow memorize a word (let's say it's TEACH) as an unanalyzed whole, that is, before any work is done at the grapheme-phoneme level. T is considered the onset; the vowels and everything following the vowels are the rime - in this case EACH. TEACH is now supposed to act as the "keyword" that will unlock the entire rhyming EACH family.

Suppose the child now comes across the unknown word BEACH. How is she to read it? She must recall the sight word TEACH, subtract the T sound (tuh?), replace it with a B sound (buh?) and read the new word. But how is she to recall TEACH? She doesn't (yet) know the sound of BEACH, so she can't recall TEACH by its rhyming relationship to BEACH. She must recall TEACH by noticing that the two words both end in the same letter sequence E-A-C-H. How likely is that to happen? Also, how likely is it that a student in the partial alphabetic stage will have the phonemic awareness skill, or the working memory capacity, to substitute a B sound for the T sound?

It gets worse. This 300 total covers only single-syllable words. Many more rimes exist only in multi-syllable words (e.g. ULT in ADULT, RESULT, and CONSULT; ECT in DEFECT, RESPECT, and SELECT).

Why do teachers attempt early onset-rime instruction? Many simply don't know better. They're unfamiliar with Ehri's research. Worse, their professors at whatever teacher college they attended were also unaware of Ehri. Many teachers genuinely believe that since children can hear and distinguish syllables easier than they can hear and distinguish phonemes, syllables (including rimes) should be taught prior to grapheme-phoneme decoding.

Portuguese is a more transparent language than English. Portuguese syllable structure is simpler than English syllable structure. There are fewer monosyllables in Portuguese, and the boundaries between syllables are clearer, so it is easier for beginners to detect the separate syllables in spoken words and map them onto spellings. Nonetheless, Ehri's most recent study showed that, even in Portuguese, "teaching students to decode using small grapheme-phoneme units was much more efficient than teaching students to decode using larger syllabic units." [30] In other words, "small grapheme-phoneme units emerge first and are needed to form larger syllabic units." [31]

Here's what Ehri thinks:

"It is important to note that sight word reading during the partial alphabetic phase is an imperfect process that occurs among beginners who lack full knowledge of the alphabetic system and phonemic segmentation skill. There are no expectations about how long this phase will last. If beginners quickly acquire the skills necessary for the next phase, they may not exhibit phonetic cue [partial stage] reading." [32]

Ehri calls attention to the fact that German-speaking Austrian children show little evidence of undergoing the partial alphabetic phase. She speculates:

"This may be the case because German is a transparent writing system, so decoding is relatively easy to learn. In addition, from Day 1 in school, Austrian children receive systematic phonics instruction that teaches them the alphabetic system." [33]

Ehri also notes that Portuguese-speaking children taught with a whole-word method did exhibit partial alphabetic reading, while those taught with a phonics method did not. The latter group started right in with decoding.

"Instructional method influences how long beginners show evidence of the partial alphabetic phase and how quickly they acquire use of full grapheme-phoneme connections." [34]

Referring to her own phase theory, Ehri says:

"We expected that teaching students in the pre-alphabetic phase to decode [simple] syllables by sounding out and blending grapheme-phoneme constituents would enable these students to read more like readers in the full alphabetic phase, whereas teaching students to decode whole syllables and single grapheme-phoneme relations would limit these students' movement to the partial alphabetic phase." [emphasis added] [35]

Ehri's expectations were confirmed in her recent instructional study comparing three ways Brazilian beginners are taught to read words. The three ways are: decoding at the grapheme-phoneme level, decoding at the level of whole syllables, and teaching grapheme-phoneme relations, but without decoding. Those taught how to decode at the grapheme-phoneme level far surpassed the other two groups:

"Present findings support these views. Students taught to use grapheme-phonemes to read CV syllables far outperformed the other two groups on posttests in decoding longer pseudowords, in remembering how to read a set of 12 longer words over several learning trials, and in recalling their spellings more accurately." [36]

So the partial alphabetic phase, according to Ehri, can be short-to-nonexistent, or it can be quite lengthy. The main determinant is "instructional method."

"Sight words" would be understood as words to be learned consciously through rote-memorization, rather than learned automatically through OM. Lists of such words would be given out to students and their families to be memorized.

"Look at the picture" would be viewed as a "strategy for word-solving."

Beginners would be expected to read whole words, whole syllables, and rimes before they acquired knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondences and decoding skill.

Phonemic awareness training would be done without letters, even though both reading and spelling obviously involve letters.

Beginners would be encouraged to guess the identity and pronunciation of a word based on its context, position in the sentence, and/or its first letter. It would be called three-cueing.

Children would be provided with reading materials that have lots of words they can't possibly read. That way they could practice their three-cueing strategy.

Meaning, rather than the alphabetic code, would be emphasized at the start of instruction even though knowledge of that code forms the basis for extracting meaning from print.

"Discovery" would take precedence over explicit teaching when aspects of the code are finally taught.

In teaching the code, more emphasis would be placed on easier-to-learn consonant sounds than is placed on those 20 harder-to-learn vowel sounds, even though vowel sounds occur in every syllable.

How would Ehri evaluate such an instructional method? Well, as Chair of the Phonemic Awareness Subcommittee for the U.S. National Reading Panel, she produced a final report that said, no less than 15 times: phonemic awareness training should consist in blending and segmenting - and both should be done with letters.

"Our findings challenge instructional approaches claiming that beginners can learn to read whole words before they have acquired knowledge of grapheme-phoneme relations. Without this knowledge, students would remain in the pre-alphabetic phase. Our findings challenge the view that prereaders will move into reading through exposure to and practice in reading authentically written, meaningful storybooks without much attention paid to teaching them foundational skills. Without this, progress will be halting and limited. Students may not function beyond the partial alphabetic phase. Our findings challenge the strategy of teaching students that guessing words using syntactic and semantic cues is better than decoding words using graphic cues. Guessing does not build students' lexical memory to support word-reading accuracy and automaticity." [37]

What, then, would an instructional method look like if the goal was to minimize, or even eliminate, the time children spend as partial alphabetic readers? We can begin to answer this question using a simple process of elimination. The instructional method we seek would not, per Ehri, employ word-guessing. (Even Balanced Literacy guru Jennifer Serravallo recently came to this conclusion.) It would not, per Ehri, use early onset-rime or any other type of analogy phonics.

So the instructional method we're looking for - if our goal is to minimize time spent in the partial phase - can't include guessing from pictures, guessing from context, guessing from the first letter, early onset-rime, analogy phonics, or analytic phonics. What remains? I can think of only a single method: systematic synthetic phonics.

Taught using synthetic phonics, students waste no time on word-guessing, on rote-memorization of sight words, on phonemic awareness training without letters, or on discovery learning. Instead, they start learning letter-sound relationships, explicitly taught by a competent teacher, on Day 1. As soon as some (say, 7-10) of those relationships are mastered, students are taught how to decode words using those letters and sounds.

Segmentation is also taught in synthetic phonics, not so much for its use in the "imperfect" partial alphabetic stage, but for its use in spelling and, as Ehri points out, for its use in creating fully-connected sight words when the word is not decoded, but rather is pronounced for the student.

One of the prerequisites for OM to occur is practice. This, too, is an essential part of synthetic phonics - a method that fully embraces decodable readers. Here's Ehri: "Decodable books provide beginners with practice in applying the grapheme-phoneme relations that they have learned to decode words and to build their sight vocabularies." [39]

"The ability to decode new words marks entry into the full alphabetic phase. A synthetic procedure for decoding words is to say the phoneme corresponding to each grapheme and then blend them to pronounce the word. Learning this procedure is hindered when schwa vowels are added to stop consonants and have to be deleted during blending." [40]

(For more information on the schwa sound, see .) Here's an example of what Ehri is saying: To successfully read the word CAT, a student might attempt to blend "cuh" + "ah" + "tuh." But CAT is not a blend of these 3 sounds. The student must eliminate the "uh" part of both "cuh" and "tuh" in order to successfully decode CAT. Some students have difficulty doing this. So Ehri and a colleague, Selenid M. Gonzalez-Frey, conducted a study [41] to see if this difficulty might be overcome. Note this study is done with kindergartners (Year 1 of formal schooling in the US).

"We compared two methods of teaching decoding to kindergartners in the partial phase who knew letter sounds but could not decode nonwords. Students were taught to decode CVC nonwords containing continuant consonants, which allowed phonemes to be stretched and connected without interruption from schwa vowels ("sssaaannn"). Students in the connected condition were taught to stretch and pronounce phonemes without breaking the speech stream before blending. Students in the segmented condition were taught to stretch and say each phoneme but to break the speech stream between phonemes ("sss-aaa-nnn") before blending. Following learning to criterion, students completed a transfer test to decode 20 CVCs with stop consonants that are harder to blend because of intrusion from schwa vowels when stops are pronounced in isolation. Results showed that during training, kindergartners who received connected practice learned to decode the nonwords more quickly, and on the transfer test, they read nonwords with stops more accurately than the segmented group. An error analysis revealed that breaking between phonemes caused students in the segmented condition to forget initial phonemes during blending. These findings suggest how to teach decoding more effectively to help students move into the full alphabetic phase." [42] [Boldface mine.]

One country (so far) in the English-speaking world has formally adopted synthetic phonics as the way to teach beginners to read. That country is England. The decision was due to the 2006 which concluded:

"Because our writing system is alphabetic, beginner readers must be taught how the letters of the alphabet, singly or in combination, represent the sounds of spoken language (letter-sound correspondences) and how to blend (synthesize) the sounds to read words, and break up (segment) the sounds in words to spell. They must learn to process all the letters in words and 'read words in and out of text'. Phonic work should teach these skills and knowledge in a well defined and systematic sequence." [Paragraph 45]

"Having considered a wide range of evidence, the review has concluded that the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming and much strengthened by a synthetic approach, the key features of which are to teach beginner readers: * grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound) correspondences (the alphabetic principle) in a clearly defined, incremental sequence * to apply the highly important skill of blending (synthesizing) phonemes in order, all through a word to read it * to apply the skills of segmenting words into their constituent phonemes to spell * that blending and segmenting are reversible processes." [Paragraph 51]

I'll end this blog by asking Ehri to sum up her own long and successful career researching how children learn to read. I especially like this quote because it so clearly shows the centrality of decoding in Ehri's thinking.

"In sum, the theory and research presented in this article show that teaching students to decode unfamiliar words and enabling students to store spellings of familiar words bonded to their other identities in memory should be central goals of beginning reading instruction. Decoding is a means of getting spellings of words into memory so they can be read by sight. Being able to connect letters in spellings to sounds in pronunciations spontaneously when spellings of words are seen and heard also serves to retain words in memory. Both decoding and letter-sound mapping skills require knowledge of the alphabetic writing system. Gradual acquisition of this knowledge propels students through the alphabetic phases to become skilled readers." [43] [Boldface mine.]

Please note: Stephen Parker's FREE stand-alone phonics books for reading teachers and parents can be downloaded .

Dr. Linnea Ehri who read the initial drafts of this blog and offered many suggestions, all of which have been incorporated into this final draft.

Dr. Pamela Snow, friend and mentor these past 3 years. Without her, there would be no Parker Phonics. Dr. Snow also offered many helpful suggestions for this blog.

Sir Jim Rose, for his constant encouragement and for his assistance promoting this blog throughout his circles of influence - especially in England.

[2] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p170.

[5] Ehri, (1998) "Grapheme-Phoneme Knowledge," p14.

[6] Sargiani, R., Ehri, L.C., & Maluf, M.R. (in press). Teaching beginners to decode consonant-vowel syllables using grapheme-phoneme subunits facilitates reading and spelling compared to teaching whole syllable decoding. Reading Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.432 . p2-3.

[7] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p171.

[8] Ehri, L.C. (2020). The science of learning to read words: A case for systematic phonics instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(1), S45-S60. Special Issue: The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions . https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/rrq.334. p4 .

[9] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p2-3.

[10] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p10.

[11] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p7.

[12] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p3.

[13] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p19.

[14] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p172.

[15] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p3.

[16] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p173.

[17] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p10.

[18] Ehri, L.C. (2005). Development of sight word reading: Phases and findings. In M. Snowling & C. Hulme,(Eds.), The science of reading, a handbook(pp. 135-154). UK: Blackwell. p145.

[19] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p173.

[20] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p174.

[21] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p145.

[22] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p146.

[23] Ehri, (2005) "Learning to Read Words," p184.

[24] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p16.

[25] Ehri, (1998) "Grapheme-Phoneme Knowledge," p21.

[26] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p5.

[28] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p11.

[29] Ehri, (2014) "Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition," p8.

[30] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p15.

[31] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p16.

[32] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p145.

[33] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p145-146.

[34] Ehri, (2005) "Development of Sight Word Reading," p146.

[35] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p4.

[36] Sargiani et al. (in press) "Teaching Beginners to Decode," p16.

[37] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p13.

[38] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p13.

[39] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p11.

[40] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p9.

[42] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p8.

[43] Ehri, (2020) "The Science of Learning to Read Words," p13-14.

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A Research-Based Explanation of How Children Learn to Read Words With 160 published papers, Linnea Ehri has been one of the most influential and cited reading scientists in the past 40 years. One of 14 members of the U.S. National Reading Panel (1997-2000), she served as Chair of both the Phonemic Awareness and the Phonics subgroups of the Panel.

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We're in the dog days of summer. Not many questions coming in right now - normal for periods when schools aren't in session. But the following query came to me this week from Ireland via Twitter.
Teacher question: Any link to how the Repeated Reading strategy works? How long text can be repeated, how long can text be, depends on accuracy? Shanahan's response:
This is such a basic question that I was gobsmacked by it. These are just the kinds of queries that I love to respond to on this site: Topics that many teachers assume they know about, but that often turn out to be full of surprises.

The idea of repeated reading emerged in the late 1970s ... as a result of the writings of S. Jay Samuels (1979) and Carol Chomsky (1978). They found, in separate studies, that engaging kids in repeatedly reading texts aloud improved reading ability. It was kind of a no-brainer that such approaches were beneficial by the time the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) concluded that they were (that portion of the report was written by Jay Samuels and me - and even he was a bit taken aback by how that work had proceeded since when he'd first written about it).

Multitasking is essential to good reading.

Scientific studies (e.g., LaBerge & Samuels, 1976) revealed the importance of "automaticity" to reading. Readers have to be able to decode without thinking about decoding. We only have so much thinking space available. The more cognitive space devoted to figuring out words, the less available to grasp the text's meaning.

Samuel's idea of repeated reading was that it could help readers to gain automaticity. He thought it would help readers to master the art of reading words accurately and with sufficient speed.

When children are learning to read, they initially struggle to read words accurately. That is very common in Grade 1. These students then often gain mastery over accuracy at the expense of speed - such accurate but slow reading tends to emerge in Grade 2 (Morris, 1999). Samuels' goal was to build accuracy and speed to a point where comprehension would be possible. The more efficient the reading of the words, the more that readers' attention could be turned to meaning.

Carol Chomsky (1978) had a similar notion of the problem. She thought there was a subgroup of poor readers who "knew" phonics - that is, they knew the letters and sounds and could decode words reasonably well. However, these strugglers couldn't apply these skills fluently during the reading of a text.

Chomsky believed that this special group of readers might benefit from reading texts aloud repeatedly since it would give them essential practice in applying those known skills.

Samuels and Chomsky both reported research studies that had positive results, as have many other researchers since that time.

What specifically is "Repeated Reading?"

Repeated Reading is a particular method proposed by S. Jay Samuels to develop decoding automaticity with struggling readers. In this approach, students are asked to read aloud short text passages (50-200 words) until they reach a criterion level of success (particular speed and accuracy goals).

However, research shows there are many ways that teachers can successfully exploit the idea of repeated oral reading, so I'll talk about "repeated reading" here (rather than Repeated Reading).

What are some of those other ways of doing repeated reading?

In Chomsky's scheme, the kids listened to audiotapes of a text and then worked on making their own tapes - trying to match the quality of the originals. Reading while listening or echo reading works too, as does Radio Reading (in which kids work with scripts - making the oral reading purposeful), and Neurological Impress (don't ask).

All of these schemes include oral reading. They also all include reading the texts multiple times (either to a particular quality criterion, such as a particular number of words correct per minute - or a set number of repetitions, usually 3).

What's the goal of such instruction, to get kids to read fast?

No, the goal is to get students to read the author's words accurately, to read texts at about the speed of oral language, and to make this reading sound like language (pausing in the right places so that ithe text makes sense).

What is the outcome of such practice?

Repeated reading usually leads to better reading performance. The biggest payoffs tend to be with word reading, but it also has been found to improve oral reading fluency and reading comprehension (the most frequently reported area of improvement). This comprehension finding surprised Jay Samuels. Remember the comprehension impact should be indirect - through word reading improvement. He was shocked that so many researchers failed to include word reading measures in their studies, even though they always tested reading comprehension. There was a very good chance that such studies would have found no differences in comprehension and would have, therefore, concluded that repeated reading didn't work. Fortunately, the comprehension payoffs were large enough and consistent enough that it didn't turn out to be a problem.

Were there special kids who needed repeated reading?

The research suggests that part of Chomsky's theory was wrong. Studies of repeated reading sometimes aimed at these special "average phonics skills but low reading" kids, and other times they just focused on all readers in regular classrooms. The results were exactly the same: repeated reading improved reading ability across the board.

How many re-readings should kids be doing?

The research suggests that three readings should be sufficient so I would limit it to that. Three readings and it is time to move on to another text.

How long should the passages be?

Samuels used passages of 50-200 words; with the shorter texts used with the students with the lowest reading abilities. That makes sense to me. In classroom reading practice, that would be like a page or two in a primary grade reader. It is important to keep the texts brief for this work so that when students reread, memory becomes a useful scaffold. The longer the text, the harder to carry over what was figured out on the first reading. (Joe Torgesen has emphasized the importance of using texts that share a lot of vocabulary. That way, when a student improves with one text, it is certain to immediately carry over to the next.)

How challenging should the texts be?

The texts used for fluency practice should be at students' so-called "frustration levels." If students don't make many mistakes with a text (say 10 or more per hundred words), then the repetition is unlikely to improve their reading very much.

What about integrating comprehension work into this kind of fluency practice?

Some of the repeated reading routines have included a comprehension component, such as asking students a different question at the conclusion of each reading or having the student complete some kind of comprehension task each time. Other approaches do not do this. The research says that repeated reading pays off, whether there is a comprehension step or not. I'd include one under the well-known scientific precept: "It couldn't hurt."

How can a teacher listen to a whole classroom full of kids?

I recommend paired reading. Have one youngster read to another. Then they switch. While this practice is going on, the teacher circulates among the students listening to several one-at-a-time and giving feedback.

What about silent reading?

Silent reading should also take place regularly - I try to provide both an oral reading fluency period and a reading comprehension period daily. In the latter, except with beginners, the reading is silent. There are also a couple of studies in which kids read silently while a computer monitored their reading that has led to fluency improvement (Rasinski, Samuels, Hiebert, Petcher, & Feller, 2011).

What about round robin reading? We do "popcorn" in my class?

Schemes in which one child reads aloud and the rest of the students wait their turn are lousy. They don't allow much oral reading; simply not enough practice to foster improvement. This is because only one child reads at a time. Second, repeated reading is very rare in round robin, making learning unlikely. Third, you may get pushback; kids who read poorly may refuse to read - something that never occurs when everyone is doing the reading.

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Everything You Wanted to Know about Repeated Reading | Reading Rockets

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We're in the dog days of summer. Not many questions coming in right now - normal for periods when schools aren't in session. But the following query came to me this week from Ireland via Twitter. Teacher question: Any link to how the Repeated Reading strategy works?

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The difference between decodable and levelled texts.

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The difference between decodable and levelled texts.

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Is My Kid Learning How to Read? Part 1: Purple Challenge

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Spelling for life

There is a myth that English spelling is unnecessarily complex. It is spread by those who don't understand the writing system. Spelling for Life offers lucid, accessible tools which help to reveal that, when explicitly and systematically taught,

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Bringing high quality, research-supported literacy instruction to teachers and families - Lifelong Literacy

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WELCOME TO LIFELONG LITERACY We bring high quality, research-supported literacy instruction to schools, educators, and families. COURSES Our suite of online and face to face courses will help build teacher and educator capacity for individuals and whole school teams. BOOKS & RESOURCES Discover Lyn Stone's flagship books as well as a range of low-cost and ...

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After decades of neglect due to flawed whole language theory, the importance of explicit spelling instruction for reading comprehension is finally getting due diligence in research, paving the way for a resurgence of teaching English spelling in today's classrooms.

The spelling to read movement spotlights the importance of spelling for orthographic mapping and spelling's role in automatic word reading which drives reading comprehension. The critical role of spelling for reading is a focus in recent refereed journals in neuroscience and cognitive psychology as well as in recent books by reading scientists and educators (see for example Seidenberg, 2017; Gentry & Ouellette, 2019; Moats, 2020). Landmark studies linking the research to practice have appeared in journals such as Developmental Psychology and Neuroimage. Spelling to read is not only trending in education journals, but in news reports, the media, and with dyslexia advocates and parent groups.
What happened to spelling instruction over the last three decades?
Explicit spelling instruction met its demise with the advent of whole language theory, aspects of which are now wholly debunked by science but regrettably continue to be practiced in classrooms. The late Ken Goodman, whom I studied with and greatly admire for many worthy contributions to reading education, such as promoting humanism and equity for all children, respect and advocacy for teachers, support for writing as a process, and other positive ideals, was dead wrong about spelling, phonics, and handwriting.

In What's Whole in Whole Language (1986), Professor Goodman catapulted four harmful core educational principles based on flawed theoretical assumptions. These principles have dominated reading education for three decades with perhaps the most disappointing and hurtful being a full-frontal attack on phonics and explicit spelling instruction. The recommendations below from What's Whole in Whole Language (1986) are direct and unambiguous:

1. Do not teach phonics explicitly because children will intuit phonics by reading. [A settled body of research says that was wrong.]

2. Do not use spelling books or teach spelling explicitly and systematically. Expect children to pick up spelling skills simply by reading and writing. [A settled body of research says that was wrong.]

3. Do not teach handwriting explicitly. Handwriting instruction is too laborious and impedes written expression. [A settled body of research says that was wrong.]

4. Since literacy develops from whole to part [a false assumption], there is no hierarchy of sub-skills or logical grade-by-grade sequence. [A settled body of research says that was wrong.] As it turns out, serial sub-lexical skills are foundational for the development of reading brain circuitry.

These four debunked principles must all be addressed to improve reading instruction moving forward. With much due respect, I am unapologetic for focusing on the four whole language signature missteps because all four are simple to correct. Schools and districts that continue to embrace the four misguided principles or use published curricula that embrace them (see the list below) must simply acknowledge these missteps and correct them. It's not complicated.

In a nation and elsewhere where 60% or more children by standardized measures read below proficiency, there is a moral imperative to correct these missteps, especially in schools with vulnerable populations of children who struggle with literacy. The importance that children be taught spelling for reading is incontrovertible.
Sustaining nuggets of wisdom from notable scientists and researchers on the role of spelling for reading:
From cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham, Raising Kids Who Read (2015):

Professor Willingham writes that good readers all read by matching what's on the page with spelling images in the brain. " ... using word spellings to read requires very little attention, if any. You see it [the word on the page] in the same way you just see and recognize a dog ... As your child gains reading experience, there is a larger and larger set of words that he can read using the spelling, and so his reading becomes faster, smoother, and more accurate. That's called fluency."

From reading scientist and thought leader in the science of reading Professor Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can't, and What Can Be Done About It. (2017):

"In neuroimaging studies, poor readers show atypically low activity in a part of the brain that processes the spelling of words."

From Professors Gene Ouellette and Monique Sénéchal's landmark study in Developmental Psychology (2017):

"...spelling practice transfers to reading improvement in general; recent meta-analyses have shown that spelling instruction benefits word reading across the school years (Graham & Hebert, 2011), and also specifically in the elementary years (Graham & Santangelo, 2014)."

From renowned researcher, author, staff developer, and spelling advocate Professor Louisa Moats:

"As a general guide for covering the proposed content [a grade-by-grade spelling curriculum] about 15-20 minutes daily or 30 minutes three times per week should be allocated to spelling instruction. Application in writing should be varied and continual." (Moats, 2005/2006, p. 42-43).

And these are the tip of the iceberg!

There must be a reckoning among educators and publishers in order to advance equity and better literacy outcomes especially for vulnerable populations at risk for literacy failure, including children of color, English language learners (ELLs), the economically disadvantaged, and struggling readers at risk of learning disability who aren't receiving explicit spelling instruction. The major reading programs in the chart above are inadequate for teaching spelling in schools with vulnerable populations. Embrace the spelling-for-reading solution in 2021 by providing systematic, explicit, structured spelling instruction in a grade by grade curriculum.

An Education Week analysis of these programs "found many instances in which these programs diverge from evidence-based practices for teaching reading or supporting struggling students." (Swartz, 2019. p.1)

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Why Spelling Instruction Should Be Hot in 2021

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After decades of neglect due to flawed whole language theory, the importance of explicit spelling instruction for reading comprehension is finally getting due diligence in research, paving the way for a resurgence of teaching English spelling in today's classrooms. The spelling to read movement spotlights the importance of spelling for orthographic mapping and spelling's role in automatic word reading which drives reading comprehension.

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Advanced research in cognitive science including brain scan science is demonstrating that explicit spelling instruction may be the missing link to reading success in America where 65 percent of fourth-graders read below proficiency levels.

Almost all of these kids are lousy spellers. Should America go back to Noah Webster's Blue-backed Speller which sold over 60 million copies in the 1800s? Noah Webster understood the reading-spelling connection. Too few American schools teach spelling for reading today.

Poor reading and poor spelling are directly connected (Adams, 2011; Gentry & Graham, 2010; Moats, 2005; Reed, 2012). A disconnect between the latest spelling research and what's happening in many schools is that research calls for explicit spelling instruction and many of our nation's schools are potentially harming children by not teaching kids to spell. When we don't teach spelling explicitly and well, many children struggle or fail with reading as evidenced by our nation's fourth-grade reading scores.
Automatic Recognition of Spellings for Reading Is Like "Seeing a Dog!"
There is unequivocal research-proof that spelling matters for reading. Take, for example, advice from renowned cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham in his highly regarded book, Raising Kids Who Read (Willingham, 2015). Willingham agrees with cognitive scientists who say spelling is, in fact, the spark that ignites the reading circuity in our brains. Willingham calls for teaching spelling to raise reading achievement and help solve America's reading problems.

Using clear and straightforward language to describe the central role of spelling in the reading brain, Willingham posits two processes of decoding:

1. Sounding out words using phonics which research shows is essential for beginning reading

2. Matching letters on the page with the spelling representations in the brain

It happens in the Occipito-Temporal Region which houses the Visual Word Form System. Spelling representations for word identification match with the spellings on the page and jumpstart the reading circuitry automatically activating sound and meaning.

In Dr. Willingham's words, "...using word spellings to read requires very little attention if any. You see it in the same way you just see and recognize a dog." He continues: "As your child gains reading experience, there is a larger and larger set of words that he can read using the spelling, and so his reading becomes faster, smoother, and more accurate. That's called fluency." (Willingham, 2015, page 133)

A plethora of recent spelling research studies agree. Here's just a sampling:

Abbott, R., Berninger, V., & Fayol, M. (2010). Longitudinal relationships of levels of language in writing and between writing and reading in grades 1 to 7. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102, 281-298.

Gentry, J.R., & Graham, S. (2010). Creating better readers and writers: The importance of direct, systematic spelling and handwriting instruction in improving academic performance. Columbus, OH: Saperstein.

Jones, C., & Reutzel, R. (2015). Write to read: Investigating the reading-writing relationship of code-level early literacy skills. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 31: 279-315. DOI: 10.1080/10753569.2013.850461

Moats, L.D. (2005). How spelling supports reading: And why it is more regular and predictable than you may think. American Educator, 29(4), 12,14-22, 42-43.

Reed, D.K. (2012). Why teach spelling? Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction.

So the takeaway is that today, at the beginning of the 21st century, we've learned that teaching spelling is a brain-building boon for effective reading and writing, creating a "dictionary in the brain" for every reader and writer. Reading is a process of matching the spellings on the page with the dictionary of spellings in the brain. (Gentry, 2004; Paulesu, 2001, Willingham, 2015). It's interesting to point out that Noah Webster knew that back in 1798.
What Are We Doing Wrong?
Two ineffective spelling instructional delivery systems that swept across America in the last two decades have serious limitations. One, a program called Words Their Way, has given us an effective learning strategy for building word knowledge but it is flawed as a spelling curriculum. The other widely used delivery system is the spelling component of major Reading Programs. These are tantamount to educational malpractice.
WTW Metamorphosis-From Effective Staff-Development to a Flawed Spelling Curriculum
In 1996, Prentice-Hall published a Whole-Language staff-development book for teachers entitled Words Their Way. WTW was intended to provide "a practical way to study words with students," (Bear, et al., 1996, Preface, page v) and it made a significant Whole Language contribution to American literacy education.

However, Words Their Way is a guidebook for studying words; it is not a spelling curriculum. The original preface describes its purpose: "...Ordered in this developmental format, Words Their Way complements the use of any existing phonics, spelling, and vocabulary curricula." To complement the curricula, WTW focuses on a single learning strategy for spelling-word sorting-and it employs hypothesis testing, social interaction, and games.

Over the years, corporate America got greedy. Words Their Way-the now 20-year-old Whole Language staff-development guidebook-went through marketing reiterations like a butterfly's metamorphosis flitting from one marketing imprint to another. Its development was all about marketing as it morphed from Prentice-Hall, to Allyn & Bacon, to Merrill-Prentice Hall to become "Voila!" an alternative Pearson Education spelling curriculum.

Yet unlike a butterfly, the transformation wasn't from an immature form to something more complete-the only thing that changed from one stage to each newly added stage was that the thing got more expensive.

The process of transformations included Words Their WayTM Online Course for Teachers; Words Their Way Training for Teachers; Words Their WayTM Virtual Training for Teachers; Words Their WayTM Coaching and Modeling; Words Their WayTM My Online Workshop; Words Their WayTM Companion Volumes; Words Their WayTM with English Learners and the like.

There was good reason to have all this added "training" because the program takes a lot of time and is highly work-intensive for teachers. That being said, teachers who do have this training can use it to advantage with any existing phonics, spelling, and vocabulary curricula as was originally intended; however, as a curricula, the program is seriously flawed.
Two Flaws in Words Their Way
Two flaws in the 2016 editions of Words Their Way are a theoretical flaw and a CCSS compatibility flaw. Let's look first at the theory.

In Chapter 1 of Words Their Way, we learn the theoretical basis for this method of word study: "Developmental spelling researchers have examined the three layers of English orthography in relation to developmental progressions from alphabet to pattern to meaning." (Bear, et al, 2000, p.5.) As a developmental spelling researcher, I beg to disagree. There is no developmental progression in the child's brain when constructing word knowledge that proceeds over time from alphabet to pattern to meaning. Word knowledge of alphabet, pattern, and meaning are being constructed at every stage of spelling development (Gentry, 2000).

More importantly, spelling development does not continue to develop in phases or stages beyond a ceiling which usually happens near the end of first grade, if kids are developmentally on track. I pointed this out in The Reading Teacher in a refereed journal article about sixteen years ago (Gentry, 2000).

Let me be specific. There is no developmental stage for Ages 10+ in Grades 5 to 12 called "The Derivational Relations Stage" as claimed in all editions of WTW. In fact, as spelling researcher Louisa Moats points out, Derivational Relations begins in first grade: Words in a first-grade spelling curriculum are Anglo-Saxon regular consonant and vowel phone-grapheme correspondences along with words such as goat, wife, mother, love, and house. They all have an alphabet layer, an Anglo-Saxon pattern, and a meaning layer. In fact, derivational constancy is so dominant in English at early levels that the 100 most frequently used words in English-the ones that teachers should teach in first grade-can all be traced back to Anglo-Saxon origins. This debunks Word's Their Way's "alphabet, pattern, and meaning" stage theory which suggests that clusters of error types develop later in brain development.

On a practical level, Words Their Way doesn't work well because it takes too much time and it's too work-intensive for teachers. A large percentage of teachers do not implement it with fidelity. It's pitched toward the upper-level kids in affluent districts who have lots of educational advantages, but in those same districts, the lower-level kids who struggle may get the same word-sort patterns year after year because there is no grade by grade continuity. That's not very congenial to children who struggle (Gentry, 2011).

We see clusters of error types at the beginnings of spelling, but that's it. Anyone who has watched fifth-graders at the Scripps National Spelling Bee knows what WTW calls Derivational Relations Stage isn't a demonstration of kids who have moved into a new stage of spelling, but a demonstration of the extraordinary volume of learned word histories, learned spelling patterns, and learned word meanings of words derived from other languages that these spelling champions have mastered through intensive study. Those spelling champions don't have more highly developed brains; they simply have studied hard and packed more words, more patterns, and more word etymologies into the dictionaries in their brains. They can see these words in their mind's eye and retrieve them.

The second crippling flaw in Words Their Way in America today is that Words Their Way is not compatible with Common Core State Standard expectations. Regardless of your feelings about Common Core, you have to admit that CCSS currently drives much of what is happening in our schools. The problem is that CCSS expectations are grade-by-grade, and Words Their Way is stage-by-stage, with huge grade ranges for each stage. For example, the Derivational Relations Stage ranges from Grade 5 to Grade 12. How are teachers supposed to extrapolate a Grade 5 to Grade 12 range into CCSS grade-by-grade expectations? I'm a 30-year developmental spelling researcher and I haven't been able to do it.
Spelling Lessons in Reading Programs Are Potentially Harmful to American Children
Here's a first-grade lesson from one of the most widely used reading programs in America, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Journeys: Common Core (2014, Unit 14, Lesson 17, T103) [Spelling Lesson Words-Long e (ea, e, e_e, ee): me, be, read, feet, tree, keep, eat, mean, sea, these.]

There are numerous problems with this lesson. Some of the words such as mean are developmentally inappropriate as spelling words unless the kids are above-grade-level readers. As Noah Webster would say, it's a "promiscuous arrangement of words in the same table." (Webster, 1798) The lesson included the word theme in a dictation pretest for Whole Group instruction on Day 1 but none of the dictation words on the Day 1 pretest are in the spelling list! Who on earth thinks this is appropriate spelling instruction for First Grade? Why waste the whole group's time with a dictation pretest with upper-grade level words that aren't seen again in the lesson? Theme as a first-grade spelling word? Seriously? Can you imagine how this impacts children's motivation to spell and write? This is educational malpractice!

The lesson presents five patterns for the Long e sound even though there should generally only be one pattern or two contrasting patterns at this level. Children should not be expected to handle all five of these long e patterns in a single lesson until grades 3 or 4.

The lesson fails to teach the most basic first-grade level vowel patterns such as CV ( hop) versus CVCe ( hope). Most egregiously, this lesson teaches a pattern that does not exist in English, e_e for Long e. The intended word is perhaps these-but these follows the common CVCe pattern just like Pete (or theme) with the consonant digraph th functioning as the first consonant in CVCe followed by a vowel-consonant-silent e. The only e_e first-grade word I can think of is eye which is Long I, not Long e. Imagine a struggling first-grade reader trying to make sense of this lesson-it's mind bogging! Noah Webster, who understood spelling patterns and how to order spelling lessons for beginning readers would roll over in his grave!

Enigmatically, the same publishing company published WTW and Journeys even though the two programs are contradictory in practice and incompatible theoretically. Pearson Education apparently cares more about making money than about children learning to spell.
Should America Return to the Noah Webster's Blue-Backed Spellers?
The Blue-backed Speller became the backbone of literacy and a spine of American democracy because real democracy cannot exist without literacy. I would say the Blue-backed Speller is a better choice than spelling in your child's Reading Program, and it may be a better choice than Words Their Way given how that guidebook has been misused.

The best choice today is a research-based, comprehensive, stand-alone, multi-system, grade by grade spelling series based on differentiated word lists that include the advantages of word sorting as one option for building word knowledge along with many other options.

Today's research-based spelling program may be implemented in about 15 minutes a day of explicit spelling instruction. It has a grade by grade curriculum and it aligns with Common Core State Standards. It is not a one-size-fits-all assign-and-test workbook program as detractors sometimes claim but offers differentiated spelling lists and a strategic approach to teaching spelling in every weekly unit: It incorporates all five strategies psychologists in this decade have found to be the best learning strategies for students: self-testing, self-explanation, elaborative interrogation, distributed practice, and interleaved practice (Dunlosky et. al, 2013).

I am proud to be the author of a modern research-based spelling program. It's the only program adopted by the Texas State Board of Education which is not a Common Core state. And while I may not be Noah Webster for the twenty-first century, I will continue to work hard to live up to the moniker some teachers have given me, the "Spelling Guru of America"-the one who is dyslexic and learned a lot about spelling because my brain can't spell. If that doesn't work, maybe I'll stick with the other moniker my editors have given me, "Spelvis, the Elvis of spelling!"

In America, spelling is the missing link to reading success along with background knowledge and vocabulary for comprehension, and motivation for literacy. There's some urgency in this message: America, if you want kids who can read and write, you will have to do a better job teaching spelling.

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Advanced research in cognitive science including brain scan science is demonstrating that explicit spelling instruction may be the missing link to reading success in America where 65 percent of fourth-graders read below proficiency levels. Almost all of these kids are lousy spellers.

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Thursday, April 7, 2022, at 12 p.m. EST
The Science of Reading is for preschoolers, too! Join Dr. Carolyn Strom to hear how the brain learns to read, with a special focus on leveraging the Science of Reading in preschool and the early years.

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Cortex in the Classroom. Free Amplify webinar Thursday April 7th. - Carolyn H. Strom, PhD

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Thursday, April 7, 2022, at 12 p.m. EST Video recording here The Science of Reading is for preschoolers, too! Join Dr. Carolyn Strom to hear how the brain learns to read, with a special focus on leveraging the Science of Reading in preschool and the early years.

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Blast from the Past: This entry was first published September 28, 2019 and was re-issued on October 17, 2020. As a young man, I set out to improve my vocabulary since I knew it would improve my chances of getting into graduate school. Over a period of about a year, I learned about 400 new words (all recorded on index cards for practice). This was not a research study, I really needed to master these words. My personal impression: I couldn't believe how much my reading and listening comprehension improved during that period; things that I "kind of" understood previously were really understood with that richer lexicon. Teach word meaning well, along with other aspects of vocabulary. Teacher question: What's the best way to teach and have students master vocabulary?
Shanahan response:

My original reaction to this question was not exactly what I'd label a model of helpfulness.

The question was asked by someone new to my blog and I started to send him a note telling him I'd written about that several times already and if he searched my website, he'd find an answer to his question.

But I had second thoughts and decided to be a bit more accommodating. I still didn't intend to write a blog entry. I figured it would be generous to identify some specific links from the site, so he wouldn't have to search it himself.

I was surprised when I was unable to find much of an answer to this very reasonable pedagogical question. I've written about vocabulary a bit and have linked some vocabulary resources on my site. But there is no clear statement of what works in vocabulary teaching. Let's remedy that now.

First some preliminaries.

I've learned over the years that all words are not equal.

For instance, some words are more useful than others. Knowing the meaning of "obloquy" likely pays off less often than knowing "shame."

Readers need to know the words that authors use. You only have so much time, be sure to invest it in teaching words that will open the most doors to understanding for your students.

Another implication is that some words are learned more easily than others. I've taught myself to read French, a language I do not speak (though these days I'm even trying that). With some unknown words, looking them up in the dictionary seems sufficient to make them my words ever. But there are also slippery words that I've looked up dozens of times with success.

Teachers need to recognize-and be patient-with this great unevenness-not just across kids, but in each student's experience.

A second preliminary is the distinction between vocabulary and concept. Vocabulary refers to the labels that we associate with particular concepts or ideas, while the concepts are those ideas that the words refer to.

A word like "shimmer" will be easily learned by kids who have seen light waver, but more effort will be required for those who do not. If it is a lack of vocabulary, much of this work can be done verbally, but if it is a lack of concept, then words alone probably won't be enough.

A final preliminary thought is that much vocabulary is learned without formal teaching. We gain words from conversation, observation, television/media use, reading, and so on. We learn so many words like that that some scholars have scoffed at the value of explicit teaching. Nevertheless, research shows that teaching vocabulary can measurably improve reading comprehension-if we teach the right words well enough.

Effective vocabulary teaching has some key principles.
1. Focus on rich meanings, not just dictionary definitions.
Too often vocabulary instruction is no more than kids copying definitions from the dictionary. But researchers have identified a number of instructional approaches that outdo any learning that may accrue from copying definitions.

One of those key principles is that students work with more extensive or complex definitions or explanations of word meanings. Encourage the encyclopedia explanation over the dictionary meanings.

When I teach vocabulary, I often have the kids engage in trying to provide several different versions of a word's definition.

1. Dictionary definition

2. Synonyms for the word

3. Antonyms (if there are any)

4. Part of speech

5. Classification (what semantic group does it belong to, like tools or ways of talking)

6. Comparison (it is like____, but different because______)

7. Real-life examples

8. Graphic version (drawings, pictures, representations)

9. Acting it out

2. Emphasize the connections among words.
By the time you've come up with nine different explanations of a word you are more likely to remember it (and, of course, we can do more than just these nine if we want to get into analogies, part-whole relationships, and the like).

Many vocabulary programs introduce words by category, such as focusing on words from health and medicine or about transportation, including some that have research showing that they can be effective. However, direct research specifically on this aspect of teaching, suggest that word learning goes slower and without evident later advantage from the extra work that mastering these words entails needed to master these sets of words.

And, yet, evidence reveals that the lexicons in our heads are organized in various networks, not like dictionaries. When you remember a word, you draw from memory a plethora of related ideas-attributes, functions, and synonyms related to that word.

Start thinking diesel trucks and words like wheel, tire, dump truck, gasoline, and highway will not be far behind.

There are circumstances in which it is necessary to simultaneously introduce collections of closely related words that may require fine or subtle distinctions, such as when kids are learning about the structure of cells or atoms. I'll give that a pass, since such introductions are likely to be accompanied by a much deeper dive into the underlying concepts in such cases.

I also think it is quite reasonable when teaching words to get kids thinking about words about that concept that they may already have mastered. Linking a new word to a concept, is very different than trying to learn and link a whole collection of words.
3. Promote usage of the words.
I would avoid introducing together plethora, dearth, scarcity, cornucopia, shortage, plenty, sufficient, abundant, and liberal as some programs do. Collect such words over time as they are learned and then later you can have kids comparing the ideas or fitting them into continuum or network.

One teacher I know has her students classifying the vocabulary each week in bulletin board folders, and when a folder accumulates several related words, they revisit them as a set.

It is not enough that kids study word meanings, but they have to learn to use these words in their reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Instruction should create opportunities for kids to use words in all of these ways.
4. Review is important.
For instance, that rich vocabulary assignment that was described earlier can be done by groups of kids working together to come up with those multiple definitions. That kind of cooperation requires that kids talk with each other about the words. Additionally, I often assign small numbers of words to each group and then have them get together to teach each other the words that their groups studied... more speaking and listening.

One might reward kids for using the studied vocabulary in their writing-or that can be required in various ways.

Isabel Beck and Moddy McKeown came up with the idea of "word wizards," which gave kids extra points in vocabulary if they could bring in evidence that they had confronted or used the words of interest. Kids get very turned on if they run across some of the vocabulary when watching television or playing their favorite computer game.
5. Involve students in identifying some of the words to be studied.
It can be hard to retain vocabulary if you don't get a lot of opportunity to use it. We may teach vocabulary because certain words were prominent in the texts, we were reading this week, but then kids might not see them for a long time.

There are many ways to deal with vocabulary, such as having one day a week when you only work with words that have been taught (and supposedly learned) in the past-or perhaps entire weeks might be devoted to this throughout the year.

I'm a fan of including words from past weeks on vocabulary quizzes and for the use of vocabulary notebooks to help punch up kids' writing during revision.

Another way of ensuring the words stick, is to see how many additional words students can construct morphologically, adding prefixes or suffixes or altering parts of speech and so on. I've written about some of the important work being done on morphology by Peter and Jeffrey Bowers before (and you can search for that on my site or on Google).

I noted earlier that much vocabulary learning is incidental and, therefore, largely out of the province of schools. However, not all kids are equally good at such learning and even for those who it is easier, it can still be a tough slog requiring many experiences with a word to get it to stick.

One thing that we can do to help develop a "word consciousness" among our students is to involve them in identifying unknown words from their own reading-and to include these in your classroom curriculum. When readers get used to noticing their lack of knowledge of particular words, they will be more likely to try to resolve those gaps when reading. Kids will also be more motivated if they have some say so over the curriculum as well.

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Vocabulary Teaching | Shanahan on Literacy

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Blast from the Past: This entry was first published September 28, 2019 and was re-issued on October 17, 2020. As a young man, I set out to improve my vocabulary since I knew it would improve my chances of getting into graduate school.

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DIBELS 8th Edition percentiles and Zones of Growth have been updated. The national sample represents performance of students after a period of unprecedented disruption and challenge to typical instructional practices resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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This assessment will show you exactly where your students are at with their phonics skills.

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Is My Kid Learning How to Read? Part 2: Our Friend “Ur”

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SoR-What I Should Have Learned in College

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Keys to Literacy Professional Development: Onsite, Online Learning that Lasts

With offerings tailored for grades K-3, elementary, middle and high school, our instructional practices and practical training methods ensure that schools improve literacy levels as their students improve their literacy skills. Download a summary of the research supporting our instructional practices.

View our variety of topics below. Keys to Literacy professional development was recommended in the National Council on Teacher Quality's Four Pillars to Reading Success Action Guide.

a professional development planning guide.

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Professional Development Offerings - Keys to Literacy

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Keys to Literacy Professional Development: Onsite, Online Learning that Lasts With offerings tailored for grades K-3, elementary, middle and high school, our instructional practices and practical training methods ensure that schools improve literacy levels as their students improve their literacy skills. Download a summary of the research supporting our instructional practices.

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Professional Development That Makes a Difference!

Keys to Literacy is a leading provider of literacy teacher training, curriculum, ongoing coaching and materials to educators across the country. Keys to Literacy trained teachers learn the research-based skills necessary to effectively teach reading and writing in all subjects across all grades. Our professional development approach is highly participatory and engaging!

Teacher Training, Coaching, Train-the-Facilitator

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Literacy Professional Development - Keys to Literacy

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Keys to Literacy is a leading provider of literacy teacher training, curriculum, ongoing coaching and materials to educators across the country.

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Vocabulary and background knowledge are essential for comprehension.

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Vocabulary and background knowledge are essential for comprehension.

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The Baseball Study by Recht and Leslie.mp4

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Placed here until I can sort out issues with Nativescript Preview.

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It's been a bad week for fluency instruction.

I started getting emails questioning me on whether I supported the fluency ideas that my friend Tim Rasinski was advocating. These messages seemed to fall into two categories: those who were honestly horrified that Tim would offer something beyond what they believed to be part of the "science of reading" and those who hoped to bait me into publicly taking a rhetorical swing at Tim's claims.

I found out Tim had been on Amplify's Science of Reading podcast (probably why I was being contacted so much), and that he had argued for using techniques like "assisted reading" and "repeated reading" to support children's fluency growth. Apparently, some listeners thought his recommendations to be contradictory of what Emily Hansford has labeled the "science of reading."

Then, the International Literacy Association issued a position paper on "Children Experiencing Reading Difficulties" (Wixson, et al., 2019). This document seems to have emerged from the PBS kerfuffle from earlier this year, when some of the same scholars who produced it denied the existence of dyslexia and denigrated the concerns of parents whose kids weren't receiving phonics instruction. This more conciliatory effort calls for a comprehensive approach to reading instruction that emphasizes phonemic awareness, phonics, reading comprehension, and writing-along with attention to language and the development of executive control. (The efforts to appease the science of reading community only go so far in this document-one can easily come away thinking that the major problem facing kids who experience reading difficulties is that they will receive too much phonics teaching or that some (unnamed) individual is promoting a "phonics only agenda.")

Tone problems aside, I'm certainly sympathetic to efforts aimed at healing the great divides in our field, and I've long argued for comprehensive approaches to reading instruction myself-maintaining that such lists of instructional desiderata include approximate amounts of instruction that should be devoted to each (that way, one can more easily weed out those who seemingly support phonics, but who would spend no more than a few minutes a day on it; or those champions of writing, who may address it only two or three time per school year).

Nevertheless, I was surprised that given the substantial body of research around oral reading fluency instruction and its benefits, that it failed to the make the ILA cut in their notion of a comprehensive program of instruction. Especially given the recent research on its importance (O'Reilly, et al., 2019; Sabatini, et al., 2018), as well as the substantial case made for such teaching by the National Reading Panel (NRP) (NICHD, 2000) and in independent reviews (e.g., Kuhn & Stahl, 2002).

Essentially, the phonics-firsters and those warning us of the potential toxicity of phonics teaching both seem to have written off explicit fluency instruction. Under the circumstances, I suspect proponents of fluency teaching would like a Thanksgiving do-over... they, perhaps, have less to be thankful for than they might have thought.

Why do I support oral reading fluency instruction?

I chaired the NRP sub-panel that reviewed the research on fluency teaching, and our summary of that research concluded that such teachhing was beneficial to their reading development by a wide range of measures. Kids who received fluency instruction simply read better than those who did not. These outcomes were obtained with children in regular classrooms (Grades 1-4) and with struggling readers (Grades 1-12). Later, as director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools, I mandated that our kids get a substantial amount of fluency teaching (about 30 minutes per day), along with similar expenditures on decoding, comprehension, and writing. That recipe led to significantly higher reading achievement for our 437,000 students.

If you want to advocate for a science of reading, it seems that would require one to pay attention to the scientific research findings on various approaches to teaching reading. After all, those who promote explicit phonemic awareness and phonics instruction usually rely heavily on the research base provided by the NRP; why not use the whole report? And, likewise, for those who claim to take a comprehensive view of reading instruction, why leave out such a heavily researched element? Fluency instruction has been more thoroughly studied than the promising, but still speculative, "executive control" variables noted in the ILA document (and, those variables haven't been shown to have as big an impact on reading progress either).

I think one of the problems with oral reading fluency is that it isn't a pure variable. It is a mash up of decoding and comprehension-and it is developmental to boot, meaning that it's nature changes over time.

As Professor Rasinski noted in the Amplify podcast, with the youngest children, say those in kindergarten, oral reading fluency is more about developing a concept of word-learning how speech maps onto print-than about anything that seems particularly fluency oriented. Children have to learn how print and language come together; that is, how phonemes, syllables, and words are represented on a page and what those punctuation points and white spaces are all about. Darrell Morris (e.g., 1993) has long argued that concept of word plays a critical role in early phonemic awareness development and the importance of early fingerpoint reading has clearly been demonstrated (Uhry, 2002).

Later, oral reading fluency instructions aids decoding development. Carol Chomsky (178) identified second graders who, despite high phonics knowledge, were struggling readers. She thought these kids needed some teaching that would show them how to apply their phonics skills. She engaged the kids in repeated reading activities, and they blossomed as readers. Later studies found that such teaching benefited kids without reading problems, too (NICHD, 2000).

These days we know a bit more about decoding development and what it entails. It appears that fluency instruction probably helps with those memory changes supported by decoding instruction.

As Chomsky posited, fluency work is likely most helpful at what Linnea Ehri has described as the consolidation or automaticity stages of decoding development (e.g., Ehri & Wilce, 1985). Kids aren't memorizing sight words as much as they are developing an understanding how to use phonetic/orthographic cues in word reading. They are building the cognitive architecture that allows one to learn to respond appropriately to words on the basis of minimal exposure or experience (fast mapping), such as when kids get to the point where they appear to memorize words with no more than a single exposure (Carey & Bartlett, 1978)-or statistical learning (Seidenberg, 2018).

Joe Torgesen and colleagues decided that the major impact of repeated reading on struggling readers is that they were mastering specific words from the activity (Rashotte, 1985)-which seems reasonable, no one really knows what specifically is being stored in memory when children learn to decode.

Not surprisingly, there is a particularly strong relationship between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension during the primary grades (Sabatini, et al., 2018). However, for many students oral reading fluency practice continues to help in the consolidation of decoding skills beyond that point (O'Reilly, et al., 2019), and it also starts to morph into an activity that helps to support prosody development which is more directly implicated in reading comprehension (Breznitz, 2006). No wonder the latest ETS policy guide recommends attention to fluency as a foundational reading skill well beyond the primary grades (O'Reilly, et al., 2019).

Why teach fluency? Because at different points in a reader's development it makes important contributions to understanding how print works, to consolidating and automizing decoding skills, and to helping readers to figure out how to go from print to prosody. But, basically, the reason I support it is because there are a substantial number of reasonably persuasive studies showing that such instruction enhances reading achievement-the only reason any instructional routine should be adopted.

One last point. I know some teachers are concerned about this emphasis on oral reading. A small bit of research shows that silent reading - when sufficiently scaffolded - can also support fluency. That makes sense, but I make sure kids get do a lot of silent reading, too, during comprehension instruction, in work with texts throughout the curriculum, and during authentic independent reading (when kids choose to read, not when teachers require such practice). Studies show oral reading fluency instruction translates to improved silent reading ability (Kuhn & Schwanenflugel, 2018). (I usually recommend 30 minutes of scaffolded partner reading, which means each student gets about 15 minutes of daily oral reading practice).

Serious efforts to improve reading achievement will, indeed, be comprehensive and based on the science of reading. Given that, oral reading fluency instruction deserves greater respect than was manifest this week. Reading war combatants: a pox on both your houses.

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Oral Reading Fluency | Shanahan on Literacy

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It's been a bad week for fluency instruction. I started getting emails questioning me on whether I supported the fluency ideas that my friend Tim Rasinski was advocating.

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The Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory

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The Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory

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Susan and Dr. Bruce McCandliss, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, chat about combining neuroscience with education. How does neuroscience help us understand the changes going on in the brain of a child learning to read? Why do some children struggle so profoundly? He shares his research into focusing the student’s attention on letters and sounds versus on the word as a whole.

Quotes:

“Teachers play a huge role in shaping brain development for reading.”

“This is where education and neuroscience are coming together to create a dialogue in the space of how we support children.”

Resources:

2019 Education Trends by Carrie Gajowski, MA

Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.

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S1-12. Neuroscience and early literacy: Dr. Bruce McCandliss - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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Susan and Dr. Bruce McCandliss, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, chat about combining neuroscience with education. How does neuroscience help us understand the changes going on in the brain of a child learning to read? Why do some children struggle so profou...

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Supporting Every Child’s Right to Read

Welcome to the

Initiative!

The Right To Read Initiative is a place for individuals to get information related to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read Public Inquiry’s Recommendations.

It provides information to help advocate for and support the transition from a Whole Language or Balanced Literacy approach to reading instruction to one based on Structured Literacy or the Science of Reading.

On this site you will find the following information:

This links a variety of reports related to the #RightToRead including the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right To Read Public Inquiry and other major reports related to best practices for teaching reading.

More information about the Right To Read Initiative and how it started.

Dr. Kathryn Garforth frequently does live webinars where she has conversations with others about the R2R Recommendations and with teachers who are employing Structured Literacy or Science of Reading practices in their classrooms.

An index of previous live conversations to reference and refer to in the future.

Information for how to get in contact with members of the Right to Read Initiative.

© Copyright owned by Right to Read Initiative ~ All rights reserved~Terms & Condition

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Right to Read Inquiry in an EFI Special Ed Classroom

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Dr. Miles also works closely with New York City's Department of Education and Literacy Trust, an organization that supports literacy initiatives and research on factors that impact the city's most vulnerable students. In this podcast, she talks to us about some really interesting implications of her research on sight word instruction, the intervention Reading Rescue, and the science of reading informed intervention software, Amira Learning.

Here are some key takeaways:

Teach Sight Words in Context and Review Lists with a Critical Eye: In Dr. Miles' paper on Learning to Read on Flashcards published with her colleague, Dr. Linnea Ehri, she uncovered the trouble that students have mastering commonly used classroom sight word lists (like Dolsch and Fry) that feature helping verbs like was, were, has, have, been. These words are harder for students to learn not just because they are phonetically irregular, but because they are non-lexical - meaning they don't have independent meaning from the verb they are supporting. Dr. Miles found that trying to teach these words out of context of the sentence - in a sight word list, for example - is difficult and students did not perform well, especially second language learners. On the contrary, teachers can find greater success by teaching these words (both reading and spelling) within the context of the sentence that ties these words to the verbs they are supporting.

Ensure Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension is Present in all Literacy Instruction and Intervention: In Dr. Miles' paper on the effectiveness of the reading intervention program Reading Rescue, she found that that the program was not only effective in bringing students to benchmark, but other students also benefited by having teachers in their school who were trained in the eight PD sessions offered to teachers who use the program. In addition, it's important to use programs that are not only research-based but evidence-based. That means that the programs commit to research demonstrate evidence that the program is effective.

Use Evidence-Based Intervention Software that Embeds the Science of Reading into the Curriculum: Dr. Miles chats about an assessment, screening, and intervention software called Amira that supports students with reading and writing instruction aligned with the science of reading.

Learn more about our guests and other items mentioned in the podcast:

Reading Rescue is a reading intervention for struggling first graders.

Amira Learning is a reading app that supports students through assessment, screening, and intervention.

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How to Make Sight Word Instruction and Reading Intervention More Effective - Glean Education

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Dr. Miles also works closely with New York City's Department of Education and Literacy Trust, an organization that supports literacy initiatives and research on factors that impact the city's most vulnerable students. In this podcast, she talks to us about some really interesting implications of her research on sight word instruction, the intervention Reading Rescue, and the science of reading informed intervention software, Amira Learning.

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A good phonics program is systematic, explicit, and cumulative. It should have a scope and sequence, use direct instruction, and each lesson should review skills from previous lessons.

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A good phonics program is systematic, explicit, and cumulative. It should have a scope and sequence, use direct instruction, and each lesson should review skills from previous lessons.

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The correct way to pronounce the letter sounds.

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The correct way to pronounce the letter sounds.

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holly lane blendable sounds - Bing video

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Top suggestions for holly lane blendable sounds

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Beginning readers who focus on letter-sound relationships, or phonics, instead of trying to learn whole words, increase activity in the area of their brains best wired for reading, according to new research investigating how the brain responds to different types of reading instruction.

In other words, to develop reading skills, teaching students to sound out "C-A-T" sparks more optimal brain circuitry than instructing them to memorize the word "cat." And, the study found, these teaching-induced differences show up even on future encounters with the word.

The study, co-authored by Stanford Professor Bruce McCandliss of the Graduate School of Education and the Stanford Neuroscience Institute, provides some of the first evidence that a specific teaching strategy for reading has direct neural impact. The research could eventually lead to better designed interventions to help struggling readers.

"This research is exciting because it takes cognitive neuroscience and connects it to questions that have deep meaning and history in educational research," said McCandliss, who wrote the study with Yuliya Yoncheva at New York University and Jessica Wise at the University of Texas at Austin. "We can learn a lot about the brain circuitry that supports skilled reading, how it is developing in children and how it is shaped by decisions and approaches that educators take in their teaching practice."
Instructional methods
Theories on reading development have long supported the importance of a phonics foundation, especially for early learners and struggling readers, yet investigating the way in which brain mechanisms are influenced by the choices a teacher makes is a fairly recent endeavor.

As the field of educational neuroscience grows, however, both brain researchers and educational researchers can improve their understanding of how instructional strategies can best be harnessed to support the brain changes that underlie the development of learning, McCandliss said.

In this study, released this month in the journal Brain and Language, the researchers devised a new written language and contrasted whether words were taught using a letter-to-sound instruction method or a whole-word association method. After learning multiple words under both approaches, the newly learned words were presented in a reading test while brainwaves were monitored. McCandliss's team used a brain mapping technique that allowed them to capture brain responses to the newly learned words that are literally faster than the blink of an eye.

Remarkably, the researchers said, these very rapid brain responses to the newly learned words were influenced by how they were learned.

Words learned through the letter-sound instruction elicited neural activity biased toward the left side of the brain, which encompasses visual and language regions. In contrast, words learned via whole-word association showed activity biased toward right hemisphere processing. McCandliss noted that this strong left hemisphere engagement during early word recognition is a hallmark of skilled readers, and is characteristically lacking in children and adults who are struggling with reading.

In addition, the study's participants were subsequently able to read new words they had never seen before, as long as they followed the same letter-sound patterns they were taught to focus on. Within a split second, the process of deciphering a new word triggered the left hemisphere processes.

"Ideally, that is the brain circuitry we are hoping to activate in beginner readers," McCandliss said.

By comparison, when the same participants memorized whole word associations, the study found that they learned sufficiently to recognize those particular words on the reading test, but the underlying brain circuitry differed, eliciting electrophysiological responses that were biased toward right hemisphere processes.

"These contrasting teaching approaches are likely having such different impact on early brain responses because they encourage the learner to focus their attention in different ways," McCandliss said. "It's like shifting the gears of the mind - when you focus your attention on different information associated with a word, you amplify different brain circuits."

While many teachers are now using phonics to teach reading, some may be doing it more effectively than others, McCandliss said.

"If children are struggling, even if they're receiving phonics instruction, perhaps it's because of the way they are being asked to focus their attention on the sounds within spoken words and links between those sounds and the letters within visual words," he said. "We can direct attention to a larger grain size or a smaller grain size, and it can have a big impact on how well you learn."
Monitoring brain waves
The study involved 16 literate adult participants, yet gained its statistical power by teaching all participants in two different ways, much like what a typical student may experience when learning from different teachers or trying to master irregular words that don't conform to letter-to-sound mapping, such as yacht.

The new written language was based on line features that formed symbols representing different letters of a new alphabet. The symbols were joined to represent a distinct visual word.

Each participant was trained to read two sets of three-letter words under identical conditions that provided practice viewing words and listening to corresponding spoken words. The only difference between the two training conditions was a set of instructions at the beginning that encouraged the readers to approach learning the words in one of two ways. One instruction asked learners to approach the task of learning each word by picking out each of the three letter symbols and matching each to the corresponding sound in the spoken word. The other focused on teaching the association between whole printed and spoken words.

After training was completed, participants were hooked up to an electroencephalograph, or EEG, that monitored brain waves while they took a reading test on word-figures they had already learned. Following the letter-sound style of training, participants were also tested on their ability to read new words composed of the same letters.

The EEG mapping results offered a window into how the brain works under different tasks as the electrode sensors took 1,000 pictures per second to map fluctuations in the brain's energy across time.

"When we looked under the hood, we found that the participants could learn to read under both forms of instruction, but the brain activation showed that learning happened in very different ways," McCandliss said. "These results underscore the idea that the way a learner focuses their attention during learning has a profound impact on what is learned, and what is retained, and more generally highlights the importance of skilled teachers in helping children to focus their attention on precisely the most useful information."

McCandliss hopes such research will provide a stronger common ground between educators who are seeking to design better teaching interventions for children struggling with reading and cognitive neuroscientists who are working to understand how learning experiences lead to changes in brain circuitry.

___
May Wong is a freelance journalist who frequently writes for Stanford Graduate School of Education publications.

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Brain wave study shows how different teaching methods affect reading development

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Beginning readers who focus on letter-sound relationships, or phonics, instead of trying to learn whole words, increase activity in the area of their brains best wired for reading, according to new research investigating how the brain responds to different types of reading instruction.

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Speech to Print or Print to Speech? It Makes a Difference.

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Speech to Print or Print to Speech? It Makes a Difference.

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Written words represent speech and language. This fundamental truth explains why reading and spelling skill depend on language abilities; why explicit teaching of sounds, words, and discourse is the most effective way to ensure that all students learn to read and write; and why we have been persistent advocates for teachers' knowledge of language-which is the focus of Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling ( LETRS ®). Within that big idea is a less settled question: How should instruction in beginning reading and writing proceed?

As reported in a recent summary paper by the research team at the Florida Center for Reading Research (Petscher et al., 2020), one bedrock finding from recent research is that good readers have acquired the alphabetic principle-the insight that alphabetic symbols represent speech sounds. In addition, good readers can identify the individual phonemes that make up spoken words and recognize the correspondences between phonemes and graphemes, spoken and written syllable patterns, and common morphemes. It is through the process of accurately decoding and naming new words that learners can store printed words in memory for instant recognition and recall.

Two contrasting approaches

There are two contrasting approaches to teaching this foundational step in early reading. Traditional code-focused teaching points first to elements in the print, especially individual letters, and then asks the student to associate sounds with the written symbol(s). In other words, the logic of the code is built from print to speech. For example, letters (a, e, i, o, u) are identified as vowels, and students must learn and recall the long and short sounds associated with each one, then do the same with the 21 consonant letters. In a decoding lesson, the letter or letter pattern is said to "say" a given sound. Letter-sounds are then blended to make words. Students don't know what word they are blending until they succeed in this.

In a speech-to-print approach, instruction builds knowledge of the system from spoken to written words. The lesson begins with a focus on an aspect of speech (phoneme, syllable, or morpheme), as these linguistic elements serve as Velcro or mental parking spots for the letters in printed words. Individual phonemes are identified by what we say as well as what we hear; thus, articulatory features of sounds that might cause confusion are explicitly noted. For example, the three nasal consonants /m/, /n/, /ng/ are contrasted by place of articulation (front, middle, and back of the mouth) as their symbols are learned.

A speech-to-print approach begins with phoneme awareness. A target phoneme, explored as a "speech bit," is identified in spoken words which are then segmented orally. Next, the target phoneme is linked with its corresponding grapheme, which is often more than one letter in English (th, ng, ck, oy, er). Dictated words are built with grapheme tiles, and graphemes are learned as readily as single letter correspondences, with phoneme-grapheme-matching and word-building preceding the reading of pattern-based words in lists and in text. With this approach, students develop essential neural pathways in the brain that connect the visual word form area with spoken language and consolidate the habit of word analysis for decoding. Once that mental process is ingrained, students have the cognitive architecture to internalize many other complex letter patterns and sequences that they will see in print (Hoover & Tunmer, 2020).

Why use speech to print to teach beginning reading?

While I do not know of a controlled study that has directly compared the speech-to-print and print-to-speech approaches, research reviews have shown that inclusion of encoding activities (speech to print) in code-focused reading lessons produces better results than decoding (print to speech) only (Weiser & Mathes, 2011). Furthermore, the speech-to-print approach allows for a more logical and complete understanding of how the English system works; our 26 alphabet letters do not contain symbols for some speech sounds that still must be represented (/sh/, /ng/, and others), and many letters often do several different jobs in our orthography. For example, if we teach students that "u" is a vowel, there is an obvious contradiction: In quit, it represents a consonant (/w/). Letters are not consonants or vowels-they are used singly and in combination to represent consonant and vowel phonemes.

In the big picture, any systematic, explicit teaching of the code is better than none. Unfortunately, too many prevalent practices reflect the (unstated) assumption that learning to read and spell depends on rote visual memory of strings of letters. This assumption underlies the use of leveled readers that beginners are expected to "read" by pointing to whole words as they recite the text from memory. With this look-and-say approach, context-driven guessing substitutes for knowing what the letters represent. To be clear, this is not what we mean by a "speech to print," and it's time we got this right in our classrooms.

Next week, I'll be presenting a webinar on this topic with an amazing educator, Margaret Goldberg. I hope you'll join us on May 26th for, "Speech to Print vs. Print to Speech: Does It Make a Difference in Beginning Reading Instruction?". You can register here: https://www.voyagersopris.com/webinar-series/2021/speech-to-print-vs-print-to-speech

References

Hoover, W. & Tunmer, W. (2020). Cognitive foundations of learning to read.

Petscher, Y., Cabell, S. Q., Catts, H. W., Compton, D. L., Foorman, B. R., Hart, S. A., Lonigan, C. J., Phillips, B. M., Schatschneider, C., Steacy, L. M., Terry, N. P., Wagner, R. K. (2020). How the science of reading informs 21 st century education. Reading Research Quarterly, 55 (S1), S67-S82.

Weiser, B., & Mathes, P. (2011). Using encoding instruction to improve the reading and spelling performances of elementary students at risk for literacy difficulties: A best- evidence synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 170-200.

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Speech to Print or Print to Speech? It Makes a Difference

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Written words represent speech and language. This fundamental truth explains why reading and spelling skill depend on language abilities; why explicit teaching of sounds, words, and discourse is the most effective way to ensure that all students learn to read and write; and why we have been persistent advocates for teachers' knowledge of language-which is the focus of Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS®).

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Posted by Jeannine in Uncategorized on 06 7th, 2017 | no responses

A "speech-to-print" approach is about encoding words (Moats, 2000 and Moats, 2005). To turn a word children already know how to say into a word that they can construct with letters requires their brain's speech center to separate each sound as they say the word and then link that sound to a letter. They are driving in the opposite direction on their neural highway. Decoding traffic (print-to-speech) is from the back to the front of the brain-linking a visual symbol to a speech sound. (Visual stimuli are processed in the back of the brain; speech production occurs in the front). By contrast, encoding traffic (speech-to-print) is from the front to the back-linking a speech sound to a visual symbol.

With lots of practice, this two-way traffic for decoding and encoding builds super neural highways that speed up processing for word recognition and skilled reading and writing. However, when children are told what a word is without decoding it themselves, or are told how to spell a word without "sounding it out" themselves, they are deprived of this necessary practice. Unless a word is truly "irregular", early literacy instruction should forego "sight words" and spelling lists, and instead encourage both decoding and encoding in equal measure (Weiser & Mathes, 2011; Weiser, 2012).

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Posted by Jeannine in Uncategorized on 06 7th, 2017 | no responses A "speech-to-print" approach is about encoding words (Moats, 2000 and Moats, 2005). To turn a word children already know how to say into a word that they can construct with letters requires their brain's speech center to separate each sound as they say the word and then link that sound to a letter.

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Join Margaret Goldberg and Alanna Mednick from the Right to Read Project as they address the science of reading and its translation into easy practice for educators. They break down the Seidenberg and McClelland Four-Part Processing Model and explain how it relates to the simple view of reading. They also reflect on how educators should approach reading as scientists and be ready to teach in a way that may be uncomfortable for a time-the "labor of love" stage of literacy instruction.
Quotes:
"We should anticipate reading difficulties and we should be prepared to be able to address them." -Margaret Goldberg
"We need to go at the pace of the child and we can't leave anything up to chance." -Alanna Mednick
Resources:
The Seidenberg & McClelland Four-Part Processing ModelBeginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print by Marilyn AdamsNancy Young's Ladder of ReadingRight to Read Project Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.

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s2-05: the right to read project on nurturing automatic readers: margaret goldberg and alanna mednick

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‎Science of Reading: The Podcast: S2-05: The Right to Read Project on nurturing automatic readers: Margaret Goldberg and Alanna Mednick on Apple Podcasts

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‎Join Margaret Goldberg and Alanna Mednick from the Right to Read Project as they address the science of reading and its translation into easy practice for educators. They break down the Seidenberg and McClelland Four-Part Processing Model and explain how it relates to the simple view of reading. The...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8VRmu3f4Vo

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Can We Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading?

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Can We Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading?

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Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading? | Melissa Hostetter | TEDxUofISpringfield

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ONBIDA Webinar - Oct 2019

The good, the bad and the ugly: Urgently informing school leadership of effective (and ineffective) reading instruction

Nancy was honoured to be invited by the Ontario branch of the International Dyslexia Association to present on reading instruction.

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While the content is primarily geared to educators in decision-making positions (in schools, districts, and Ministries of Education), this important message is also highly relevant to teachers and parents as they work to help their students/children learn to read. An archived video of Nancy's presentation, advocating the need for effective reading instruction, is presented here.

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​Interested in having Nancy speak to your group, or at your event? Check out the options for Parents or Teachers , and Contact Nancy to discuss!

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The following description is by ONBIDA:

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The good, the bad and the ugly:

Urgently informing school leadership of effective (and ineffective) reading instruction

by Nancy Young

Originally broadcast Oct 29, 2019

​

This webinar is intended to support educators in decision-making positions in schools, districts, and Ministries of Education.

Click here to download the presentation. Please visit Nancy's Research and Links page for a larger copy of her Ladder of Reading & Primer.

Educators in positions of leadership understand the importance of learning to read. Yet, despite the best efforts of students and teachers, countless students across all grades continue to struggle. Why?

Nancy will summarize:

The Ladder of Reading (N Young): Reading is not something humans are born to do and the ease of learning to decipher the written code ranges, irrespective of IQ.

Behaviour, attentional, and emotional challenges may be rooted in difficulty learning to read.

Provincial/territorial curriculums which are not aligned with reading science have led to a lack of teacher training in effective reading and assessment methods.

Certain screening procedures and instructional essentials are urgently needed at the foundational stages.

Key takeaways for attendees:

The current system is needlessly failing too many students and teachers.

Explicit and systematic instruction grounded in the reading science is crucial for many (especially children with dyslexia) and can advantage all students.

Strong and informed leadership can empower and drive change.

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Nancy Young's Webinar on Effective Reading Instruction

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ONBIDA Webinar - Oct 2019 The good, the bad and the ugly: Urgently informing school leadership of effective (and ineffective) reading instruction Nancy was honoured to be invited by the Ontario branch of the International Dyslexia Association to present on reading instruction.

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Interviews with all the big names in the science of reading.

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Teaching, Reading, and Learning: The Reading League Podcast

Teaching, Reading, and Learning: The Reading League Podcast elevates important contributions to the educational community, with the goal of inspiring teachers, informing practice, and celebrating people in the community who have influenced teaching and literacy to the betterment of children. The podcast features people whose life stories are compelling and rich in ways that are instructive to us all. The podcast will focus on literacy as we know it (reading and writing) but will also connect to other "literacies" that impact children's learning; for example, emotional, physical, and social literacies as they apply to teachers and children.
Teaching, Reading, and Learning: The Reading League Podcast is taking a short break following our June 2022 episode.

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Teaching, Reading & Learning: The Podcast

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Teaching, Reading & Learning: The Podcast elevates important contributions to the educational community, with the goal of inspiring teachers, informing practice, and celebrating people in the community who have influenced teaching and literacy to the betterment of children.

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Nancy Lewis Hennessy M.Ed. (Author), Louisa Cook Moats Ed.D. (Foreword)

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The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning from Text

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The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning from Text [Hennessy M.Ed., Nancy Lewis, Moats Ed.D., Louisa Cook] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning from Text

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The Science of Reading - The Reading League

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The Reading League's mission is to advance the understanding and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction through the science of reading.

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Reading Simplified | streamlined instruction, accelerated achievement

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Streamlined Reading Instruction | Reading Simplified

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Reading Simplified supports teachers and parents to streamline reading instruction AND accelerate readers’ achievement. Save time & reach ALL readers here!

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Explore reading basics as well as the key role of background knowledge and motivation in becoming a lifelong reader and learner. Watch our PBS Launching Young Readers series and try our self-paced Reading 101 course to deepen your understanding.

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R.I.S.E Arkansas Science of Reading Resources - The Science of Reading

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Decoding x Language Comprehension= Reading Comprehension

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The Simple View of Reading was first proposed by Gough and Tunmer in 1986 and is one of the most supported models of reading to date. The gist of the Simple View is that Reading Comprehension (RC) is the product of Decoding (D) and Linguistic (or Language) Comprehension (LC).

RC is the *product* of D and LC because if either decoding or language comprehension equals zero, the end result (reading comprehension) is zero. For example, if I can decode Spanish (pronouncing the words on the page accurately) but don't understand a word of it, I won't comprehend it. And, if a child can understand simple spoken English (my 2 year old) but can't decode printed words on the page stating the same, she won't have any reading comprehension (because she can't read yet).

This theory, now supported by decades of empirical research, is the basis for how we can understand reading development, instruction, and assessment. Sometimes, a lack of training in the Simple View causes well-meaning professionals to conflate decoding with comprehension at the expense of valuable instructional time.

This is sometimes seen in the field when we ask students, who have yet to learn the code, to "read for meaning" in kindergarten; predictable books are given to students sitting around a kidney shaped table so they can "read" them based on the pattern and the pictures. This misconception is also seen when professionals state that sounding out words can "get in the way of making meaning." More accurately, decoding is the way kids *access the language* underneath the printed text (or code).

A child entering kindergarten already knows what a horse, a cow, and a sheep look like; however, a common predictable book, "I see the animals," may read, "I see the horse. I see the sheep. I see the cow. I see the animals!"

An objective this teacher has for the students may be for the them to make meaning from the printed words. Actually, the exposure to rich content, syntax, and vocabulary that young students need could be coming from teacher read alouds. The decoding instruction kids at this stage need should instead focus on the simple letter-sound correspondences they have been explicitly taught (phonics).

Given predictable texts, some children, who have good phonemic awareness skills and letter-sound correspondences already, may implicitly pick up on patterns within the English orthography (written language system) on their own while they read these predictable books; they may teach themselves to read (see Share's self-teaching hypothesis). Other children, who enter school with underdeveloped phonemic awareness skills, will just fall further and further behind in these systems.

With predictable texts, the teacher is actually teaching the child the English orthography must be either memorized (hello, "sight words!"-another post for another day) or guessed based on the context and the first letter(s). With predictable texts, the teacher is implicitly teaching the child the English orthography is *unpredictable.*

However, in reality, we want children to learn that English is an orthography that can be decoded, or sounded out. Although it is a deep, opaque orthography, it is highly regular. We can systematically instruct students in:

letter-sound correspondences (i.e., how graphemes, or groups of letters that make one sound-ch, dge, igh, f-relate to phonemes, or the smallest sound that makes a difference in the word's meaning-/ch/, /k/, /sh/; /j/; /ī/; /f/),

phonics patterns (the bossy e that makes the vowel long, as in hike or brave, or using "tch" after a single, short vowel, as in hatch or pitch),

phonetically irregular words, specifically pointing out which part of the word is phonetically irregular (s[ai]d, t[w]o, [o]nce)

syllable types and division strategies (open syllable-the vowel is long-he, go, [pi]lot, or closed syllable-the vowel is short-cat, flop, [bub]ble, among others),

morphology (the smallest units of meaning within a word-construct, structure, instruction), and

etymology (how words originate, change, and relate to each other-twice, two, twin).

We can teach these skills and principles explicitly to all children-the photo below was from a couple of advanced students in a PreK classroom. It is helpful to all, harmful to none, and essential for some.

That is why it is so important to understand the Simple View before choosing an intervention... is the child struggling with the code (D), is the child struggling with the language (LC), or both? And why it is important to ensure a strong Tier 1 (general education) curriculum that includes explicitly teaching the printed code to build students' decoding skills and includes rich content knowledge, vocabulary, and syntax to build students' language skills.

Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope (2001) gives us more insight into the complex ideas the Simple View of Reading seamlessly represents. In the image below, the top (red) strands represent a student's language comprehension (LC) development. The bottom (blue) strands represent the components within a student's word recognition development (D).

As the student's word recognition becomes increasingly automatic and language comprehension becomes increasingly strategic, skilled reading emerges.

Considering the typical deficit of a student with word-level reading difficulties lies in phonemic awareness skills, this graphic may shed light on the many components playing a role in reading the words on the page. Students with significant difficulties in word-level reading skills despite adequate instruction may have dyslexia (a specific learning disability in basic reading skills).

Students might also be able "break the code" and pronounce all of the words on the page, but have trouble understanding what they are reading. These students may have deficits in syntax (grammar), vocabulary, or content knowledge. Students who have significant difficulties with language comprehension despite adequate instruction may have DLD (Developmental Language Disorder).

All of these skills exist on a continuum, as shown in the graph above. Understanding the complexities of the Simple View of Reading can help us organize our thinking and may lead to more valid assessments, targeted lessons, and intensified interventions.

Want to receive future post updates?

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The Complexities of the Simple View of Reading

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The Simple View of Reading was first proposed by Gough and Tunmer in 1986 and is one of the most supported models of reading to date. The gist of the Simple View is that Reading Comprehension (RC) is the product of Decoding (D) and Linguistic (or Language) Comprehension (LC).

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Aouad, J. and Savage, R. (2009). The component structure of preliteracy skills: Further evidence for the simple view of reading. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 24 (2), 183-200.

Catts, H., Adlof, S., and Weismer, S. (2006). Language deficits in poor comprehenders: A case for the simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 278-293.

Gough, P., Hoover, W., and Patterson, C. (1996). Some observations on a simple view of reading. In C. Cornoldi and J. Oakhill (eds.), Reading comprehension difficulties: Processes and intervention (pp. 1-13). Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

*Gough, P. and Tunmer, W. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6-10.

Hoover, W. and Gough, P. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 127-160.

*Kamhi, A. (2007). Knowledge deficits: the true crisis in education. ASHA Leader, 12 (7), 28-29.

*These articles are short and easy to read.

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The Simple View of Reading is a formula demonstrating the widely accepted view that reading has two basic components: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension. Research studies show that a student's reading comprehension score can be predicted if decoding skills and language comprehension abilities are known.

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Empowering educators with the literacy resources and training to help every child achieve reading success.

Trust Tools 4 Reading for the resources you need for your elementary classroom.

We're proud to welcome to our team:

Nova Williams Assistant Director of Learning Services-Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment

Mercer Island School District, WA

"I love the Kid Lips cards, Kids Lips Instructional Guide with the user-friendly lessons, and the Phoneme/Grapheme cards. Our teachers love them, too."

Erika Gordon Kindergarten Teacher

Kalispell, MT

"This class was amazing. It was encouraging to me in reminding me that what I was doing with my kindergarten was the right thing to do, even if others weren't doing it. And it gave me so, so, so many new things to try this next year. I appreciate all the extra articles that were linked and have printed and read almost all of them so far. What an amazing class. Thank you!"

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Tools 4 Reading provides great resources for your classroom such as Phoneme/Grapheme Card and Kid Lips.

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The PAST can be downloaded above. Please also download and carefully read the instructions before using. Information can also be found in the manual “Equipped for Reading Success” by David A. Kilpatrick, Ph.D in chapter 11 on how to effectively use the test. Make sure to also practice using the test before using it with […]

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What the Science Says About How Kids Learn to Read

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anita archer explicit instruction - Bing video

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Top suggestions for anita archer explicit instruction

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How to STOP Children from Guessing at Words

As teachers and parents, we all know children who guess at words while reading. Guessing at words can start out as an innocent tactic when children are first learning to read. However, as time progresses, and with proper instruction, children should be developing the skills necessary to decode words accurately and fluently, using the alphabetic principle, instead of guessing. If the tactic of guessing at words is allowed to become a habit, the student becomes a chronic guesser. And guessing at words is NOT reading!

The habit of guessing at words is immensely difficult to break! The habit of guessing quickly becomes the first technique that children will attempt to use. The longer a child is allowed to guess at words, the more difficult the habit is to extinguish. Guessing gets in the way of decoding development, and is a roadblock to accurate reading skills.

There are three reasons that some children are chronic guessers. First, many children who use the guessing technique do not understand the alphabetic principle, which is simply stated here: letters make sounds, sounds can be blended together to make syllables, and syllables make words. These students may not know the correct alphabet letter and letter-cluster sounds inherent in the English language. They may have poor phonological awareness, poor phonemic awareness, and/or poor phonological processing skills. They may have endured poor reading instruction, which failed to adequately focus on the alphabetic principle, and blending and decoding skills. Some chronic guessers know the alphabet sounds, but don't know how to break larger words into syllables to sound them out. Guessers tend to look at the first few letters of an unknown word and pull words from memory that also start with the same initial letter combination, even if the word makes no sense logically within the text.

The second reason for word guessing is an impulsive nature. Children with ADD, ADHD or poor executive function skills may have difficulty slowing down enough when reading to decode the unknown word, even if they have the skills to sound words out.

The third type of word guesser is the combination type - low alphabetic principle knowledge, poor phonemic awareness, and impulsivity. These students are the most difficult to remediate. They not only need to learn how to decode, but they also need some behavior modification therapy.

Students who are chronic guessers often have difficulty with reading comprehension skills, as well. These students often guess at words incorrectly, thereby changing the text of the passage that they are reading. By changing the text, they fail to glean the full meaning of the passage. Details can be skewed by guessing incorrectly at key vocabulary words in the passage.

Additionally, chronic guessers are usually poor spellers. If students don't understand the alphabetic principle, they do not have the skills to spell according to the rules of English. Poor spelling confirms the absence of adequate alphabetic principle knowledge.

Children can avoid developing a guessing habit, if they are taught early to read through a phonics-based program. Many public and private schools do not teach phonetic reading sufficiently, and thus, a large percentage of children are having difficulty learning to read accurately. The NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) reports that 33% of students across the nation in grade 4 read below the proficient level. The method for teaching reading in today's schools is called Balanced Reading, and many children fail to become successful readers through this approach. A new surge in another method, called Structured Literacy, has many years of research behind it, and proves successful for all students, including those with dyslexia and other reading disorders.

The ideal way to avoid the development of the guessing habit is to teach children explicitly how the alphabetic principle works in the kindergarten year. Screenings at the mid-kindergarten year are beneficial to flag any student who requires a more intense format of instruction. Then, teach first graders how to blend sounds into words. Limit the number of sight words taught in first and second grade, so students can perfect their decoding skills. Once children reach third grade, they are beyond the biological window of opportunity for learning to read, and need intense remediation.

There are several ways to help children develop strong decoding skills and to avoid developing a guessing habit:

1. Teach the alphabetic principle and the letter sounds in kindergarten.

2. Help children to master phonemic awareness skills in preschool and kindergarten.

3. Screen all students in mid-kindergarten to assure that they are on track.

4. DO NOT teach too many sight words in kindergarten and first grade. Allow students the time and experience to master the alphabetic principle, blending, encoding, and decoding skills first.

5. Take your time when teaching the short vowels, and make sure that students know them to mastery before introducing the long vowels.

6. Teach students the 6 Syllable Types of the English language, so they understand how the English language is organized (Orton Gillingham Approach).

7. Teach first, second and third graders the sounds of the advanced letter clusters to mastery (sh, oa, ing), and require them to use decoding skills vs. memorization skills.

8. Teach first, second, and third graders how to divide two syllable and then and multisyllabic words, according to the 12 Syllable Division Rules (Orton Gillingham Approach).

9. When introducing passages for reading, make sure that they are at the child's developmental level, and expect 90% accuracy. If the student cannot attain 90% accuracy in the passage, then the passage is too difficult for that student.

10. Remind and require the student to use decoding skills when reading. Do not allow guessing.

11. Provide students with a physical tool with which to sound out words. The Lil' Reading Scientists TM curriculum uses our proprietary Phoneme Sequence Board, pictured below, to sound out words. Students use their pointer finger of their dominant hand, to swipe one swipe for each sound/letter combination, from left to right, in a word. The raised strips are made of sandpaper, for tactile and kinesthetic feedback while decoding and sequencing letter sounds. The word 'cat' would get three swipes, one for each letter. The word 'ship' would also get three swipes - one for /sh/, one for /i/, and one for /p/. Using a physical tool for decoding which requires a motor response from students exponentially helps students to improve their decoding skills. This is a picture of the Lil' Reading Scientists' Phoneme Sequence Board:

The Phoneme Sequence Board can be purchased on our website at www.lilreadingscientists.com, under Multisensory Materials.

Extinguishing an already ingrained guessing habit requires persistence, time, a physical decoding tool, and the principles of psychology! When working with students who chronically guess at words, use your physical decoding tool (i.e., Phoneme Sequence Board) throughout the entire lesson, except for passage reading. Require the student to get into the habit of accounting for each letter or letter cluster by swiping one swipe for each sound, even for known words. This new habit needs to become automatic before you will start to see results.

Then, start to shape the student's behavior by setting intrinsic rewards and consequences. Also, use a bit of operant conditioning. Some students will respond well to rewards. Some will only respond to consequences.

Reward Format: Choose individual words at your student's specific reading and skill level (ex: digraphs in the closed syllable). An Orton Gillingham-based screening will inform you as to your student's specific reading and skill level. Require the student to sound out each word, using a physical decoding tool (i.e., the Phoneme Sequence Board), even for known words. If the student reads the word correctly the first time, he/she gets a token. I like to use plastic teddy bear counters. At the end of the exercise, add up the tokens and make a graph, demonstrating the student's success. Continue to add to the graph in subsequent lessons, to show progress over time. If the student reads the word incorrectly the first time, the student does not receive a token.

Consequence Format: Choose individual words at your student's specific reading and skill level. Utilize a physical decoding tool (i.e., Phoneme Sequence Board) to sound out each word, including known words. Provide the student with 20 tokens (for 20 words) at the beginning of the exercise. If the student reads the word correctly the first time, no tokens are taken away. For each incorrect word read the first time, take one token away. Count the tokens at the end of each exercise and make a graph of remaining tokens.

Consequences & Rewards Format: Create a game, or use a board game (such as Trouble) for individual word reading (decodable real words and decodable nonsense words). Choose only words at your student's specific level. An Orton Gillingham-based screening will inform you of your student's specific reading and skill level. Using the Phoneme Sequence Board, or another decoding tool, have the student read a word accurately the first time (no guessing) before taking his turn in the game. If the student reads the word accurately on the first try with the help of the decoding tool, he/she may take a turn in the game. If the student reads the word incorrectly at first try, he/she misses a turn.

Operant Conditioning Format: In a game format, use a bell and a buzzer during individual word reading. Require the student to utilize the physical decoding tool (i.e., Phoneme Sequence Board) to sound out all words, including known words. Ring the bell for each correct word read the first time. Ring the buzzer for each incorrect word read the first time. The bell and buzzer can be made into a fun activity, like a game show. Students enjoy playing this game. The bell and buzzer set can be purchased on amazon.com (called Right and Wrong Buttons).

The biggest issue with word guessing is that children who do so tend to have underdeveloped phonics skills Guessing at words may work for them in the early elementary years, however, once in the upper elementary grades, and in middle school and high school, those students sorely lack the decoding skills necessary to figure out longer and more complex words often found in their science and history text books, and in assigned literature.

Additionally, children with underdeveloped phonics skills tend to be poor spellers because they don't understand the logic of English. There are 6 basic syllable types in English, and each type has at least one exception. There are 12 basic syllable division rules, to help English language speakers, writers, and readers break down multisyllabic words. Between 75-90% of all words in our language are decodable, if one knows the rules. The remainder of the words need to be memorized, as they do not fit within the rule structure of English. Thus, 10-25% of our language can be taught as sight words. The remainder should be taught as decodable words, according to the alphabetic principle and the rules of English.

The most appropriate approach to reading and spelling instruction is an approach called Orton Gillingham, (also known as Structured Literacy). This approach teaches the letter sounds and the sounds for the letter-cluster combinations (th, ong, ea). Students learn to sound out every letter sound in a printed word, and blend them together. Additionally, children are taught the rules for syllable division, and are taught the six syllable types (and their exceptions) that comprise the English language. The syllable types are taught to assist with the sounds that vowels make in various patterns within words. Students also learn about word meanings and how words are changed by suffixes and prefixes. Finally, they are taught about word origins - where words have originated from around the globe. Children who receive Orton Gillingham instruction are strong readers and spellers, and present with a strong understanding of word parts, syllables, decoding, the alphabetic principle, basic English rules, and word origins.

So the next time your student or child is guessing at words, ask him or her to sound out the word, letter by letter, sound by sound, and teach him to break apart larger words. And work to extinguish the guessing habit because....guessing is Not Reading!

Jenelle Erickson Boyd, M.Ed., CDP, Author of this Blog, is a certified Reading Specialist, and a Certified Dyslexia Practitioner through The International Dyslexia Association. She is an avid advocate for students with reading issues, a speaker at educational conferences, a teacher trainer, and an educational consultant for schools. She can be reached at info@lilreadingscientists.com.

Lil' Reading Scientists Literacy Solutions TM is a highly multisensory Orton Gillingham curriculum, created by Jenelle Erickson Boyd. The curriculum can be viewed and purchased at www.lilreadingscientists.com, and on Teachers Pay Teachers, in the Lil' Reading Scientists' Store.

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How to STOP Children from Guessing at Words

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As teachers and parents, we all know children who guess at words while reading. Guessing at words can start out as an innocent tactic when children are first learning to read. However, as time progresses, and with proper instruction, children should be developing the skills necessary to decode words accurately and fluently, using the alphabetic principle, instead of guessing.

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Orton-Gillingham Accredited Training, Tutoring and Educational Products | Brainspring.com

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We offer the best in multisensory tools; highlighting products that are time-tested and teacher-approved.

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For years, the most urgent and persistent request we heard from the teachers we work with was for a more effective and more easily implemented program for foundational skills instruction.

While most language arts standards include learning targets for foundational reading skills for kindergarten through second grade, they are not detailed enough to build a day-by-day sequence of instruction. While most schools have an abundance of resources in the form of book rooms, basal readers, and a variety of intervention program kits, there is typically insufficient guidance for how, when, and with whom to use these materials.

In response to this persistent need, our team developed UFLI Foundations, a program that includes the necessary professional learning, resources, and scaffolding for teachers to deliver high-quality instruction in foundational reading skills.

This is how UFLI Foundations was born.

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UFLI Foundations | UF Literacy Institute

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For years, the most urgent and persistent request we heard from the teachers we work with was for a more effective and more easily implemented program for foundational skills instruction. While most language arts standards include learning targets for foundational reading skills for kindergarten through second grade, they are not detailed enough to build a day-by-day sequence of instruction.

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Word chains are a great way to practice phonemic awareness and phonics.

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Word chains are a great way to practice phonemic awareness and phonics.

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Word Chains for Decoding and Encoding Practice

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Reading Simplified | streamlined instruction, accelerated achievement

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What Is Switch It?

A Game That Teaches...

Children love Switch It because it's fun. Yet, as they "play" the quick, 5-minute Switch It game, they're mastering...

the concept of the alphabetic principle,

letter-sound knowledge,

phonemic segmentation,

phonemic manipulation, &

early decoding & spelling skills.

All these benefits rolled up into just 1 simple activity that spurs accelerated achievement for beginning or struggling readers!

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Our #1 decoding hack, Switch It, is a fun game that also teaches phonics, phonemic awareness, and decoding all in one. Snag a free guide with lists & videos

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David Kilpatrick "How We Remember Words, and Why Some Children Don't"

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(Note: This post has been updated on April 3, 2022.)

Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings). They then permanently store the connected sounds and letters of words (along with their meaning) as instantly recognizable words, described as "sight vocabulary" or "sight words".
Sight Words
A sight word is any word that a reader instantly recognizes and identifies without conscious effort. Adult competent readers have between 30,000 and 60,000 words that have been orthographically mapped in their sight vocabulary. As soon as one of these words is seen, it is unconsciously and instantly recognizable. This is what enables us to be efficient readers, able to focus on the meaning of what we read instead of on word reading. When words are stored as sight vocabulary words in long-term memory, a reader no longer has to decode words one at a time the way beginning readers do. While some orthographic mapping can begin earlier, most children start applying this skill in second and third grade. As we continue to read into adulthood, we continue to use orthographic mapping to grow our sight word vocabularies.

Because some high-frequency words (e.g., the, and, is, was, for, are) are essential to learning how to read, teachers of kindergarten and grade 1 typically provide explicit instruction to help students automatically read some of these words. Students are taught to read them as whole words at the same time that they are being taught how to decode most other words. However, once students are able to orthographically map, they will start to store high-frequency words as sight words on their own.
What is the mental process of orthographic mapping?
With orthographic mapping of a word, the letters we see with our eyes and the sounds we hear in that word get processed together as a sight word and are stored together in the brain. This is not the same as memorizing just the way a word looks. It is also important to remember that orthographic mapping is a mental process used to store and remember words. It is not a skill, teaching technique, or activity you can do with students (Kilpatrick, 2019). What can be taught are phonemic awareness and phonics skills which enable orthographic mapping.

With orthographic mapping, students connect something new with something they already know. Through listening and speaking, young students already know a word's pronunciation and meaning which is stored in their long-term memory. Students turn a written word into a sight word by attaching the phonemes in the word's pronunciation to the letter sequence of the word. The pronunciation of the word has to be broken into its phonemes, which is why having strong phonemic awareness skills is important. The word's letter sequence can become familiar (i.e., become a sight word) because the student can attach it to the already known pronunciation.

Kilpatrick (2019) provides examples similar to the following:

If a student knows the spoken word /bed/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. If he has good phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds (phonemes) /b/ /e/ /d/. Those sounds become the anchoring points for the word's printed sequence. The student can then attach each phoneme to its corresponding letter (spelling). The student is using the power of what he knows (the pronunciation) and attaching it like "superglue" to the printed word bed. This example has all single sound-letter correspondences.

If a student knows the spoken word /sheep/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. Using phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds /sh/ /e/ /p/. The student then attaches each phoneme to its corresponding spelling. In this example, some of the sounds are represented by more than one letter.

In typically developing readers from grade 2 on who have orthographic mapping skills, they only need to see and read printed words one to four times before they become permanently stored as sight words for future instant recall (Reitsma, 1983 as cited in Kilpatrick, 2015). When a word becomes a sight word, as soon as it is seen its sound and meaning are immediately available. Having a significant amount of stored sight words is what enables fluency - quick and accurate reading where the reader is free to focus on making meaning from text.
How does orthographic mapping develop?
Three intersecting skills must be in place to enable orthographic mapping (Ehri, 2014; Kilpatrick, 2015):

Highly proficient phonological and phonemic awareness

Automatic letter-sound correspondence knowledge

The ability to accurately and quickly decode a word by identifying its sounds letter by letter, and blending those sounds to read the word

Here's how Ehri (2014) explains the skills that need to be in place before orthographic mapping can take place:

"To form connections and retain words in memory, readers need some requisite abilities. They must possess phonemic awareness, particularly segmentation and blending. They must know the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences (letter-sound knowledge) of the writing system. Then they need to be able to read unfamiliar words on their own by applying a decoding strategy." Doing so "activates orthographic mapping to retain the words' spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in memory." (p. 7)

Kilpatrick (2015) describes three phases of word-reading development for children in the primary grades that are aligned with corresponding phonological skill development. As noted above in Ehri's quote, the ability to segment and blend phonemes is needed to support decoding and eventually orthographic mapping. Kilpatrick has proposed that advanced phonemic awareness activities focused on practice with phoneme manipulation might be helpful for students who are not able to orthographically map words; however, at this time there is not sufficient research to indicate that instruction focused on advanced phonemic awareness improves orthographic mapping.

Beginning readers in kindergarten and grade 1 are developing their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and basic phonemic awareness skills, and are beginning to learn phonic decoding. Before a student can orthographically map a word, the word first has to be identified. Young students identify the pronunciation of a word by using their letter-sound knowledge to determine each sound in the word, and then using their phonemic blending skills to blend those sounds to decode (sound out) the word.

Once these skills are proficient, typically by grade 3, orthographic mapping usually develops for the majority of students simply by interacting with letters and words. However, many students with word-reading difficulties do not develop orthographic mapping. They therefore have greater difficulty developing the sight word vocabulary needed for fluent reading and will likely stay disfluent and hesitant readers unless they receive intervention that builds proficiency in phonemic awareness (in particular segmenting and blending) and phonics and decoding skills (Kilpatrick, 2015; Parker, 2019). It is difficult for them to get beyond having to decode most words when they read.
Implications for Teaching: Explicit Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction Leads to Orthographic Mapping
Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction help students use the alphabetic principle to learn relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. As noted in the word-reading development chart above, developing early phonological awareness, including phonemic awareness of initial sounds, should be a focus of PreK and kindergarten instruction to develop basic letter-sound correspondence knowledge. As students move through kindergarten and grade one, a focus on blending and segmenting of phonemes in written words develops phonic decoding skills which must be in place for orthographic mapping. Some kindergarten and grade 1 students may be able to start completing simple phoneme manipulation tasks, such as deleting or substituting initial sounds in words.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE: After this post first appeared, Joan Sedita presented a webinar titled "The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read." It is now a free, archived webinar at the Keys to Literacy website. Click here to access.
References

Ehri, L. C. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential to learning to read words in English. In J. L. Metsala & L. C. Ehri (Eds.), Word recognition in beginning literacy (p. 3-40). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Ehri, L.C. (2014) Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading 18(1).

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2015). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2019). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Online course. Colorado Department of Education. Retrieved from: https://sitesed.cde.state.co.us/course/view.php?id=132#section-1

Parker, S. (2019). Sight words, orthographic mapping, and self-teaching. Stephen Parker blog post, April 22, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/sight-words-orthographic-mapping-and-self-teaching

Reitsma, P. (1983). Printed word learning in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36, 321-339.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read - Keys to Literacy

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Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings).

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How Many Sight Words Do You Have in Your Orthographic Lexicon or Sight Word Memory?

Did you know that literate adults have a library of 30,000 to 70,000 words they can read automatically, accurately, and effortlessly? These words are considered "sight words" because we instantly recognize them by sight. This library of sight words is called your "orthographic lexicon" or "sight word memory."

What does it take for a word to get anchored in our "orthographic lexicon" or "sight word memory?" Why is it easier for some students to recognize words instantly while other students struggle significantly more? Are there instructional methods that can have a greater impact than others? How many sight words should we teach our students?

Read our blog below and join us for our Science of Reading Virtual Workshop to learn all about the science behind how we anchor sight words into our orthographic lexicon. Additionally, learn how to access our free resource Heart Word Magic and help your students make tricky high-frequency words sticky.

How to Make Sight Words Sticky & Heart Word Magic!

You may have noticed we've used the term "sight word" differently than how it is used in many classrooms. Many educators use the terms "sight words" and "high-frequency words" interchangeably. In this series, we will be careful to differentiate between these two terms, so let's start with a few key definitions:

What Are Sight Words?

These are any words that we decode quickly and effortlessly. Sight words are not just words like to, from, the, and is; they can also be words like majestic, subtropical, and encyclopedia. We can typically read these familiar words in less than .20/second or 200 milliseconds without any conscious effort. This effortless retrieval of words allows literate adults to read 300 words a minute, faster than we can comprehend speech (Farrall, 2018).

What Is Sight Word Memory or Orthographic Lexicon?

This is the whole library of words that a person can read effortlessly. Everyone's sight word memory or orthographic lexicon is different. Many doctors can read words like paresthesia, fasciculation, and diaphragmatic effortlessly, while people not in the medical community cannot. Read the following paragraph below. Were you able to read paresthesia, fasciculation, and diaphragmatic effortlessly? Perhaps you can't, but doctors probably can. That's because doctors have decoded them successfully several times, thus anchoring them into their sight word memory. In fact, the primary goal of decoding is to build words into our sight word memoryor orthographic lexicon.

*Paresthesia is that tingling feeling you get when your hand or foot "falls asleep" and then starts to wake back up. Fasciculation is a tiny twitch you sometimes feel under your skin. Diaphragmatic describes something that relates to your diaphragm; a synchronous diaphragmatic flutter, for example, is a fancy word for a hiccup! (Okrent, 2017)

What Are High-Frequency Words?

These words are the most common words in print. The Dolch and Fry are commonly used high-frequency word lists. In education, there is a great deal of emphasis placed on getting students to recognize high-frequency words automatically and for good reason. In her book Uncovering the Logic of English, Denise Eide (2012) reports that "...according to some counts, the 100 most frequently used words make up 50% of all that we read and write." At Really Great Reading, we like to call these words Heart Words because we want students to know them "by heart."

Heart Words can be categorized into two groups - Regularly Spelled and Irregularly Spelled.

What Are Regularly Spelled Heart Words? Words that can be decoded using common phonics knowledge and letter-sound relationships (decodable words). These are words like and, it, in, and but. Notice that in each of these words, the consonant and vowel letters make the sounds that we expect. We can call these regularly spelled high-frequency words Simple Heart Words.

What Are Irregularly Spelled Heart Words? Words that deviate from common phonics patterns or familiar letter-sound relationships (non-decodable words). These are words like from, what, give, and do. Each of these words has at least one letter that spells a sound we do not typically expect it to spell. When words are irregularly spelled, research suggests that they are harder to anchor into our sight word memory. Let's call these Tricky Heart Words.

How Do Heart Words Become Sight Words in Our Orthographic Lexicon?

Getting students to instantly recognize Heart Words, whether regularly spelled or irregularly spelled, is a common focus in primary grades. How educators anchor these words into a child's memory varies. The most common technique is simply rote memorization through multiple exposures to the whole word, essentially practicing the word many times until it sticks. Research suggests, however, that there may be more productive techniques.

In his book Equipped for Reading Success (2016), Dr. David Kilpatrick describes how we permanently store words in our sight word memory. He calls this process Orthographic Mapping. When a word is sufficiently "mapped," it can be retrieved effortlessly. He explains, "To be good orthographic mappers, children need to develop three skills: 1) automatic letter-sound associations, 2) highly proficient phoneme awareness, and 3) word study" (p.41). In essence, word study is the unconscious or conscious process of connecting the phonemes (sounds) to the written form of the word (Kilpatrick, 2016). Kilpatrick continues, "The word-study aspect of mapping is the superglue that anchors words into permanent memory" (p. 41).

When trying to teach our kids to read and spell Heart Words by rote memorization, we often leave out word study! We forget about helping students see the connections between the letters and sounds, even though Kilpatrick (2015) tells us that "the vast majority of irregular words have only a single irregular letter-sound relationship" (p. 105), making the letter-sound relationships quite useful for learning a word. This makes word study a much more powerful tool than "flashcard rote memorization."

Rote memorization relies on a sufficient number (and "sufficient" can vary greatly from student to student) of pictorial imprints to trigger a word's phonological representation (the actual spoken word). This rote memorization approach is not much different from having a child look at the shape of a state and trying to remember if it is Missouri or Arkansas. But we know from Kilpatrick and others that storing words in our sight word memory should include phonics and phonemic awareness. Involving word study will help many of our students.

Fast Facts - From Literacy Experts

It may seem counterintuitive that word study and predictable phoneme-grapheme relationships should play a large role in how we help students remember irregular Heart Words. Take a moment to consider what Kilpatrick (2015) points out about most irregular words though: "The vast majority of irregular words have only a single irregular letter-sound relationship" (p. 105). Consider words like to, do, from, what, and want. Not only are all but one of the letter-sound relationships in these words predictable, knowledge of the unpredictable parts will help students later in their decoding careers. To say it another way, it's not like we look at the word from and say "glorb." Our phoneme-grapheme knowledge gets us most of the way there with these Tricky Heart Words-and Heart Word Magic can get us the rest of the way, helping us remember that the o in from spells short u, just like in the word of.

Words of the Week - Word Level Discovery

Orthographic Lexicon = The collection of words a person can read effortlessly. This is the term researchers use for our sight word memory.

We Love Educator Feedback & Questions

Contact us anytime. Our mission is to provide educators with the most efficient and effective tools for teaching phonemic awareness, phonics concepts, word attack skills, accurate reading, and fluency. Student outcomes are our number one goal. No one knows their students better than educators. Therefore, your thoughts, strategies, student successes, speed bumps, and feedback are held in high esteem! Send us your feedback and experiences>>

References

Eide, D. (2011). Uncovering the logic of English: A common-sense approach to reading, spelling, and literacy. Minneapolis: Pedia Learning.

Farrall, M. (2018, October). Understanding reading fluency: Research implications for assessment and instruction. Session presented at the Annual International Dyslexia Association's Reading, Learning, & Literacy Conference, Mashantucket, CT.

Kilpatrick, D. (2015). Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Kilpatrick, D. (2016). Equipped for reading success: A comprehensive step-by-step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. Syracuse, NY: Casey & Kirsch.

Okrent, A. (2017). 21 fancy medical terms for mundane problems. Retrieved from http://mentalfloss.com/article/58463/21-fancy-medical-terms-mundane-prob...

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Make Tricky Sight Words Sticky - Really Great Reading Blog

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row][oneThird]Visit Our Library of Heart Word Magic Videos>>Register for a Science of Reading Virtual Workshop>>[/oneThird][twoThird]How Many Sight Words Do You Have in Your Orthographic Lexicon or Sight Word Memory?Did you know that literate adults have a library of 30,000 to 70,000 words they can read automatically, accurately, and effortlessly?

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Science of Reading: The Podcast, hosted by Susan Lambert, delivers the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Listen today!

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Many teachers have already reorganized our leveled libraries because we learned that, according to Fountas and Pinnell, "levels have no place in classroom libraries." Sorting books into bins labeled by theme or topic is time-consuming, but it's not a difficult task.

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The Most Popular Reading Programs Are Not Backed by Science.

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The Most Popular Reading Programs Are Not Backed by Science.

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There's a settled body of research on how best to teach early reading. But when it comes to the multitude of curriculum choices that schools have, it's often hard to parse whether well-marketed programs abide by the evidence.

And making matters more complicated, there's no good way to peek into every elementary reading classroom to see what materials teachers are using.

"It's kind of an understudied issue," said Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can't, and What Can Be Done About It. "[These programs] are put out by large publishers that aren't very forthcoming. It's very hard for researchers to get a hold of very basic data about how widely they're used."

Now, some data are available. In a nationally representative survey, the Education Week Research Center asked K-2 and special education teachers what curricula, programs, and textbooks they had used for early reading instruction in their classrooms.

The top five include three sets of core instructional materials, meant to be used in whole-class settings: The Units of Study for Teaching Reading, developed by the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and Journeys and Into Reading, both by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. There are also two early interventions, which target specific skills certain students need more practice on: Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention and Reading Recovery.

An Education Week analysis of the materials found many instances in which these programs diverge from evidence-based practices for teaching reading or supporting struggling students.

At this point, it's widely accepted that reading programs for young kids need to include phonics-and every one of these five programs teaches about sound-letter correspondences. What varies, though, is the nature of this instruction. In some cases, students master a progression of letter-sound relationships in a set-out sequence. In others, phonics instruction is less systematic, raising the possibility that students might not learn or be assessed on certain skills.

Phonics is "buried" in many commercial reading programs, Seidenberg said. Teachers might be able to use what's there to construct a coherent sequence, he said, or they might not.

And frequently, these programs are teaching students to approach words in ways that could undermine the phonics instruction they are receiving.

Several of these interventions and curricula operate under the understanding that students use multiple sources of information, or "cues," to solve words. Those can include the letters on the page, the context in which the word appears, pictures, or the grammatical structure of the sentence.

Observational studies show that poor readers do use different sources of information to predict what words might say. But studies also suggest that skilled readers don't read this way. Neuroscience research has shown that skilled readers process all of the letters in words when they read them, and that they read connected text very quickly.

Even so, many early reading programs are designed to teach students to make better guesses, under the assumption that it will make children better readers. The problem is that it trains kids to believe that they don't always need to look at all of the letters that make up words in order to read them.

Still, teachers may not know that cueing strategies aren't in line with the scientific evidence base around teaching reading, said Heidi Beverine-Curry, the co-founder of The Reading League, an organization that promotes science-based reading instruction.

Classroom teachers also aren't usually the people making decisions about what curriculum to use. In Education Week's survey, 65 percent of teachers said that their district selected their primary reading programs and materials, while 27 percent said that the decision was up to their school.

Even when teachers want to question their school or district's approach, they may feel pressured to stay silent. Education Week spoke with three teachers from different districts who requested that their names not be used in this story, for fear of repercussions from their school systems.

Cueing Strategies Persist

Reading Recovery, the 1st grade intervention used by about 20 percent of teachers surveyed, was developed in the 1970s by New Zealand researcher Marie Clay. Thirty-minute lessons are delivered one-on-one, and generally follow a similar structure day to day. The idea is to catch students early before they need more intensive intervention, said Jeff Williams, a Reading Recovery Teacher-Leader in the Solon school district in Ohio.

Students read books they've read several times before, and then read a book that they've only read once, the day before, while the teacher takes a "running record." Here, the teacher marks the words that the student reads incorrectly and notes which cue the child apparently used to produce the wrong word.

For example, if a child reads the word "pot" instead of "bucket," a teacher could indicate that the student was using meaning cues to figure out the word.

During the rest of the lesson, students practice letter-sound relationships, write a short story, and assemble words in a cut-up story. At the end, they read a new book.

The program also requires intensive teacher training, which is administered through partner colleges.

Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention follows a similar lesson structure, but it's delivered in a small group format rather than one-on-one.

In both programs, text is leveled according to perceived difficulty. Teachers are told to match students to books at a just-right level, with the idea that this will challenge but not overwhelm them.

Students in the lowest levels read predictable text: books in which the sentence structure is similar from page to page, and pictures present literal interpretations of what the text says. One LLI book, for example, follows a girl as she gets dressed to go sledding in winter. "Look at my pants," the first page reads, facing an image of the girl holding up a pair of pants. "Look at my jacket," is on the next page, with a photo of the girl pointing to a jacket.

Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, the founders of LLI, declined an interview for this story through their publisher, Heinemann. The company also declined to comment.

The main point of disagreement concerns these predictable texts and the teaching methods that align to them. For Williams, the Reading Recovery teacher leader in Ohio, predictable text can be a useful orienting tool when children are still learning how print works. The repetitive sentence structure demonstrates that words have consistent meaning, and the frequent pictures provide a context to link to the words, he said.

He gave the word "hippopotamus" as an example. By pointing out that "hippopotamus" starts with the letter "h," and linking that word to a relevant picture and story context, the student can connect the word and the meaning of the word.

"When it's in isolation and we just say arbitrarily, 'This shape makes this sound,' that's a little abstract for little kids," Williams said.

But other experts say using predictable text this way teaches young children the wrong understanding of how the English language works.

"You build this foundation of, English is a language that I have to memorize," said Tiffany Peltier, a doctoral student at Oklahoma University, who studies reading instruction.

But kids don't memorize words to learn them. Instead, they decode the letter-sound correspondences. After several exposures, the word becomes recognizable on sight, through a process called orthographic mapping.

Of course, a picture of a hippopotamus can convey useful information. It could help a child understand what the animal looks like, or what it might do in the wild. But a picture of a hippo won't help the child read the word.

In predictable texts, students don't have to recognize the individual sounds in the word, said Peltier, even though learning how to do that is highly correlated with reading ability. So do Reading Recovery and LLI attend to the sounds in words at all?

Both have daily sections for letter and word work. Reading Recovery tests students on 50 phonemes when they enter the program, and teachers target the ones that students don't know, said Williams.

But basing instruction around individual student errors-rather than progressing through a systematic structure-can leave some gaps, said Kristen Koeller, the educator outreach manager at Decoding Dyslexia California, who used to be a Reading Recovery teacher.

For example, she said, she might have a student who didn't know the /ow/ sound, like in the words "how" or "wow." Koeller would work with the student on that sound, but she wasn't expected to explain the difference between when "ow" makes the /ow/ sound, like in "how," and when "ow" makes and /o/ sound, like in "show."

Phonics does happen in Reading Recovery lessons, she said. "But it is not systematic, it is not multisensory, and it depends largely on the teacher's knowledge base and the book that is selected."

LLI does include a scope and sequence for phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. But students enter the program at different points, and it's possible that they might need more practice with skills that are deemed below their level-or that they will exit the intervention before they reach all of the sound-letter correspondences that they don't know.

The company, Fountas & Pinnell Literacy, identifies two main studies that it claims validate the program's effectiveness in grades K-2. Both are from the Center for Research in Educational Policy at the University of Memphis, and both were funded by Heinemann, which publishes LLI.

The 2010 paper, which the company calls its "gold standard" study, found that kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders who received LLI made greater gains than students who received no intervention. But these gains were only consistent on Fountas & Pinnell's own assessment, rather than an external validator of reading achievement. Results on DIBELS, a separate early literacy test, were mixed. Kindergartners and 1st graders in the treatment group did better than the control group on some subtests, but 2nd graders saw no difference.

Reading Recovery, by contrast, has a much stronger evidence base for effectiveness. Most notably, an independent evaluation of the federal grant expanding the program found that students who received the intervention did better on assessments of overall reading, reading comprehension, and decoding compared to similar students who received their schools' traditional literacy interventions. But even that study has invited controversy.

Psychologists James W. Chapman and William E. Tunmer published a critique of the evaluation, arguing that many of the lowest-achieving students were excluded from the program, potentially inflating success rates.

The executive director of the Reading Recovery Council of North America did not respond to requests for comment.

Three core instructional programs also made the top five most popular list among teachers, according to the Education Week survey: The Units of Study for Teaching Reading, by Heinemann, and Journeys and Into Reading, both by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Units of Study for Teaching Reading was developed by Lucy Calkins, a researcher and the founding director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.

The program follows a "reader's workshop" model. Teachers give a short "mini-lesson" at the beginning of class, and then students spend the majority of time practicing that skill independently as the teacher monitors them and works with small groups.

"We think about what is it that a good reader does. What is the life that a good reader leads?" Calkins says in a video describing reading workshop on the Units of Study website. "So above all, that means putting reading front and center."

Calkins declined an interview for this story through her publisher, Heinemann. The company also declined to comment on the program itself.

Units of Study instills these reading habits in children, and teaches them that reading is something to value, said Susan Chambre, an assistant professor of education at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. It also introduces a variety of genres and gives students choice in what they read. "The fact that we are immersing kids in literature-that is important," Chambre said.

But Chambre struggled with Units of Study when she used it as a kindergarten teacher in an inclusion classroom. The program assumed a lot of knowledge-of oral language, of phonics-that students just didn't have. Chambre would watch children mumble through sentences, making up words by looking at the pictures.

"For those kids who come in [to school] and can learn foundational skills easily, and have a fair amount of general knowledge and a fair amount of vocabulary, they would come out okay," Meredith Liben, the senior fellow for strategic initiatives at Student Achievement Partners, said of the Units of Study for Teaching Reading.

But a lot of students don't come into school with that knowledge, and the program isn't explicit enough to fill in the gaps, Chambre said. Starting in kindergarten, students are taught reading "super powers" that encourage them to "search for meaning, use picture clues, and use the sound of the first letter of a word to help them read," according to kindergarten sample lessons downloaded from the Heinemann website. One sample lesson encourages teachers to say things like "Check the picture," "Try something," or "Does that look right?" when students struggle, which prompts students to take their eyes off of the letters in a word.

In a public statement responding to science-based critiques of her program, Calkins wrote that asking students to guess or "try it" when they come to hard words teaches reading stamina. She also argued that there is value in predictable texts for young children, who are "approximating reading" when they rely on syntax and picture clues.

Though billed as a core reading program, the Units of Study in Reading doesn't teach phonemic awareness or phonics systematically or explicitly. "At best it's a suggestion, and there's a lot of focus on the three-cueing system," Liben said.

The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project recently released a separate phonics program, the Units of Study in Phonics. In her recent statement, Calkins emphasized the importance of a systematic phonics program, and said it would be a "wise move" for teachers to include more decodable texts in lessons with emerging readers. Still, marketing materials for the units imply that the company believes phonics should not play a central role in the classroom.

"Phonics instruction needs to be lean and efficient," the materials read. "Every minute you spend teaching phonics (or preparing phonics materials to use in your lessons) is less time spent teaching other things."

Menu of Choices

The other two core instructional programs, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Journeys and Into Reading, differ in some significant ways from the rest of this list. Into Reading is the company's newer product-this is its first academic year in schools. According to HMH, more than 6.7 million students use Journeys in school.

Both programs include an explicit, systematic program in phonemic awareness and phonics. In an emailed statement to Education Week, a representative for HMH wrote that the company suggests teachers follow this sequence, as phonics skills build cumulatively. Decodable texts are available for purchase.

Because these programs are meant to be comprehensive, they include lessons and resources for teaching other foundational skills-like writing letters, spelling, and fluency-as well as explicit vocabulary instruction, anchor texts and student texts, writing instruction, and comprehension instruction.

Seidenberg, who has reviewed the Journeys materials but not Into Reading, said that the amount of materials, lessons, and instructional choices in the program was overwhelming. "It looks like the publisher's response to all the debate about reading instruction was to make sure that they included everything," he said.

In the emailed statement, HMH said that teachers can "choose from a variety of resources to make the best instructional decisions for their students and to align with district curriculum requirements."

When Milton Terrace Elementary in Ballston Spa, N.Y., started using Journeys, teachers were using the materials differently, said Kathleen Chaucer, the principal. (The school is no longer using the program.) For example-even though the program offers decodable books, kids were practicing in leveled texts, which didn't offer opportunities to use patterns they learned, Chaucer said.

Journeys includes six teacher manuals for its 1st grade program alone, Seidenberg said. "There is so much information in those teacher manuals, it raises serious questions about whether anyone is actually using them," he said. "And if they are using them, are they just picking through them to find the pieces that they're comfortable with?" Chaucer said that's what happened at her school.

A Perfect Program?

It's hard to find a perfect curriculum, said Blythe Wood, an instructional coach in the special education department at the Pickerington school district, and the vice president of the International Dyslexia Association of Central Ohio.

She's critical of Leveled Literacy Intervention, specifically, for the focus it puts on looking at words as wholes, and the lack of decodable text. But there are good and bad parts to most commercial materials, she said.

"The knowledge base of the teacher, and being able to identify the needs of the student, are more important than a boxed program," Wood said. "We're not going to meet every kid with one box."

Taking a hard look at curriculum is important-but more important is making sure teachers have the training they need to evaluate practices themselves, said Beverine-Curry, of The Reading League. "Just handing teachers materials or a program or a curriculum is not going to do the job."

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The Most Popular Reading Programs Aren't Backed by Science

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An analysis of the five most-used programs for early reading shows that they often diverge from evidence-based practices.

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Teaching the Dolch Sight Word List...the Easy Way!

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Hi, friends. This week, the blog post is going to be slightly different. I've included a short video that will help you with the subject matter I'm chatting about with you this week.

Have you thought about how you can help students that know individual sounds but can't seem to put them together? Or, if they put them together, they drop sounds when blending?

Teaching continuous blending is a great strategy to help students connect sounds with decoding. Students that struggle with holding individual speech sounds with their phonological memory benefit from this instruction. Next, let's talk a little about continuous blending.

What is Continuous Blending?

Continuous blending is when words are sounded out without stopping between sounds. I model this in the video. Reading requires that students connect individual sounds (phonemes) to produce a word.

Why is this important? This is a skill needed for reading (decoding). You may find that some students need explicit practice with blending. Let's look at some options for how you can help these students.

Teaching Continuous Blending

There are a few ways to teach continuous blending to our students. Here are two approaches that are a great place to start.

Approach 1

With this approach, you first show your student the word. Next, you want to cover the letters from the vowel to the end. You then want to have the student blend the sounds without stopping. I demonstrate this in the video. After the individual sounds are stretched, have the student read the word.

Approach 2

This next approach links segmenting to blending. Like with the first option, show the student the word. While you touch the dot under each individual sound, have the student identify each sound separately. Again, the individual sounds will then be stretched out as you move across the word. Finally, have the student read the word. This approach is also demonstrated in the video.

I'm about to date myself just bit 😉, but since my first year of teaching in the '90s, I've successfully used this strategy. It is that effective! The video I'm sharing in this post will explain a few different ways to begin teaching this with your students. Give it a try! Comment below and let me know what you think! I hope you have enjoyed having a video to see the approaches in action.

Have a great week!

Casey

The Dyslexia Classroom

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Strategies for Teaching Continuous Blending

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Teaching continuous blending is a great strategy to help students connect sounds with decoding. Students that struggle with holding individual speech sounds with their phonological memory benefit from this instruction.

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Overview of suggested restructuring

Teach 10-15 "sight words" before phonics instruction begins

Flash Words and Heart Words defined

Flash Words with advanced vowels to teach with early phonics instruction

Flash Words with two and three syllables

Implementing the new model

You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words

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Integrating high-frequency words into phonics lessons allows students to make sense of spelling patterns for these words. To do this, high-frequency words need to be categorized according to whether they are spelled entirely regularly or not. This article describes how to "rethink" teaching of high-frequency words.

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Heart Word Magic - Read and Spell High Frequency Words | Really Great Reading

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Heart Word Magic - Help Students Learn to Read and Spell High-Frequency and Sight WordsHeart Word Magic is a complimentary teaching tool designed to help students learn to read and spell high-frequency words and sight words, particularly those that aren’t very decodable. Show your students the animations, then try these fun, hands-on free Student Practice

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Orthographic Mapping Part I: How We Store Words For Proficient Reading

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Orthographic Mapping Part 2: How We Store Words for Proficient Reading-Equipped for Reading Success

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When we talk about foundations of literacy, three "PH" words often come to mind: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. We see these terms when we view grade level reading standards, reading research, and built into reading lessons found in many core reading series. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory, and the focus is on the sounds in words. Phonics, on the other hand, focuses on the letters that the sounds represent. Phonics involves print, phonological, and phonemic awareness do not. While phonological and phonemic awareness are both oral and auditory, there are differences between these two terms.

What is Phonological Awareness?

"Phonological awareness is the understanding of different ways that oral language can be divided into smaller components and manipulated." (Chard and Dickson, 1999) Phonological awareness refers to the bigger "chunks" or "parts" of language. When we ask students to rhyme, blend small words to make a compound word, break words apart into syllables or onset-rime, we are working at the phonological awareness level. Phonological awareness can be thought of as a big umbrella with the bigger "chunks" of language being the top of the umbrella.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made of individual sounds called phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound we hear in a word. Phonemic awareness falls underneath the umbrella as a sub-category of phonological awareness. Rather than working with larger units of spoken language, we ask students to listen for the individual sounds or phonemes in a spoken word. When we ask students to blend or segment words into the smallest unit of sound they hear, we are working at the phonemic awareness level. For example, the four sounds /p//l//a//n/ can be blended to make the whole word plan.

How Does Phonemic Awareness Help Reading and Literacy Development?

In their book, "Know Better, Do Better", David and Meredith Liben state "It is not an option to skip or shortchange phonemic awareness! Children without mastery of it will inevitably struggle." While decades of research support this statement, phonemic awareness is still the most common reason students struggle with word reading. When educators consider phonemic awareness and phonics to be interchangeable terms, phonemic awareness is often left out of instruction and the focus shifts to print with phonics.

Failing to provide explicit phonemic awareness instruction leads to many students lacking the understanding that words are made up of individual sounds. Instead, they get the message that words are whole units that need to be visually memorized. While students learn language naturally by listening to speech and words, hearing individual sounds in words is not natural. We don't speak in individual sounds, instead, our speech is co-articulated and we hear whole words in oral language. If we begin our literacy instruction by teaching letters and sounds, without phonemic awareness instruction, phonics does not make sense to students.

Phonemic awareness and phonics do work together when students learn to read and spell. Words are made up of sounds (phonemic awareness) and letters represent these sounds in print (phonics). Without the ability to hear sounds in words, phonemic awareness and phonics cannot engage in this reciprocal relationship. Researcher Wiley Blevins explains, "Phonemic awareness training provides the foundation on which phonics instruction is built. Thus, children need solid phonemic awareness training for phonics instruction to be effective."

It is essential for students to understand that words are made up of individual sounds, and they can blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds. If students can do this work through the air, we can transfer these skills to print, so they can read and spell more words.

How Does Phonological Awareness Develop?

It is important to support and scaffold students through the continuum of phonological awareness to allow them to eventually hear and manipulate those individual sounds in words- the phonemic awareness level. The image of the ladder below shows the continuum of phonological awareness. When providing instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, we begin at the phonological level. It is much easier to hear the bigger units of language versus the individual sounds in a word. For example, asking children to segment pencil into two-syllables, /pen/ /cil/, is an easier task when compared to segmenting the word pen into three individual sounds, /p/ /e/ /n/.

The largest unit of language is a word. Instruction in phonological awareness begins at the word level when children learn that compound words can be blended, segmented, and manipulated. For example, we can blend the small words class - room together to the compound word classroom. Or the opposite, we can segment compound words into two separate words. We can say the whole word and take it apart into two smaller words: raincoat, rain - coat. We can also substitute one small word in a compound word. Say sunshine, change shine to glasses and the word is sunglasses.

Once students can blend, segment, and manipulate compound words, we narrow the unit of language they hear and do the same work with syllables. For example, we blend the three syllables /cal - en - dar/, to say the whole word calendar. Students can segment a word into syllables: elbow can be segmented into /el/ - /bow/. We can substitute a syllable in a word to make a new word: reading; change /read/ to /talk/ and the word is talking.

We can narrow the unit of language again when we focus on the onset and rime. Onset-rime is breaking apart a syllable. The onset of a word is all the sounds that come before the vowel and the rime is the vowel and all the sounds after. Students blend the onset and rime into a whole word or segment a spoken word into the onset and rime.

For example, students can blend the onset /b/ and the rime /ig/ into the word /b-ig/, big. And if we were to segment the word flip, the onset would be /fl/ and the rime would be /ip/. Onset-rime is the last level of phonological awareness and teaches students to blend and segment two parts into a word. Developing a foundation of understanding in phonological awareness prepares students to hear individual sounds and develop phoneme awareness. The chart below shares examples of tasks and activities at the phonological awareness level

Phonological Awareness Activities

How Does Phonemic Awareness Develop?

When looking at the image of the ladder, the first three rungs on the ladder are phonological awareness and the top rung on the ladder is phonemic awareness. The focus is on hearing individual sounds in spoken words. While instruction begins with phonological awareness, our end goal is phonemic awareness. Students who are phonemically aware are not only able to hear the sounds in words, they are able to isolate the sounds, blend, segment and manipulate sounds in spoken words.

For example, segmenting the word pen into the sounds /p/ /e/ /n/ is an example of a phonemic awareness task. If students can segment the word, they can then spell the word. If they can blend those sounds, they can read the word. Additionally, if students can substitute the /p/ to a /h/, they can make a new word - hen. Phonemic awareness training provides students with the skills necessary to read and spell words when they see these sounds in print.

There are several skills included in phonemic awareness instruction and the chart below shares examples of skills and tasks at the phonemic awareness level.

Phonemic Awareness Activities

Phoneme Isolation

Phoneme isolation is a skill where students hear and isolate a sound at the beginning of a word, middle of a word, and end of a word, often referred to as initial, medial, and final sounds.

The first sound in the word name is /n/.

The final sound in the word bark is /k/.
The medial or vowel sound in the word cup is /u/.

Blending (parts to whole)

Blending is a skill that directly correlates to phonic decoding. Students hear sounds spoken aloud and they blend the sounds to make a word. During instruction, the teacher provides the phonemes and the students blend the phonemes into a whole word.

/s/ /u/ /n/, sun

/b/ /r/ /ā/ /k/, break
/p/ /r/ /i/ /s/, price

Segment (whole to parts)

Segmenting is a skill that directly correlates to encoding or spelling. Students hear a whole word and they segment the word into all the individual sounds they hear. During instruction, a teacher would say a whole word and students segment the word into individual phonemes.

Phoneme Manipulation:

Add

Delete
Substitute
Phoneme manipulation is practiced with adding a phoneme, deleting a phoneme, or substituting a phoneme in spoken words.

Adding an initial sound to make a word: Add /s/ to /-at/ and the word is sat

Deleting an initial sound from a word: Say cup. Without /k/, what's left is, /-up/.

Substituting an initial sound: The word is top. Change /t/ to /m/and the word is, mop.

How Do You Teach Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

Considering the research and the role phonemic awareness plays in building the foundation of reading, it is clear we owe it to our students to do better. All students benefit from explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness. In most literacy curricula, the amount of time dedicated to phonemic awareness, and the way it is presented, is not effective enough to create phonemically proficient readers. Often just a few minutes are devoted to this instruction, with varying skills taught each day. If we are going to do better for students, our instruction in phonemic awareness needs to be intentional.

For our younger learners, we should begin instruction at the phonological awareness level (compound words, syllables, onset-rime) to allow students the opportunity to blend, segment, and manipulate parts of words first before we have them do that same work with phonemes. With older learners, or struggling readers, our goal is to get to the phoneme level as quickly as possible so they can transfer these skills to reading and spelling.

Phonological and phonemic awareness skills can be divided into 3 levels: early, basic, and advanced. In the past, many educators thought the basic skills of blending and segmenting were enough to create proficient readers as these skills directly corelate to decoding and encoding. However, we now know that providing phonemic awareness instruction to the advanced level is critical.

Phonemic awareness instruction is powerful, but it does not need to take long. Dr. Heggerty created quick, 10-12 minutes lessons to provide students with the practice and repetition they needed to reach phoneme proficiency. Our lessons include all 8 phonological and phonemic awareness skills beginning with compound words and working our way to the phoneme level. Teaching these skills each day will allow our children the repetition and practice they need to hear, blend, segment and manipulate sounds in words.

How Do You Assess Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

We can assess students' phonemic awareness in many ways. Universal screeners, such as DIBELS or Acadience, assess some skills and can be an indicator that we need to "dig deeper" or learn more about certain students. Other assessments include the PAST or our Heggerty Phonemic Awareness assessments which provide more information by assessing more skills.

Because phonemic awareness is oral and auditory, assessments are completed one-on-one and can be time consuming to administer. A quick and effective way to check in on students' phonemic awareness is listening to their responses during instruction. You can rotate rows when students are sitting on the carpet and have a focus group each week. Once students know most of their letters and sounds, looking at their writing will show you what sounds they are hearing in words as they map those sounds to print. Similarly, listening to students sound out or decode words is a way to assess their ability to blend sounds into words

The Foundation for Literacy Development

In her blog post Of 'Hard Words' and Straw Men: Let's Understand What Reading Science is Really About Louisa Moats notes that, "Perhaps the most critical and least-practiced component of effective early instruction is phoneme awareness. Awareness of the sounds that make up spoken words, facility at manipulating those sounds, and the links between speech and print must be mastered for students to be fluent readers and accurate spellers of an alphabetic writing system like ours."

Both phonological and phonemic awareness focus on the sounds in language. We begin our instruction at the phonological level and narrow the unit of language until we can work at the phoneme level. focuses on teaching students to hear the specific sounds in words and is essential for literacy instruction.

It is important for students to be explicitly taught how to hear sounds in words to help them blend, segment, and manipulate those sounds. When a student has phoneme proficiency, they are able to transfer the oral and auditory skills to print to be able to read and spell words. Phonemic awareness is the necessary foundation for creating proficient readers and writers.

References:

Liben, David & Liben, MeredithKnow Better, Do Better. LIteracy Solutions, 2019.

Blevins, Wiley. Phonics from A to Z. 2017

Moats, Louisa. Of 'Hard Words' and Straw Men: Let's Understand What Reading Science is Really About, Oct 16, 2019

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What are Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness?

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When we talk about foundations of literacy, three "PH" words often come to mind: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. We see these terms when we view grade level reading standards, reading research, and built into reading lessons found in many core reading series. Both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are oral and auditory, and...

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This is a great program for K/1 and low 2's and 3's.

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A love of reading starts with a solid foundation A love of reading starts with a solid foundation The Heggerty Way Bridge to Reading Our...

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Brent Conway has become a voice and advocate for instructional leaders who are shifting classroom instruction to the science of reading. His experience with curricula and his wealth of knowledge about the best practices for reading instruction has positively impacted instruction throughout his school district and in districts throughout the state of Massachusetts. Brent sat down with me for a short interview, sharing his experience with implementing and using the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness curriculum in his school district.

Share a little bit about your school district and your shift to implementing instruction aligned to the Science of Reading.

Pentucket Regional School District is a small school district with 2500 students in PK-Grade 12 from three small towns in the north eastern corner of Massachusetts. Students from West Newbury, Groveland and Merrimac MA attend elementary schools in their home towns through grade 6, then join up on the secondary campus from grades 7-12. In 2022 we will open a new Middle-High School.

In 2018 Dr. Justin Bartholomew was named Superintendent and I joined him as the Assistant Superintendent.

The district had been seeing a decline in student performance in literacy and math for a few years and there had not been a coordinated approach to curriculum in the elementary schools from the three towns. We began with professional development on the 5 essential components of literacy, using Scarborough's rope to anchor our professional learning of literacy instruction and how to do plan and teach those in a tiered manner. We also implemented an updated DIBELS assessment and began using data meetings to review the screening assessments three times in the year to learn how the predictive measures of reading proficiency guide our instruction and intervention.

In 2019, based on the performance data and at the recommendation of our literacy specialists, we implemented Heggerty Phonemic Awareness curriculum in PreK-Grade 2 and further advanced our knowledge and use of data, moving away from the use of leveled assessments and focused our professional development on writing instruction at K-Grade 6. We also began the process of developing a comprehensive literacy plan.

This year, amidst the reopening of schools in a hybrid model and managing the pandemic, we were accepted into the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Early Literacy Grant program. This has afforded a large team of educators from all schools in the district the opportunity to learn from such experts as Dr. David Kilpatrick and Dr. Melissa Orkin as we learn about evidenced based practices grounded in the science about how we learn to read. We are continuing our journey, expanding our professional capacity and look forward to the positive results.

How did you learn about Heggerty Phonemic Awareness?

We recognized from our DIBELS data that our students' early phonological skills demonstrated some deficits. Beth Villani, one of our Reading Specialists, brought the Heggerty Curriculum to our attention and felt that it would complement Fundations, which we're using for our phonics program. Our literacy team discussed it and moved ahead with the purchase and planning the professional development.

Why did you choose to include a professional development session for your teachers who were going to be implementing Heggerty?

We had done some professional development on the essential components of literacy prior to adopting Heggerty. However, we thought it was important that staff understood the purpose of teaching phonemic awareness to our emerging readers, especially with how it complemented our phonics curriculum. The professional development offered was the perfect balance of what teachers needed. It provided background on the importance of phonemic awareness and how it enhances a students early reading development along with an overview, explanation and demonstration of how to specifically use the Heggerty curriculum in short daily lessons.

How have you been able to measure growth or success with Heggerty in your schools?

Obviously our timing with implementation was interrupted by school closures with COVID. However, we were able to gather data from the fall of 2019 when we implemented and see the growth to the winter DIBELS assessment in 2020 just prior to schools closing. We were able to get our Kindergarten students to reach 93% at or above the at-risk score with the Phonemic Segmentation portion of the DIBELS assessment with just 5 months of use with Heggerty. In prior years we typically averaged 74% at that level by mid-year.

Can you share 2 or 3 words that come to mind when you think about Heggerty Phonemic Awareness?

Quick, fun and impactful.

A big thank you to Brent for taking the time for this interview! Interested in learning more? You can follow Brent Conway on Twitter.

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Case Study: Brent Conway from Pentucket Regional School District | Heggerty

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Brent Conway has become a voice and advocate for instructional leaders who are shifting classroom instruction to the science of reading. His experience with curricula and his wealth of knowledge about the best practices for reading instruction has positively impacted instruction throughout his school district and in districts throughout the state of Massachusetts.

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Most students need explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics.

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Most students need explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics.

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[Editorial Note: This infographic has been updated. Please to access the current version on Nancy Young's website.}

By Georgette Dickman

Nancy Young, a member of IDA, holds a Master's of Education in Special Education with a focus on dyslexia. She has extensive experience and knowledge in teaching evidence-based approaches in reading, spelling, and writing to parents, teachers, and students. In schools across Canada, Young provides professional development that includes coaching, assessment, IEP planning, and reading/writing program development and evaluation. She is the author of Secret Code Actions, a book that offers the instructional basics most children need to learn the code using creative movement as an integral part of instruction.

The concept of The Ladder of Reading emerged during Young's lectures with teachers and parents who believed the myth that Structured Literacy was only beneficial and necessary for struggling readers. To counter that misunderstanding, she created an infographic featuring the categories and percentages that illustrated the ratio of individuals who require an explicit, sequential, systematic, phonics-based approach to learning to read, compared to the small proportion of individuals who learn to read effortlessly. With a few well-chosen words, the Ladder conveys the point, frequently unknown, that a Structured Literacy approach to beginning reading is advantageous for most students.

Infographics are visual presentations with minimal text to explain complex information. Under Young's direction, Dean Stanton's artwork features three smiling children in various stages of learning to read. To show that learning to read should be exciting and fun, the children are waving and happy. The Ladder of Reading is the mechanism that provides support as the students build their reading skills. At the top of the Ladder, the little bird symbolizes independence and indicates that skilled reading has been achieved. At this point, with basic skills mastered, the students fly away and comprehend on their own. Finally, The Ladder of Reading chart is color-coded from red (risk area) that demands a Structured Literacy approach to green (safety area) that is advantaged by a Structured Literacy approach.

It is clear that Nancy Young's infographic has hit its mark!
For more on the statistics underpinning Nancy Young's infographic, please click here: The Ladder of Reading Statistics. For a gallery of other IDA and third-party infographics, please visit our Infographics page. Do you have an infographic you would like to be considered for publication in IDA's Infographics gallery? Send inquiries with links/.jpgs to communications@dyslexia.org. Copyright © 2018 International Dyslexia Association (IDA). Opinions expressed in The Examiner and/or via links do not necessarily reflect those of IDA. We encourage sharing of Examiner articles. If portions are cited, please make appropriate reference. Articles may not be reprinted for the purpose of resale. Permission to republish this article is available from info@dyslexiaida.org.

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Ladder of Reading & Writing© Infographic - International Dyslexia Association

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Nancy Young, a member of IDA, holds a Master's of Education in Special Education with a focus on dyslexia. She has extensive experience and knowledge in

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Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don’t know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids are being set up to fail.

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Listen to this audio documentary on the Educate podcast. Subscribe now.

Molly Woodworth was a kid who seemed to do well at everything: good grades, in the gifted and talented program. But she couldn't read very well.

"There was no rhyme or reason to reading for me," she said. "When a teacher would dictate a word and say, 'Tell me how you think you can spell it,' I sat there with my mouth open while other kids gave spellings, and I thought, 'How do they even know where to begin?' I was totally lost."

Woodworth went to public school in Owosso, Michigan, in the 1990s. She says sounds and letters just didn't make sense to her, and she doesn't remember anyone teaching her how to read. So she came up with her own strategies to get through text.

Strategy 1: Memorize as many words as possible. "Words were like pictures to me," she said. "I had a really good memory."

Strategy 2: Guess the words based on context. If she came across a word she didn't have in her visual memory bank, she'd look at the first letter and come up with a word that seemed to make sense. Reading was kind of like a game of 20 Questions: What word could this be?

Strategy 3: If all else failed, she'd skip the words she didn't know.

Most of the time, she could get the gist of what she was reading. But getting through text took forever. "I hated reading because it was taxing," she said. "I'd get through a chapter and my brain hurt by the end of it. I wasn't excited to learn."

No one knew how much she struggled, not even her parents. Her reading strategies were her "dirty little secrets."

Woodworth, who now works in accounting, 1 says she's still not a very good reader and tears up when she talks about it. Reading "influences every aspect of your life," she said. She's determined to make sure her own kids get off to a better start than she did.

That's why she was so alarmed to see how her oldest child, Claire, was being taught to read in school.

As long as this disproven theory remains part of American education, many kids will likely struggle to learn how to read.

A couple of years ago, Woodworth was volunteering in Claire's kindergarten classroom. The class was reading a book together and the teacher was telling the children to practice the strategies that good readers use.

The teacher said, "If you don't know the word, just look at this picture up here," Woodworth recalled. "There was a fox and a bear in the picture. And the word was bear, and she said, 'Look at the first letter. It's a "b." Is it fox or bear?'"

Woodworth was stunned. "I thought, 'Oh my God, those are my strategies.' Those are the things I taught myself to look like a good reader, not the things that good readers do," she said. "These kids were being taught my dirty little secrets."

She went to the teacher and expressed her concerns. The teacher told her she was teaching reading the way the curriculum told her to.

Woodworth had stumbled on to American education's own little secret about reading: Elementary schools across the country are teaching children to be poor readers - and educators may not even know it.

For decades, reading instruction in American schools has been rooted in a flawed theory about how reading works, a theory that was debunked decades ago by cognitive scientists, yet remains deeply embedded in teaching practices and curriculum materials. As a result, the strategies that struggling readers use to get by - memorizing words, using context to guess words, skipping words they don't know - are the strategies that many beginning readers are taught in school. This makes it harder for many kids to learn how to read, and children who don't get off to a good start in reading find it difficult to ever master the process. 2

A shocking number of kids in the United States can't read very well. A third of all fourth-graders can't read at a basic level, and most students are still not proficient readers by the time they finish high school.
Percentage of U.S. fourth-graders below basic level in reading
When kids struggle to learn how to read, it can lead to a downward spiral in which behavior, vocabulary, knowledge and other cognitive skills are eventually affected by slow reading development. 3 A disproportionate number of poor readers become high school dropouts and end up in the criminal justice system. 4

The fact that a disproven theory about how reading works is still driving the way many children are taught to read is part of the problem. School districts spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on curriculum materials that include this theory. Teachers are taught the theory in their teacher preparation programs and on the job. As long as this disproven theory remains part of American education, many kids will likely struggle to learn how to read.
Percentage of U.S. 12th-graders proficient in reading
The origins

The theory is known as "three cueing." The name comes from the notion that readers use three different kinds of information - or "cues" - to identify words as they are reading.

The theory was first proposed in 1967, when an education professor named Ken Goodman presented a paper at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City.

In the paper, 5 Goodman rejected the idea that reading is a precise process that involves exact or detailed perception of letters or words. Instead, he argued that as people read, they make predictions about the words on the page using these three cues:

graphic cues (what do the letters tell you about what the word might be?)

syntactic cues (what kind of word could it be, for example, a noun or a verb?)

semantic cues (what word would make sense here, based on the context?)

Goodman concluded that:

Skill in reading involves not greater precision, but more accurate first guesses based on better sampling techniques, greater control over language structure, broadened experiences and increased conceptual development. As the child develops reading skill and speed, he uses increasingly fewer graphic cues.

Goodman's proposal became the theoretical basis for a new approach to teaching reading that would soon take hold in American schools.

Previously, the question of how to teach reading had focused on one of two basic ideas.

One idea is that reading is a visual memory process. The teaching method associated with this idea is known as "whole word." The whole word approach was perhaps best embodied in the "Dick and Jane" books that first appeared in the 1930s. The books rely on word repetition, and pictures to support the meaning of the text. The idea is that if you see words enough, you eventually store them in your memory as visual images.

The other idea is that reading requires knowledge of the relationships between sounds and letters. Children learn to read by sounding out words. This approach is known as phonics. It goes way back, popularized in the 1800s with the McGuffey readers.

These two ideas - whole word and phonics - had been taking turns as the favored way to teach reading until Goodman came along with what came to be known among educators as the "three-cueing system."

In the cueing theory of how reading works, when a child comes to a word she doesn't know, the teacher encourages her to think of a word that makes sense and asks: Does it look right? Does it sound right? If a word checks out on the basis of those questions, the child is getting it. She's on the path to skilled reading.

Teachers may not know the term "three cueing," but they're probably familiar with "MSV." M stands for using meaning to figure out what a word is, S for using sentence structure and V for using visual information (i.e., the letters in the words). MSV is a cueing idea that can be traced back to the late Marie Clay, a developmental psychologist from New Zealand who first laid out her theories about reading in a dissertation in the 1960s. 6

Clay developed her cueing theory independently of Goodman, but they met several times and had similar ideas about the reading process. Their theories were based on observational research. They would listen to children read, note the kinds of errors they made, and use that information to identify a child's reading difficulties. For example, a child who says "horse" when the word was "house" is probably relying too much on visual, or graphic, cues. A teacher in this case would encourage the child to pay more attention to what word would make sense in the sentence.

Goodman and Clay believed that letters were the least reliable of the three cues, and that as people became better readers, they no longer needed to pay attention to all the letters in words. "In efficient word perception the reader relies mostly on the sentence and its meaning and some selected features of the forms of words," Clay wrote. 7 For Goodman, accurate word recognition was not necessarily the goal of reading. The goal was to comprehend text. 8 If the sentences were making sense, the reader must be getting the words right, or right enough.

These ideas soon became the foundation for how reading was taught in many schools. Goodman's three-cueing idea formed the theoretical basis of an approach known as "whole language" that by the late 1980s had taken hold throughout America. 9 Clay built her cueing ideas into a reading intervention program for struggling first-graders called Reading Recovery. It was implemented across New Zealand in the 1980s and went on to become one of the world's most widely used reading intervention programs. 10

But while cueing was taking hold in schools, scientists were busy studying the cognitive processes involved in reading words. And they came to different conclusions about how people read. 11

Scientists take on three cueing

It was the early 1970s, and Keith Stanovich was working on his doctorate in psychology at the University of Michigan. He thought the reading field was ready for an infusion of knowledge from the "cognitive revolution" that was underway in psychology. Stanovich had a background in experimental science and an interest in learning and cognition due in part to the influence of his wife, Paula, who was a special education teacher.

Stanovich wanted to understand how people read words. 12 He knew about Goodman's work and thought he was probably right that as people become better readers, they relied more on their knowledge of vocabulary and language structure to read words and didn't need to pay as much attention to the letters.

So, in 1975, Stanovich and a fellow graduate student set out to test the idea in their lab. They recruited readers of various ages and abilities and gave them a series of word-reading tasks. Their hypothesis was that skilled readers rely more on contextual cues to recognize words than poor readers, who probably weren't as good at using context.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

"To our surprise, all of our research results pointed in the opposite direction," Stanovich wrote. "It was the poorer readers, not the more skilled readers, who were more reliant on context to facilitate word recognition." 13

The skilled readers could instantly recognize words without relying on context. Other researchers have confirmed these findings with similar experiments. It turns out that the ability to read words in isolation quickly and accurately is the hallmark of being a skilled reader. This is now one of the most consistent and well-replicated findings in all of reading research. 14

Other studies revealed further problems with the cueing theory: 15

Skilled readers don't scan words and sample from the graphic cues in an incidental way; instead, they very quickly recognize a word as a sequence of letters. That's how good readers instantly know the difference between "house" and "horse," for example.

Experiments that force people to use context to predict words show that even skilled readers can correctly guess only a fraction of the words; this is one reason people who rely on context to identify words are poor readers.

Weak word recognition skills are the most common and debilitating source of reading problems. 16

The results of these studies are not controversial or contested among scientists who study reading. The findings have been incorporated into every major scientific model of how reading works.

But cueing is still alive and well in schools.

Picture Power!

It's not hard to find examples of the cueing system. A quick search on Google, Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers turns up plenty of lesson plans, teaching guides and classroom posters. One popular poster has cute cartoon characters to remind children they have lots of strategies to use when they're stuck on a word, including looking at the picture (Eagle Eye), getting their lips ready to try the first sound (Lips the Fish), or just skipping the word altogether (Skippy Frog).

There are videos online where you can see cueing in action. In one video posted on The Teaching Channel, 17 a kindergarten teacher in Oakland, California, instructs her students to use "picture power" to identify the words on the page. The goal of the lesson, according to the teacher, is for the students to "use the picture and a first sound to determine an unknown word in their book."

The class reads a book together called "In the Garden." On each page, there's a picture of something you might find in a garden. It's what's known as a predictable book; the sentences are all the same except for the last word.

The children have been taught to memorize the words "look," "at," and "the." The challenge is getting the last word in the sentence. The lesson plan tells the teacher to cover up the word with a sticky note.

In the video, the wiggly kindergarteners sitting cross-legged on the floor come to a page with a picture of a butterfly. The teacher tells the kids that she's guessing the word is going to be butterfly. She uncovers the word to check on the accuracy of her guess.

"Look at that," she tells the children, pointing to the first letter of the word. "It starts with the /b/ /b/ /b/." The class reads the sentence together as the teacher points to the words. "Look at the butterfly!" they yell out excitedly.

This lesson comes from "Units of Study for Teaching Reading," more commonly known as "reader's workshop." 18 According to the lesson plan, this lesson teaches children to "know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words." 19

But the children were not taught to decode words in this lesson. They were taught to guess words using pictures and patterns - hallmarks of the three-cueing system.

The author of Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Lucy Calkins, often refers to cueing in her published work. 20 She uses the term MSV - the meaning, structure and visual idea that originally came from Clay in New Zealand.

Then there is Fountas and Pinnell Literacy, started by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, teachers who learned the MSV concept from Clay in the 1980s. 21

Fountas and Pinnell have written several books about teaching reading, including a best-seller about a widely used instructional approach called "Guided Reading." They also created a reading assessment system that uses what are called "leveled books." 22 Children start with predictable books like "In the Garden" and move up levels as they're able to "read" the words. But many of the words in those books - butterfly, caterpillar - are words that beginning readers haven't been taught to decode yet. One purpose of the books is to teach children that when they get to a word they don't know, they can use context to figure it out.

When put into practice in the classroom, these approaches can cause problems for children when they are learning to read.

'That is not reading'

Margaret Goldberg, a teacher and literacy coach in the Oakland Unified School District, remembers a moment when she realized what a problem the three-cueing approach was. She was with a first-grader named Rodney when he came to a page with a picture of a girl licking an ice cream cone and a dog licking a bone.

The text said: "My little dog likes to eat with me."

But Rodney said: "My dog likes to lick his bone."

Rodney breezed right through it, unaware that he hadn't read the sentence on the page.

Goldberg realized lots of her students couldn't actually read the words in their books; instead, they were memorizing sentence patterns and using the pictures to guess. One little boy exclaimed, "I can read this book with my eyes shut!"

"Oh no," Goldberg thought. "That is not reading."

Goldberg had been hired by the Oakland schools in 2015 to help struggling readers by teaching a Fountas and Pinnell program called "Leveled Literacy Intervention" that uses leveled books and the cueing approach. 23

Around the same time, Goldberg was trained in a program that uses a different strategy for teaching children how to read words. The program is called "Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words," or SIPPS. 24 It's a phonics program that teaches children how to sound out words and uses what are known as "decodable books." Most words in the books have spelling patterns that kids have been taught in their phonics lessons.

Goldberg decided to teach some of her students using the phonics program and some of her students using three cueing. And she began to notice differences between the two groups of kids. "Not just in their abilities to read," she said, "but in the way they approached their reading."

Goldberg and a colleague recorded first-graders talking about what makes them good readers.

One video shows Mia, on the left, who was in the phonics program. Mia says she's a good reader because she looks at the words and sounds them out. JaBrea, on the right, was taught the cueing system. JaBrea says: "I look at the pictures and I read it."

Courtesy of Margaret Goldberg, Oakland Unified School District

It was clear to Goldberg after just a few months of teaching both approaches that the students learning phonics were doing better. "One of the things that I still struggle with is a lot of guilt," she said.

She thinks the students who learned three cueing were actually harmed by the approach. "I did lasting damage to these kids. It was so hard to ever get them to stop looking at a picture to guess what a word would be. It was so hard to ever get them to slow down and sound a word out because they had had this experience of knowing that you predict what you read before you read it."

Goldberg soon discovered the decades of scientific evidence against cueing. 25 She was shocked. She had never come across any of this science in her teacher preparation or on the job.

And she started to wonder why not.

Balanced Literacy

People have been arguing for centuries about how children should be taught to read. The fight has mostly focused on whether to teach phonics.

The whole language movement of the late 20th century was perhaps the zenith of the anti-phonics argument. 26 Phonics instruction was seen as tedious, time-consuming and ultimately unnecessary. Why? Because - according to the three-cueing theory - readers can use other, more reliable cues to figure out what the words say. 27

Marilyn Adams came across this belief in the early 1990s. She's a cognitive and developmental psychologist who had just written a book summarizing the research on how children learn to read. 28 One big takeaway from the book is that becoming a skilled reader of English requires knowledge of sound-spelling correspondences. 29 Another big takeaway is that many kids were not being taught this in school.

Soon after the book was published, Adams was describing her findings to a group of teachers and state education officials in Sacramento, California. She was sensing discomfort and confusion in the room. "And I just stopped and said, 'What is it that I'm missing?'" she recalled. "'What is it that we need to talk about? Help me.'"

A woman raised her hand and asked: "What does this have to do with the three-cueing system?" Marilyn didn't know what the three-cueing system was. "I think I blew all of their fuses that I did not [know what it was] since this was so fundamental to being an elementary reading teacher," she said. "How could I present myself to them as an expert on reading and not know about this?"

The teachers drew her a Venn diagram of the three-cueing system. It looked something like this:

Adams thought this diagram made perfect sense. The research clearly shows that readers use all of these cues to understand what they're reading.

But Adams soon figured out the disconnect. Teachers understood these cues not just as the way readers construct meaning from text, but as the way readers actually identify the words on the page. And they thought that teaching kids to decode or sound out words was not necessary.

"The most important thing was for the children to understand and enjoy the text," Adams said. "And from that understanding and joy of reading, the words on the page would just pop out at them."

She would explain to teachers at every opportunity that explicitly teaching children about the relationships between sounds and letters is essential to ensure all kids get off to a good start in reading. But she got tons of pushback from teachers. "They didn't want to teach phonics!" she recalled in frustration.

In 1998, Adams wrote a book chapter about how the three-cueing system conflicts with what researchers have figured out about reading. She hoped it would help put three cueing to rest. 30

By this time, the scientific research on reading was gaining traction. In 2000, a national panel convened by Congress to review the evidence on how to teach reading came out with a report. 31 It identified several essential components of reading instruction, including vocabulary, comprehension and phonics. The evidence that phonics instruction enhances children's success in learning how to read was clear and compelling. National reports on reading a few years later in the United Kingdom and Australia came to the same conclusion. 32

"When I got into the classroom and someone told me to use this practice, I didn't question it."-Stacey Cherny

Eventually, many whole language supporters accepted the weight of the scientific evidence about the importance of phonics instruction. They started adding phonics to their books and materials and renamed their approach "balanced literacy."

But they didn't get rid of the three-cueing system.

Balanced literacy proponents will tell you their approach is a mix of phonics instruction with plenty of time for kids to read and enjoy books. But look carefully at the materials and you'll see that's not really what balanced literacy is mixing. Instead, it's mixing a bunch of different ideas about how kids learn to read. It's a little bit of whole word instruction with long lists of words for kids to memorize. It's a little bit of phonics. And fundamentally, it's the idea that children should be taught to read using the three-cueing system.

And it turns out cueing may actually prevent kids from focusing on words in the way they need to become skilled readers.

Mapping the words

To understand why cueing can get in the way of children's reading development, it's essential to understand how our brains process the words we see.

Reading scientists have known for decades that the hallmark of being a skilled reader is the ability to instantly and accurately recognize words. 33 If you're a skilled reader, your brain has gotten so good at reading words that you process the word "chair" faster than you process a picture of a chair. 34 You know tens of thousands of words instantly, on sight. How did you learn to do that?

It happens through a process called "orthographic mapping." 35 This occurs when you pay attention to the details of a written word and link the word's pronunciation and meaning with its sequence of letters. 36 A child knows the meaning and pronunciation of "pony." The word gets mapped to his memory when he links the sounds /p/ /o/ /n/ /y/ to the written word "pony."

That requires an awareness of the speech sounds in words and an understanding of how those sounds are represented by letters. 37 In other words, you need phonics skills.

Here's what happens when a reader who has good phonics skills comes to a word she doesn't recognize in print. She stops at the word and sounds it out. If it's a word she knows the meaning of, she has now linked the spelling of the word with its pronunciation. If she doesn't know the meaning of the word, she can use context to try to figure it out.

By about second grade, a typically developing reader needs just a few exposures to a word through understanding both the pronunciation and the spelling for that word to be stored in her memory. 38 She doesn't know that word because she memorized it as a visual image. She knows that word because at some point she successfully sounded it out.

The more words she stores in her memory this way, the more she can focus on the meaning of what she's reading; she'll eventually be using less brain power to identify words and will be able to devote more brain power to comprehending what she's reading. 39

But when children don't have good phonics skills, the process is different.

"They sample from the letters because they're not good at sounding them out," said David Kilpatrick, a psychology professor at SUNY Cortland and the author of a book about preventing reading difficulties. 40 "And they use context."

In other words, when people don't have good phonics skills, they use the cueing system.

"The three-cueing system is the way poor readers read," said Kilpatrick.

And if teachers use the cueing system to teach reading, Kilpatrick says they're not just teaching children the habits of poor readers, they are actually impeding the orthographic mapping process. 41

"The minute you ask them just to pay attention to the first letter or look at the picture, look at the context, you're drawing their attention away from the very thing that they need to interact with in order for them to read the word [and] remember the word," Kilpatrick said. In this way, he said, three cueing can actually prevent the critical learning that's necessary for a child to become a skilled reader.

In many balanced literacy classrooms, children are taught phonics and the cueing system. Some kids who are taught both approaches realize pretty quickly that sounding out a word is the most efficient and reliable way to know what it is. Those kids tend to have an easier time understanding the ways that sounds and letters relate. They'll drop the cueing strategies and begin building that big bank of instantly known words that is so necessary for skilled reading.

But some children will skip the sounding out if they're taught they have other options. Phonics is challenging for many kids. The cueing strategies seem quicker and easier at first. And by using context and memorizing a bunch of words, many children can look like good readers - until they get to about third grade, when their books begin to have more words, longer words, and fewer pictures. Then they're stuck. They haven't developed their sounding-out skills. Their bank of known words is limited. Reading is slow and laborious and they don't like it, so they don't do it if they don't have to. While their peers who mastered decoding early are reading and teaching themselves new words every day, the kids who clung to the cueing approach are falling further and further behind. 42

These poor reading habits, once ingrained at a young age, can follow kids into high school. Some kids who were taught the cueing approach never become good readers. Not because they're incapable of learning to read well but because they were taught the strategies of struggling readers.

'So what if they use the picture?'

Once Margaret Goldberg discovered the cognitive science evidence against cueing, she wanted her colleagues in the Oakland school district to know about it too.

Over the past two years, Goldberg and a fellow literacy coach named Lani Mednick have been leading a grant-funded pilot project to improve reading achievement in the Oakland schools. 43

They have their work cut out for them. Nearly half the district's third-graders are below grade level in reading. Goldberg and Mednick want to raise questions about how kids in Oakland are being taught to read.

They meet every couple weeks with literacy coaches from the 10 elementary schools in the pilot program. They read and discuss articles about the scientific research on reading. At a meeting in March, the coaches watched the video of the "picture power" lesson.

"This teacher meant well," Mednick said to the coaches after they watched the lesson. "It seemed like she believed this lesson would ensure her students would be on the road toward reading."

Mednick wanted the coaches to consider the beliefs about reading that would lead to the creation of a lesson like "picture power." The Oakland schools purchased the Units of Study for Teaching Reading series, which includes the "picture power" lesson, as part of a balanced literacy initiative the district began about 10 years ago. The district also bought the Fountas and Pinnell assessment system.

The coaches saw right away that "picture power" was designed to teach kids the cueing system. But they said many teachers don't see any problem with cueing. After all, one of the cues is to look at the letters in the word. What's wrong with teaching kids lots of different strategies to figure out unknown words? 44

"I remember before we started looking at the science and everything, I thought to myself, 'Reading is so hard for kids, so what if they use the picture?'" said Soraya Sajous-Brooks, the early literacy coach at Prescott Elementary School in West Oakland. "Like, use everything you've got."

But she's come to understand that cueing sends the message to kids that they don't need to sound out words. Her students would get phonics instruction in one part of the day. Then they'd go reader's workshop and be taught that when they come to a word they don't know, they have lots of strategies. They can sound it out. They can also check the first letter, look at the picture, think of a word that makes sense.

Teaching cueing and phonics doesn't work, Sajous-Brooks said. "One negates the other."

Goldberg and Mednick want to show the district there's a better way to teach reading. Schools in the pilot project used grant money to buy new materials that steer clear of the three-cueing idea. Two charter school networks in Oakland are working on similar projects to move their schools away from cueing.

To see what it looks like, I visited a first-grade classroom at a charter school in Oakland called Achieve Academy. 45

One part of the day was explicit phonics instruction. 46 The students were divided into small groups based on their skill level. They met with their teacher, Andrea Ruiz, at a kidney-shaped table in a corner of the classroom. The lowest-level group worked on identifying the speech sounds in words like "skin" and "skip." The highest-level group learned how verbs like "spy" and "cry" are spelled as "spied' and 'cried" in the past tense.

There were also vocabulary lessons. 47 The entire class gathered on a rug at the front of the classroom to talk about a book Ms. Ruiz read out loud to them. One of the words in the book was "prey."

"What animals are a chameleon's prey?" Ms. Ruiz asked the children. "Or we can also ask, what animals do chameleons hunt for food?"

The kids turned and talked to each other. "A chameleon's prey are bugs and insects and other chameleons and mice and birds," a little boy explained to his classmate. "That's it."

Other vocabulary words these first-graders had learned were posted on cards around the classroom. They included: wander, persevere, squint and scrumptious. The kids weren't expected to read those words yet. The idea is to build their oral vocabulary so that when they can read those words, they know what the words mean.

This comes straight from the scientific research, which shows that reading comprehension is the product of two things. 48 First, a child needs to be able to sound out a word. Second, the child needs to know the meaning of the word she just sounded out. So, in a first-grade classroom that's following the research, you will see explicit phonics instruction and also lessons that build oral vocabulary and background knowledge. And you will see kids practicing what they've been taught.

After their vocabulary lesson, the kids did "buddy reading." They retreated to various spots around the classroom to read books to each other. I found Belinda sitting on an adult chair at the back of the classroom, her little legs swinging. Across from her was her buddy Steven, decked out in a yellow and blue plaid shirt tucked neatly into his jeans. He held the book and pointed to the words while Belinda read.

"Ellen /m/," Belinda paused, sounding out the word "meets." She was reading a decodable book about some kids who visit a farm. Almost all of the words in the book contain spelling patterns she'd been taught in her phonics lessons.

"I am a farm here," Belinda read.

Steven did a double-take. "A farmer here," he said gently. Steven's job as Belinda's reading buddy was to help her if she missed a word or got stuck. But that didn't happen much because Belinda had been taught how to read the words. She didn't need any help from the pictures, either. She barely glanced at them as she read.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with pictures. They're great to look at and talk about, and they can help a child comprehend the meaning of a story. Context - including a picture if there is one - helps us understand what we're reading all the time. But if a child is being taught to use context to identify words, she's being taught to read like a poor reader.

Many educators don't know this because the cognitive science research has not made its way into many schools and schools of education. 49

Ruiz didn't know about this research until the Oakland pilot project. "I didn't really know anything about how kids learn to read when I started teaching," she said. It was a relief when she came to Oakland and the curriculum spelled out that kids use meaning, structure and visual cues to figure out words. "Because I came from not having anything, I was like, 'Oh, there's a way we should teach this,'" she said.

I heard this from other educators. Cueing was appealing because they didn't know what else to do.

"When I got into the classroom and someone told me to use this practice, I didn't question it," said Stacey Cherny, a former teacher who's now principal of an elementary school in Pennsylvania. She says many teachers aren't taught what they need to know about the structure of the English language to be able to teach phonics well. She says phonics can be intimidating; three cueing isn't.

Another reason cueing holds on is that it seems to work for some children. But researchers estimate there's a percentage of kids - perhaps about 40 percent - who will learn to read no matter how they're taught. 50 According to Kilpatrick, children who learn to read with cueing are succeeding in spite of the instruction, not because of it.

Goldberg hopes the pilot project in Oakland will convince the district to drop all instructional materials that include cueing.

When asked about this, the Oakland superintendent's office responded with a written statement that there isn't enough evidence from the pilot project to make curriculum changes for the entire district and that the Oakland schools remain committed to balanced literacy.

Oakland's situation is no different from many other districts across the country that have invested millions of dollars in materials that include cueing.

"It feels like everyone's trusting somebody else to have done their due diligence," Goldberg said. "Classroom teachers are trusting that the materials they're being handed will work. The people who purchase the materials are trusting if they were on the market, that they will work. We're all trusting, and it's a system that is broken."

'My science is different'

If cueing was debunked decades ago by cognitive scientists, why is the idea still in materials that are being sold to schools?

One answer to that question is that school districts still buy the materials. Heinemann, the company that publishes the Fountas and Pinnell and Lucy Calkins' products that the Oakland schools use, earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million in 2018, according to earnings reports. 51

I wanted to know what the authors of those materials make of the cognitive science research. And I wanted to give them a chance to explain the ideas behind their work. I wrote to Calkins, Fountas and Pinnell and asked for interviews. They all declined. Heinemann sent a statement that said every product the company sells is informed by extensive research.

I also asked Ken Goodman for an interview. It's been more than 50 years since he first laid out the three-cueing theory in that 1967 paper. I wanted to know what he thinks of the cognitive science research. Of the major proponents of three cueing I reached out to, he was the only one who agreed to an interview.

I visited Goodman at his home in Tucson, Arizona. He's 91. He uses a scooter to get around, but he's still working. He just finished a new edition of one of his books.

When I asked him what he makes of the cognitive science research, he told me he thinks scientists focus too much on word recognition. He still doesn't believe accurate word recognition is necessary for reading comprehension.

"Word recognition is a preoccupation," he said. "I don't teach word recognition. I teach people to make sense of language. And learning the words is incidental to that."

He brought up the example of a child who comes to the word "horse" and says "pony" instead. His argument is that a child will still understand the meaning of the story because horse and pony are the same concept.

I pressed him on this. First of all, a pony isn't the same thing as a horse. Second, don't you want to make sure that when a child is learning to read, he understands that /p/ /o/ /n/ /y/ says "pony"? And different letters say "horse"?

He dismissed my question.

"The purpose is not to learn words," he said. "The purpose is to make sense."

Cognitive scientists don't dispute that the purpose of reading is to make sense of the text. But the question is: How can you understand what you are reading if you can't accurately read the words? And if quick and accurate word recognition is the hallmark of being a skilled reader, how does a little kid get there?

Goodman rejected the idea that you can make a distinction between skilled readers and unskilled readers; he doesn't like the value judgment that implies. He said dyslexia does not exist - despite lots of evidence that it does. 52 And he said the three-cueing theory is based on years of observational research. In his view, three cueing is perfectly valid, drawn from a different kind of evidence than what scientists collect in their labs.

"My science is different," Goodman said.

This idea that there are different kinds of evidence that lead to different conclusions about how reading works is one reason people continue to disagree about how children should be taught to read. It's important for educators to understand that three cueing is based on theory and observational research and that there's decades of scientific evidence from labs all over the world that converges on a very different idea about skilled reading.

The cognitive science does not provide all the answers about how to teach children to read, but on the question of how skilled readers read words, scientists have amassed a huge body of evidence.

Goldberg thinks it's time for educators across the country to take a close look at all the materials they use to teach reading.

"We should look through the materials and search for evidence of cueing," she said. "And if it's there, don't touch it. Don't let it get near our kids, don't let it get near our classrooms, our teachers."

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How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers

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For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't know there's anything wrong with it.

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I teach kindergarten. We've been arguing over whether we should teach spelling or developmental spelling. Which is best?
Shanahan response:
You're asking if learning to spell comes more surely from "transmission" (teaching by telling or demonstrating) or from "construction" (learning through discovery or operating on the world). Arguments in educational psychology have raged over this for decades.

I think the dispute - at least with regards to spelling - is misleading. The two approaches are posed as contradictory, that teachers must choose one way or the other.

I don't see it that way.

Explicit spelling versus invented spelling is a false dichotomy. I encourage both - and did so in my classroom teaching, in my research, and these days even in what I urge on my grandkids.

What does the research say? There is an extensive body of studies showing that explicit spelling instruction results in better spelling and reading and enables better writing. There is also a body of research into invented spelling showing that it results in better phonemic awareness, word reading, and spelling.

Although these approaches may appear to emerge from different philosophical positions, they both confer learning advantages to children. We should not forget that.

It's easy, of course, to caricaturize proponents of each these approaches. Those who advocate explicit instruction are unreformed behaviorists who champion spelling accuracy at the expense of creativity. Those on the invented spelling side are a bunch of Rousseau-inspired hippies rebelling against society and its rules - including spelling rules.

None of that claptrap has anything to do with the real issues. Everyone wants kids to spell well, and as I pointed out, there is plenty of research supporting both approaches.

What does it mean to "teach" developmental spelling?

Let's clear one thing up right away. Developmental spelling isn't something that you teach.

You encourage it, you nurture it, but you don't teach it, per se.

That's the whole idea of "invention." The kids are using what they know about letters, sounds, and words to try to determine reasonable spellings.

I know some on the explicit spelling side dismiss this approach as being akin to the cueing-system guessing that they deplore. But that isn't the case. One of the major reasons for engaging kids in spelling invention is to induce them to closely think about the phonemic structure of words and the relationship of those phonemes with letters.

That isn't guessing, it's analysis - analysis beneficial to kids' learning.

Not surprisingly, many phonics advocates prefer "speech-to-print phonics." Part of the reason for this may be that speech-to-print - getting kids to go from sounds to letters - provides a greater opportunity for kids to develop phonemic sensitivity.

If you have any doubts, compare the number of phonemes a nascent writer analyzes when composing a single sentence, and the number included in a good phonemic awareness lesson. That's also likely the reason that invented spelling is a better predictor than is accurate spelling of growth in reading during the first year of reading instruction (Senechal, 2017).

We encourage developmental spelling because kids may balk at writing in fear of mistakes. A lot more learning happens when students set aside those anxieties. Encouraging students, in this case, means urging them to spell the words in they think they are spelled and not to worry about getting them exactly right. "Just try," we tell them.

We also need to nurture developmental spelling. There is no learning benefit from laborious corrections. That feels like punishment and kids will avoid attempting to spell if they think their errors will lead to that. Celebrate their efforts rather than reproving them. Bring parents into this equation too - they need to know why you aren't correcting those misspellings (and that you recognize those spellings as incorrect).

One big benefit of invented spelling is that it provides teachers with a window into their students' understanding of the spelling system. It is valuable to analyze students' spelling attempts to try to understand what is going on. That way instruction can be better targeted on students' needs.

If you are uncertain how to do that, I strongly endorse Richard Gentry's books on spelling or Charles Temple et al.'s Beginnings of Writing, or Words Their Way. They all have a ton of insight and good teacherly advice.

I know some teachers and parents worry about invented spelling. Their concern is that once kids misspell a word, they will learn the error. That isn't really how it works. Young children's spellings are more fluid than that. Their hypotheses about the spelling system are based on what they know, and as they know more - from phonemic awareness and phonics lessons, and from reading words - they adjust their hypotheses.

That's where formal spelling instruction comes in (Graham, 2000). That teaching adds to what children know about words and becomes part of the grist that they mill. At first, knowing the spelling of a word likely only affects how a child spells that word but over time (memorizing isn't enough) - as children incorporate that new information into their thinking, their spelling improves more generally. Over time, they incorporate the new information, and their spelling attempts get closer and closer to accuracy.

Of course, kids make plenty of spelling progress just by learning to read (Share, 1999), but with explicit instruction students can make even more rapid progress (Treiman, 2017, p. 273). Good spelling instruction is not the enemy of invented spelling - it's just another source of information that feeds that invention.

Some facts about early spelling:

Invented spelling increases student awareness of the speech segments in words (Martins & Silva, 2006)

Invented spelling, together with alphabetic knowledge and phonemic awareness, influence reading and spelling development (Oulette & Sénéchal, 2017)

First-graders who are encouraged to spell as well as they can end up with significantly better reading scores than those that relied on traditional spelling instruction alone (Clarke, 1988)

Invented spelling and phonemic awareness training lead to the same level of phonemic awareness processing (Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2008; Ouellette et al, 2013), even for students at risk of reading difficulties (Senechal, et al., 2012)

Explicit phonemic awareness instruction increases the quality of students' spelling inventions (Ball & Blachman, 1991)

Giving students appropriate feedback on their invented spelling leads to greater progress (Ouellette, Sénéchal, & Haley, 2013)

Explicit spelling instruction should do more than get kids to memorize words - it should focus on the analysis of spelling, including considering spelling alternatives (Berninger, et al, 1992)

Explicit teaching in spelling improves spelling and increases the vocabulary diversity in student writing (Graham, Harris, & Adkins, 2018)

Adding explicit spelling instruction to developmental approaches improves spelling (Graham, 2000)

Explicit spelling instruction improves spelling, reading, and writing (Graham & Santangelo, 2014)

References

Ball, E. W., & Blachman, B. A. (1991). Does phoneme awareness training in kindergarten make a difference in early word recognition and developmental spelling? Reading Research Quarterly, 26(1), 49-66. doi:https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.26.1.3

Berninger, V. W., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R. D., Begay, K., Coleman, K. B., Curtin, G., . . . Graham, S. (2002). Teaching spelling and composition alone and together: Implications for the simple view of writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(2), 291-304. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.94.2.291

Graham, S. (2000). Should the natural learning approach replace spelling instruction? Journal of Educational Psychology, 92( 2), 235-247. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.2.235

Graham, S., & Santangelo, T. (2014). Does spelling instruction make students better spellers, readers, and writers? A meta-analytic review. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 27(9), 1703-1743. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-014-9517-0

Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Adkins, M. (2018). The impact of supplemental handwriting and spelling instruction with first grade students who do not acquire transcription skills as rapidly as peers: A randomized control trial. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 31(6), 1273-1294. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9822-0

Martins, M. A., & Silva, C. (2006). The impact of invented spelling on phonemic awareness. Learning and Instruction, 16(1), 41-56. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2005.12.005

Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2008). Pathways to literacy: A study of invented spelling and its role in learning to read. Child Development, 79(4), 899-913. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01166.x

Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2017). Invented spelling in kindergarten as a predictor of reading and spelling in grade 1: A new pathway to literacy, or just the same road, less known? Developmental Psychology, 53( 1), 77-88. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000179

Ouellette, G., Sénéchal, M., & Haley, A. (2013). Guiding children's invented spellings: A gateway into literacy learning. Journal of Experimental Education, 81(2), 261-279. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2012.699903

Sénéchal, M. (2017). Testing a nested skills model of the relations among invented spelling, accurate spelling, and word reading, from kindergarten to grade 1. Early Child Development and Care, 187(3-4), 358-370. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1205044

Sénéchal, M., Ouellette, G., Pagan, S., & Lever, R. (2012). The role of invented spelling on learning to read in low-phoneme awareness kindergartners: A randomized-control-trial study. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25(4), 917-934. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9310-2

Treiman, R. (2017). Learning to spell words: Findings, theories, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 21(4), 265-276. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2017.1296449

P.S. Evidence that students will not need later to "unlearn" their early misspellings comes from a rather extensive body of longitudinal developmental evidence on children's spelling growth over time (references below). This week my granddaughter shared with me her year-long kindergarten journal - which reveals yet again the fluid nature of young children's spelling attempts as they try to master an understanding of the phonological/orthographic structure of words. For those, for whom such descriptive studies are insufficient, there are also experimental tests of the idea refuting the notion that invented misspellings are learned (Ehri, Gibbs, & Underwood, 1988). The preponderance of evidence suggests it is better to encourage developmental spelling attempts than to try to prevent children from putting to use what they are learning about words. Learning to read and spell words is more than a rote memorization task - nascent readers benefit from analyzing the speech stream and attempting to map letters to those sounds.
References
Bissex, G.L. (1980). GNYS AT WRK: A child learns to read and write. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Clemens, N. H., Oslund, E. L., Simmons, L. E., & Simmons, D. (2014). Assessing spelling in kindergarten: Further comparison of scoring metrics and their relation to reading skills. Journal of School Psychology, 52(1), 49-61.

Ehri, L. C., Gibbs, A. L., & Underwood, T. L. (1988). Influence of errors on learning the spellings of English words. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 13(3), 236-253. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-476X(88)90024-0

Ferreiro, E. (1978). What is written in a written sentence? A developmental answer. Journal of Education, 160, 25-39.

Frost, J. (2001). Phonemic awareness, spontaneous writing, and reading and spelling development from a preventive perspective. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14(5-6), 487-513.

Gentry, J. R. & Ouellette, G. P. (2019) Brain words: How the science of reading informs teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse Publishers.

Godin, M., Gagné, A., & Chapleau, N. (2018). Spelling acquisition in French children with developmental language disorder: An analysis of spelling error patterns. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 34(3), 221-233.

Henderson, E. H. and Beers J. W. (1980). (Eds.) Developmental and cognitive aspects of learning to spell: A reflection of word knowledge. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association.

Huxford, L., Terrell, C., & Bradley, L. (1992). 'Invented' spelling and learning to read. In C. M. Sterling, & C. Robson (Eds.), Psychology, spelling and education; psychology, spelling and education (pp. 159-167). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Kamii, C., & Manning, M. (1999). Before "invented" spelling": Kindergartners' awareness that writing is related to sounds of speech. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 14, 16-25.

Lazo, M. G., Pumfrey, P. D., & Peers, I. (1997). Metalinguistic awareness, reading and spelling: Roots and branches of literacy. Journal of Research in Reading, 20(2), 85-104.

McBride-Chang, C. (1998). The development of invented spelling. Early Education and Development, 9(2), 147-160.

Lie, A. (1999). Effects of a training program for stimulating skills in word analysis in first-grade children. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 234-250.

Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2017). See above.

Read, C. (1971). Preschool children's knowledge of English phonology. Harvard Educational Review, 41, 1-34.

Read, C. (1975). Children's categorizations of speech sounds in English. Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English

Read, C. (1986). Children's creative spelling. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Zhang, C., Bingham, G. E., & Quinn, M. F. (2017). The associations among preschool children's growth in early reading, executive function, and invented spelling skills. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 30(8), 1705-1728. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9746-0

Zhang, Y., Nie, H., & Ding, B. (1986). The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic reading. Cognition, 24, 31-44.

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Explicit Spelling Instruction or Invented Spelling?

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Explains why engaging students in invented spelling is such a good idea. When children try to spell words they have to think about the phonology and letter-sound relations. Evidence shows this to be beneficial. The information students should use to fuel this invention is explicit spelling, phonemic awareness, and phonics instruction.