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How can one start at the beginning, you may be wondering. "Start" and "beginning" kinda mean the same thing, right?

In keeping with our mission here at Reading Simplified- streamlined instruction, accelerated achievement -I propose you skip the beginning stage of traditional reading instruction: teaching letter sounds in isolation.

Instead, jump to teaching letter sounds in context-in the context of real reading.

I wager with you: If you try the technique described below, your beginning readers will learn to read faster.

Typical Teaching of Letter Sounds

Imagine what happens every morning in most 4K, K or 1 st grade classrooms in U.S. classes. Teachers are encouraged to hold up, point to, or highlight on their SMART board a letter and teach its name and often its sound. Perhaps several letters will be reviewed. The letters may be contextualized into real words, ideally in a multi-sensory way, yet the focus of the lesson will be on the letter alone, as in

and, at best, on its position in the beginning of a word:

Most curricula and teachers assume that before a child can learn to read, she has to learn the letter names and their sounds.

THEN real reading can start.
Is that true? Is that the most efficient plan?
Our experience working with hundreds of beginning and struggling readers says,

How to Teach Letter Sounds from the Beginning

Instead of teaching letter names or letter sounds in isolation first, we guide both beginners and struggling readers how to build one word at a time using manipulatives- . Yes, first even if they do not yet know the letter names or sounds.

Here are some of the steps of Build It that allows the teacher to skip past letter names in isolation:
Destinee, what do you hear in this spot in the word, 'ssssssssat'? Yes, that's right this sound (tapping space) in "sssssat" is /s-/. Do you know which of these (tapping letter-sounds) is /s-/?
Even if Destinee has never had formal reading instruction, she has a 1 in 3 chance of getting the teacher's question right.
Multiple choice is easier.
It's one way to scaffold her learning. Suppose she doesn't know which letter is /s/. The teacher can simply say,

No, this (tapping the "s" tile/square) is /s-/, as in the word, "ssssat."

Then Destinee will move the "s" square into the first line and the teacher will repeat her questioning cycle:
Great! Now listen for the sound you hear in this spot (tapping 2 What sound do you hear? Yes, that's right this sound (tapping space) in "ssssaaaat" is /a-/. Do you know which of these (tapping letter-sounds) is /a-/? Yes! Pull down the /a-/ and say it as you move it. spot), when I say, /sssa--t/ (exaggerating and elongating the short "a" sound).
Now the task is getting easier and easier. The teacher can ask Destinee to finish building the word, "sat."

She ends by saying each sound separately (phonemic segmentation) as she points to each:/sss/ /a-/ /t/.

The same coaching through the word can continue with Destinee or with a handful of students in small group instruction. These students will be learning the letter-sounds in a multi-sensory way, but that's not all!

They will also be learning these other fundamental skills:

How our written language code works (the alphabetic principle)

How to segment words into phonemes (individual sounds)

Left-to-write scanning (a concept about print)

This simultaneous integration of multiple beginning skills makes the instructional time much more efficient. See our previous blog post, " Integrate, Don't Isolate " for more about the benefits of integrating multiple skills.

And, yet, I don't find that this approach simply reduces instructional time.

More importantly, this approach, which we call Build It, moves directly toward a real literacy behavior-spelling real words. Since it's more like real reading, it makes more sense to young learners, especially those who would otherwise struggle with reading.

Teaching any new skill in the natural context in which it occurs is usually more effective for learning's sake.

Watch this beginning 4 year-old as she tries to build the word, "sad." Notice all the reading sub-skills she is putting all together in the context of a meaningful word simultaneously

Teach Letter-Sounds in Context

Imagine a tennis instructor who begins the first several weeks of instruction by simply showing and practicing how to toss the ball for a serve.

What if he modeled how it related to serving himself (as in when a teacher reads "p" words), but he doesn't ever allow the beginner to try to serve?
How high should they toss it? How will they know if it's a good toss?
Yes, practicing a toss in isolation at times may be beneficial, but to begin tennis instruction with just that in isolation will delay many future players.
"at-risk"
Without a system for getting feedback, this approach at learning how to serve or how to begin in tennis, will be very inefficient. And those players who have seen little or no real tennis before will be especially
So goes beginning reading instruction as well.
of getting little or nothing out of the experience of tossing a ball in the air over and over again. All of that info about the experience may even be "filed" away in the their brains in the wrong place because the isolated activity has little or nothing to do with the relevant context of tennis.

Teach letter-sounds in the context of real words for spelling and reading and children will more likely:

Learn the letter-sounds more quickly,

Store the information about the letter-sounds in the part of the brain most connected to reading, and

Not miss completely the point of the teacher's instruction!

Skip the traditional beginning weeks or months of reading instruction and jump right into Build It. However, since this technique is so counter-cultural, you may have doubts....You may doubt whether your K or 1st grade students with limited literacy exposure could handle such a big jump.

You may be surprised to discover that traditional Montessori classrooms have been guiding their 3 and 4 year-old students to begin reading and writing instruction this way for over 100 years-in the context of real words and sentences. Somehow I never learned about the Montessori techniques when I earned my master's in education. Thankfully, my mother-in-law tuned me into it when her first grandchild (yes, my first-born daughter) needed to find a good pre-school. What a difference that approach made to our daughter's ease of learning to read!

In case you still doubt, here's an example of an advanced 3 year-old doing an activity much like our Build It.

If Montessori children can handle reading and building words at age 3 or 4, is it possible that your student, no matter how limited her experience, could tackle it at 5?

If you're wondering what the theoretical or research communities have to say about the value of teaching letter-sounds, phonemic awareness, and reading all together, here are some biggies:
Please try Build It with a beginning student! And please let me know what questions or concerns you have before trying this approach.

1. The National Reading Panel concluded in its Phonemic Awareness meta-analysis that phonemic awareness instruction combined with decoding was more powerful than phonemic awareness instruction without letters.

2. Some researchers have tested the isolation vs. integration question directly. An early study on this by Peter Hatcher, Charles Hulme, and Andrew Ellis can be found here. Briefly: reading + phonemic awareness instruction > than either phonemic awareness or reading instruction alone.

3. A past president of the International Literacy Association and chair of the National Early Literacy Panel, Tim Shanahan, indicates here that the National Reading Panel "concluded that phonemic awareness and phonics both needed to be taught and that they could and should clearly be connected."

4. The ultra-scholarly among us can read deeply into the theory undergirding the Build It approach with Dr. David Share's "self-teaching hypothesis."

Or, if you have tried it, were there any sticking points?

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Teach the Letter-Sounds with Multiple Early Reading Skills-Build It - Reading Simplified

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How can one start at the beginning, you may be wondering. "Start" and "beginning" kinda mean the same thing, right? In keeping with our mission here at Reading Simplified- streamlined instruction, accelerated achievement -I propose you skip the beginning stage of traditional reading instruction: teaching letter sounds in isolation.

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Blending sounds to read words; use letter cards to create and form words

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Phonemic Awareness activity involving word chaining

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Reading Simplified - streamlined instruction, accelerated achievement

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Don't make this mistake.

Don't put the cart before the horse.

Don't emphasize sight words before your students have a strong grasp of sound-symbol processing, or a sound-based approach to decoding.

It really messes up many, many kids.

Many kids can be fine with an emphasis on sight words early on...but only because they already have the underlying cognitive skill of phonemic awareness (perception of individual sounds in words) and the concept of the alphabetic principle (our written language is a code for sounds).

On the other hand, at least 40% of kids do NOT perceive the individual sounds in words in K and sometimes 1st. They do NOT get the concept that our written language is a code for sounds. So, when we emphasize sight words to THEM, they believe that reading is a visual-only code.

And they miss the key.

They miss that learning to read is about attacking unknown words with a sound-symbol approach. They all-too-often miss this foundation.

Ensure a Sound-Based Decoding Foundation

So, please ensure that your kiddos have a really strong sound-symbol approach to decoding. [Try the games Switch It and Read It for that.]

And ensure that they are learning the Advanced Phonics spellings (i.e. that /oa/ is o, oa, ow, o_e, and oe) with the activity Sort It.

THEN through re-reading, apps and games, and writing, help them learn the most frequent Fry words. The top 25. Then the top 50. Then the top 100. Then the top 300.

AND, you can reinforce key decoding skills, such as Blend As You Read, AS you also reinforce sight word knowledge. I've got a freebie to offer you that accomplishes just this very thing. Try a fun game, Steal It!, which has been a universal hit with kids.

Shh! Don't tell them that it's reading practice.

Watch this video to learn how to play Steal It!

One of my students couldn't read any word he hadn't memorized by sight less than 3 months ago. Since then, he's played Switch It and Read It to establish a strong sound-symbol approach to decoding.

Then he began studying Advanced Phonics through activities like Sort It.

Now, with a strong sound-based decoding foundation, he can still get practice learning the phonics knowledge he's studying this week (i.e., the sound /i_e/) AND he can practice recognizing the top 300 most frequent words with the /i_e/ sound.

Sight words thru phonics!

He's getting targeted practice on the most frequent words through this fun game. AND he's getting simultaneously getting practice recognizing the /i_e/ sound spellings.

How do you teach high frequency words right now?

Could you adapt them so that they also tie into the phonics information you're teaching?

Reading Simplified's Approach to Sight Words Thru Phonics

In Reading Simplified, we typically cover 1 Advanced Phonics sound per week, following the sequence in the Streamlined Pathway shown below:

For example, in week 1, we target the sound /oa/ for a week through activities such as Sort It, Search for the Sound, and reading and re-reading of /oa/ sound texts. We can also let kids practice these skills on their own or in small groups through apps and games. Steal It! is one of the best we've found for practicing the tricky vowels.

Then in week 2, we would target the sound /ee/ for a week, using the same activities we used last week but with /ee/ sound words and texts this week.

And so we continue up the Streamlined Pathway for about 12 weeks until our students have gained a tremendous amount of phonics information.

Then they're ready to pivot towards early transitional readers, such as Henry and Mudge or Frog and Toad. For fluency-building, kids at this stage may read and re-read the passages from QuickReads which are specially formulated to teach the most frequent words-rapidly.

Phonics is still reinforced but takes a lesser role at this stage.

What do you think of this approach that integrates phonics information into sight word instruction?

Do you think you could try it? Or, if you're already using this approach, how does it work for you?

Get a jump start with the free Steal It! game targeting the most common /oa/ sound words.

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Sight Words Thru Phonics: A Game That Actually Teaches-Steal It - Reading Simplified

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Don't make this mistake. Don't put the cart before the horse. Don't emphasize sight words before your students have a strong grasp of sound-symbol processing, or a sound-based approach to decoding. It really messes up many, many kids.

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Grapheme and Syllable Connecting Blocks.pdf

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Review of Open/Closed Syllable Types Activity

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Review of Open/Closed Syllable Types Activity

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Guide to playing Switch It game

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The sounds of -ed Valentine's Day Freebie Template (1).pdf

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Compound Words & Syllabication of 2 Closed Syllables Activity

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Compound Words & Syllabication of 2 Closed Syllables Activity

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Review Open/Closed Syllable Type - Winter

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Review Open/Closed Syllable Type - Winter

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Review of Open/Closed Syllable Type - Halloween

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Review of Open/Closed Syllable Type - Halloween

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Review of Open/Closed Syllable Types Slides

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Review of Open/Closed Syllable Types Slides

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Advanced Phonics Game

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Reading Simplified - streamlined instruction, accelerated achievement

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Don't make this mistake.

Don't put the cart before the horse.

Don't emphasize sight words before your students have a strong grasp of sound-symbol processing, or a sound-based approach to decoding.

It really messes up many, many kids.

Many kids can be fine with an emphasis on sight words early on...but only because they already have the underlying cognitive skill of phonemic awareness (perception of individual sounds in words) and the concept of the alphabetic principle (our written language is a code for sounds).

On the other hand, at least 40% of kids do NOT perceive the individual sounds in words in K and sometimes 1st. They do NOT get the concept that our written language is a code for sounds. So, when we emphasize sight words to THEM, they believe that reading is a visual-only code.

And they miss the key.

They miss that learning to read is about attacking unknown words with a sound-symbol approach. They all-too-often miss this foundation.

Ensure a Sound-Based Decoding Foundation

So, please ensure that your kiddos have a really strong sound-symbol approach to decoding. [Try the games Switch It and Read It for that.]

And ensure that they are learning the Advanced Phonics spellings (i.e. that /oa/ is o, oa, ow, o_e, and oe) with the activity Sort It.

THEN through re-reading, apps and games, and writing, help them learn the most frequent Fry words. The top 25. Then the top 50. Then the top 100. Then the top 300.

AND, you can reinforce key decoding skills, such as Blend As You Read, AS you also reinforce sight word knowledge. I've got a freebie to offer you that accomplishes just this very thing. Try a fun game, Steal It!, which has been a universal hit with kids.

Shh! Don't tell them that it's reading practice.

Watch this video to learn how to play Steal It!

One of my students couldn't read any word he hadn't memorized by sight less than 3 months ago. Since then, he's played Switch It and Read It to establish a strong sound-symbol approach to decoding.

Then he began studying Advanced Phonics through activities like Sort It.

Now, with a strong sound-based decoding foundation, he can still get practice learning the phonics knowledge he's studying this week (i.e., the sound /i_e/) AND he can practice recognizing the top 300 most frequent words with the /i_e/ sound.

Sight words thru phonics!

He's getting targeted practice on the most frequent words through this fun game. AND he's getting simultaneously getting practice recognizing the /i_e/ sound spellings.

How do you teach high frequency words right now?

Could you adapt them so that they also tie into the phonics information you're teaching?

Reading Simplified's Approach to Sight Words Thru Phonics

In Reading Simplified, we typically cover 1 Advanced Phonics sound per week, following the sequence in the Streamlined Pathway shown below:

For example, in week 1, we target the sound /oa/ for a week through activities such as Sort It, Search for the Sound, and reading and re-reading of /oa/ sound texts. We can also let kids practice these skills on their own or in small groups through apps and games. Steal It! is one of the best we've found for practicing the tricky vowels.

Then in week 2, we would target the sound /ee/ for a week, using the same activities we used last week but with /ee/ sound words and texts this week.

And so we continue up the Streamlined Pathway for about 12 weeks until our students have gained a tremendous amount of phonics information.

Then they're ready to pivot towards early transitional readers, such as Henry and Mudge or Frog and Toad. For fluency-building, kids at this stage may read and re-read the passages from QuickReads which are specially formulated to teach the most frequent words-rapidly.

Phonics is still reinforced but takes a lesser role at this stage.

What do you think of this approach that integrates phonics information into sight word instruction?

Do you think you could try it? Or, if you're already using this approach, how does it work for you?

Get a jump start with the free Steal It! game targeting the most common /oa/ sound words.

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Sight Words Thru Phonics: A Game That Actually Teaches-Steal It - Reading Simplified

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Don't make this mistake. Don't put the cart before the horse. Don't emphasize sight words before your students have a strong grasp of sound-symbol processing, or a sound-based approach to decoding. It really messes up many, many kids.

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Guide to playing the game Steal It!

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Progressive Phonics allinone reading program with free phonics books and free alphabet books

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Decodable Readers: End Blends - N endings

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Decodable Readers: End Blends - N endings

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Decodable Reader: End Blends - S endings

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Decodable Reader: End Blends - S endings

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Decodable Reader: Odd Endings (-ck, -ct, -ch, -tch, -nch, -gg, -tt, -ff) 

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Decodable Reader: Odd Endings (-ck, -ct, -ch, -tch, -nch, -gg, -tt, -ff) 

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Decodable Reader: End Blends - L endings

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Decodable Reader: End Blends - L endings

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Decodable Reader: Vowel Digraphs /ai/, /ea/, /oa/, /oe/, /ie/ & /ue/

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Decodable Reader: Vowel Digraphs /ai/, /ea/, /oa/, /oe/, /ie/ & /ue/