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Basics: Sight Words and Orthographic Mapping (Reading Rockets)

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Basics: Sight Words and Orthographic Mapping (Reading Rockets)

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Basics: Sight Words and Orthographic Mapping

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Words that you can read instantly are called sight words. Orthographic mapping is the process of storing a word permanently in memory for instant retrieval - and key to effortless, accurate, and fluent reading.

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Good spellers aren't born, they are taught! Nearly 90 percent of English words can be spelled if a student knows basic patterns, principles, and rules of spelling. Good spellers end up as better readers and writers.

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Video 8: Morphology (REL Southeast) (REL Southeast)

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VIDEO: Expanding Vocabulary with Affixes

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VIDEO: Expanding Vocabulary with Affixes

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Lesson 9, Expanding Vocabulary with Affixes

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VIDEO: Reading SOS: Getting stuck on sight words

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VIDEO: Reading SOS: Getting stuck on sight words

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Reading SOS: Getting stuck on sight words

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VIDEO: Irregular Words Sample Lesson (UFLI)

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VIDEO: Irregular Words Sample Lesson (UFLI)

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VIDEO: Mastering ‘Silent e’ and Becoming More Fluent with Michael, Third Grader

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VIDEO: Mastering ‘Silent e’ and Becoming More Fluent with Michael, Third Grader

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Mastering ‘Silent e’ and Becoming More Fluent with Michael, Third Grader

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Reading expert Linda Farrell helps Michael master the ‘silent e’ pattern to help him become a more accurate and ultimately more fluid reader. She begins with making sure that Michael can distinguish between short and long vowel sounds in spoken words, then teaches him a multi-sensory way to recognize the short vowel and ‘silent e’ long vowel patterns in written words. Ms. Farrell emphasizes the need to practice each skill to the point of mastery.

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VIDEO: Reading Fluency with Chloe, Second Grader

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VIDEO: Reading Fluency with Chloe, Second Grader

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This video was produced in partnership with the National Education Association.
See transcript ›
Transcript

Reading Fluency with Chloe, Second Grader
Linda Farrell: That word is "flood-ing." Say "flooding." Chloe: Flooding. Linda Farrell: Flooding. That means a whole bunch of water goes some place. Chloe: And it's flooding the whole, entire ... Linda Farrell: Yeah. It's that word.
[Graphics] Looking at Reading Interventions: A Reading Rockets Series

[Graphics] One-on-One Intervention with Chloe.
Chloe is in the second grade in Alexandria, Virginia. During the pandemic, she's also getting Linda Farrell: Okay. Hi, Ms. Smoak and Chloe. How was your holiday? Chloe: It was completely great. Olu Smoak: It was wonderful. How are you? Linda Farrell: I am well. Ms. Farrell and Chloe are working mostly on phonics. But they devote the last ten minutes of each lesson to oral reading. That gives Chloe a chance to apply what she's learned about phonics and develop her reading fluency, which is our focus today. virtual And they probably should be approached with struggling readers in that way. If someone is struggling with fluency, first, we want to have them accurate. Next, we get them reading at a reasonable rate, and if they aren't reading with expression at that point then we work on their expression. lessons from reading expert Linda Farrell. Linda Farrell: Today, Chloe, we're going to read some sections of passages. We're going to aim for accuracy. What's accuracy? Chloe: Accuracy is when you don't do any, like any words, every word is correct. Linda Farrell: Yes. That would be 100 percent accuracy. Olu Smoak: Okay, I'll leave you two to the lesson. See you afterwards. Have a great time.
[Graphics] Linda Farrell, M.Ed. Founding Partner, Readsters
Linda Farrell: Okay, Chloe, let's get started. Chloe: When the twins finished eating their apples it was time to get to work. Kim picked red apples. Jill got green apples. The green apples were not sweet.
Linda Farrell: Fluency is often measured as a rate. People think that fluency is how fast you read and actually fluency has three elements: accuracy, its rate, and its expression.
Ms. Farrell starts Chloe with a short passage - about 40 words or so. It's one that Chloe can probably read accurately on her first try ... to give her confidence and to get her warmed up. Ms. Farrell won't be timing Chloe, so the focus is on reading each word correctly. So why is accuracy so critical?
[Graphics] Three Elements of Fluency: Accuracy. Rate. Expression.
Ms. Farrell says that it's a mistake to allow young readers to guess words or to skip words. We shouldn't even let close misreads slide - like reading "mommy" instead of "mom" or adding a word that isn't there. If we allow students to get comfortable with inaccuracy, they can develop habits that are really hard to change later on. Linda Farrell: You got 100 percent three times in a row, so we're going to read Set Two next time. Chloe's goal is to read three passages correctly the first time she reads them - cold reads. After that, she'll practice reading more difficult passages until she's reading 100% accurately at her grade level. Linda Farrell: But before we do that write 100 percent in the third column.
[Graphics] Working on Accuracy
Linda Farrell: Oh my gosh. Three 100s in a row. We are going to move to set two. Can you find the passages that say set two?
[Graphics] Working on Accuracy: First reading of passage #1
Linda Farrell: Can you find the passages that say Set Two? Linda Farrell: Uh-huh. That's it. Okay. And when you're ready to read, I'm ready to take notes. Chloe: April [sic] day means tree day, tree day. Trees are important. That is why trees get a special day every year.
[Graphics] When the twins finished eating their apples it was time to get to work. Kim picked red apples. Jill got green apples. The green apples were not sweet.
As Chloe reads, Ms. Farrell makes note of any missed words, any self-corrections, and any repetitions. And then she starts her review with what Chloe got right.
Linda Farrell: The reason accuracy at every age is so important is that in early reading in easy texts you can guess and still get the gist, especially if you have good background knowledge. When the students get to 4th and 5th grade, and the pictures go away and the words are harder, guessing is no longer a strategy that works.
Linda Farrell: How many words are in that section? Chloe: 45? No, 49. Linda Farrell: 49 words in that section and you got 46 right. And that is 94 percent accuracy. Chloe charts her work, and then Ms. Farrell reviews the words that Chloe misread. This prepares her for the next reading.
Linda Farrell: Students are motivated to improve. They have charts. They chart how well they do and that's very motivating.
Linda Farrell: Underline the first word. Linda Farrell: That word is arbor. Read that word. Chloe: Arbor. Linda Farrell: Arbor. Arbor means tree. What does arbor mean?
[Graphics] Working on Accuracy: First reading of passage 2
After learning the word "Arbor," Chloe reads the same section as many times as she needs to until she reads it with 100% accuracy. Linda Farrell: Here's the good news. You got 49 words right. Linda Farrell: Yes. That's good news and I'm glad you're happy. Here's the not so good news. You had three repetitions. You repeated the words you read and you're only allowed to have two of those repetitions. So you get to read it again. Linda Farrell: Why do we have to read it one more time? Chloe: Because I got three overs and I didn't know what they're called. Linda Farrell: They're called repetitions. You repeated words, but overs works just fine.
[Graphics] Arbor Day means tree day, tree day. Trees are important. That is why trees get a special day every year.

[Graphics] Working on Accuracy: Reviewing Chloe's reading

[Graphics] Working on Accuracy: Prep for second reading of passage 2
Chloe: Arbor Day means tree day. Trees are important. These repeated readings help Chloe improve on this particular passage, and they also help her develop good habits for the long haul. It's hard work, but Chloe wraps up the day's lesson with a strong finish.
[Graphics] Working on Accuracy: Second reading of passage 2

Linda Farrell: If a student has the habit of going back and rereading, repeating what they're reading, or self-correcting what they read, it slows them down and it hurts their comprehension.

[Graphics] Working on Accuracy: Second reading of Arbor Day section
After a few more sessions, Chloe was consistently able to read passages with 100% accuracy. But she was still reading slowly. So now Ms. Farrell will focus on increasing Chloe's reading rate, or the pace at which Chloe is able to read accurately. If you think of reading as riding a bicycle, fluency means you can turn the pedals fast enough to have a smooth ride. Pedal too slowly, and the bike falls over. Read too slowly, and you may not be able to understand what you read.
Arbor Day means tree day. Trees are important.

[Graphics] Working on Accuracy: Third reading of passage #2: Arbor Day
Linda Farrell: So we're going to start now on working on rate. So Chloe, are you ready to work on rate?
Linda Farrell: How many words do you think you got right? 49 words, 100 percent, and only one self-correction. How do you feel about that? Yes.
Linda Farrell: So your goal is to read 60 words a minute and not make any mistakes. So, what we're going to have you do, Chloe, is read for one minute, I'll time it, but you don't have to read fast just read naturally. Olu, I think Chloe and I are ready to work together.
[Graphics] Fluency Lesson 2: Reading to Improve Rate. Working on Chloe's rate of reading accurately
Before Chloe reads, Ms. Farrell will review words that may be difficult to pronounce or that have an unusual spelling pattern. This allows Chloe to do her rate practice without being stumped by a word we wouldn't expect her to know, yet.
Linda Farrell: Rate has been shown by many studies to correlate very closely with comprehension. Children need to read fast enough so that they can hold their ideas in their mind.
Linda Farrell: We have one word to review. So that word is on line 44. That word is rough. Can you read rough? Chloe: Rough. Linda Farrell: That word is rough. Rough means it's not smooth. Chloe: like if I have a bath cloth and it's rough. And now Chloe is ready to read.
[Graphics] Working on Rate. Chloe's goal: 60 accurate words per minute
Chloe: All cats are related. Tigers, lions, and the cats people have as pets. Linda Farrell: [alarm] Stop. And that time you read 46 words. Chloe: Is that good or bad? Linda Farrell: Well, here is what's good: you got 100% accurate and you only had one time that you repeated, one time. Chloe: If I had three repeat I would have to start over, but one is repeat okay? Linda Farrell: One repeat is acceptable, that means it's okay. Two repeats is acceptable, that means it's okay. And three repeats is too many. Chloe: Which is not acceptable. Linda Farrell: That's right, it's not acceptable.
Linda Farrell: The reading rate is generally measured as words correct per minute. Lots of people think it's how fast or what speed the student is reading, but it's really a measure of how many words correct do children read in a certain time, usually it's one minute when we're assessing. So it is speed. It is how fast they're reading, but it's also how accurately they're reading.
Linda Farrell: Okay, so we get to start again because now we want you to read accurately and we're going to aim for 60 words a minute.
Linda Farrell: When we first started working with Chloe she was reading I believe about 38 words correct per minute. And she still, even after we practiced, read relatively slowly. So once she met her accuracy goal, now we look at what's the 2nd grade middle of year benchmark and it's around 65 or 70 words a minute in 2nd grade material.
Chloe: All cats are related. Tigers, lions, and the cats people have as pets. Linda Farrell: You got 63 words correct and 100 percent accuracy. You read every word correctly and you didn't have any self-corrections or repetitions. You made it! You got your goal, girl!
[Graphics] Working on Rate. Previewing words that might be difficult for Chloe.
Now that Chloe has demonstrated that she can read accurately at 60 words per minute, Ms. Farrell helps Chloe focus on expression. Expressive reading means that students are using phrasing, emphasis, and timing as they read aloud. When children read with expression, they are reading the way they talk, and this usually means that they understand what they're reading.
[Graphics] Working on Rate. First reading of a passage for rate. All cats are related. Tigers, lions, and the cats people have as pets.
Linda Farrell: This time when you read, could you just read like you talk? You're reading a little slowly, like what you do is you say all-cats-are-related. And then there's a period, and then you stop a long time before you go to the next word every time you come to a period. Can you not stop quite so long when you come to a period? Chloe: Yeah, my dad tells me to or my mom or dad tells me to like stop when you see a period, you kind of like stop. Not trying to take too long. I just take a breathe and then go to the next line. I didn't know it was taking so long. Linda Farrell: Yeah, it's really good the way you're stopping. What we want you to do is not stop quite so long. Linda Farrell: Watch me. All cats are related. Tigers, lions and the cats people have as pets all have many things in common. Do you hear how I don't stop quite as long? Can you try that? Chloe: Okay. All cats are related. Tigers, lions and the cats people have as pets all have many things in common They all have four toes on their front feet and four toes on their back feet.
[Graphics] Working on Rate. Second reading of passage 3.
Linda Farrell: You aren't going to believe how many words you read that time. First of all, 100 percent accuracy. How much accuracy did you get? Chloe: 100 percent accurate. Linda Farrell: Yep, you read every single read correctly. You got 80 words a minute. Linda Farrell: 80 words a minute, with 100 percent accuracy is phenomenal.
[Graphics] All cats are related. Tigers, lions, and the cats people have as pets.
Now that Chloe's reading more fluently, her rate goal will be adjusted to 90 words a minute, which is the end of year benchmark for second grade. What seems like quick improvement is actually due to a lot of hard work. Ms. Farrell says Chloe needs a little more practice - roughly ten minutes at a time, twice a week, for the next month or two. As Chloe becomes a more accurate and faster reader, she and her mom will enjoy reading together even more. Linda Farrell: Olu and Chloe, it's always so much fun to read with you. See you next time. Olu Smoak: Same here. We enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Chloe: Bye bye! This episode of Looking at Reading Interventions was produced by a partnership of the National Education Association and WETA. For more information on the teaching practices featured in this program, please check out our viewer's guide. You can also download our facilitator's guide, offering helpful ideas for using this program for professional development. You'll find both guides at We are deeply grateful to Chloe and her entire family for allowing us to share Chloe's experience with reading intervention. We'd like to thank Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project. readingrockets.org/interventions.
[Graphics] Lesson Three: Expression. Moving from word-by-word reading to reading "like you talk"

[Graphics] Working on Expression

[Graphics] Working on Expression. Celebrating Success.

Linda Farrell: What we do is that we have a reasonable goal that we think she can make. So we just wanted to get her to 60. What was so surprising about Chloe is that once we talked to her about reading like you talk, and I modeled for her, she went up to 80 words a minute!

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Reading Fluency with Chloe, Second Grader

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In this online lesson, reading expert Linda Farrell helps second grader Chloe master the three key elements of reading fluency - accuracy, reading rate, and reading with expression. Watch how Ms. Farrell gives Chloe explicit instruction and encouragement through all three steps, each building on the previous stage.

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BLOG: Teaching Oral Reading Fluency to Older Students

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BLOG: Teaching Oral Reading Fluency to Older Students

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Teaching Oral Reading Fluency to Older Students

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Oh goodness, everybody’s least favorite topic (except maybe Tim Rasinski’s). What I’m talking about is fluency instruction/practice for older students … grades 4 and up, let’s say.

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Basics: Fluency (Reading Rockets collection)

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Basics: Fluency (Reading Rockets collection)

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Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression.Fluent reading builds stamina for reading lengthy or complex texts. Reading fluency serves as a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.

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VIDEO: Manipulating letter/sounds in words to make new words

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VIDEO: Manipulating letter/sounds in words to make new words

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VIDEO PLAYLIST: Teaching the Six Types of Syllables (closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel team/pair, vowel r, final stable syllable)

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VIDEO PLAYLIST: Teaching the Six Types of Syllables (closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel team/pair, vowel r, final stable syllable)

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A simple introduction to the six syllable types to improve decoding and encoding skills.

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Learn the six types of syllables found in English orthography, why it’s important to teach syllables, and the sequence in which students learn about both spoken and written syllables.

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VIDEO: Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader (activities included)

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VIDEO: Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader (activities included)

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Transcript

Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader
Linda Farrell: What do we call that vowel sound? You say ... Calista: Short 'o.' Linda Farrell: You got it! Calista is in first grade at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. She's an early stage reader who sounds out letters accurately. And she can blend those letters together to form words. Linda Farrell: Calista, could you please read this column. Reading expert Linda Farrell is helping Calista take the next step toward fluent reading ... reading each word as a whole rather than one sound at a time. Their time together will include work on short vowel sounds, blending and manipulating sounds, reading whole words, and fluency. Ms. Farrell starts by making sure Calista has a strong foundation in her short vowel sounds. Linda Farrell: We're gonna learn some motions. Can you hold an apple in your hand? And when I ask you the short 'a' sound, you're gonna say, /aaa/. Say it. Linda Farrell: Now watch me. /Aaaaaa-pul/. You do it. Calista: /Aaaaaa-pul/ Linda Farrell: Okay. That is going to remind you of the short 'a' sound. That's our motion, so say, /aaa/. Linda Farrell: And when I ask you what the short /a/ sound is, you're gonna go /aaaa/. Do it. Calista: /aaa/ Linda Farrell: For short 'e,' go like this. Watch me. Go /eeeeeh-j/. Calista: /eeeeh-j/
Linda Farrell: So we want to start out by making sure she's solid with her short vowel sounds. So that's the first thing we did. And she did know her - when I said, "What's short 'a'?", she knew it. She had to think a little bit. So what we did is we want her to - when she can't remember the vowel sound real easily, we want to not have to give it to her. We want her to have a scaffold to learn it. So we taught Calista the motions that go with the vowel sound, so that if she can't remember a vowel sound - what is the short 'o' sound? - then all she has to do ... I can go like this and remind her, or she can go, oh, it's /ah/, it's octopus.

Linda Farrell: I tell you what we're gonna do. We are gonna go to short 'o.' Are you ready? Okay. Here we go. /Aaaaahc-tuh-pus/.

Calista: /aaaaahc-tuh-pus/
Linda Farrell: Now we're not gonna say the /k-tuh-pus/ part. We're just gonna say /aaah/. Calista: /aaah/ Linda Farrell: What's the short 'o' sound? Calista: /aaah/ Linda Farrell: And make the motion. Calista: /aaah/ Linda Farrell: What's the short 'a' sound? Calista: /aaa/ Linda Farrell: Short 'o'? Calista: /aaah/ Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we're gonna learn short 'u.' You ready for short 'u'? /Uuu-p/. Do it. Calista: /uuu-p/
Linda Farrell: And the first sound in up is /uuu/.
Calista: /uuu/ Linda Farrell: What's the short 'u' sound? Calista: /uuu/ Linda Farrell: Short 'a'? Calista: /aaa/ Linda Farrell: Short 'o'? Calista: /aaah/ Linda Farrell: Short 'u'? Calista: /uuu/
Linda Farrell: The vowel motions that we teach are purposefully motions. They aren't static, because if I say /a/, /eh/, /i/, /ah/, /u/, you can hardly hear the difference between those sounds. /A/, /eh/, /i/, /ah/, /u/. And children who have phonological awareness difficulties, which is the biggest one of the - it is the biggest problem in reading issues - they don't hear the vowel sounds easily. Listen to this: /aaaa/, /eeeeh/, /iiiii/, /aaah/, /uuuu/. They sound different. So we want to encourage the children not to say /a/. We want them to say /aaaa/; therefore, the motion that we use - which is holding an apple and then move it across the front of your body, left to right, motion of reading, /aaa/, and then /pul/ is what the rest of the word is, but we only say the first sound - everything encourages them to draw out that sound.
Linda Farrell: Now we're gonna learn short 'i.' Are you ready for short 'i'? Calista: Mm-hmm. Linda Farrell: Okay. Watch this. I went stomping ... I went hiking, and I stomped and tromped in some poison ivy, and, boy, do I /iiiiiii-ch/. Do it. Do this. Calista: /iiiii-ch/ Linda Farrell: /Iiiiiii-ch/. Do it. Calista: /iiiii-ch/
Linda Farrell: Now, you have to smile real big when you say itch. Go /iiiiiiiii-ch/.
Calista: /iiiiiiii-ch/ Linda Farrell: Do it again. Short 'i' sound. Calista: /iiiiiiii-ch/
Linda Farrell: Okay. And itch is the guide word. I made a mistake. I should have told you that /i/ is just like this: /iii/. We don't even say the /ch/ part, just do this: /iii/.
Calista: /iii/ Linda Farrell: What's the short 'i' sound? Calista: /i/. /iii/. Linda Farrell: Make it go /iiiiii/. Calista: /iii/ Linda Farrell: What's the short 'a' sound? Calista: /aaa/ Linda Farrell: Short 'i'? Calista: /iii/ Linda Farrell: Short 'i'? Calista: /iii/ Linda Farrell: Short 'a'? Calista: /aaa/ Linda Farrell: Short 'o'? Calista: /aaah/ Linda Farrell: Short 'u'? Calista: /uuu/ Linda Farrell: You know your short vowel sounds!
Linda Farrell: Calista was very confident with her vowel sounds. She knew them. I would still have worked on them a little bit more, but she was confident enough for me to move on to the next step. So the next step with a kid who's reading sound by sound isn't really intuitive. It's often a phonological problem. It isn't a problem with the letters. The kid knows the letters. I know the letter sounds. I can blend the letter sounds into a real word. What they aren't doing is thinking the sounds in their mind. They're turning that word - if it's hug, they look at it and they go /h/, /u/, /g/. And they are never getting the full visual picture of that word. To them it's always an 'h-u-g,' a /h/, /u/, /g/. Not hug. So they haven't moved to where they can read the whole word without breaking it into phonics. And that's a step that we're going to have to teach her to do, which is one of my favorite things to do, because it's just, they just go from being really slow readers to just being normal readers once they can get this phonological representation.

Calista: /l/, /i/, /p/, lip

Linda Farrell: Okay. What's the first sound in lip?
Calista: 'l' Linda Farrell: 'L' is the name of the letter. What's the sound?
Linda Farrell: What's the next sound in lip?
Calista: 'i' Linda Farrell: 'I' is the name of the letter. What's the sound?
Linda Farrell: Okay. And when I ask you, you point to it, okay? So what's the first sound in lip?

Linda Farrell: What's the next sound in lip?

Linda Farrell: And the last sound in lip?
Linda Farrell: And what's the ...
Calista: lip

Calista: /s/, /i/, /p/, sip
Calista: You take away this one and add this one.
Linda Farrell: Which one did I take out? If this is sip, take out ...
Calista: The /s/ and add the /t/. Calista: Hmm.
Linda Farrell: So let's touch and say tip.

Calista: /t/, /i/, /p/, tip

Linda Farrell: Now touch and say Tim.

Calista: /t/, /i/, /m/, Tim
Linda Farrell: Which one's different? Calista: The last one.
Linda Farrell: So what do I take out of tip to change tip to Tim?
Calista: The last one. Linda Farrell: And what sound do I take out? Calista: 'p' Linda Farrell: 'P' is the name of the letter. What's the sound?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Take it out. And what do I put in to make it Tim?
Calista: 'm' Linda Farrell: 'M' is the name of the letter. What's the sound?
Calista: /t/, /i/, /m/, Tim

Linda Farrell: When we work with sound-by-sound children, we make sure that they know the difference between letters and sounds and that they can manipulate sounds. Once they can blend and segment sounds confidently, we move to manipulating. How do we do that? We work with colored tiles. They don't have letters on them, because we want the child to have no distraction with letters. What we want is the child to be thinking about sounds.

Linda Farrell: Touch and say tap.

Calista: /t/, /a/, /p/, tap
Ms. Farrell gives Calista plenty of quiet time to think about which sounds are changing.
Linda Farrell: Let's check that because ... one thing you did right is there's always only one tile that changes. Let's touch and say tap.

Calista: /t/, /a/, /p/, tap

Linda Farrell: Touch and say tape.

Calista: /t/, /ay/, /p/, tape
Linda Farrell: Which one's different? Calista: Hmm. Middle.
Linda Farrell: Yeah. What sound do you take out of tap?
Calista: 'a'
Linda Farrell: 'A' is the name of the letter. What sound do you take out of tap?

Linda Farrell: Okay. Take it out. And what sound do you put in to make tape?
Calista: /t - ayp/ Linda Farrell: Touch and say.
Calista: /t/, /ay/, p/, tape
Linda Farrell: What sound was that?
Linda Farrell: It was /ay/. Okay. So you put in the sound /ay/. If I want to change tape ... sorry, yes ... tape to take, which one do I change?
Calista: This one.
Linda Farrell: Yes. What sound do I take out of tape?
Calista: 'p' Linda Farrell: What sound?
Linda Farrell: Yeah. Okay. And what sound to I put in to make it take?

Linda Farrell: Now this time, when I ask you to make a change, keep your mouth closed and think about it. Okay? Okay. So don't open your mouth. You can think the sounds in your head. So we've got take to make. Okay. Look down. You can look down. Take to make. Can you say take to make?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Which one changes? Keep your mouth closed. Don't ... you have to think the sounds, okay?
Linda Farrell: Okay. So take out /t/. And what are you going to put in for make? What sound?
Linda Farrell: Okay. Close your mouth, and think about which one. When you know, touch it. Calista: [points to the letter]
Linda Farrell: Okay. What sound comes out of make?

Linda Farrell: Yep. What sound goes in for mate?
Linda Farrell: Okay ...
Linda Farrell: One of the things Calista does is I say, "What's the first sound?" and she gives me the name of the letter. And we've got to get sound-by-sound children to think in terms of ... there are letter sounds, and there are letter names, because the name of the letter, the first letter in phone is 'p,' but the first sound in phone is /f/. And if she doesn't get the difference automatically and quickly, she'll always be struggling with reading. It's easy to teach. It's no big deal. And I think that you see Calista make great strides in her reading.
Now we're at the point where Ms. Farrell will push Calista to a higher level of reading - from reading words sound by sound to reading whole words. Linda Farrell: Could you please read this column?
Linda Farrell: Students who read sound by sound see a letter, make it a sound, see a letter, make it a sound, see a letter, make it a sound. So this is what's happening. What that keeps her from being able to do is develop a visual imprint of words and word patterns on her brain. And you never look at the word as a whole. We're trying to get Calista to look at the word as a whole, as opposed to looking at it letter, by letter, by letter.
Linda Farrell: Now what I'd like you to do is I want you to go back, and this time keep your mouth closed before and think the sounds and don't open your mouth until you know what the word is and can read it. Okay? Linda Farrell: Keep going. Calista: Add. Pal. And. Mud. Linda Farrell: Okay. Phew. You got pretty good there, didn't ya, closing your mouth. You can sense the wheels turning in Calista's mind as she works silently to sound out the letters and put the sounds together into a word. Next comes work on fluency. Linda Farrell: Let's start right here.
Calista: Can. The. Lad.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now go back and read it. Again.
Calista: Can. The. Lad.

Linda Farrell: Now can you go back and read it, Can the lad? Okay. Read it.
Linda Farrell: Okay.
Calista: Be. In. The. Mud.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Read it like you'd say it.
Calista: Be in the mud.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now read the whole sentence.
Calista: Can the lad be in the mud.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Can you read that one?
Calista: Kim was hot. And got a fan. Kim was hot and got a fan.
Linda Farrell: Okay. We're gonna go and read a couple of sentences now. Those were phrases, and they turned into sentences. Could you please read this sentence?
Calista: Gus. Got. Mud. On. The. Rug.
Linda Farrell: Okay. And now we're gonna go read a passage. Okay. What's the title? Linda Farrell: Okay?
Calista: Don was a lad. Pip was a pup. Don and Pip had a run. The sun was hot.

Linda Farrell: She was getting faster as she closed her mouth. She made more mistakes than she would make if she read sound by sound. She didn't make that many mistakes, but she did make more mistakes. But that's okay, because that's what happens when you start changing a habit, is you go backwards a little bit. She'll eventually, and I think fairly quickly, be a much faster reader and a much more proficient reader.
Linda Farrell: Do you ever read a book that you like? Calista: Mm-hmm.
Linda Farrell: Calista made a lot of progress in this lesson, and she is on her way to being a top-notch reader.
We'd like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read. Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary ... and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools. We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell
For more information about teaching reading, please visit www.ReadingRockets.org
Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

Extra tips from the session with Calista

1. Letter Names vs. Letter Sounds

Linda Farrell: Some children manage to read and they don't know the difference between the letter name and a letter sound and they are strong readers and I don't care. When a student struggles with reading, that's often something that's very difficult for them. They think in terms of letter names only. And when you're a beginning reader, then they're just trying to memorize letters.

And if I teach Tim is 't - i - m,' three letters ... but time is 't - i - m -e,' four letters, and I ask a student who is not strong in knowing the difference between a letter name and a letter sound, "How many sounds in time? Show me how many sounds in time." And they'll put four. They'll put four letters - four tiles down there, and I'll say, "Well, tell me the sounds." "/T/, /i/, /m/, /eh/." That student understands how time is spelled. They know that word is time. And they have not a clue why that word is time and the other word is Tim.

So when I get a student who's a sound-by-sound reader or who misreads vowel sounds - they read Tim as time or time as Tim; often they read hop as hope, hope as hop - it's very important that before I ever start to try to teach them to read that they understand that there's a letter and there's a sound, because then I can anchor when I get to teach them that kit is 'k i t.' Then they know /k/, /i/, /t/. Now how many sounds in kite? /K/, /eye/, /t/ ... three. Three sounds in kite. Great. Now let me show you how kite is spelled. This 'i' sound is spelled with two letters: this 'i' and this 'e.' And now suddenly they go, "Oh, I get how it works." Some kids get ... I happen to be a kid ... I thought the short 'a' sound was /ah/ because that's what the doctor has you say.

I could read, but, I tell you, I couldn't teach reading knowing that, because I hadn't - somehow the patterns, I intuited them, many people do - but when you don't intuit them, you have to be taught explicitly. One of the things that's very frustrating is that there are many programs that go real fast, and they don't teach kids things to mastery. And then we don't find out who's struggling until they get to third grade, and now they're way behind.

And we need to make sure that in first grade Calista masters what's a letter, what's a sound. Otherwise, it's going to get in the way of her reading. It already is, because already she's thinking in terms of letters - and she can do sounds. She can go, /h/, /u/, /g/, hug. But then I say, "What's the first sound?" and she goes 'h.' Well, she's not going to be able to understand that 'th' together spells /th/, two letters, one sound.

So it's just a fundamental that we need to teach all children. It wouldn't have hurt me to learn it. It wouldn't have hurt anybody to learn that there is a sound and there is a letter. And we will keep children from struggling if we teach that to everyone.

2. Stretching CVC Words
Linda Farrell: We're gonna learn to do some stretching. Have you ever stretched sounds before? Calista: Mm-mm.
Linda Farrell: Let me show you how it goes. If I'm going to stretch the word pot, I go like this: Pot. /P/, /ah/, /t/, pot. You do it.

Linda Farrell: And I'm gonna ask you what's the vowel sound in pot? And you are gonna say ... stretch pot. Stretch pot again.
Calista: /p/, /ah/, /t/ Linda Farrell: What's this sound right here? Linda Farrell: So the vowel sound is /ah/. What's the vowel sound? Linda Farrell: Make the motion. Linda Farrell: And I'm going to ask you, what do we call that vowel sound? And you say ... Calista: Short 'o.' Linda Farrell: You got it. Ready? So when I say "Ready," you go "Ready!" Calista: Ready.
Calista: /p/, /e/, /t/, pet
Linda Farrell: Vowel sound? Linda Farrell: And make the motion. Calista: /eeeh/ Linda Farrell: And what do we call that vowel sound? Calista: Short 'e.' Linda Farrell: Ready? Calista: Ready.
Calista: /s/, /u/, /m/, sum
Linda Farrell: Vowel sound? Calista: /u/, /uuu/ Linda Farrell: And what do we call that vowel sound? Calista: Short 'u.' Linda Farrell: Okay. You really know your vowel sounds now. You got it.

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Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader

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Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Calista, an early stage reader, on short vowel sounds, blending and manipulating sounds, reading whole words, and fluency. Ms. Farrell starts by making sure Calista has a strong foundation in short vowel sounds by teaching her hand motions to remember those sounds more easily.

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Definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schwa#:~:text=%CB%88shw%C3%A4-,1,stressed%20vowel%20(as%20in%20cut)

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You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact info@readingrockets.org.

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Two-to-Four-Syllable Words with Short Vowels and Schwa

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This list can be used to help young readers practice multisyllable words with short vowel sounds and schwa sounds.

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The Schwa Sound: What It Is and How To Teach It

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The Schwa Sound: What It Is and How To Teach It

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Thrive Literacy Corner - Thrive Educational Services

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This post may contain affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links. Please read the disclosure policy for more details.

Did you know that the schwa sound is the most common vowel sound in the English language? And despite this, it is a tricky sound to teach, especially when it comes to spelling. In this post, I break down the schwa sound so you can confidently teach your students all about the schwa!

What is a schwa?

The schwa is an unstressed vowel and it can be spelled with any vowel. For example, the word banana has 2 schwa sounds - the first and last A both make the schwa sound. This is because the /nan/ part of the word is stressed, which I'll explain later.

The schwa symbol looks like an upside-down e (ə) and sounds like a soft short U (/uh/) or short I (/ĭ/).

The Lazy Vowel

The schwa is also known as the lazy vowel because your mouth barely has to open to make the sound, and it's a weak sound. In some words, it's so weak we barely hear it, such as in the words 'interest' and 'chocolate'.

Dialect

Dialect can often affect how a word is pronounced. Take for example the /er/ ending pronounced in an American dialect versus an Australian dialect. The /er/ will sound like a schwa in the Australian accent.

Unstressed Syllables

The schwa sound is found in unstressed, or unaccented, syllables. Since we only stress one syllable in multi-syllable words, that's the one that would have a schwa sound.

Teaching stressed and unstressed syllables should be taught to upper elementary students, but it's good information for you to have as a teacher if you teach younger students, and to offer to inquisitive or advanced students.

The English language is a stress-timed language. This means that some words and syllables take longer to say than others. These are referred to as stressed or accented.

The words that communicate the most essential parts of a message (nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) are stressed in an English sentence. Function words, such as pronouns, articles, and conjunctions, are usually not stressed.

For example, consider the sentence: The boy is mad. Notice how boy and mad are stressed and sound different.

Words with more than one syllable will have stressed and unstressed syllables, as in the word mir/a/cle.

An unstressed syllable is the opposite of a stressed syllable and is one that contains a weak vowel, like the schwa. These syllables are weaker sounding, while the stressed syllable is louder. Unstressed syllables are also said faster.

Say the word mir/a/cle out loud and you can hear which syllables are stressed and unstressed.

There are also some words that have 2 meanings, depending on which syllable is stressed. In these words, it's easier to hear the difference: con/vict or con/vict.

Accenting Patterns

There are 3 common accenting patterns in words with more than one syllable:

1. Accent the root of a word, not the prefix or suffix: jump/ing

2. If the root word has 2 syllables, we usually accent the first syllable: tel/e/phone

3. Words with 3 or more syllables that end in a silent-e syllable usually have one syllable between the accented syllable and the silent-e syllable: con/tam/i/nate

Scribal O

Ever heard of the scribal O? Until a few years ago I had not. Here's a quick summary:

Back in the old days, scribes used to write everything since they were the people who knew how to read and write. Because they used to write in script and cursive, the letter U sometimes blended in with the following letter and caused lots of confusion. So they started using an O in place of the U to make it easier to read. This is why some words spelled with an O have that schwa sound: love, come.

This is a great story I share with my students to help explain why some words are spelled with an O when they sound like a schwa.

Schwa Sound Words

If you're looking for a handy list of words with schwa sound you can use in your lessons, I created a schwa sound words list that you can download for free in my freebies library. You must be signed up to my email list to access the freebies library.

How To Teach The Schwa Sound

Once students are working on two-syllable words, you can introduce the schwa.

Introducing the Schwa Sound

When introducing the schwa sound, it's helpful for students to understand the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables. Ask them to say a word like 'content' by stressing the first syllable, and then say it again stressing the second syllable, so they can tell the difference. They need to have something concrete or they may not understand what stressed means.

Accenting Syllables

Explain to students that if they read a word using both the short and long vowel sounds and it doesn't sound familiar, they can try swapping out a vowel with a schwa until it sounds like a word they know. The schwa is more often in the second syllable so they can try that one first.

Since most students know more words than they can read, this usually works. If not, they can use a dictionary to check. It's important for them to know the symbols of accented syllables and the schwa.

Schwa Patterns

The schwa sound tends to appear in a few common places. Here are a few patterns you can teach students:

The letter A at the beginning and end of a multi-syllable words is often a schwa

The vowel before the letters L and N in the final syllable of a multi-syllable word is often a schwa

Teach similar schwa words in groups

Group together schwa words that are spelled similarly, or that have a common pattern.

For example, you can teach all the words with -al together: i.e. practical, animal, and general.

You can also teach them by patterns you see in vowel representations. One example is the letter A which often has a schwa sound at the beginning of words like about, again, and alarm.

For help with spelling, think of related words

It benefits students to know roots and affixes so they can spot the base or root word and determine if the word is related to another.

For example, the word definition has a schwa sound. One trick to know that this schwa is spelled with an I is because it's related to the word define.

Repeated Exposure & Tools

Ultimately it comes down to lots of practice and exposure, so students eventually remember the spelling of each word. There aren't any tricks or rules when it comes to how the schwa is spelled, so students will need lots of practice and exposure.

Be sure to teach students how to use tools such as dictionaries and spell checkers. Students should know the symbols for the schwa sound and accented syllables so they can use dictionaries as a reference tool on their own.

Schwa Sound Activities

These activities help to promote awareness of the different representations of the schwa. Use these to build on this but don't expect students to remember how to spell all these words just because they did an activity on it. Remember, lots of exposure and practice over years is what develops their orthographic mapping for the different representations of schwa, and many of these concepts are more advanced.

Spot the Schwa

Go on a schwa hunt by looking for words with a schwa sound. You can have students highlight words in a paragraph or just the schwa sound in different words.

Pictured below is a passage that a student highlighted all the schwa sounds she could find.

Word Sorts

Sort words based on the vowel used or a spelling pattern like -tion.

You can even display some schwa words in these groups that you created when sorting. I have heard of a 'schwa wall' similar to a word wall or sound wall. If you have the space for it you can go adding words to the wall throughout the year. If you don't have the space you can use a sheet of paper to create a personal schwa wall that each student keeps in a folder and adds to it themselves.

Below you can see an activity where I had the student sort the schwa words she had found in the passage.

Robot Voice

Have you ever noticed how a robot voice usually doesn't stress any words or syllables? Students can pretend to be robots and read words or phrases in a robot voice to help them hear the difference.

Ask them to read a word the way it's spelled, meaning the vowels should all make a short or long sound. For example, tell them to say 'camel' this way. It should be pronounced as /cam/ - /el/ instead of /cam/ - /uhl/. This way they can hear exactly where the schwa should be, and they will probably giggle at how funny the words sound.

Dictation

After going over a group of words with a similar spelling pattern, dictate a few words or sentences for students to practice. I like to do 3-5 words and up to 3 short sentences after a lesson to keep it quick and simple.

Conclusion

I hope this post provides the tips you need to help you teach the schwa sound. Using these activities and tools can help students become more aware of the different representations of this vowel sound. With practice, students will eventually remember how to spell all words with a schwa sound.

Sources:
Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers shop to see all my literacy products. Want to remember this? Save The Schwa Sound: What It Is and How To Teach It to your favorite Pinterest board!

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The Schwa Sound: What It Is and How To Teach It

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This post may contain affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links. Please read the disclosure policy for more details. Did you know that the schwa sound is the most common vowel sound in the English language?

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VIDEO PLAYLIST: Sound Symbol Correspondence

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VIDEO PLAYLIST: Sound Symbol Correspondence

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Dr. Nadine Gaab's video playlist for introducting sound-symbol correspondences. Linked lesson materials included in the comments

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Video 11: Compound Words (REL Southeast)

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Video 17: Letter–Sounds (REL Southeast) (REL Southeast)

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Emily Tonti teaches phonics lessons with a severely dyslexic child

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VIDEO: Teaching Letter/Sound Correspondences (letter name, keyword, phoneme)

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VIDEO: Teaching Letter/Sound Correspondences (letter name, keyword, phoneme)

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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http://education.ufl.edu/ufli/

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VIDEO: Learning 'b' and 'd' and Reading Short Vowel Words with Aiko, Second Grader (activities included)

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VIDEO: Learning 'b' and 'd' and Reading Short Vowel Words with Aiko, Second Grader (activities included)

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Learning 'b' and 'd' and Reading Short Vowel Words with Aiko, Second Grader
Linda Farrell: Okay. We're gonna have a lesson. And we are gonna have some fun ... Today reading expert Linda Farrell will be working with Aiko, a second grader here at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland. Ms. Farrell will help Aiko with telling the difference between the letters 'b' and 'd,' keeping her eyes on the text rather than looking up to think of words, and reading words with short vowels. Linda Farrell: Do you ever get your 'b's and 'd's mixed up? Linda Farrell: Sometimes? Well, let's see if we can't fix that.
Linda Farrell: Aiko confuses 'b's and 'd's. She's in the second grade. And it's going to get in the way of her reading. So we have to fix that problem. Lots of children confuse 'b's and 'd's. They look alike. It's a ball and a stick. So we know we have to straighten that out, because that's going to hurt your reading because there are lots of words with 'b's and 'd's.
Linda Farrell: We're gonna work on fixing that. So we're gonna learn about our 'b' hand. Have you ever used your 'b' hand?
Linda Farrell: They have a 'b' hand. Their 'b' hand, it looks like a 'b.' Here's the circle. Here's the line. And we teach them to not guess and to slow down and compare your hand to the letter.
Linda Farrell: This is your 'b' hand, okay? So I'm gonna put this little rubber band on you, so you can remember which one's your 'b' hand. So which one's your 'b' hand? Aiko: This one. Linda Farrell: Okay.
Linda Farrell: I don't tell a kindergartener, a first grader, or a second grader, "It's your left hand," because they don't know which one is their left hand. Sometimes I don't even know which one's my left hand. When we first teach it, we put something on their hand. We might put a sticker. I put a rubber band on Aiko's hand so that when I say, "Where's your 'b' hand?" she's got something that reminds her. Three lessons she won't need the rubber band anymore. She'll know what it is. Some kids get it right away.
Linda Farrell: Would you put your 'b' hand up like this ... and make a fist. And then put your finger out. Okay? That is your 'b' hand. And I'm gonna show you why it's your 'b' hand. Go like this. We put this down here. And this letter is a 'b.' And your hand looks like this letter. Can you see that? We have the circle right here. Where's the circle on the letter? Point to the circle on the letter. And where's the circle on your hand? Yeah. Right there. Where's the stick on the letter? Show me a stick on your finger. This is your 'b' hand because the stick is on the same side of the circle as your finger. So your finger and your, and the stick are on the same side of the circle.
Linda Farrell: Lots of kids get 'b's and 'd's mixed up - kindergarten, first and second grade. It does not mean that they have dyslexia. Students who have dyslexia have phonological processing issues. They do not differentiate sounds easily. Their problems are primarily related to phonological awareness. 'B/d' is about shapes. That is not about sounds.
Linda Farrell: Will you put your 'b' hand by the 'b'? Yep. And is your finger on the same side of the circle as the stick or on a different side of the circle? Aiko: Same side. Linda Farrell: The same side. Yeah. Let's go down here. Is this a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: Okay. And when you answer, I want you to look down here and compare it. Here's what you did. You went [looking upward]. Well, you're not gonna figure it out unless you look and you compare. Okay. So you have to look and say, "Ooh, I can tell." So is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Ms. Farrell's explicit lesson about recognizing the shape of the letter 'b' will take some time to sink in for Aiko. And there's a common habit she'll need to deal with. When Aiko is working on identifying a letter, she often looks up to think, looking away from the letter.
Linda Farrell: The answer to what is an incorrect letter or an incorrect word is in the print. And we have to teach Aiko to keep her eyes on the print, on the words, when she's reading, or the letters. I've worked with many kids that have this same difficulty. And I'll say, "Keep your eyes on the words," and they can't do it, because their habit is so strong that they can't try to do what I'm asking them to do and remember to keep their eyes down. So we just practice keeping your eyes down.
Linda Farrell: We're gonna practice looking down here, okay? So I'm gonna ask you a question, and you can't look up until I go like this [pounds fist], okay? So you keep looking down. Don't look up. Look down. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist] Now you can look up. Okay. Let's try it again. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist] Eventually, Aiko will need to have images of words stored in her brain. This is critical to the immediate word recognition necessary for fluent reading. When students say a word without looking at it, they miss opportunities to develop those images. Linda Farrell: So hold your hand up here. So I'm gonna go 'a,' cause I don't need my 'b' hand. But do I need my 'b' hand for that letter? Linda Farrell: Yes, I do, cause that's a 'b' or a 'd.' So I have to put my 'b' hand and ... let me see. Is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Which one do you think? Ohp. Where are you gonna look? Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay. Is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: Let's try that. Put your 'b' hand next to that. Okay. Is your finger on the same or a different side? Aiko: Different. Linda Farrell: Different. So is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: Yes. And we're gonna keep looking down. Remember? You don't get to look up until I stomp. Okay? So now, I want you ... we're gonna go just right to here. Okay? So watch me. 'a, d, s, b.' You do it. Okay. Put your hand up here for the 'a.' Okay. Do it. Aiko: 'a, d, s, b'? Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. See how far away your hand is? You gotta go like this. And you know where you looked when you read? You looked at me. But where are you supposed to be looking? Linda Farrell: Yep. At the letter. So. Okay. So we did those four. You do these four.
Linda Farrell: And this is isolated practice. I see lots of teachers who use a 'b' and 'd' hand or a 'b' hand. But they only do it when the kid misses a word. So, "Oh, you read 'bog' as 'dog.' Use your 'b' hand." You don't have to use your 'b' hand. If it's not "bog," it's "dog." We've gotta have isolated practice to rewire the brain ... to stop guessing and start looking. And that's what we did with Aiko. Aiko has pretty significant 'b/d' issues. With this kind of practice, she could solve her 'b/d' issues, I believe, in three to four weeks if we did this every day.
Linda Farrell: You got it. Do you think you can do 10 in a row? Linda Farrell: I think you can. Let's try it. Okay. Aiko: 'x, b, d, a' Linda Farrell: [whispering] Hand down. Is your finger on the same side or a different side? Aiko: Different, so it's a 'd.' Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay. Aiko: 'o, b, c, d, j' Linda Farrell: Ten out of 10! That's ... After a little more practice with 'b' and 'd,' Ms. Farrell will help Aiko work on another skill ... reading short vowel words without sounding them out aloud first Linda Farrell: Can you just read these words right here? Linda Farrell: Could you read these words right here please? Linda Farrell: Could you check and see if that's a 'b' or a 'd'? Use your 'b' hand. Is that a 'b' or a 'd'? Linda Farrell: It is a 'd.' So what's ... .Linda Farrell: Okay. Linda Farrell: What's the word? Linda Farrell: Look down. Always keep your eyes on the words. Linda Farrell: Okay. You got five words right. Can you touch and say that word? And Aiko will need to lean on her new skills ... distinguishing between 'b' and 'd' using her 'b' hand, and concentrating on looking down at the words while she thinks.
Aiko: 'd' ... did
Linda Farrell: [whispering] Mouth closed. Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. Two things: you got five right. Can you? What's that word?
Linda Farrell: It is hug. Read them all again.
Linda Farrell: [pounds fist] That was perfect. You kept your eyes down the whole time. Can you check and see if that's a 'b' or a 'd'? Use your hand. Use your 'b' hand. Linda Farrell: Yeah. So what's the word? Linda Farrell: It is. We're gonna go over here ... and again, don't look up until I stomp. So read those. Linda Farrell: You can use your 'b' hand, right there. In one short lesson, Aiko has made a lot of progress. She's learning to keep her head down as she reads, focusing on the letters. She's using her 'b' hand to help her identify her 'b's and 'd's more accurately. And she's reading words as a whole rather than sound by sound. As she practices and works toward mastery of these skills, her reading will get better and better.
Linda Farrell: Okay. You got six out of six right. When you read this word, you went /k - i - t/. Did you hear yourself do that? Okay. It's okay. I want you to do that in your head. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna close our mouth until we're ready to read the word. It goes like this. [pause] Did. [pause] Ad. I have to think those sounds in my head. So can you do that? Let's read these.
We'd like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read. Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary ... and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools. We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Linda Farrell: It is kip. And the other thing is, you looked up. So we're gonna practice looking down. Okay. You're gonna look down, look down here until I stomp, okay? [pounds fist] You can look up. Okay? Do it again. [pounds fist] Now you're gonna read, and you can't look up until I stomp, okay? So remember, you're not gonna look up until I stomp, so I'll hold this, okay? So start reading.

Linda Farrell: Mud. You kept your eyes down and you got 'em all right! Six out of six! Yes!

Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec
For more information about teaching reading, please visit www.ReadingRockets.org
Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell

Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

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Learning 'b' and 'd' and Reading Short Vowel Words with Aiko, Second Grader

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Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Aiko on a common letter reversal - confusing the letters 'b' and 'd'. Ms. Farrell coaches Aiko to look at the letters during b/d practice and to look at the words while she works with Aiko to read short vowel words accurately.

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Learning the letters of the alphabet and sound-symbol correspondences (phonics)

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Learning the letters of the alphabet and sound-symbol correspondences (phonics)

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Students need to learn the

1. Name of letters

2. Shape of letters (uppercase/lowercase)

3. How to match lowercase and uppercase letters

4. Order of letters

5. Letter sound correspondences

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Children’s knowledge of letter names and shapes is a strong predictor of their success in learning to read. Knowing letter names is strongly related to children’s ability to remember the forms of written words and their ability to treat words as sequences of letters.

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First you learn to read than you read to learn.

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Reading Rockets: Learning Letter Names (video & activities)

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Reading Rockets: Learning Letter Names (video & activities)

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Transcript

Letter Names with Reese, Kindergartner
Linda Farrell: What do you like to eat? Reese: Ice cream. Linda Farrell: What kind of ice cream? Reese: Vanilla ... and chocolate. Reese is in kindergarten at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland. Before he can learn how to read, he'll need to master all 26 letters of the alphabet. Reese knows most of them, and reading expert Linda Farrell is going to help him with the last few that he needs to learn.
Linda Farrell: Letters have to be absolutely automatic, all 26, because when you're reading, so many different things are going on. You cannot be struggling with which letter, is this a 'v' or a 'y'? It's going to slow ... even those two confusions will slow up reading forever.
Linda Farrell: I would like you to sing the alphabet song. Reese: 'A - b - c - d - e - f - g - h - i - j - k - lmnop - q - r - s - t - u- v' - [mumbles] - 'x - y' and 'z.' Now I know my ABCs. Next time won't you sing with me. Linda Farrell: You know the song. Reese: I can go quicker. Linda Farrell: Oh, that was quick enough. I could hardly keep up.
Linda Farrell: Reese could sing the alphabet song, sort of. He would be what many teachers would say, oh, yeah, he can sing the song. But if you listened really carefully, you would hear that Reese had difficulty when he sang the song articulating 'l-m-n-o-p,' which is also - many children have that. And he had difficulty articulating the 'w.' When we got to letter naming, it was very interesting. 'W' was one of the letters that he didn't know. We find this often ... is that the source of the confusion for a letter name will often go back to you find that same confusion in singing the song. So when children have difficulty with letter names, it isn't as easy for them as it is for other children to learn this shape, this abstract shape has this abstract name. And some kids learn that easily, and some kids need more practice. And Reese is one who needs practice.
Linda Farrell: What we're going to do is we are going to sing the alphabet song and touch the letters as we sing. Okay? So get your finger. Now. Sing the first row. Reese: 'A - b - c - d' ... Linda Farrell: Stop. Okay. So you sang the first row. Now go and sing the whole thing to here. Reese: 'A - b - c - d' ... Asking Reese to touch the letters ensures that he'll look at the letters as he sings. Reese: ... 'lmnop' ... Linda Farrell: Okay. Now this row is a little bit hard. So let's do this. Let's go 'l - m - n - o - p.' Say them again. Linda Farrell: Wait. What was that? Reese: I mean ... 'l - o.' I mean ... 'm - n - p Linda Farrell: Let's try that again. What's that letter? Linda Farrell: What's that letter?
Linda Farrell: Reese has difficulty with 'l-m-n-o-p.' Now he can do that. He can say that's an 'l,' that's an 'm,' that's an 'n,' that's an 'o,' that's a 'p,' but he can't say 'l-m-n-o-p.' He can't sing it and say it at the same time. I don't know why this happens, but I see it all the time. When children can coordinate a movement with a visual, a letter, they can coordinate and say and touch the letter at the same time, they will know it better. So we do that with the letter song, with the alphabet song, and we make sure that our children can touch and say each letter. And we do it over and over and over again, because we always teach to mastery. And the thing that we worked with the most with Reese was the 'l-m-n-o-p' line. We are getting him to look at the letter as he says its name or sings its name. That's going to be a really critical skill when he learns to read, because we need him to look at the letter when he's reading.
Reese: 'X - y' and 'z.'
Linda Farrell: Is there an and there?
Reese: I said 'n.'
Linda Farrell: The song says and. So you're going to go 'y' and ... Do it like this: 'y' and ... So take your hand and go 'y' and 'z.' Do that one again.
Reese: 'Y' and 'z.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Do you think you can do them all without making any mistakes? I think you can. Reese: Without pointing? Linda Farrell: You have to point. That's part of the trick, okay? So do it. I think you can do it. Reese: 'A - b - c - d - e - f - g - h - i - j - k - l - m - n - o - p - q' ... By looking at the letters as he names them, Reese is developing an image in his mind that is linked with the letter's name. Being able to easily recognize letters is critical to becoming a fluent reader. Reese: Now I know my ABCs. Next time won't you sing with me. Linda Farrell: That was pretty darn good.
Linda Farrell: We teach the names of the letters before we teach the sounds of the letters. The logical reason is that an 'a' is always an 'a.' An 's' is always an 's.' The name is a constant. The sound changes. I look at it as the 'a' is the big category, just like this is a flower. These are all flowers. This is a rose. Okay, we have an 'a.' This is a peony. I have an 'a,' and in this word with this spelling pattern, it's an /a/. In this word with this spelling pattern, it's an /ay/. So we're teaching the category first. We are then - go to the sounds. And most of the letters if you know the name, the sound is easy to learn: 'b,' /b/, 's,' /s/, 'z,' /z/, 'd,' /d/. There are some letters that don't match their sounds - 'y' and 'w' - and we have to teach those specially. Those don't come naturally. But most of the sounds come easily. Also, the song gives you an anchor for the names. I can sing this song. I have a chant, even though I don't know what an 'a' is. When I'm two years old, I learn the alphabet song.
Linda Farrell: What's that letter? Linda Farrell: This is a 'y.' That's a 'v.' Can you say 'v'? Linda Farrell: Okay. Look down at the letter and say 'v.' Linda Farrell: Point to it and say 'v.' Linda Farrell: What's that letter? Linda Farrell: Point to it and say 'v.' Linda Farrell: And what's that letter? Linda Farrell: Okay. Reese: They kind of, so when you put this, this way, kind of looks like an 'n.' Linda Farrell: It does kind of look like an 'n.' Yeah.
Linda Farrell: It was very interesting working with Reese, because he pointed out to me very articulately how 'v' and 'z' looks like an 'n' and 'v' and 'y,' and they all ... it was exactly the letters that he was getting confused about. And he could even tell us as a kindergartener why they were confusing.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Here we go. Linda Farrell: You're telling me that's a 'y,' and I'm going to tell you that's a 'v.' Linda Farrell: So can you say 'v'? Linda Farrell: What's at the bottom of the 'v'? A point. What's at the bottom of the 'v'? Reese: Point. Linda Farrell: Okay, so ... Reese: It's kind of ... if you turn it this way, and there's a line, you kind of, it looks like, it would look like an 'a.' Linda Farrell: It would. Reese: And it looks like a triangle when you put it this way. Linda Farrell: Okay. But what letter is that? Is that ... Linda Farrell: Okay. Is this 'a' or 'v'? Linda Farrell: 'Y'? Oh my gosh. I have to show you something. 'Y' looks like this. Okay?
Linda Farrell: When I first started working with Reese, I was just trying to get him to know 'v,' because my assessment had told me 'v' was confusing. I don't work on all of the confusing letters. I work on one or two confusing letters at a time. I work on one letter if he just can't remember the name. And I ... when I first started working with Reese, I thought that he could not remember the name of 'v.' So I have, I get a stack of index cards. Maybe I get 12. Maybe I get 14. Maybe I get eight. Half of those will be the letter that we're working on, one letter. The other half will be letters that he is very confident with, so he doesn't have to think about those, so that I go ... what's the name of this letter? What's the name of this letter? As I did that, it was real easy for him to say 'v, v, v.'
Linda Farrell: Let's do 'v.' Linda Farrell: What's the name of that letter? Linda Farrell: What's at the bottom of the 'V'? Reese: Point. Linda Farrell: You got it. Say 'v.' Linda Farrell: Okay. What's that letter? Reese: 'S. V. E. V. C. V. T. V. X.' Linda Farrell: Let's try these one more time. Think you can go through them again? Reese: There's a lot of 'v's. Linda Farrell: [laughs] Once Ms. Farrell saw that Reese knew the name of the letter 'v,' then she worked on helping Reese discriminate between the letters 'v' and 'y.'
Linda Farrell: My job is to figure out a way to make them not confusing. For him, they all looked like they were the same shape. So I have to think, okay, as I was working with him, I saw that he confused 'v' and 'y.' He'd already told me, oh, they both have these and they look, this has a point here and a point here. So my job is to get him to look at the letter and give him a way to verbalize the difference between the shapes of the letters. And I had never done this before with 'v' and 'y,' but I looked and I said well, 'v' has a point at the bottom, and 'y' doesn't have a point at the bottom. This goes through my mind: 'y' doesn't have a point at the bottom. What's at the bottom is a line. Okay, so I'll make that difference.
Linda Farrell: This is a 'v.' Reese: And 'y.' Linda Farrell: You got it. Now, there's a line at the bottom of a 'y.' What's at the bottom of a 'y'? Linda Farrell: A line. What's at the bottom of 'v'? Reese: Point. Linda Farrell: Okay. Say 'v' has a point, 'v.' Reese: 'V' has a point. Linda Farrell: 'V' Linda Farrell: Say 'y' has a line. Reese: 'Y' has a line. Linda Farrell: 'Y' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now, point to the point and say 'v' has a point, 'v.' Reese: 'V' has a point, 'v.' Linda Farrell: Say 'y' has a line, 'y.' Reese: 'Y' has a line, line. Linda Farrell: Say 'y' has a line, 'y.' Reese: 'Y' has a line, 'y.' Linda Farrell: Gotta point to the line. Reese: 'Y' has a line, 'y.' Reese: 'V' has a point, 'v.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we're gonna ... every time I show you a letter you have to say that. And then you have to say it. Okay, you ready? Okay, here we go. Reese: 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now I want you to try saying them without saying, 'v' has a point, 'v.' Just say the name of the letter. Go slow. Okay? Reese: Okay. I might go quicker and quicker. 'Y.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. You have to look down and point and tell me ... Linda Farrell: What does 'y' have? Linda Farrell: A line. What does 'v' ... Linda Farrell: It is.
Linda Farrell: I started in this lesson by just getting him to know 'v.' But that wasn't going to work because he still wanted to call it a 'y' sometimes. So I needed to set up the contrast. And you saw that it worked as long as he said, 'v' has a point, 'y' has a line. 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' I stopped the scaffolding too quickly, because I went back, and he looked at it and he just saw two lines and he went 'y.' We need to get, whenever we do a scaffold where we're comparing two letters that look similar and we're saying this one has a point at the bottom and this one has a line, he has to do that enough where it is automatic for him to say it and know that letter. And he has to look at it, because what we want him to do is subliminally when he stops saying it, being looking at that and thinking it, and then eventually he doesn't have to go through the thinking 'v' has a point. It just automatically becomes 'v.'
Linda Farrell: Two high fives! Reese: Ha! I missed one. Linda Farrell: Let's do another one then!
Linda Farrell: Once he got good at 'y' and "v," just those two contrasting, then I would put three 'y's, three 'v's and six letters that he already knows, so that he would have to think. We're making it just incrementally more difficult for him to have to remember, until he just automatically looks at that letter and it's a 'v.' And that one's a 'y.' And it does happen. Sometimes it happens with practice 25 times. Sometimes it happens with practice 250 times. And sometimes it's a thousand times. But it will happen.
Linda Farrell: Two high fives. That was really, really good. We'd like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read. Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary ... and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools. We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell
For more information about teaching reading, please visit www.ReadingRockets.org
Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

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Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Reese to master the name of every letter. She helps Reese sing the alphabet song clearly and with no mistakes. She teaches him to look carefully at letters as he names them.

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How to use a digital alphabet arc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_WlNHlSG4I

Lesson Plan: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1irhB8RgngIn-sYkWcXbdbonamKIsZio8Dl5NiH3JYqg/edit?usp=sharing

Interactive Alphabet Arc: https://dl.esc4.net/rla/alphabet-arc/english.html?fbclid=IwAR1on_xGbFSy8qChAynOtnYCstISzrdWsXB2P7c6moefsT93I9bCYjvoFY4

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What's the best way to teach the Alphabetic Principle?

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What's the best way to teach the Alphabetic Principle?

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Alphabetic principle is the idea that letters, and groups of letters, match individual sounds in words. The ability to apply these predictable relationships to familiar and unfamiliar words is crucial to reading.

Letter-sound correspondence, or the relationship of the letters in the alphabet to the sounds they produce, is a key component of the alphabetic principle and learning to read. To teach letter sound correspondence, work with a few sounds at a time by teaching each letter of the alphabet and its corresponding sound. For each letter-sound relationship, instruction should include naming the letter or letters that represent the sound and it should associate a picture cue of an object with the target sound to help students remember the relationship between the letter and the sound (i.e., an image of a pig, the printed letter p, and the teacher orally stating the sound for /p/).

Additionally, incorporating a short story that incorporates the sound and has a picture of an object with the target sound and letter helps students remember the picture and the sound when they encounter the letter in print. For example, if students are learning the letter and sound for 'p' with an image of a pig as the picture cue, the accompanying story may be "Polly Pig likes to eat pizza and play with her pals." When teaching the relationship between each letter and its corresponding sound, introduce the letter in uppercase and lowercase. Multiple practice opportunities with letter-sound relationships should be provided daily to teach new letter-sound relationships and to review letters and sounds previously taught.

There is no specific agreed upon instructional sequence for introducing letter-sound relationships; however, relationships that enable students to begin reading words as quickly as possible should be introduced earliest in instruction. When teaching new letter-sound relationships, begin with letter-sound relationships of high utility (such as m, a, and s) so students can begin working with words as soon as possible. Stagger letter-sound relationships that are auditorily confusing (such as b and v) or visually similar (such as b and d) to promote mastery of one before introducing the confusing counterpart to students. After students master sounds spelled with one letter, more complex letter-sound relationships such as 'sh' for /sh/, 'a_e' for /a/, and 'igh' for /i/ can be introduced.

Once students have learned a few letter-sound relationships, they can begin to read regular words, or words that follow the phonetic rules and can be sounded out (e.g.; cat, box, bet), containing the letters and sounds they have learned. Irregular words, or words that do not follow phonic rules, such as "said" and "was," would not be taught using blending strategies. Instead students would be taught to read those words as whole words, or by sight, rather than using a "sound it out" approach. Strategies for blending or, reading words from left to right by linking each letter or group of letters to their sounds, can be taught to help students decode regular words. One such strategy is encouraging students to read words without stopping between sounds. Students can be encouraged to "keep their motor running" (keep their voices on) or to "not stop between sounds" as they say the sounds in a word to read the word. After students have blended the sounds together to read the word, they should read the word the "fast" way, or in a fluent voice without holding each sound. As students become more fluent, they should do the blending work in their heads without saying sounds aloud and only read the word aloud in a quick, fluent voice.

Continuous and stop sounds contribute to the difficulty of the blending task. Continuous sounds are sounds that can be held without being distorted (e.g., /n/, /s/ and /f/), so they are easier to hold and blend together when students are first learning to blend sounds and read words. Stop sounds are made with quick puffs of air and cannot be held without becoming distorted (e.g, /b/, /p/, and /k/.) Most students are successful with blending words containing both continuous and stop sounds. Some students may struggle with blending words with a mix of continuous and stop sounds. To support students who struggle with blending words with both continuous and stop sounds, the following sequence explains the progression of blending from easiest (1) to most difficult (4). Using only words in one level and checking for student mastery before moving to the next level in the sequence will provide scaffolding for students who need additional support with blending sounds to read words.

1. Words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) pattern and contain all continuous sounds (e.g.; man, run, rim, win);

2. Words that follow the CVC pattern with a stop sound at the end of the word (e.g.; sap, mat, fit, lot);

3. Words that follow the CVC pattern with a stop sound at the beginning of the word (e.g.; top, pan, big, ten);

4. Words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CCVC) pattern with a blend at the beginning that includes a stop sound (e.g.; step, skit, spot, spun)

After students have mastered blending words that follow CVC and CCVC spelling patterns, words with more advanced spelling patterns, such as vowel-consonant-silent e (e.g.; a_e, o_e) and vowel sounds spelled with more than one letter (e.g.; ai, igh), can be introduced. As more complex spelling patterns and words are taught, teach students to recognize the vowel pattern and corresponding sound in the word to assist with decoding the word.

To build awareness of how letters and their sounds are connected to spelling and pronunciation, word-building activities such as word ladders () and sound boxes () should be integrated into literacy instruction. As word building activities are embedded into instruction, begin with words that contain simple patterns such as VC (e.g. am) and CVC spelling patterns. After students master simple spelling patterns, gradually incorporate more advanced words as students learn more advanced spelling patterns (e.g.; vowel-consonant-silent e, vowel patterns spelled with more than one letter.)

When students understand the alphabetic principle and are able to apply what they know about letter-sound correspondence to translate printed letters and letter combinations into the sounds they make, they are able to accurately read a vast number of words-including words they have never encountered in text.

* Note: The lists above do not include all words for each level in the blending sequence, rather they are examples of some words for each level of the blending sequence. There are additional words that fit the spelling patterns and sound placements in the chart above that can be used in blending instruction. Words selected for blending instruction should be contingent upon the spelling pattern of the word (CVC/CCVC), type of sounds (stop and/or continuous) the word includes, placement of those sounds within the word, letters-sound relationships students have learned, and the student's current level of knowledge within the blending sequence.

Submitted by: Schools & Districts

Topic: Beginning Reading, Interventions

References

Harn, B., Simmons, D. C., & Kame'enui, E. J. (2003). Institute on Beginning Reading II: Enhancing alphabetic principle instruction in core reading instruction [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://oregonreadingfirst.uoregon.edu/downloads/instruction/big_five/enh...

Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, What Works Clearinghouse.

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What's the best way to teach the Alphabetic Principle?

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Alphabetic principle is the idea that letters, and groups of letters, match individual sounds in words. The ability to apply these predictable relationships to familiar and unfamiliar words is crucial to reading. Letter-sound correspondence, or the relationship of the letters in the alphabet to the sounds they produce, is a key component of the alphabetic principle and learning to read.

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Research-based guidelines for teaching phonological awareness and phonemic awareness to all children are described. Additional instructional design guidelines are offered for teaching children with learning disabilities who are experiencing difficulties with early reading.

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Phonological Awareness (PA) is the awareness of sound units in a language. PA increases in complexity, from larger units of sound (sentences) to smaller units of sounds (phonemes, or individual speech sounds).

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Video 10: Sentence Segmentation (REL Southeast)

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Video 11: Compound Words (REL Southeast)

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VIDEO: Onset (First Sound) Matching: Sound Pockets

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VIDEO: Onset (First Sound) Matching: Sound Pockets

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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Rhyming words are words with the same rime. In each syllable, there is an onset and a rime. The onset is the sound or sounds that come before the vowel sound in the syllable. For example, in the word "feet", the onset is /f/ and in the word "fleet", the onset is /f/ /l/. A rime is the vowel sound and sounds that come after the vowel sound until the end of the syllable. The rime in "feet" and fleet" is /e/ /t/. Words are considered rhyming words when they have the same rime. Words do not have to have the same spelling to rhyme.

Examples of rhyming words:

1. hacks, ax, max, slacks

2. fox, clocks, box, socks

3. white, fright, sight, kite

4. they, say, weigh, ray

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VIDEO: Matching Onset (first sound) in Words (with link to lesson materials)

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VIDEO: Matching Onset (first sound) in Words (with link to lesson materials)

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Lesson materials: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RgpqhUWBGzxx9-u61qXSM0geUKH7WJoY/view

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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VIDEO: Rhyme Match (with lesson plan link)

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VIDEO: Rhyme Match (with lesson plan link)

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Lesson materials: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1otkvHD29488ChWOGBdKvTzIbyK246RHb/view

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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This video is part of the Professional learning communities facilitator's guide for the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide: Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Learn more at: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/southeast/plc.asp

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VIDEO: Phonemes Linked to Letters Using Elkonin (Sound) Boxes

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VIDEO: Phonemes Linked to Letters Using Elkonin (Sound) Boxes

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Multisensory phonemic awareness activity

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Video 15: Phonemes Linked to Letters (REL Southeast)

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VIDEO: Phonemic Awareness: Oral Segmentation

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VIDEO: Phonemic Awareness: Oral Segmentation

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

587 subscribers

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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VIDEO: Blending Phonemes (with link to lesson materials)

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VIDEO: Blending Phonemes (with link to lesson materials)

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Download lesson materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m_jkdB96_qBrqr89-UCq1Gbkt8V7XaOaR2QTwph9abE/edit

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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Vowels and consonants are SOUNDS (phonemes) that are represented by graphemes (letter or letters). However, it is critical to teach students how to hear and feel the sounds to differentiate between consonants and vowel sounds. This is a precursor skill to spelling.

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VIDEO: Vowel Valley Sound Wall Introduction (with link to lesson materials)

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VIDEO: Vowel Valley Sound Wall Introduction (with link to lesson materials)

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Lesson materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fwk5M8g87KE8R-oIX3vewgK-EynJfZeFp_O8okNl7Wk/edit

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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VIDEO: Consonant Sound Introduction (with link to lesson materials)

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VIDEO: Consonant Sound Introduction (with link to lesson materials)

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Lesson materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NwwPAvRNCD_O46yillWE4RhnhajnRtnnoL4-zhXZk5I/edit

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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Sound Wall Introduction: Consonant Sounds

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VIDEO: Voiced/Unvoiced Sounds (with link to lesson materials)

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VIDEO: Voiced/Unvoiced Sounds (with link to lesson materials)

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This lesson starts with phonological awareness, but it also includes phonics (letter-sound) as an extension. Link to lesson materials: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1POJ_N6Tb4IsUfI-R-wZ88rSNvMgfWJXI/edit

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Gaab Lab Next Steps in Reading Instruction

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VIDEO: Consonants and vowels are SOUNDS (Minute 2:55-3:55)

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VIDEO: Consonants and vowels are SOUNDS (Minute 2:55-3:55)

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Vowels and consonants are SOUNDS (phonemes) that are represented by graphemes (letter or letters). However, it is critical to teach students how to hear and feel the sounds to differentiate between consonants and vowel sounds. This is a precursor skill to spelling.

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VIDEO:  Blending sounds in syllables with Autumn, kindergartner (Reading Rockets)

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VIDEO:  Blending sounds in syllables with Autumn, kindergartner (Reading Rockets)

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Literacy terms

Multisensory instruction: Instruction that engages more than one sense at a time to help students learn. A multisensory activity can include seeing, talking, hearing, moving, and touching.

Onset and rime: The onset is the initial consonant sound or sounds in a syllable that precede the vowel, such as /tr/ in trip, /sk/ in skirt, /b/ in boat, and /shr/ in shrunk. The rime is the part of a syllable that contains the vowel sound and all subsequent sounds in the syllable, such as /ip/ in trip, /irt/ in skirt, /oat/ in boat, and /unk/ in shrunk. Not all words have onsets (e.g. ice, oak, aim, eve, ooze).

Phoneme: The smallest individual sound in a language that changes meaning. For example, the word shock has three phonemes: /sh/, /o/, and /k/. Change the first phoneme from /sh/ to /l/ to get lock; change the middle phoneme from /ŏ/ (short o) to /ā/ (long a) to get shake; and change the last phoneme from /k/ to /p/ to get shop.

Phonemic awareness: The ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. An example of how beginning readers show they have phonemic awareness is combining or blending the separate spoken sounds of a word to say the whole word: /c/ /a/ /t/ = cat. Phonemic awareness is subset of phonological awareness.

Phonological awareness: The ability to recognize and manipulate parts of spoken words. The levels of phonological awareness, from simplest to most complex, are: syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes.

Transcript

Blending Sounds in Syllables with Autumn, Kindergartner
Linda Farrell: Autumn, I'm so glad you're here for this lesson. We are going to work on syllables ... Autumn: And, and letter sounds. Linda Farrell: ... and some letter sounds. Reading expert Linda Farrell has helped thousands of children across the country. Today she'll be working one-on-one with Autumn, who is in kindergarten at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. Ms. Farrell will be helping Autumn with the pre-reading skills that have to do with sounds, what's known as Linda Farrell: Autumn, I'm gonna give you two parts of a word, and you're gonna tell me what the word is. Watch this: /tay/, /bul/. What's the word? phonological awareness Linda Farrell: You're so good I can't even teach you that. You already know syllables. . Autumn needs to understand that most words are composed of individual sounds - like /c/, /a/, and /t/ - and then she needs to learn how to combine those sounds to form a word, like Linda Farrell: Alright. Let's talk about first sounds. This is a bat. Linda Farrell: /b/ is the first sound. This is a ball. cat. Ms. Farrell starts by seeing if Autumn can blend two or three spoken syllables into words. Ms. Farrell is making sure that Autumn can isolate the first sound in a word, what's called the onset. If Autumn can do that consistently, then she's ready to start blending onset and rime. Linda Farrell: Alright. We are now gonna put together two parts of a word again. I'm gonna see if you can tell me what it is. Autumn: Syllable.
Linda Farrell: You got it. Let's try this one: /com/, /pu/, /ter/.
Linda Farrell: Watch this. This is /s/, /un/. What's this? Linda Farrell: What's this? Linda Farrell: What happens if I put it together? Linda Farrell: /m/ Linda Farrell: /eik/ Linda Farrell: What is it when I put it together? Linda Farrell: /eik/ is this part! Watch me. What's this part? Autumn: /m/, /eik/ Linda Farrell: This is /eik/. Can you say /m/, /eik/? You point to each one. Linda Farrell: This part's /eik/. This part is /eik/. Watch this. /mmmmmmmm-eik/. For a lot of children, blending onset and rime is much harder than blending syllables. And that makes sense, says Ms. Farrell.
Linda Farrell: Autumn was a master at that. She could do that beautifully. The next level is onset/rime. And that means ... can you take the first part of the word, everything before the vowel sound and then take the vowel sound and everything after and put those together and make a word? So that would be /s/, /alt/. What's the word?
Linda Farrell: Okay. You do it! Go /mmmmmm/, /meik/. Autumn: Okay. /mmmmm/, /meik/. Linda Farrell: Okay. So what's this part? Linda Farrell: What's this part? Linda Farrell: What's the word? Linda Farrell: Okay. Let's try this one. /sss/. Got it? Linda Farrell: /ik/ Linda Farrell: Say /ik/. Ms. Farrell uses blank pieces of felt to represent each of the sounds. The felt helps Autumn think about parts of words and how she can blend them together, as she'll need to do once she's reading. Linda Farrell: Okay. Watch me. Let's do this. /ssss/. Touch it. Autumn: /ssss/ Linda Farrell: /ik/ Linda Farrell: Now watch this: /sssssssssss-ik/. Autumn: /ssss-sit/
Linda Farrell: This is hat.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Now what's the word? This is /s/, /ik/. Touch and say. Autumn: /s/, /ik/. /si/, /b/? Linda Farrell: What was the word?
Linda Farrell: Okay, this is mouse.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Let's try this. Go /siiiii/.
Linda Farrell: We just did syllables! We just did syllables! We're gonna do something called onset/rime right now.
It's all part of a process of helping Autumn understand that words are made up of component sounds. Linda Farrell: Let's do this one. Are you ready? Okay. This is /raaaaaa-t/. You do it. Linda Farrell: You got that one so fast! Tell me the parts again. Linda Farrell: Oh, my gosh. Should we try another one? Okay. /shaaaaa-p/.
Linda Farrell: Syllables are very easy to hear. You can feel syllables. They have acoustic clues for you: /com/, /pu/, /ter/. They break cleanly. When I go and I do /sh/, /irt/, I don't really say /sh/, /irt/. I say shirt. It's one acoustic clue. Some people's brains just don't get that automatically: Oh, I can break up a syllable into two parts? And we have to teach them. So the way we teach them is by taking the beginning, onset, and rime, and we ask them to blend it.

Linda Farrell: Can you say ... you're saying sit. Say sick.
Linda Farrell: You got it. Let's try this one. Okay. Got another one. You ready? /maaaaaa-p/. Wait a minute. /maaaaaa-p/. You touch each one and tell me the sounds. Linda Farrell: Get that /p/ at the end. Can you say /p/ at the end? Linda Farrell: Now go /maaaaa/, /p/.
Linda Farrell: Sit would be /s/, /it/. We're gonna try this a different way. We're gonna go like this.
Linda Farrell: What's the word? Linda Farrell: And I'm gonna ask you something. If I show you a picture right here, can you find that? Yes! It's right there. Say the word.
Linda Farrell: Now when we learn that children have trouble blending the first part of a word, onset, with the rest of the word ... we took the small felt that was onset, it would be /s/, /ik/. The big felt was /ik/. I moved those around and I took the big part of the word and blended it with the small part of the word. So instead of /sik/, I tried to do /siiiii/, /k/. We're giving the child a /siiiii/ ... they can blend a continuant sound - a vowel is always continuant - into any consonant. It doesn't matter what consonant it is. So /siiii/, /k/.
Linda Farrell: This is /maaaa/. Autumn: /maaaaaa/, /p/.
Linda Farrell: Strawberry starts with an 's' and shop starts with an 's.' Let's try this again. Okay. Here we go.

Linda Farrell: Autumn, as a pre-reader, is already exhibiting some signs of things we see in readers, and that is she's a guesser. When she doesn't know an answer, she's very quick to just say something. What's /s/, /ik/? Sit. And she just wants to get there real quickly. And sometimes we think, well, is she really guessing or is she, oh, my gosh, is she guessing or is she just really almost there? And then when she went, "Strawberry!" ... that confirmed that she's just saying the first thing that comes to her mind. And she's tired. We've been working on the same skill for a while, and her guesses get less and less close to what the reality is. With many children you'll see guessing happening. And we have to first break the guessing habit, and that's another thing that our routine would say. If you aren't sure of the answer, say, "I need help." Because we want children to be confident of their answers, and if they're not, to ask us for help.
The key, says Ms. Farrell, is to give children the time they need to fully master each skill. That includes having the teacher model the skill and having students repeat what the teacher says. That reinforcement allows students a chance to gradually master a concept that initially might be hard.
Autumn: Okay. /maaaaa/, /p/. Mom! /p/
Linda Farrell: Okay? We're gonna try one more. Are you ready to try one more? Let's do this. Okay. /s/. Linda Farrell: /op/ Linda Farrell: That was so fast. It's time for our lesson to end, so let's go back to class, okay? Autumn: Okay. Linda Farrell: Thank you. We'd like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read. Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary ... and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools. We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Linda Farrell: It is. Show me the parts in mop.

Linda Farrell: Autumn was obviously still learning this. Sometimes she could to do it, and sometimes she can't. We want to make sure that Autumn has mastered all the pre-reading skills before we ever ask her to read, before we ask her to blend letter sounds ... /s/, /i/, /t/ into "sit."

Linda Farrell: If I'd had more time with her, I would have done about five words with her: "This is /mooo-n/. Do what I do." ... and try to get her brain just to feel what it feels like. What I do know is that Autumn will master onset rhyme. When she has that, because she will know beginning sounds and ending sounds and she understands that you can break a syllable apart, blending phonemes will not be difficult for her at all.

Linda Farrell: In working with students like Autumn who are so good at one level with a skill and then at the next skill level need a lot of practice, it's important to remember that we're working incrementally, we don't go from what they know to what they don't know to what they don't know, to what they don't know, to what they don't know. We're always trying to stay in teaching on the verge between what they do know and what they don't know. We want to keep their brains open to learning, which means I can learn, which is why I would go back to syllables, maybe start every lesson with blending a few syllables, just making them harder, more than two syllables. Maybe three and four. She's really good at those. And then move to something that's easy for her in onset/rime and then get a little more difficult. So it's incremental. Autumn will be a reader.

Produced by Noel Gunther
For more information about teaching reading, please visit www.ReadingRockets.org
Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell

Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

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Blending Sounds in Syllables with Autumn, Kindergartner

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This episode focuses on phonological awareness. Reading expert Linda Farrell helps kindergartener Autumn learn to blend two parts of a syllable (onset and rime). Watch how Ms. Farrell gives Autumn explicit practice with onset and rime - a core phonological awareness skill that helps kids recognize and blend sound chunks within syllables.

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Letter Knowledge Activities ​ Reading Ready Educator Guide Reading Ready for Whole Phonics Coming soon! For access to the Reading Ready Educator Guide, Jamboards, Letter Knowledge Activities program, or Reading Ready PD please email info@readinginstitutenyc.org and share your school district or institutional affiliation as applicable. Thank you!

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