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contributed by Ryan Schaaf, Notre Dame of Maryland University

When I was a high school student, I had the privilege of having a wonderful English teacher.

She was kind, often helped her students, and created a wonderful classroom environment that was rare in my high school experience. To this day, I regard her as a great educator; one of the very best. Due to her help, I improved my writing abilities to the point I moved ahead to an Honors course the very next year.

As I now reflect upon her and my learning experiences fondly, I had only one criticism - I did the same type of work day in and day out. Although repetition is a tried and true method for learning, performing the same academic exercises over and over again really left a great deal to be desired. I wanted to express myself in new and different ways. After all, variety is the spice of life.

Nowadays, many educators use the same methods over and over again in their lessons for students to express themselves and demonstrate their new knowledge. Today's students want to express themselves in a variety of different ways. They want their academic work to be relevant, engaging, and fun.

Below is a diverse list adapted from resources found at fortheteachers.org of potential student products or activities learners can use to demonstrate their mastery of lesson content. The list also offers several digital tools for students to consider using in a technology-enriched learning environment.

100 Things Students Can Create To Demonstrate What They Kno w

1. Audio Recording

2. Advertisement

3. Analogy

4. AnimationAvatar

5. Blog

6. Book Jacket

7. Brochure

8. Bulletin Board

9. Cards (Playing/Task)

10. Caricature

11. Class Book

12. Creative Non-Fiction

13. Collage

14. Comedy Skit

15. Comic Strip

16. Commercial

17. Concept Map

18. Conversation

19. Dance

20. Data/Analytics Visualization

21. Debate

22. Demonstration

23. Diary Entry

24. Digitally-Documented Discussion

25. Diorama

26. Doodle

27. Drawing

28. eBook

29. Essay

30. Experiment

31. Fake Social Media Account

32. Film

33. Freestyle (hip-hop)

34. Flow Chart

35. Game

36. Gif Animation

37. Glossary

38. Google Earth Tour

39. Graph

40. Graphic Organizer

41. Infomercial

42. Interview

43. Kahoot!

44. Learning Log

45. Literature Circle

46. Live Stream

47. Magazine

48. Map

49. Mock-Up/Wireframe

50. Mock Product-Pitch

51. Model

52. Monologue

53. Movie Poster

54. Mural

55. Mash-Up

56. News Report

57. Newsletter/ Newspaper

58. Panel Discussion

59. Photo

60. Prezi

61. Podcast

62. Poem

63. Portfolio

64. Poster

65. Presentation (PowerPoint)

66. Product

67. Puppet Show

68. Reenactment

69. Relevant Visualization

70. Review

71. Role-Play

72. Rules/Framework

73. Scavenger Hunt

74. Scrapbook

75. Sculpture

76. Survey

77. Self-Directed Project

78. Self-Directed Short Video

79. Show & Tell

80. Simulation

81. Slideshow

82. Social Media Branding

83. Socratic Discussion

84. Song

85. Story Map

86. Speech

87. Tag Cloud

88. Team-Building Game

89. Time Capsule

90. Theatrical Play

91. Timeline

92. Tutorial

93. Video game

94. Website

95. Whiteboard Animation

96. Word Splash

97. Word Wall

98. Wiki

99. YouTube Channel

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100 Things Students Can Create To Demonstrate What They Know

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Students can express themselves and demonstrate knowledge in new ways. Here are 100 things they can create to show what they know.

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Assistive Technology for Struggling Readers

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Assistive Technology for Struggling Readers

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It's easy to fall into the trap of only focusing on a student's reading struggles, but we cannot leave the rest of the student behind. When we fail to engage other aspects of the whole child, we also fail to help them connect learning experiences. This increases the likelihood that they will question the value of school, tune out, or worse, feel like they've failed and give up. Finding the way in to help struggling readers is about looking at the whole student. Here are five ways to refocus the time you're already spending. When you refocus your time, you can increase reading skills with the whole student in mind.

1. Choose an RTI Program and Follow it Precisely

You already plan lessons for your RTI time that are laser focused on one or two particular skills. But, for some students, this isn't working. When students aren't responding to common intervention strategies, they need something different. Implementing a program your district may already own to help students learn how to read such as LLI, Reading Recovery, Wilson Reading System or Orton-Gillingham may help children learn better. When you use a program with struggling readers, the goal is to use it with fidelity. A research-based program or tool must be consistently used anywhere from 3 to 10 times before both student and teacher are comfortable and confident with the process. After that, the program must be implemented at least three times a week in order to help readers gain the more than one year of growth they need in order to catch up.

When literacy learning is difficult for children, they also suffer anguish and trauma. They may mistakenly feel inferior to their peers because they have a learning difference. Successfully implementing your program can help students feel comfortable and develop the confidence and self-esteem they need to increase their reading skills.

2. Offer developmentally appropriate reading through audiobooks

When children aren't reading at grade level, they often become discouraged, withdraw and may act out in class. Providing human-read audiobooks allows struggling readers to focus, visualize and get engaged in the story. Students can get access to the grade-level content they need so they can participate in class and work alongside their peers.

Human-read audiobooks help students build vocabulary, comprehension and critical thinking skills. This leads to more confident and engaged learners. Students benefit academically, socially, and emotionally when they listen to audiobooks. By taking away the mechanics of reading and allowing students to work at their ability, stress is lowered allowing them to succeed.

3. Use technology to balance students' struggles with strengths

You probably already "flip" some of your learning by having children watch video or listen to audio directions. Using technology helps you incorporate the 10-2 rule where teachers teach for 10 minutes and then give students two minutes to reflect on their learning. Try having your struggling readers use apps like Haikudeck, Explain Everything, and Link to explain their thinking. This puts them in the driver's seat and gives them the thinking time and tools necessary to shine.

When children use apps that make their thinking transparent, they stop feeling like they'll never be able to do it. More often than not, children who have trouble reading do not lack in other skills. Giving them a path for growing their strengths empowers them.

4. Incorporate multi-sensory strategies

You already know that the senses affect your students' learning. You ask them to listen to read-alouds, to look for letter combinations in text, and to act out stories. Now consider using a more complete multi-sensory approach. When a student learns using a combination of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic strategies, it improves their memory and learning of decoding skills.

Consider trying these different modes of learning: engaging in a debate (auditory), taking pictures of work (visual), using a game format (tactile), working in flexible groups (affective), and creating a video (technology). Often when students have to use reading in authentic and multi-sensory ways, their inhibitions disappear and they can learn better.

5. Set achievable goals together

Your students know they will be tested on the information they learn each day. Why not show them how to set their own goals and put the control back in the hands of the learner? The children in your classroom are learning to be citizens in their community. Learning to set personal goals will benefit them long after the current academic year. You can be the supportive adult they need to feel successful in life. Here's a link to a free simple goal worksheet you can use right now.

Don't let too much time go by without a check-in. Students need to feel good about their achievements regularly in order to build the stamina it takes to master a difficult task. Offer up several categories to each student: academics, screen time, physical activity, wonder, etc. Have each student choose three categories and find one goal per category for the week. This helps promote a balanced person and increases the chances that the student will successfully reach at least one goal. Celebrate successes at the end of each week. Ask students to share what strategies worked for them.

For more ideas on helping your developing readers, watch this free webinar recording Support Struggling Readers Alongside Their Peers.

Regardless of your academic setting, children deserve to have all of these new strategies offered to them. The more opportunities for learning they have, the more likely they are to have learning stick. The priority is to build up confidence in students. Students who feel like they can learn (and they all can) will believe in the process. This means that all teachers and all students must believe that the full spectrum of literacy growth is possible for everyone. It is this overarching growth mindset that will transform your literacy practice.

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5 Ways to Help Struggling Readers With the Whole Student in Mind

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It's easy to fall into the trap of only focusing on a student's reading struggles, but we cannot leave the rest of the student behind. When we fail to engage other aspects of the whole child, we also fail to help them connect learning experiences.

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When students in grades 3-8 have reading skills that are below benchmark, they lose ground more rapidly. As they move up in school, reading becomes all about learning new information and content. Providing access to human-read audiobooks can support reading skill development. Audiobooks allow students to hear explicit sounds of letters and letter patterns that form words. Audiobooks also help students engage in text and gain exposure to more words, ultimately improving vocabulary, comprehension and critical thinking skills. Here are seven reasons why audiobooks are the perfect accommodation for struggling readers. Because listening to an audiobook accomplishes the following:

1. Increases word exposure and improves vocabulary.

When students are offered the opportunity to have audiobooks in the classroom, their world can finally open up. Having books read aloud helps these struggling readers move beyond the decoding and right into learning. The more words they learn and incorporate into their knowledge-base, the better able they will be to access grade-level materials.

2. Builds background knowledge.

Students in grades 3-8 come to the classroom with differing experiences for sure, but those who've also struggled with reading arrive even less prepared. Human-read audiobooks expose students to academic vocabulary and the language of books. This exposure helps build their background knowledge, an essential component to an evolving student. It also helps develop higher-order thinking skills. The ability to build background quickly through audiobooks cannot be underestimated. If students are left to read only materials at their reading level, they lose out. They lose opportunities to get access to content and information that represents their capabilities and intellect. This is not only frustrating and causes emotional stress, but also limits learning experiences.

3. Reduces working-memory deficit.

Students who struggle with decoding and the mechanics of reading spend so much time focusing on sounding out the words that it is difficult for them to retain the information they are reading. By eliminating the focus on decoding they are now able to retain, remember, and understand the content. When students begin reading with their ears, they start building their working memory. This helps them respond to questions about the text more readily. The more often this happens, the more confident a student gets around the one subject that has plagued them, reading. Building working memory helps make other reading tasks easier and improves reading ability.

4. Removes printed word decoding anxiety.

As soon as the pressure to read the written word is gone, students are open to learn and happy to find out they can. Audiobooks allow students to be immersed in the meaning of text. They also remove the lag time of decoding, which becomes increasingly important as texts become more rigorous. Anxiety plays a huge part in a struggling reader's entire school experience, so the introduction and regular use of audiobooks can actually help students enjoy school more.

5. Increases comprehension.

When students can hear the story or information as a whole, read by a human being, their comprehension increases. Reading books word-by-word doesn't help create a whole experience. Kids in grades 3-8 who can finally put all the pieces of information together at one sitting, begin to make meaning of text.

6. Develops grade-level appropriate content knowledge.

Giving students access to grade-level materials by providing an audiobook accommodation improves their self-esteem and increases their participation in class and peer discussions. They are now able to work alongside their peers and get hours of time back. Just because a student can't read the words in the same way as their peers, doesn't mean they aren't developmentally ready to learn this information. Listening to audiobooks brings the information to the student when they are ready for it, not when they can read it.

7. Gives students educational independence.

When students get access to the content and are able to work independently, it gives them the confidence to become successful learners and control their educational outcome. Students who are given the audiobook advantage as an accommodation also have more continuity of learning in the classroom. This means peer relationships can develop normally and students can feel more like insiders.

Learn more about using audiobooks in the classroom to improve reading scores.

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7 Ways Audiobooks Benefit Students Who Struggle with Reading - WeAreTeachers

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When students in grades 3-8 have reading skills that are below benchmark, they lose ground more rapidly. As they move up in school, reading becomes all about learning new information and content. Providing access to human-read audiobooks can support reading skill development. Audiobooks allow students to hear explicit sounds of letters and letter patterns that form words.

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In the classrooms that I've visited over the past few years, I found that many ELs, even those ready to exit ESL, were still having difficulties comprehending their science and social studies textbooks. It is important that both ESL and classroom educators teach a unit on the features or conventions of nonfiction text to ELs as early as first grade. I suggest that teachers use multiple copies of paperback theme sets from National Geographic or Millmark Education, because both of these publishers feature social studies and science books that include all of the features that need to be taught.

Here are some of the books that I've used to teach the conventions of nonfiction text:
Introducing Conventions of Nonfiction Text
Here are some of the conventions of nonfiction text that teachers can introduce to their ELs.

Teachers should first discuss the title of the book and have students make predictions about the content. Students then brainstorm and list questions that they have about the topic. This helps students determine a purpose for reading and keeps them focused. From a book entitled Bones: Cells at Work, students generate questions such as "Why are cells important?" and "What can cells do?"

Table of Contents
The class then looks at the titles of chapters in the table of contents. Teachers should demonstrate to ELs how they can read the titles and find the page where the chapter begins. Have students practice looking up chapters from the table of contents.

Key Concepts
ELs need practice identifying the key concept, which is usually identified at the beginning of the book or chapter. A key concept of one of the chapters in the Bones: Cells at Work book is "Sometimes cells get a disease or become damaged and don't work as they should." This provokes questions such as "What happens when bones break?" or " What kind of sickness do bones get?"

Headings and Subheadings
Next have ELs look at the headings and subheadings. In my classroom, this was always a favorite activity because I would bring out the Wikki Stix. These are twistable pieces of yarn covered with wax that students can use to highlight text right in the book. It doesn't hurt the book and can be removed when the lesson is done. Have students highlight the headings with one color and the subheadings with another. Students should also practice making questions from the headings. "Diagrams are pictures that show information" becomes "What are diagrams?"

Stimulate your students' natural curiosity and pique their interest in a chapter or book by taking your ELs on a picture walk. I find this is helpful for students of all ages. Encourage students to discuss each picture, photograph, drawing, or diagram and ask them questions about the pictures they see. When you hear students exclaim, "Look at this!" and "I didn't know that!" from the pictures and other visuals, you know that they are learning something new. Introduce features of nonfiction text that are appropriate for the grade level that you are teaching. After your picture walk, point out features in the book such as captions, labels, maps, timelines, table of contents, glossary, index, and text features.

Text Features
Have ELs look at the text and ask them how they know which vocabulary words are important. Guide them to identify the words that are in color, italics, or bold print. Have students work in small groups to identify words that have each of these features. List text features on a chart and ask students to find and mark examples in the book with brightly colored Post-It notes. There is something magical about Post-Its because students are always excited when they get to use them.

Glossary and Index
Check the glossary to see if the important words are included in the glossary. Look for the important words in the index. Students should learn that the important vocabulary will usually appear in both the glossary and index.

Now students are ready to read the book. When this book is finished, they have not only learned about the conventions of nonfiction text but the content information presented in the book.

What's next? They'll write their own nonfiction book, of course!

About Judie Haynes

Judie Haynes taught elementary ESL for 28 years and is the author and coauthor of eight books for teachers of ELs , the most recent being "Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress" with Debbie Zacarian and Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz. She was a columnist for the TESOL publication "Essential Teacher" and is also cofounder and comoderator of the Twitter Chat for teachers of English learners #ELLCHAT.

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| Teaching ELs the Features of Nonfiction Text

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In the classrooms that I've visited over the past few years, I found that many ELs, even those ready to exit ESL, were still having difficulties comprehending their science and social studies textbooks. It is important that both ESL and classroom educators teach a unit on the features or conventions of nonfiction text to ELs as early as first grade.

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Share My Lesson is committed to bringing CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.1 educators classroom resources aligned to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.1 state standards, the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.

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Instructions for You

Objective: Roald Dahl obviously had a great time coming up with his crazy creatures, but he doesn't tell us a lot about them. We get a little bit of information from textual clues, but much is left to our imaginations. In this two-period activity, students will use their imaginations to create their own mythical creatures. The objective is to help students locate and interpret textual clues and encourage creativity-and to have fun, of course.

Materials Needed: The text of The Witches; a list of silly and not-so-silly words that can be combined to form an imaginary creature's name (e.g. dribble, master, barf, bottomizer, floppy, frazzle, fester, scumlicker, atomic, odor, slippity, dorkist, bummer, stinker, rider, humpty, finned, blobbity, mystic, splatted, blue, purple, neon, lopsided); a brown paper lunch bag and 11x14 white poster board for each student; collage materials such as felt, feathers, google-eyes, fabric, magazines, sequins, buttons, moss, etc. set out on a long table, buffet style; glue for all; medium-point markers; and Internet access with a screen students can view, or printed copies of any animal entry (with image) in an encyclopedia

Step 1: Dahl has a wonderful time making up words and animals, doesn't he? Tell the students they're going to be looking at the ways he brings made-up creatures to life, and analyzing the text for the clues to what they are, how they act, and where they live.

Begin by asking a student to read, as dramatically as possible, the passage in "The Recipe" where the Grand High Witch says, "Vhile the mixer is still mixing you must add to it the yolk of vun grrruntle's egg" (9.38) and continue until the witch exclaims "Excellent!" (9.43).

(Mention that the spelling of these mythical creatures' names is hard to figure out through her accent, but Dahl has clarified that for us by having other witches repeat the names later. We like to remind students that an author who presents confusing information will clear it up if they just keep reading.) Then get the students to tell you everything they know so far about the following creatures:

gruntles

crabcrunchers

blabbersnitches

grobblesquirts

catspringers

Here's the Shmoop link to a helpful analysis of this chapter, if you'd like to add more to this discussion.

Step 2: Select another student to read the first five paragraphs of "The Ancient Ones" (11) where the Grand High Witch gives us clues about the creatures' habitats. Again, encourage the reader to really get into the accent and tone of the speakers. Reading aloud is so much more fun with the dialogue is dramatized. Then ask the class what more they've learned about the habitats of these mysterious creatures.

Step 3: Tell the students it's their turn to come up with a mythical creature. Distribute the list of combinable words, and tell them it's just to prompt their imaginations-they're free to come up with whatever they like, on or off the list, as long as they keep it clean.

Of course, they can add suffixes and otherwise adapt the words to suit, such as turning fester to festering or full-festered. Give them a few examples from the list: Atomic Scumlicker, Blue-Splatted Bottomizer, and Mystic Dorkist. They'll have a lot of fun with this. Too much, maybe. Tell them they have just five minutes to settle on a name for their beast.

Step 4: Have the students close their eyes and visualize their creature for a moment. Then tell them they're going to be creating a picture of it using collage materials, and below that picture they'll add its name and some information about it.

Show them this example of a Bald Eagle entry on the screen (or give them each a printed copy) so they know what sort of information they'll be including. Reassure them that their entry doesn't have to be this long.

Step 5: Ask the students to form a line at the table where you've set out the collage elements. Give each one a small paper bag and ask them to fill it with whatever materials come closest to what they visualized. Of course, you won't have everything they imagined (real scales, diamond-encrusted toenails) but "making do" is how we stretch our imaginations. Or they might see a material they'd really like to use, like feathers, and alter their initial idea. While they're collecting materials, put a piece of poster board on every desk for them to use as a canvas for their masterpieces.

That's it-have a frumptious time!

Instructions for Your Students

Don't you love the way Roald Dahl invents new words and beasts? He lets us know what he means little by little, giving us bits of information here and there for us to piece together. In this activity, we'll listen to the clues he gives us about the Grand High Witch's recipe ingredients, and then you'll get to invent a whacky critter of your own-and not just with words!

Step 1: Let's check out the ways the master brings made-up creatures to life. Listen to the reading of the passage in "The Recipe." (Notice how hard it is to understand just what that Grand High Witch is trying to say? No worries, an author who tosses out confusing stuff like that will give you more clues if you just keep reading.) So far, though, what do you know about these creatures?

gruntles

crabcrunchers

blabbersnitches

grobblesquirts

catspringers

(If your teacher wants to go into more detail about this chapter, or if you'd like to reference it for homework, here's a helpful Shmoop link.)

Step 2: Now listen to the first five paragraphs of "The Ancient Ones," where the Grand High Witch gives us clues about the creatures' habitats. What do we now know about the creatures?

Step 3: Now it's your turn. Your teacher will show you some interesting words you can alter and combine to name your own mythical beast. Of course you can add parts to these words to suit, like turning fester to festering or full-festered. For that matter, feel free to go off-list and make up your own words-just keep it clean, and don't make it so long that your creature will be forgotten before it becomes extinct. Here are some fun examples to get you going: Atomic Scumlicker, Blue-Splatted Bottomizer, and Mystic Dorkist. Don't go on too long though-you've got just five minutes for this part.

Step 4: Now close your eyes and see your creature for a moment. Can you see it? Good, because you're going to be making a picture of it using some 3-D materials and a lot of glue. And under that collage of your creature, you'll add its illustrious name and some relevant information, like what it eats and where it lives and what it sounds like-and more.

Your teacher will give you an example like this one, so you know what kind of information to invent. Don't worry-you'll just be adding a paragraph or so below your image, not an entry this long.

Step 5: Choose whatever collage elements seem to match up (or come closest) to what you imagined for your critter. What, your teacher doesn't have any real scales or diamond-encrusted toenails? Really? Can you be sure about that? Oh-you meant on the table! Let's not fret about what's not there. "Making do" is how we stretch our imaginations, and the more exercise they get, the better.

Maybe you'll see a material that you'd really like to use, and that'll change your whole plan. Go with the flow. You might sketch out your creature in pencil before you glue on all the cool stuff you gathered.

That's it-long live the Snorticus Buffalonia and all its bespeckled kin!

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Objective: Roald Dahl obviously had a great time coming up with his crazy creatures, but he doesn't tell us a lot about them. We get a little bit of information from textual clues, but much is left to our imaginations. In this two-period activity, students will use their imaginations to create their own mythical creatures.

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Improve your students' reading comprehension with ReadWorks. Access thousands of high-quality, free K-12 articles, and create online assignments with them for your students.

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Description

This RL.4.1 Making Inferences in Literature Text unit is packed full of standards-based lesson plans, professionally Lexiled passages, and activities to use while you are teaching the standard RL.4.1. If you are not teaching Common Core, then the unit is still valuable to use when teaching 4th grade students to make inferences and find key details and evidence in fictional stories.
*There is now a digital component included in this resource. The passages and graphic organizers are now created in Google Slides. You can get access to the digital versions on page 5 of the PDF. (The lesson plans, small group activities, and assessments are not digitally converted at this time.)* Please check out the preview to see ALL that you're getting in this Inferences RL.4.1 pack!
In the pack you will receive:

3 Mini Lessons

9 Graphic Organizers

7 Lexile leveled Passages (levels listed below)

9 Interactive Pieces (for notebook or plain paper)

12 Task Cards

1 Summative Assessment (with answer key)

The reading passages and assessments are now professionally leveled by Lexile.

New to School- 750L

Compromise- 610L (poems will not always give accurate Lexile scores)

Lieutenant Wu- 840L

Collin's Birthday- 790L

Our Road Trip- 710L

J&J Bakery- 900L

My New Dog- 660L

Assessment Reading #1- 600L

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1
Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

If you're interested in using only the digital versions of the passages and graphic organizers, you can buy the 4th Grade Digital bundle here. This only comes with digital versions of the passages and graphic organizers.

SAVE BIG! Buy this pack in 2 possible bundles.
Click here for the READING bundle.
Click here for the ELA ALL-YEAR curriculum bundle.

This purchase is for one single classroom only.
If you're interested in sharing with other classrooms, make sure to buy the extra licenses. If you are interested in a site license, please contact me for a quote at jessica.L.tobin@gmail.com.

Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review.

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RL.4.1 Making Inferences in Literature Text - Elementary Nest

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This RL.4.1 Making Inferences in Literature Text unit is packed full of standards-based lesson plans, professionally Lexiled passages, and activities to use while you are teaching the standard RL.4.1. If you are not teaching Common Core, then the unit is still valuable to use when teaching 4th grade students to make inferences and find key details and evidence in fictional stories.

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Free Common Core Worksheets & Activities | RL.4.1

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Browse resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of teachers for original educational resources.

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How to Boost Comprehension for Early Readers

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How to Boost Comprehension for Early Readers

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What do you do when hear a word you don't know? In Ashley Palmer's kindergarten class, you stop. And you talk about it.

Palmer, a teacher at Matthews Elementary School in Missouri's New Madrid district, was telling a story about a family of toy lions during one morning lesson when she got to the word "lass."

"That's one of our vocabulary words," she told the group of children sitting cross-legged on the rug. Then she led the students in clapping out its one syllable, then segmenting the sounds: /l/, /a/, /s/.

"It's another word for 'girl,'" Palmer said. "Sometimes when I line you up for bathroom break, instead of saying girls, or ladies, I can say, 'If you are a-"

"Lass!" the students shouted out, as some sat up on their knees. "'If you are a-lass-you can line up,'" Palmer finished.

The whole process is deceptively simple-it took less than 60 seconds-but this kind of embedded vocabulary instruction is a key piece of Matthews' overhauled early reading program. Just five years ago, only about 14 percent of the school scored proficient on the state's annual assessment. The numbers have grown steadily to the point where this year, 80 percent of the students met the standard. In 3rd grade, the numbers reached 95 percent.

In the literacy world, there's a perennial concern that focusing on foundational skills will come at the expense of giving kids opportunities to practice language and enjoy stories. But researchers and educators say that it's not only possible to teach useful vocabulary and meaningful content knowledge to young children-it's necessary.

A body of research has shown that once students can decode, their reading comprehension is largely dependent on their language comprehension-or the background and vocabulary knowledge that they bring to a text, and their ability to follow the structure of a story and think about it analytically.

Before students can glean this kind of information from print, experts say, they can do it through oral language: by having conversations about the meaning of words, telling stories, and reading books aloud.

At Matthews, an explicit, systematic approach to phonics instruction has helped drive the big jumps in student achievement-but it's only one part of the equation, said Angie Hanlin, the school's principal. The school took on a complete restructuring of its reading program, which included changing the way teachers planned and taught vocabulary and reading comprehension.

"Putting a phonics patch on a reading program or on a school is not going to teach all students to read," Hanlin said. "It is not going to fix it, and it's not going to drive up the data."

This is the premise behind the Simple View of Reading, a framework for comprehension first proposed by researchers Philip B. Gough and William E. Tunmer in 1986, and confirmed by later studies.

The simple view holds that reading comprehension is the product of decoding ability and language comprehension. Kids who can't decode words won't be able to read, no matter how much vocabulary they know, or how much they know about the world. But the opposite is also true: If they don't have this background knowledge, children won't be able to understand the words that they can read off the page.

Engaging With Rich Content

"Decoding has a really outsized role on reading comprehension in the early grades," said Gina Cervetti, an associate professor of education at the University of Michigan, who studies the role of content-area knowledge in literacy. "But as students consolidate their decoding, very quickly that equation shifts."

As students progress into 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades, texts become more challenging-there are bigger words, harder concepts, and more assumptions about what students already know about the world.

Kids need to start engaging with rich content early on, so that once they are expected to read it on the page, they understand what's going on. If they haven't developed that foundation, it's hard to catch up quickly, said Cervetti.

"To learn words well, you need to encounter them again and again," said Margaret McKeown, a senior scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, and an expert in vocabulary instruction. As very young children learn words, they start to form connections in the brain-links that join synonyms together, or relate words that are used in similar situations. This gives bigger, harder words a place to land when students learn them, McKeown said. "The concepts aren't new," she said. "They're just more sophisticated or refined ways to describe similar things."

At Matthews Elementary, teachers meet once a week to go through their foundational skills lessons and read-aloud books. The curriculum they use identifies vocabulary words that can be embedded in lessons. But the teachers also look for words in the text that their students specifically might struggle with.

In this week's kindergarten class, one of those words was "living room." Palmer had introduced the word earlier that week-a lot of her students didn't have a space in their homes that they called by that name. In this day's lesson, she asked students to recall it, asking questions: What kind of room has a couch? A chair?

Matthews is in a small, rural county, where the majority of students receive free and reduced-price lunch. Hanlin said that a lot of books, even for young readers, assume life experience her students don't have. So teachers build on the knowledge that students do have. For example, Hanlin said, students might not know the word "cathedral." But they do know the word "church."

It's important to do this kind of planning ahead, said Tanya Wright, an associate professor of education at Michigan State University, who studies oral language, vocabulary, and knowledge development.

Before a teacher reads a text to or with students, she needs to read it herself, Wright said. "You're going to know where you need to stop, where you need to explain." Ahead of time, teachers should plan child-friendly definitions, or figure out how they might use props or movements to demonstrate the word.

But this kind of planned vocabulary instruction may not be happening in most schools. In a study published in 2014, Wright and her colleagues observed the way teachers discussed vocabulary in 55 kindergarten classrooms. They found a general lack of planned and purposeful instruction-most teachers weren't talking about a word more than once or selecting words in any systematic way.

There are ways to draw out more conversation about vocabulary words, McKeown said. One strategy comes from an unlikely place: improv comedy groups.

In improv, comedians are taught to say, "Yes, and ... " to build off of the scenario that their fellow performers create. The same framework can help kids build related vocabulary. Take the word "cautious," McKeown said.

A student asked to use the word might say that he had to be cautious, because someone was riding a bike fast near him. The teacher can agree, and then expand on that same idea: "You had to be careful because it might be dangerous if someone hit you with their bike."

"You're always adding more words that are associated with the [main] word, demonstrating a greater context for words," McKeown said.

In a read-aloud that afternoon, Palmer's kindergarten class heard another story about a lion-this time, one that had escaped from the zoo and befriended a little girl. As the lion curled up for a nap in the girl's house, Palmer paused on the words "lions sleep a lot." She turned to give the students on the rug a puzzled look.

"Is that true?" she asked. She referenced a nonfiction book the class had read the day before, about lions in the wild. "They like to sleep and lie around 20 out of the 24 hours!" Palmer said.

As she continued to read, she made more links back to the nonfiction text, explaining as she went what was real and what was make-believe, adding in extra details that the nonfiction book hadn't covered. She made these implicit connections explicit for her students.

Building Knowledge

Still other schools are turning to curricula that are purposefully structured to build knowledge-diving deeply into specific content areas, even in the very early grades. These curricula are based on the theory that all students need a similar foundation in core domains-like literature, the arts, science, social studies, and history-so that they have the knowledge base to support comprehension.

Educational theorist E.D. Hirsch is widely credited as the originator of this idea. His 1987 book, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, argued that schools need to expose students to the body of knowledge that authors and speakers will expect them to have. This idea has seen a resurgence in popular conversation more recently through author Natalie Wexler's 2019 book, The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System-and How to Fix It, which criticizes U.S. schools for prioritizing skills-based instruction over the teaching of content.

The notion that background knowledge informs understanding isn't very controversial. But proposals about exactly what knowledge schools should prioritize definitely are. Many teachers reject the idea of a shared literary canon, for example, arguing that it upholds a Eurocentric approach to American education that privileges the knowledge and histories of white Westerners at the expense of people of color.

But Jared Myracle, the chief academic officer in Jackson-Madison County schools in Tennessee, sees providing this kind of background knowledge as an equity issue.

Students from low-income families often don't come into school with the same depth of academic language that students from higher-income families do, limiting their ability to make meaning from what they read, he said. In Jackson-Madison county, the data bore out this divide: Schools where the vast majority of students received free and reduced-price lunch were trailing the district when Myracle started there in 2017.

Now, students spend an hour every day doing basic skills instruction-like naming and writing letters, practicing phonological awareness, and learning phonics-and an hour on what's called "listening and learning." These lessons teach topics through conversation and read-alouds-in kindergarten, they learn about plants, 1st grade is early civilizations, and 2nd graders cover systems of the human body.

Kristin Peachey, an instructional coach at Pope Elementary School in the district, said that talking about complex topics lets students engage at a higher level than they would through text at this early age.

A coherent unit of study also provides opportunities for teaching comprehension, said Cervetti, the University of Michigan professor. "You can't really reason about things in very sophisticated ways unless you know something about them," she said.

Students should have the opportunity to discuss questions that are open-ended, without a single answer, during read-alouds, said Wright. "If we're telling kids to think quietly and only be listeners and not participants in the read-aloud, then that's not optimal for their learning."

At Pope Elementary, teachers plan and talk through the questions they'll ask during read-alouds, said Peachey. Take a recent 2nd grade lesson about Greek mythology, she said. After teachers read the story "Atalanta and the Golden Apples," students were asked to reflect on characters' motivations: Why would Atalanta only marry someone who could beat her in a footrace?

Imparting a deep understanding of subject matter, and teaching children to think analytically-that takes time, said Myracle. "It's pretty easy to see gains on the foundational skills side, once you implement a systematic [phonics] program," he said. Knowledge-building is a longer process.

Myracle believes that the payoff will be worth it. But he worries that some districts will try on a content knowledge focus like a passing fad, dismissing it before they have the opportunity to see any effects.

"My biggest fear is that districts that are starting to do some of this work to build knowledge in early grades, that they won't stick with it," Myracle said. "The gains are going to be longer in coming."

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More Than Phonics: How to Boost Comprehension for Early Readers

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What do you do when hear a word you don't know? In Ashley Palmer's kindergarten class, you stop. And you talk about it. Palmer, a teacher at Matthews Elementary School in Missouri's New Madrid district, was telling a story about a family of toy lions during one morning lesson when she got to the word "lass."

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How Phonics Contributes to Reading Success 

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How Phonics Contributes to Reading Success 

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To become skilled readers, students must be able to identify words quickly and accurately. To do so, they must be proficient at decoding words. Decoding words involves converting the printed word into spoken language. A reader decodes a word by sounding it out, using structural analysis and syllabication techniques, or recognizing the word by sight. In order to sound out words, a reader must be able to associate a specific spelling with a specific sound. Phonics involves this relationship between sounds and their spellings.

Phonics is not a specific teaching method. In fact, there are many ways to teach phonics. However, what most types of phonics instruction have in common is that they focus on the teaching of sound-spelling relationships so that the reader can come up with an approximate pronunciation of a word and then check it against his or her oral vocabulary.

Approximately 84% of English words are phonetically regular. Therefore, teaching the most common sound-spelling relationships in English is extremely useful for readers. As Anderson et al (1985) write, "English is an alphabetic language in which there are consistent, though not entirely predictable, relationships between letters and sounds. When children learn these relationships well, most of the words in their spoken language become accessible to them when they see them in print. When this happens, children are said to have 'broken the code.'"

One of the arguments against teaching phonics is that the approximately 16% of so-called "irregular" English words appear with the greatest frequency in text (about 80% of the time). However, these words are not as "irregular" as they may seem. Although they must be taught as sight words, the reader has to pay attention to their spelling patterns in order to store them in his or her memory. Some detractors of teaching phonics also contend that reading develops in the same way as speaking - naturally. Foorman (1995) responds by saying "humans are biologically specialized to produce language and have done so for nearly 1 million years. Such is not the case with reading and writing. If it were, there would not be illiterate children in the world."

Clearly then, most children need instruction in learning to read. One of the critical early hurdles in reading instruction is helping children grasp the alphabetic principle. That is, to read children must understand that this series of symbols we call the alphabet map onto the sounds of our language in roughly predictable ways. This alphabetic principle is a key insight into early reading. And it enables children to get off to a quick start in relating sounds to spellings and thereby decoding words.

Once children grasp the alphabetic principle and learn the most common sound-spellings found in words common to primary grade texts, their next hurdle involves the decoding of multisyllabic words. For some students, it is quite difficult to read these words. They cannot recognize common spelling patterns, or larger chunks of these words, that may aid them in more efficiently sounding them out. In addition, many more words in the books they read are not in their speaking or listening vocabularies. Therefore, learning the meanings of these unfamiliar words is critical to understanding the text. Often, parts of words such as prefixes and roots can aid in determining a word's meaning.

And, comprehension is the most important part of reading. But, how does this ability to decode words help a reader understand a text? The following flow chart illustrates that strong decoding ability is necessary for reading comprehension.

Phonics instruction helps the reader to map sounds onto spellings. This ability enables readers to decode words. Decoding words aids in the development of and improvement in word recognition. The more words one recognizes, the easier the reading task. Therefore, phonics instruction aids in the development of word recognition by providing children with an important and useful way to figure out unfamiliar words while reading.

When children begin to be able to recognize a large amount of words quickly and accurately, reading fluency improves. Reading fluency refers to the ease with which children can read a text. As more and more words become firmly stored in a child's memory (that is, the child recognizes more and more words on sight), he or she gains fluency and automaticity in word recognition. Having many opportunities to decode words in text is critical to learning words by sight. The more times a child encounters a word in text, the more likely he or she is to recognize it by sight and to avoid making a reading error (Gough, Juel, & Roper-Schneider, 1983).

Reading fluency improves reading comprehension. Since children are no longer struggling with decoding words, they can devote their full attention (their mental energies) to making meaning from the text. As the vocabulary and concept demands increase in text, children need to be able to devote more of their attention to making meaning from text, and increasingly less attention to decoding. If children have to devote too much time to decoding words, their reading will be slow and labored. This will result in comprehension difficulties.

When they read, children need to be able to use three cueing systems. These systems represent signals in text that interact and overlap to help the reader understand what he or she is reading.

1. 1. Graphophonic cues involve a reader's knowledge of sound-spelling relationships. Phonics instruction helps children to use these cues.

2. 2. Syntactic cues involve a reader's knowledge of the grammar or structure of language. These cues do NOT help children sound out words. Rather, this knowledge helps the reader to predict what type of word might appear in a certain place in a sentence.

3. 3.Semantic cues involve a reader's knowledge of the world. This knowledge helps the reader to use cues in the text to discover the meaning of a word that fits into a specific place in a particular sentence. Readers use their semantic knowledge to determine if a text makes sense.

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How Phonics Contributes to Reading Success | Scholastic

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To become skilled readers, students must be able to identify words quickly and accurately. To do so, they must be proficient at decoding words. Decoding words involves converting the printed word into spoken language. A reader decodes a word by sounding it out, using structural analysis and syllabication techniques, or recognizing the word by sight.

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Last updated on July 28, 2021

Download a free phonics assessment and learn how to assess your entire class in 15 minutes or less, discover exactly what phonics skills to teach next, and create differentiated phonics groups for targeted and effective phonics instruction!

How to Know Exactly what to Teach Next with this FREE Phonics Assessment

If you teach phonics and reading, it's likely that you've previously (or currently) been overwhelmed trying to figure out exactly what phonics skills to teach next.

Those pacing guides do not know your students! So while your teacher's guide or your district may be telling you that it's time to teach long vowels, Jane's progress at the reading center may be telling you otherwise.

My go-to mantra as a kindergarten ESL teacher, first grade teacher, and as a reading interventionist was this:

Don't stress - Assess!

Assessments are truly an integral part of effective phonics and reading instruction.

Why are Phonics Assessments Important?

Research tells us that phonics instruction must be explicit and systematic. Systematic implies that there's a step-by-step process.

Like anyone who has ever tossed out a manual and made a huge mess trying to compile Ikea furniture while skipping the directions, step-by-step processes are there for reason.

By figuring out exactly where your students are in the phonics scope and sequence, you can pinpoint what they need to be taught (or retaught) next.

As they master that skill, you continue by teaching them the next skill, and with each step of mastery your students are climbing the ladder of learning to read.

Before you know it, they'll be at the top of the ladder where they make the transition from learning to read to reading to learn! #goals

Making Time for Phonics Assessments

I know that time is not of abundance in the classroom, and making time for one more thing is not always possible.

But I'm telling you, like a friend tells another friend when they have spinach in their teeth, you need to make time. Phonics assessments are necessary. #truefriendstellyou

The Fastest Phonics Assessment Ever

What if I told you that you could assess your entire class in phonics in 15 minutes or less?

I've created a FREE Phonics Assessment Snapshot that allows you to assess your entire class at once.

(If you teach small groups or work with a student one-on-one, this assessment is still for you!)

The best part is that this assessment will take you 15 minutes or less. That's not per student, that's total!

If you tell me that you don't have 15 minutes to spare to make sure you're making the most of your phonics instruction, I definitely won't believe you. 😉

All About the Phonics Snapshot Assessment

Did you catch the word snapshot? A snapshot can be defined as a brief look or summary.

The results of this assessment will give you just that: a brief look at one student's journey through phonics, and, if applicable, a summary of your entire class' journey through phonics.

Now you might think that this assessment looks a lot like a spelling test!

Yep!

You might think that that's weird, but literacy involves decoding (sounding out words through phonics) and encoding (sounding out and spelling words through writing).

If a student is able to spell it, they're able to decode it! So yes, this looks a lot like a spelling test. But the word list is extremely intentional.

Administering the Free Phonics Snapshot Assessment

If you can give a spelling test, you can administer this assessment!

In fact, it's easier than a spelling test because I have scripted all of it for you! #easybutton

All you need to do is read the script and be sure that your students understand that this is not a test.

We don't want them stressing over whether or not they know the answers. It is extremely likely that as the "spelling test" increases in difficulty, many students will not know how to spell the words.

Stress is the last thing that we want for them. After all, this assessment is a tool for you, not a grade them.

So be sure they know that they need to try their best, but this is NOT a test!

The Student Answer Sheet

While I've provided a numbered sheet for students to record their answers, please know that you do not need to use this sheet! You can use a plain sheet of lined paper and either number it for your students, or have them number it themselves.

Scoring the Free Phonics Snapshot Assessment

After you've used the script and spent 15 minutes or less giving students the assessment...let the fun begin!

This is the part where we figure out exactly what phonics skill(s) your student(s) need to be taught next!

Next to each word is a breakdown of the phonics skills within that word.

You're going to analyze the way the student encoded (spelled) the word to decide whether or not they have an understanding of that phonics skill.

Sample Scoring

Knowing Which Skills a Student Understands

For example, let's say a student spells the word chip as ship.

The word chip has the following phonics skills: digraph / short vowel / final consonant.

The student wrote ship. That means that on the Phonics Snapshot Assessment Score sheet, I would circle only short vowel and final consonant because those letters and sounds were accurately depicted in their spelling.

I can't circle digraph because even though they wrote a digraph, they wrote the wrong one. That tells me they do not have that sound-spelling understanding.

If you're slightly confused, don't worry! It will make sense once you have the printable in your hands. I have included a sample scoring sheet as well as explanation sheet to help you if you need it.

Calculating Mastery

You'll notice that the bottom of the page has a place to calculate score totals.

This is the area that will show us which skill you need to teach (reteach) the student next - YAY!

You're going to count each time you circled (or highlighted) that specific skill. In other words, you're adding up how many times they got that skill correct during the assessment.

After doing so, it's time to decide what you consider mastery.

Every school/teacher has their own take on this. I have chosen 80% or above to indicate mastery.

This means that any scores that are 80% or above are skills that student has already mastered. The first skill that falls below 80% is the skill that I'm going to target (teach or reteach) next!

The Order of the Skills

We've already established that phonics should be taught explicitly and systematically, and this is the general order in which phonics is typically taught.

The skills are listed in order from left to right, top to bottom (the same directionality we use to read). (initial consonants > short vowels > final consonants [all of these are letter sounds] > digraphs > blends > silent e (AKA CVCe) > vowel teams > r-controlled vowels > diphthongs.

(Don't forget that I've also included a explained sample inside of the assessment packet, in case you would like to refer to it later on.)

The Results

Now that you know how to find the target skill, be sure to note it on the top right-hand corner of the page! Now you know exactly what you'll be teaching (or reteaching) that student next!

There will likely be many students who show that they are below mastery on multiple skills within the assessment. That's okay! You're going to start with the first skill that falls below mastery. You'll follow up with the other skills after the target skill is mastered.

Filling in the Class Results

If you're working with an entire class or group of students, which most of you are, you can use the Class Results sheet to track all of your student results on one page.

Simply take the target skill in the right hand corner and check that box next to their name.

Because the skills are in order, you know that anything before the box is already mastered, and anything after the box is what you'll teach them later on.

How's that for having a snapshot at your class' (or groups') understanding of phonics?! 🙌🏼

Create Differentiated Phonics Groups

If you need to group students according to target skill, which you likely will need to do, use the Student Groupings sheet to do so.

Work through your Class Results sheet and write each student's name under the box that has their target skill.

A note phonemic awareness & the alphabet and multisyllabic words

If a student does not have mastery of initial consonants, short vowels, and final consonants, it is likely they need to go back and learn the alphabet (letters AND sounds). If they still need this type of instruction, they likely need more phonemic awareness practice. Be aware that any students falling into the target categories of initial consonants, final consonants, or short vowels, probably need overall alphabet and phonemic awareness practice.

If a student has mastered all of the skills in the assessment, they are likely reading, or are ready to learn to read, multisyllabic words. Place them in this grouping.

You're going to feel so accomplished and ready to teach when your students are divided into these targeted groups! 🎉 Reading, here we come!!

Download Your Free Phonics Snapshot Assessment

Are you ready to stop the stress and assess?!

I promise you will feel better when you know you're giving your students the targeted instruction that they need!

...and their reading will thank you!

Get the FREE Phonics Assessments!

When you enter your name and email in the boxes below, the Phonics Snapshot Assessment file will immediately open in your window! YAY!

I would love to hear how this transforms your phonics instruction! Be sure to come back and leave a comment letting me know how this assessment worked in your classroom or tutoring! 👇🏼

If you're looking for more in-depth phonics assessments that you can use all year long, check out my Focused Phonics Assessment Binder!

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FREE Phonics Assessment: How to Know Exactly what to Teach Next

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Last updated on July 28, 2021 Download a free phonics assessment and learn how to assess your entire class in 15 minutes or less, discover exactly what phonics skills to teach next, and create differentiated phonics groups for targeted and effective phonics instruction!

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What every teacher should know Reading 101: A Guide to Teaching Reading and Writing

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What every teacher should know Reading 101: A Guide to Teaching Reading and Writing

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

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Award-winning reading solution with thousands of leveled readers, lesson plans, worksheets and assessments to teach guided reading, reading proficiency and comprehension to K-5 students

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Learn what you are measuring with each literacy skill assessment, the age or grade when a skill should be mastered, and when during the school year you should administer the assessments. You’ll also find sample assessment questions.

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Interventions for Older Students with Phonological Awareness Deficits: Slash and Dash.

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Find quality Lessons, lessonplans, and other resources for Middle School Phonics and much more

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Printable Lesson Plan On Phonics and Paragraph Words

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Before starting the lesson, I will review a phonics rule which was already learned in a previous spelling lesson. I will ask the pupil to complete a page from a phonics book. The spelling words will consist of words which are built using phonograms. The assignment will involve writing in the blank spaces of ten sentences with the correct spelling word from that lesson.

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Hello! I am going to begin a little series of teaching ideas. I'm going to start with September. Never mind that we are halfway through the month y'all. The world is spinning fast. I decided to begin this series with word work {a.k.a. phonics instruction}. My hope is to boost your bag of tricks and make lesson planning just a bit easier! Phonics is how I started my school day so it's up first!
Teaching Phonics
After our morning work, announcements, and morning meeting, we launch into phonics and word study during whole group on the rug.

Fancy Definition:
Explicit phonics instruction is instruction in which the te acher directly tells students the expected outcome, overtly models the skill, and provides students with many opportunities to apply the skill with ongoing feedback.

critical components of an explicit phonics lesson are outlined below:

Let's go through each of the above components now, and I will share a couple ideas of how I did this in my classroom! (All resources shared in this post are linked at the bottom)

For our phonemic awareness warm-up, we are doing oral activities to review learned patterns and build on our new sound spelling pattern.
These are usually oral and kinesthetic back and forth exercises between class and teacher.

Say it Fast:
I will say a word that is segmented and you will say it fast!
Teacher: dramatically segmenting using a puppet, tapping, fingers, or some visual of separation of sounds. "c--a--t"
Class: "Cat!" while giving one clap.
Repeat with about 10 words

Tap it out:
I will say a word fast and you will break it apart and tap it on your arm.
Model word: b--a--t
b-tap bicep
a--tap middle crease of arm (elbow area)
t--tap forearm
say it fast->slide your hand from your bicep down to your forearm and say, "bat"

Riddles
Teacher: What rhymes with pig but starts with /d/? class: dig!
Teacher: What rhymes with book but starts with /c/? class: cook!
Teacher: What rhymes with hand but starts with /s/? class: sand!
INTRODUCTION/REVIEW OF SOUND SPELLING
Students become excited and inquisitive each Monday (or even Friday afternoon!) asking which new pattern we will conquer for the week. I love introducing the new patterns with anchor words. You can use props, videos, and costumes to really drive home that new pattern with an anchor word. Since I am using short a as my example, I would bring in a large apple or use a realistic decor apple that is large. I could also use a decorative bat (the flying kind) or another fun prop that my students would remember. I would place that prop in a prominent place of our room with the word displayed on it in large color coded letters. (consonants blue and vowels red) Students love to generate a list of rhyming words to go with our anchor words so we do that on chart paper one of the days. (remember to color code or somehow highlight the pattern within the words)

I usually make a little folder on my desktop with the phonics name and then find 3 to 5 phonics videos on youtube that I drag into the folder. As part of our introduction, we will watch a short a video.
Useful Videos!
Here are three videos from my short a folder. The third video is always a hit. My students would always beg for me to be sure to add Geraldine to the folder. Sometimes the sounds are a bit too British sounding, but usually we watch them because they are the perfect amount of learning and silliness for the morning.

I grew up in a phonics heavy elementary school and began my teaching career in a strict phonics based reading program, so I have a thing for teaching blending that is a borderline fetish. I can be one crazy lady when I am teaching my students to blend properly. All you really need is a list of words or a decodable sentence to use.

Phonics Posters Found Here

Display your list on the elmo or in front of your students and only show them one letter of one word at a time. Let's stick with cat as an example. Uncover the c and say, "sound" /c/ have the students mirror /c/. Then uncover the a and say "sound", /a/. Students mirror /a/. Then go back and say "sound", /c/ "sound"/a/. Students mirror /c/ /a/. Next blend the first to sounds by running your finger underneath the c and the a and saying, "blend" /ca/. Students mirror /ca/. Uncover the t and say, "sound" /t/. students mirror /t/. Go back and say "sound /c/ sound /a/ sound /t/" then say, "blend" /cat/ the blended word. At first it feels very strange and choppy to say sound and blend every time, but eventually your students will do this with just your voice and a finger guiding them and will really understand the process. It won't feel disjointed or choppy at all.

This blending process can be taken to word lists, sentences, and decodable text. I find that teaching this explicitly really makes my life easier when we come to unfamiliar yet decodable words at the reading table. I only have to point and then run my finger under words and students automatically sound sound blend.
WORD WORK
Word work is something that I do both at the guided reading table, and what my students do independently during their guided reading block.

Each
week students work through 5 main activities with our spelling pattern
of the week. I also have bonus activities out for those fast
finishers. These are open ended activities that I rotate throughout the
month.

On Monday students practice decoding our pattern on the pocket chart and matching a picture to each word. My students do this in partners. I love this activity because it is targeted practice on exactly what they need. They are applying decoding sounds, blending, searching for meaning, and able to self check with the pictures making sense.

On Tuesday, students build words with magnetic letters. They also color code the words when they color and write them working on differentiating the consonants from the vowels.

Please excuse me for not having a short a example. I am dying a little inside...

On Wednesday, students read, trace, write, and match the words independently.

On Thursday, students love to do a "dab book".

Each book has 14 words. Students have to decode the choices to find the right match.

Finally Friday! On Friday, students practice their sentence writing! They choose a picture of choice and glue it in the space to the left. Then write a sentence with that word inside.

{Fast Finisher Word Work Ideas}

Sight Word Sticks 10 popsicle stick games using your own sight word list

10 activities based on your own word wall words.

DECODABLE TEXT
If your school does not provide you with decodable text, you can find it online through R eading A to Z or other a quick search on the internet. It is not the most thrilling or captivating reading material, but it is so important for students to get the chance to practice decoding learned phonics patterns.

Dictation is reading a word or sentence aloud and having students write it down accurately. It is done after students are successful at the other components of phonics. It can be a powerful teaching tool if you give the time to talk it through and correct mistakes together. I dictate words to my kids and let them write on the table with dry erase or on a lined paper when we are working on letter formation and handwriting. Keeping it fresh and different is key. We do this one to two times a week either whole group as I model editing my mistakes and making sure my letter formation is on point etc.

Later, I allow students to do this in partners. We use these phonics recording sheets and students quiz each other at word work as a fun activity. I will throw this into our weekly activities, or keep it as a fast finisher activity.

I love that all of these phonics components can be done within the guided reading block in whole group, small group, and individually.

Hopefully, this post brings some inspiration to your word work planning! Have a terrific week!

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Lesson Planning Ideas: Teaching Phonics - Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits

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Teaching phonics for the entire year! Lessons for phonics ideas, phonics activities, and spelling patterns are in this phonics binder, phonics books, phonics tracers, and phonics posters. Teach vowel teams, word families, spelling, CVC words, short vowels, long vowels, silent e, diagraphs, and more using these ideas!

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Printable Lesson Plan On Consonant Blends

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(How): For students with difficulties learning and staying on task, prioritize the lesson objectives & directly follow the steps of presentation. For students with vision impairments, prepare a consonant blends handout similar to the board presentation. **Also, Refer to IEPS MODIFICATIONS (What): For students with difficulties learning and staying on task, minimize the # of consonant blends to 1.

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Printable Lesson Plan On Classifying Closed Syllables

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Go back to the previously written words and have students come to the board and circle the closed syllables. Point out the closed syllables do not have to start with a consonant and can end with a double consonant such as a digraph. Also point out that many one syllable words are also closed syllables.

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mobile app for learning to read and spell

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English Reading, Spelling And Pronunciation App

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Sensory phonics lesson- Special needs teaching

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English Anyone Videos, Podcasts, and Blog (FREE)

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English Anyone Videos, Podcasts, and Blog (FREE)

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EnglishAnyone.com - Become a Confident, Fluent English Speaker with the World's #1 English Fluency Guide

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Blog - EnglishAnyone.com - Become a Confident, Fluent English Speaker with the World's #1 English Fluency Guide

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In this Phrase Builder video from a Master English Conversation lesson set, you'll learn some useful SPOKEN English - as well as how to pronounce these great words and expressions, so you express yourself more like a native English speaker!

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Phonics Game for your Class or your Home - ESL Teaching Tips - English Class

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Orton-Gillingham Approach to Phonics Instruction

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Orton-Gillingham Approach to Phonics Instruction

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Adult ESL Phonics Instruction: Orton-Gillingham Approach

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Assessing Struggling Readers at the Secondary Level

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Assessing Struggling Readers at the Secondary Level

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How to Adapt Your Teaching Strategies to Student Needs

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How to Adapt Your Teaching Strategies to Student Needs

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How to Adapt Your Teaching Strategies to Student Needs

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Teachers are often asked to modify instruction to accommodate special needs students. In fact, all students will benefit from the following good teaching practices. The following article takes the mystery out of adapting materials and strategies for curriculum areas.

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Phonics Instruction for Middle and High School ELLs

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Phonics Instruction for Middle and High School ELLs

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I recently had the opportunity to teach summer school, and two of my sixth-grade students barely read at a first-grade level. This was very challenging for me, and I struggled to find the right way to address their need for phonics and comprehension instruction. Little by little, however, I began to find some simple strategies that worked for them, such as turning activities into a game. We began to make some progress, and I discovered some new ways to help older students build a stronger foundation of basic reading skills.

Before reviewing those strategies, however, it is helpful to understand why teaching phonics to older students is so important and what some challenges may be.

Phonics: Challenges for Older ELLs

Teaching phonics to middle and high school English language learners (ELLs) poses the following challenges:

Phonics becomes a minimal part of the Language Arts curriculum for students in intermediate grades and above - it is assumed that students have learned the sound/symbol correspondence necessary to read by the upper elementary grades.

For ELLs who start their education in the U.S. after 4th grade, this can be very problematic because the intensive phonetic instruction they need is unlikely to be a part of their daily curriculum.

Prior literacy experience

Many educators believe that students only need to learn to read once, and that's true for students whose first languages are alphabetic languages like English. Once the concept of matching a symbol with a sound has been learned, it can be applied to new languages.

Students who have not learned to read in their native language or whose native language does not use a phonetic alphabet may struggle to grasp the concept of phonetic relationships between sound and letters.

In addition, these students must master that concept while applying it to a new language.

Phonics instruction may also be tied to vocabulary words that are unfamiliar to ELLs, or it may focus on words presented out of context (e.g., in worksheets or drills), making it difficult for ELLs to decipher their meaning.

It may be difficult for ELLs to apply what they've learned in isolated phonics exercises to text if they don't see a connection from one exercise to the other.

Age-appropriate instructional materials and strategies

Phonics instruction materials and strategies are often targeted towards much younger children.

While some materials can be adapted for use by older students, most are unlikely to be engaging or appealing for middle and high school ELLs. They may feel embarrassed at using "childish" materials, and they will quickly get bored by the drill and repetition that younger students have a need for.

Older students want to engage in activities requiring the use of higher-order thinking skills, which early literacy materials don't usually offer.

There is good news, however. Despite these challenges, there are a number of strategies which can be effective for older ELLs. Give some of these a try! You can also find more research-based strategies and information for adolescents in Key Literacy Component: Decoding by the National Institute for Literacy (featured on our sister site, AdLit.org).

Basic Strategies: Build a Foundation

Enlist extra support: ELLs in 4th grade and above who need further instruction on phonics will be most helped by intensive intervention. Ideally, they should attend a reading remediation class or receive special support to continue phonics instruction from a reading specialist. If such support is unavailable for your students, ask your school's reading specialist for help designing an intervention plan for the student. Keep in mind that computer programs or off-the-shelf programs (which may have been designed for native speakers of English and/or younger students) may not provide the targeted instruction, feedback, and support that older students need.

Use hands-on activities to help teach letter-sound relationships: This can include using manipulatives such as counters, sound boxes, magnetic letters, or Scrabble tiles. Students may also be interested in creating their own materials on the computer or through an art project. Month-by-Month Phonics for Upper Grades: A Second Chance for Struggling Readers and Students Learning English also offers a number of ideas for incorporating phonics activities into the curriculum.

Provide targeted support for students whose native language is non-alphabetic: Language skills transfer from one language to another; students literate in their native language will already have background knowledge of how reading works.

If their native language is non-alphabetic, however, students may need extra practice in the following areas:

Direction: Students may not be accustomed to reading from left to right and top to bottom.

Letter-sound recognition: Students may need extra practice on matching sounds and letters, particularly if they are used to a system of characters that symbolize words rather than sounds.

Use an alphabet chant: If older students need to review their alphabetic skills, look for a jazz or hip-hop alphabet chant that students will find entertaining and engaging. There are many examples online and on YouTube.

Have students write for sound: Say a short sentence that includes one or more words that include the target phonics feature(s). Ask students to listen carefully and then write what they heard. This activity trains students to listen for the individual sounds in words and represent them phonetically in their writing.

Work in small groups: If students are past the age at which phonemic awareness and phonological skill-building have been addressed (typically kindergarten through first or second grade), attend to these skills one-on-one or in small groups with developmentally appropriate and engaging activities. Ask your school's reading specialist for help finding appropriate activities and materials.

Help students make a connection between their first language and English: For students with stronger native language literacy skills (especially in languages related to English like Spanish), help them understand that the process of sounding out words is the same across languages. Explain some letters may make the same or similar sounds in both languages. Knowing this can help Spanish-dominant students, for example, as they learn to decode words in English. Make sure they are aware of cognates as well!

Teach phonics in context: Use text with vocabulary that is familiar to the student to introduce and reinforce:

letter recognition

beginning and ending sounds

blends

rhyming words

silent letters

homonyms

Integrate phonics and content instruction: When possible, collaborate with the reading specialist and content-area teachers to integrate phonics instruction into content and classroom lessons and texts, as well as into academic vocabulary instruction.

Make it a game: Try activities as simple as looking for a particular sound on the page, or reciting words and having students hold up a sign with the correct sound on it after each word. You may also want to try short games of Scrabble, Hangman, and Memory. These are quick activities but they can effectively reinforce the targeted phonetic concept.

Look for appropriate materials: "High interest/low readability" texts are books that are written on a first to third grade reading level but treat themes and topics that are of interest to students of middle school or high school age. You can find a number of suggestions in the following resources; many of the books listed may be available in your school's library or in your local public library.

Use poetry, jazz chants, and songs: Find poems, chants, and songs that relate to students' interests, or ask them to bring some of their favorites in that can be included in the lesson. Recite the text aloud, and then give students time to practice reading aloud as well.

Integrate phonics instruction with word study: Teach students how to identify word parts, break words down into syllables, and use word families. Use content-area words for this exercise that students are likely to find in their academic work.

Final Thoughts

While it may seem to be the most expedient solution, it is not appropriate to put an older ELL student in a lower grade - for example, 1st grade - in order to get the appropriate reading instruction. This can be very humiliating for the student and cause behaviors that would be detrimental to learning.

By keeping activities age-appropriate and fun, and by tying instruction to the academic content that middle and high school students need to master, you will give your students the opportunity they need to start making progress as readers and writers. It will be challenging, but the extra effort it takes to engage them may be the key that unlocks the door to their future.

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Phonics Instruction for Middle and High School ELLs

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I recently had the opportunity to teach summer school, and two of my sixth-grade students barely read at a first-grade level. This was very challenging for me, and I struggled to find the right way to address their need for phonics and comprehension instruction.

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Teaching the Fundamentals: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics,Decoding, and Spelling

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Teaching the Fundamentals: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics,Decoding, and Spelling