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Decoding/Word Work

Word work doesn't end in primary: the 40% problem

I chose the Decoding/Word Work pathway because the research points at a blind spot in junior. The UFLI Science of Reading video frames it well: skilled reading is word recognition and language comprehension woven together (Scarborough's Rope), and neither strand stops mattering. But in practice, most schools stop teaching students how to break words apart around grades 4–6, exactly when the words get harder. Reading Reimagined's research with ETS found that roughly 40% of middle schoolers still struggle to decode complex multisyllabic words, even though only about 10% struggle with single-syllable words. The average grade 4 student meets about 10,000 new words a year, and most have two or more syllables.

The problem hides from us. Leach, Scarborough and Rescorla (2003) found that many reading difficulties are late-emerging. Students who compensated fine in primary hit the wall when multisyllabic words raise the demands… and about two-thirds of the difficulties identified after grade 3 include a word-level deficit. Because these students "already learned to read," their struggle gets misread as a comprehension or motivation problem.

A simple strategy the research supports: Peel it, read it, flex it. A 30-second routine for any big word, done explicitly and then released to students (modelled → shared → guided → independent):

1. Peel off the prefix and suffix (teach the high-frequency ones directly: un-, re-, dis-, -tion, -able, -ly).

2. Read the base, then blend the parts back together.

3. Flex it — if it doesn't sound like a real word, try the vowel another way ("in-VES-ti-gate, not in-vest-i-GATE").

4. Check it back in the sentence — does it make sense?

Intervention studies using this routine with struggling readers in grades 3–5 (Toste et al., 2017) show significant growth in word identification, decoding, and spelling, and Goodwin and Ahn's (2010, 2013) meta-analyses have found morphological instruction benefits decoding, spelling, and vocabulary–with the biggest gains for struggling readers.

References

Goodwin, A. P., & Ahn, S. (2010). A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: Effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties. Annals of Dyslexia, 60(2), 183–208.

Goodwin, A. P., & Ahn, S. (2013). A meta-analysis of morphological interventions in English: Effects on literacy outcomes for school-age children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17(4), 257–285.

Leach, J. M., Scarborough, H. S., & Rescorla, L. (2003). Late-emerging reading disabilities. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(2), 211–224.

Toste, J. R., Capin, P., Vaughn, S., Roberts, G. J., & Kearns, D. M. (2017). Multisyllabic word-reading instruction with and without motivational beliefs training for struggling readers in the upper elementary grades. The Elementary School Journal, 117(4), 593–615.

University of Florida Literacy Institute. (n.d.). What is the science of reading? [Video]. Module 6.3 course materials.

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Pathway: Decoding, Word Work & Accessibility

Resource Explored: OHRC Right to Read Report & Ontario’s ONlit Language Framework

A common misconception in the Junior division (and even into Intermediate) is that older students have automatically mastered decoding and phonics. In reality, many students still struggle with word-reading. When decoding takes up all of a student's working memory, reading becomes exhausting, and students often disengage not because they don't want to learn, but because they are overwhelmed and can't access the text.

Struggling with decoding does not mean a student isn't capable of doing high-level work. While we continue to provide explicit, targeted word study, we also need to give students immediate access through assistive technology like Read&Write (Text-to-Speech).

When students use text-to-speech, they can hear grade-level vocabulary, understand the instructions, and engage in the exact same deep, critical thinking as their peers. Providing these accessible tools builds student confidence, helps them feel comfortable in the classroom, and ensures no learner is left behind simply because of a decoding barrier.

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The other resource that I explored was Reading Strategies 2.0 by Jennifer Serravalo.

The book is an amazing resource for classroom teachers. It provides countless resources on teaching students about reading comprehension.

One particular idea is the method for beginning reading after taking a break.

1) stop and think "where was I"

2) What was I reading about?

3) Go to the last thing you remember

4) Restart

This is great for ADHD students as well!

Check in with yourself! Did that make sense? If it did not, reread!

Think about what you read. Why was that thing important and what did the text say about it?

I find that these few tidbits really demonstrate the power of this text!

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Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning, not simply decoding words.

Strong comprehension depends on the interaction of background knowledge, vocabulary, language comprehension, and decoding skills (Science of Reading).

Junior learners benefit from explicit instruction in comprehension strategies such as:

Predicting

Questioning

Visualizing

Making connections

Inferring

Summarizing

Monitoring for understanding and repairing confusion

Rich discussions before, during, and after reading help students deepen their understanding and consider multiple perspectives.

Exposure to diverse, authentic, and culturally responsive texts increases engagement and helps students connect new learning to their own experiences.

Teachers should model thinking aloud to make comprehension strategies visible before gradually releasing responsibility to students.

Comprehension should be assessed through conversations, observations, and authentic tasks—not just comprehension quizzes.

Key Takeaway:
Reading comprehension develops when students actively interact with meaningful texts, apply explicit strategies, build knowledge and vocabulary, and engage in purposeful discussion.

https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/right-read-inquiry-report/executive-summary

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Executive summary | Ontario Human Rights Commission

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*I posted a response yesterday and it said "awaiting approval", but has now disappeared. I learned a lesson: write my posts in Google Docs first so that they can be retrieved later, if need be.

I'm not familiar with Padlet, so does anyone know if there's a way to find my original post?

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Gradual Release of Responsibility Model vs. The Instructional Hierarchy Model

As a teacher, I have always found the Gradual Release of Responsibility model to be very useful.  It made sense to me that students will learn as they move sequentially through the 4 stages from modelled to shared to guided, and finally independent practice.

However, upon engaging with module, I wondered how that would look like for the junior learner as they continue to develop their reading skills.

I discovered that while this model is effective, it has some common pitfalls especially when it is used for reading.  It is important to realize that responsibility should not be released based on curriculum timelines or arbitrary reading levels, assuming that if a skill is modeled on Monday, students should be ready to apply it independently by Friday.

My research has led me to connect the Gradual Release of Responsibility model to the Instructional Hierarchy model which also has four steps namely acquisition, fluency, generalization, and adaptation.

I learned that the traditional four-stage reading block is not just a collection of pedagogical formats; it is a direct response to a student’s cognitive stage of learning. Instead of asking, "What teaching format should I use today?" I must first ask, "Where is the student at with this specific skill?"

Redefining the Reading Structures Through a Diagnostic Lens

Integrating these two models completely reframes how I view the role of a teacher during a reading lesson.

·       Acquisition: When junior students tackle abstract skills they may perform it inaccurately or require significant guidance. I now see that independent practice here is counterproductive, as it simply reinforces errors. Instead, the "I Do" (Modelled) and "We Do Together" (Shared) stages must be hyper-explicit by providing explicit instructions and timely effective feedback to develop the skill accurately.

Fluency: Often, once a junior student can do a task accurately, we rush them straight into independent work. The Instructional Hierarchy highlights the critical Fluency stage: a student might know how to break down the word but doing so take effort and they may not able to read it as well with other connected text. In this case, the teacher can use shared or guided reading with a specific goal such as repetition to build automaticity.

Generalization: Junior learners frequently struggle to transfer skills. Generalization is when students transfer a learned skill to new situations or contexts. Teachers support this by providing varied practice and prompting connections. For example, a student who can decode words on their own begins using that skill while reading full passages with new vocabulary.

·       Adaptation: is when students independently and flexibly apply a skill in new or complex situations. Teachers support this by reducing scaffolds, increasing challenge, and encouraging self-reflection. For example, a student uses spelling knowledge to write more complex and varied sentences. In this way, adaptation mimics the “independent” stage of the Gradual Release of Responsibility in a more tailored and student centered way.

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Understanding the Instructional Hierarchy: A Guide for Ontario Educators | ONlit.org

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As educators, our ultimate goal is to help students acquire, develop, and apply new skills with confidence and independence. One powerful tool to guide our

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I wanted to write about decoding and word work as there is a common misconception that these should be mastered by junior students and there is an expectation that junior students "read to learn" as Denis has put it in the introduction to this module. However, this is often not the case and Junior educators need to work on these skills in an intervention or whole-class context (depending on the students they have in front of them).

For this task, I decided to read the chapter "Shift 4: Reclaiming Word Reading Instruction in the Intermediate Grades" from Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Upper Elementary Classroom. For those that are interested, it is available for free online through the OCT website. In sum, reading words requires three skills: phonemic awareness, phonics knowledge and the alphabetic principle. Reading comprehension depends on fluid and automatic word recognition. At the junior level, weak phonemic awareness is the most common cause of word-reading difficulties. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize that words are made up of individual sounds (phonemes).

What the author's recommend is to provide explicit word-reading instruction through both whole-group lessons and differentiated interventions. This approach should be systematic and not incidental. For Ontario educators, I would recommend using the Language Foundations Continuum for Reading and Writing, Kindergarten-Grade 4 to structure their sequence. One of the specific strategies for instruction recommended by the authors is orthographic mapping, or Elkonin boxes. The idea is to have students count the words they hear in a word (for example, choice has three sounds in it, /ch/-/oi/-/s/). Then have students write the letters (graphemes) that make up each sound (phonemes) in different boxes (for example, ch-oi-ce).

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Texts

In the article found at https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/comprehension/teaching-text-structure, there are 5 kinds of text structures (description , cause and effect, compare and contrast, chronology/sequence, and problem and solution), and different text types (narrative, descriptive, expository, procedural/instructional, and argumentative/persuasive).

The article above outlines steps that need to be taken before, during and after reading, which include introducing, modelling and practicing writing with various text structures. This overlaps with something that Nell Duke (https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/PracticeGuide/wwc_rc_pg_rec04.pdf) says: choosing the right texts means selecting a variety of genres of texts, selecting texts with appropriate levels of difficulty, and selecting texts that support the instructional goals of the teacher.

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Reading Comprehension

https://xmltwo.ibo.org/publications/PYP/p_0_subco_2504_1/PYP_subject_continuums_language_en.pdf

One piece of research that I found in relation to reading in the IB PYP program states that, "The process is interactive and involves the reader’s purpose for reading, the reader’s prior knowledge and experience, and the text itself." Dividing the process into these three variables: purpose, prior knowledge, and the text itself is a helpful as it may provide a new understanding about literacy, reminding educators that the process a reading goes beyond providing the test itself and rests upon taking the readers themselves into account.