# data[].attributes.body
small group reading strategy where the teacher groups students together in order to help them read according to their needs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
These tips and strategies will help you streamline your guided reading lessons and maximize the time you spend with your students.
Plus, check out our nonfiction guided reading book lists for every level.
Set achievable goals and don't overcommit
Quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to meeting with groups. It's more productive to meet with a group twice a week with your full attention than four times a week when your mind's distracted by your growing to-do list. You can also meet with your lowest group a third time if you feel it's necessary. Finding time for conferencing with individual students is important too, so be sure to allot time for that when possible.

Focus on only 1-2 teaching points per lesson
Identify your teaching points ahead of time and stick to them. By staying focused on one or two key points, your students will leave the table with a much better idea of what they should be focusing on while they read and will help them become better independent readers.

Keep running records
Keeping track of your students' progress is essential to their future growth. By documenting every child's development and progress, you can create a big picture for every child's reading level, which in turn will enable you to uniquely tailor your lessons to their individual needs.

Use graphic organizers
Graphic organizers are a fun and interactive way for your class to evaluate their thoughts and take stock of what they've learned-and Scholastic has a lot to choose from:

Remember that the most important thing about managing guided reading is finding a system and strategy that works best for you.

To enhance your classroom library, shop our STEM/STEAM guided reading book lists for every level.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scholastic shares tips on how to make guided reading manageable with achievable goals, 1-2 teaching points per lesson, tracking, and graphic organizers.

# data[].attributes.body
a reading strategy that has the whole class read aloud together; can help shy or embarrassed students get reading practice since their voice will be lost in the crowd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Choral reading is when students read aloud in unison as a whole class or in a group. Choral reading helps build fluency, self-confidence, and motivation. When students read aloud together, students who may ordinarily feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built-in support.

This strategy can also be used by teachers or instructors working with small groups or one-on-one with a student.

How to do choral reading

Choose a book or passage that works well for reading aloud as a group:

Simple syntax and decodable (for beginning readers)

Not too long

At a level that most students can read with few errors.

1. Provide each student a copy of the text so they may follow along. Alternatively, you can use an interactive whiteboard or screen.

2. Read the passage or story aloud and model fluent reading for the students.

3. Ask the students to use a marker or finger to follow along with the text as they read.

4. Reread the passage and have all students in the group read the story or passage aloud in unison. Repeat.

Adapted from Reading Rockets

An example of choral reading with a small group of students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fluency instruction: Choral reading - Five From Five

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Choral reading is when students read aloud in unison as a whole class or in a group. Choral reading helps build fluency, self-confidence, and motivation. When students read aloud together, students who may ordinarily feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built-in support.

# data[].attributes.body
following along as an audiobook plays; a differentiation strategy that helps slower learners with fluency and prosody

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Jamie Richardson, Amy E. Vanden Boogart, and Denise Douce
Assistive technology is popping up everywhere. While the availability of help is fantastic, it can be difficult to know what to embrace and at what age. Should we let students have textbooks, assignments, tests, and homework read to them, or are we negating the time they are putting into their dyslexia therapy by allowing audio content to take center stage? Does the availability of audiobooks and assistive technologies mean that therapy for dyslexia is no longer necessary? This is a difficult balancing act, but this article offers some additional information and pointers you may find useful.
What is eye reading?
Eye reading is the traditional learning of letter identification and rhyming, and then learning how the individual sounds join to form words and those words form sentences and so on. If a person is diagnosed with dyslexia, that doesn't mean he or she is unable to read; it simply means that learning to read requires a different approach. It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed without phonics-based reading instruction that is unavailable in most public schools. (For more information to read "Dyslexia Basics," an IDA Fact Sheet.) Dyslexia cannot be fixed with eyeglasses because it isn't a vision problem. While some kids may need vision correction, that is not related to a diagnosis of dyslexia.
What is ear reading?
In common terms, ear readin g means reading using audiobooks or similar text-to-speech software. Rather than the written words being taken in through the eyes and processed in the brain, the verbal words are heard through the ears and then processed in the brain.
What are the advantages of ear reading for kids with dyslexia?
Students with dyslexia are often smart enough to handle vocabulary at a much higher level than what they can read. Ear reading helps bridge that gap. With audiobooks, students can take in the same books that their peers are reading-just in a different format.
What are the disadvantages to ear reading for students with dyslexia?
The biggest concern for many is that audio options can become so easy that the student does not want to work on learning to read with his or her eyes. For others, audiobooks don't work because attention is lacking. While an eye-reader must reread the same paragraph multiple times if they are distracted by something in the room, an ear-reader must realize they are distracted, remember where they became distracted, find that point in the audio, and start again.
What is available in ear reading format?
Audio formatting has become more popular than ever. Between audio book libraries including Learning Ally, , Audiobooks, and , there is no shortage of great fiction and non-fiction. E-readers such as the offer audio options. Many textbooks even have an audio counterpart. Assistive technology is also used for text that is not a published book, for example, email. Check out these for the iPad. For additional low-tech and high-tech options for ear reading, and scroll down to "New Media & Technology" to find more articles about assistive technology.
With all of these options... is eye reading even necessary?
The answer is a resounding "yes!" Eye reading is very important. Despite all the great audio options out there, a student with dyslexia should still receive systematic, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics from a trained professional so that they are learning the skills they need to ultimately read texts on their own. The audiobooks and other assistive technology should not be used as a substitute for explicit, systematic instruction or as a way to avoid that kind of instruction.

to learn more about the importance of effective reading instruction. IDA's fact sheets Evaluating Professionals and Helpful Terminology provide guidance on finding that instruction.

How can a parent know when audiobooks are appropriate and when eye reading should be required?

Nicole Vella's article for Learning Ally said it well: "What I'll do is open the book and have my student read a page to me. I silently read along with her for one minute. As I'm doing this, I keep a tab of the words she read. How many were right? How many were wrong? Afterwards, I tally up the numbers to find out what percentage of words my student read accurately. In my experience, if she can read 95% of the words accurately, then she can read it with her eyes. However, anything less than 95% accuracy, for me, would be a good one for ear reading via an audiobook format. Anything less than 95% tends to be a struggle, and it takes the joy out of reading." The idea is to make sure the text is challenging enough to maintain interest, but not so challenging that the student gets frustrated. If the text is important but above the student's reading level, consider an audio alternative.
Finding the Balance
Ear and eye reading both play a role in helping students with dyslexia succeed. The trick is to find an appropriate balance. Bestselling author Debbie Macomber's story from The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity is a great example. She uses audiobooks as a multitasking tool. She also has dyslexia, and she learned early on that audiobooks could bridge the gap between her reading abilities and her intellectual capabilities.

A great time to introduce audiobooks is when children are on break from school. Let students find something they WANT to read and see if the audio format helps them fall in love with what books have to offer. Consider some popular series such as Harry Potter, Hunger Games, or 39 Clues. Sometimes when students fall in love with what's inside a book, it motivates them to read more.

Jamie Richardson is the Editor of the Dyslexia Connection, a freelance writer and editor, and a homeschool mom to three kids.
Amy E. Vanden Boogart is the Director of Product and Service Development for Really Great Reading, a company that provides decoding instruction and intervention materials and assessments to schools and educators nationwide. Denise Douce is the Director of Publications and Communications at IDA. Copyright © 2015 International Dyslexia Association (IDA). We encourage sharing of Dyslexia Connection articles. If portions are cited, please make appropriate reference. Articles may not be reprinted for the purpose of resale. Permission to republish this article is available from info@interdys.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Balancing Ear and Eye Reading - International Dyslexia Association

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Jamie Richardson, Amy E. Vanden Boogart, and Denise Douce Assistive technology is popping up everywhere. While the availability of help is fantastic, it can be difficult to know what to embrace and at what age.

# data[].attributes.body
a comprehension strategy that asks students what they Know, what they Want to know, and what they Learned

# data[].attributes.body
a formula designed to assess the complexity of words and sentences in a text

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Viewing time: 5 mins. 41 secs.
The Write Question is a weekly video podcast all about writing. Today's question focuses on readability stats. If you have a question you'd like me to answer you can email me at daphne@publicationcoach.com, tweet me @pubcoach, or leave a message for me at the Skype account, The Write Question.
Transcript:

Welcome to The Write Question, I'm Daphne Gray-Grant and my topic today is understanding readability stats.

Today, I have a question from Jim Homme who's based in Pitsburgh, PA. Here's what he's asked.

"I'm a software developer who aims for a conversational style, because I write a lot of how-to material and directions on how to use software and tools. How can I get better at eliminating jargon, since we programmers tend to talk in gibberish? I like using the writing stats in Microsoft Word to remind me about how much passive language I'm using. I also try to pay attention to the stat about grade level, but I don't really understand how to use it properly. What are the secrets to using this tool and what is the best grade level to aim for?"

Thanks for your question, Jim. For viewers or readers who are unfamiliar with writing stats - also known as readability stats - let me tell you that this tool is available to everyone in MS Word. The default installation of Word, however, does NOT enable it, so I've included a link to a video below, instructing you on how to install it.

Anyway, this handy device is something I use every day and I particularly like the "grade level" calculator which is part of it.

Language analysts first proposed readability stats more than 100 years ago. There are a whole bunch of different ones including:

While all of these indices do the same thing, they all work in slightly different ways. For example, some of them measure length of words based on the number of characters, while others use the number of syllables.

So, if you enter exactly the same text into each of these indices you'll see a slightly different score. MS Word uses the Flesch Kinkaid grade level but if you'd like to see ALL of indices at the same time, I include a link below to Online-Utility.Org. So, which one should you believe? I think you should look at the RANGE, from lowest to highest.

The main thing to know, is that these indices measure the things they can count. They don't reflect a sophisticated Artificial Intelligence analysis of your text. Instead, they look at four specific aspects of writing:

For programmers like you, Jim and for the engineers and academics with whom I often work, I think the single best measurement to focus on is sentence length . Many people write too many sentences that are too long.

But, also remember that you don't want every sentence to be short. If you do that, your text might end up sounding like a grade school reader: "See Jane pat the dog, Spot." Instead, what you want is a wide range of sentence lengths with an average length of somewhere between 14 and 18 words. Does that sound too short to you? You may or may not be a fan of author J.K. Rowling but you won't likely regard her style as overly simplistic. Yet her average sentence length is 12.

I've written a detailed post on how to achieve a better sentence length and I include a link to that below. I also provide a link to Count Wordsworth, a free app that, among other jobs, will provide you with a sentence length analysis.

Note that your goal is to achieve an AVERGE of 14 to 18 words and this does NOT mean that every sentence should be this length. Instead, allow the occasional 40-, 50- or even 60-word sentence. Just be sure to balance them with the occasional one to five-word sentence. How do you do that? I just did it, with the five word sentence, "how do you do that?"

Now, let's talk about grade level. The indices use their core measurements - word length, sentence length, paragraph length and amount of passive - to assign a grade level to every piece of writing.

You might think that the higher the better but this is NOT true. Instead, you want to aim at a grade 9 level. This means that your writing is clear and easy to read, regardless of the education level of your reader. It is an insult to your readers to write to a grade 9 level. This is the level that most publications, including the New York Times will aim for.

If your grade level is too high then simply use shorter words, shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs and less passive. All of these actions will help reduce your grade level.

Finally, let me wrap up with a quote from the late English professor Lucius Sherman from the University of Nebraska who in 1893 proposed making the written word as close as possible to the spoken word. Here is what he said: "The represents the work for thousands of years in perfecting an effective instrument of communication."

Thanks for the question, Jim. If you're able to aim at a grade 9 writing level, your readers will thank you and they'll have a much easier time understanding your text.

Links:

How to enable readability statistics in MS Word (video)
A step-by-step guide to better sentence length
Some of my other posts that I thought you might like...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to understand readability stats (video) | Publication Coach

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Viewing time: 5 mins. 41 secs. The Write Question is a weekly video podcast all about writing. Today's question focuses on readability stats. If you have a question you'd like me to answer you can email me at daphne@publicationcoach.com, tweet me @pubcoach, or leave a message for me at the Skype account, The Write Question.

# data[].attributes.body
a comprehension strategy that has children break up text into manageable, meaningful pieces

# data[].attributes.body
a visual representation of the various skills required in becoming an advanced reader

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Share This:

Hollis Scarborough-creator of the famous Reading Rope and senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories-is a leading researcher of early language development and its connection to later literacy.

Dr. Scarborough's association with the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) goes back to 1994 when she served as associate editor of the Annals of Dyslexia until 2002. In 2009, she received IDA's highest honor, the Samuel Torrey Orton Award. Dr. Scarborough continues her IDA affiliation as a member of both IDA's Council of Advisors and IDA's Scientific Advisory Board. Her contributions on a national level (e.g., the Research Council, Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, and the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children) have positively influenced the reading instruction in the United States.

The genesis of the Reading Rope dates back to Scarborough's lectures for parents on the complexities involved in learning to read. Originally, she spoke of skilled reading as resembling the "strands" of a rope, using pipe cleaners to illustrate the interconnectedness and interdependence of all the components.

The Reading Rope consists of lower and upper strands. The word-recognition strands (phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of familiar words) work together as the reader becomes accurate, fluent, and increasingly automatic with repetition and practice. Concurrently, the language-comprehension strands (background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge) reinforce one another and then weave together with the word-recognition strands to produce a skilled reader. This does not happen overnight; it requires instruction and practice over time.

For many children, learning to read is a challenging undertaking. The Reading Rope, created by Dr. Hollis Scarborough, captures the essence of this task.
Copyright © 2018 International Dyslexia Association (IDA). Opinions expressed in The Examiner and/or via links do not necessarily reflect those of IDA. We encourage sharing of Examiner articles. If portions are cited, please make appropriate reference. Articles may not be printed for the purpose of resale. Permissionto republish this artilce is available from info@dyslexiaida.org.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Scarborough's Reading Rope: A Groundbreaking Infographic - International Dyslexia Association

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hollis Scarborough-creator of the famous Reading Rope and senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories-is a leading researcher of early language development and

# data[].attributes.body
the current law in US governance that sets goals for the department of education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the main federal law for K–12 public education. It holds schools accountable for student performance. Find out how.

# data[].attributes.body
the initial phonological unit of a word

# data[].attributes.body
the pitch, volume, tempo, and rhythm of speech (in this case, when reading aloud)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Prosody Matters: The Importance of Reading Aloud with Expression - Scientific Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading aloud with expression is a foundational reading skill students should be developing between grades 1 - 5. It is pretty easy to recognize when someone skillfully reads aloud in an expressive manner. However, to effectively teach or assess this skill, a closer examination of its features, development, and relationship to other reading skills is needed.

# data[].attributes.body
Note: This educator has some valuable things to say about prosody, but the irony is, hers is lacking. She's extremely stilted as she reads off her notes to explain prosody and its value.

# data[].attributes.body
a theory that places emphasis on the meaning that readers construct from a text

# data[].attributes.body
combining the phonemes in a word so that reading takes place

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When you read, you probably don't spend much time decoding the individual words. You just read, and as you get to each word, you instantly recognize it. But beginning readers don't have that kind of instant recall yet, so it is important to teach them how to sound out words.

What Does "Sounding Out Words" Mean?

When you sound out a word, you say each sound in the word slowly (s...i...t), and then say the sounds together more quickly (sit). The technical term for this process is blending because sounds are blended together to form a word. Here's a quick demo:

Our free Blending Procedure PDF has complete step-by-step instructions for both one-syllable and multisyllabic words.

Why Is Sounding Out (or Blending) Important?

When a child can say the sounds of the letters in the order in which they appear, and can then blend those sounds into a recognizable word, she is able to read thousands of phonetically regular words.

Because it unlocks so many words, blending is an important step toward the goal of reading comprehension. In fact, research shows that learning to sound out words has a powerful effect on reading comprehension. ¹

What Kids Should Know Before Sounding Out Words

Before you attempt to teach your child to sound out words, check to see if he is ready. Here's a free Reading Readiness Checklist for you to download. If you discover that your child isn't quite ready for reading instruction, you can use the All About Reading Pre-reading program to prepare.

After you've used the checklist to ensure that your child is ready to learn to read, it's time to teach the letter-sound correspondences of several letters of the alphabet. The letters M, S, P, and A are a good place to start because the sounds are easy to pronounce and several interesting words can be formed right away.

Before we get into the four easy steps for teaching blending, let's discuss a problem that many beginning readers encounter. Recognizing this problem will help you better understand the steps for blending.

Short-term Memory Issues Can Affect Blending

When kids first learn how to decode three-letter words, they have to juggle several cognitive processes simultaneously:

They must recognize the letters.

They must retrieve the sounds of those letters.

They must hold all three sounds in the memory while they sound out the word.

There is a lot going on in their brains! In fact, it is very common for beginning readers to have difficulty with standard blending procedures. Just about anyone who has taught blending has encountered a situation like this:

What just happened there? Here's the problem: by the time the child got to the third letter, he had forgotten the sounds of the first two letters, and then had to resort to guessing. But it's not that kids can't remember three things in a row-it's just that there are too many competing processes going on in their heads at once.

It's easy to understand the problem. But what can we do to help?

"Cumulative Blending" Solves This Problem

Cumulative blending is quite simple. Start by building a phonetically regular word with the Letter Tiles app or physical letter tiles and then follow the steps below. We'll demonstrate with the word map.

Touch one letter at a time and say the sound of each letter.

Go back to the beginning of the word and blend the first two sounds together.
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Start over at the beginning of the word. Slide your finger under the letters and blend all three sounds together.
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Finally, say the word at a normal pace, as we do when we speak.
Your browser does not support the video tag.
This is called cumulative blending because there are successive additions of the letter sounds. First we blend the first two sounds (/mă/). Then we start at the beginning of the word again, this time blending all three sounds (/măp/). If there were more sounds in the word, as in split, we'd start at the beginning of the word for each successive addition:

/sp/

/spl/

/splĭ/

/splĭt/

Cumulative blending provides the extra support, or " scaffolding," that beginning readers need. When you feel your student is ready, he can try blending all three letters without this additional step, but don't try to withdraw the support too soon. These steps and the support they provide help memory issues immensely.

Download a Free Blending Lesson

Would you like to see how we teach blending in the All About Reading program? Download this sample lesson!

This is the first lesson in AAR Level 1. The blending activities start on page 4 of the PDF.

The All About Reading program walks you through blending and all the skills your student needs to become a strong reader. The program is multisensory, motivating, and complete. And if you ever need a helping hand, we're here for you.

What's your take on teaching kids to sound out words? Have anything else to share? Let me know in the comments below!

___________________________________
¹ University of Royal Holloway London. (2017, April 20). Phonics works: Sounding out words is best way to teach reading, study suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 1, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Programs that teach thoroughly, so your child can succeed amazingly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) | U.S. Department of Education

# data[].attributes.body
an intensive analysis of a  passage that involves students reading, rereading, and reflecting in order to deepen student understanding of what is said, how it is said, and what it means.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to do a Close Reading - TeachLikeThis

# data[].attributes.body
the ability to interpret, understand and integrate the information that one accumulates through learning

# data[].attributes.body
the dissection of words into their phonemes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'd like to let you in on a huge spelling secret.

This one secret has unlocked the door to spelling for many kids-including older kids who have previously struggled with spelling.

In fact, if I could teach only two spelling concepts to kids, this would be the second one I would choose. (The first concept I would teach would be the phonograms.)

So what is this secret to great spelling?

Segmenting is such a crucial skill for spelling that after it is introduced in the second lesson of All About Spelling Level 1, we reinforce it in every single spelling lesson taught throughout Levels 1 and 2.

What Is Segmenting?

Segmenting is the ability to hear the individual sounds in words. It improves phonological awareness and long-term spelling comprehension.

Think of segmenting as the opposite of . When we speak, we blend sounds together to make a word. In segmenting, we take the individual sounds apart. For example, there are three separate sounds in the word ham.

In the word shrimp, there are five separate speech sounds. Even though there are six letters, the SH phonogram represents the single sound of /sh/.

How Do We Teach Segmenting?

Segmenting can be taught using colored tokens, coins, or squares of paper. You can see a demonstration of how we teach it in the video below.

We start with short words that have initial sounds that are easy to hold, such as see (ssss-ee), row (rrrr-ow), and may (mmmm-ay). These words are easier for your child to segment into their separate sounds.

Then we move on to words that have initial sounds that aren't as easy to hold, such as go, key, and pie.

After learning to segment words with two sounds, we can move on to words with three sounds, such as ship (/sh/-/i/-/p/).

Moving from Segmenting to Spelling

After the student is able to segment words into speech sounds using tokens, we move on to segmenting words using letter tiles. It is a simple transition: the student still segments the word aloud, but instead of pulling down a token, he pulls down a letter tile for each sound.

There are three basic steps.

1. Dictate the word, and then point to the tiles to indicate to the student that it is his turn to use the tiles.

2. The student segments the word aloud, pulling down a tile for each sound.

3. The student reads the word he just spelled. Reading the word enables the student to self-correct if he has made a mistake.

After segmenting words with the letter tiles, the student is ready to move on to spelling with paper and pencil. The student can eventually go straight from hearing a dictated word to writing on paper, segmenting the word in his head if necessary.

So there you have it-one of my big secrets to helping kids with spelling. I hope you will try segmenting with your child.

For More Help with Teaching Spelling

Find more great tips for teaching spelling in my free report, "20 Best Tips for Teaching Reading and Spelling."

This report gives you a glimpse into the proven strategies we've used to help over 150,000 amazing children (and adults) learn to read and spell.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Segmenting Makes Spelling MUCH Easier! Top Tips for Segmenting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I'd like to let you in on a huge spelling secret. This one secret has unlocked the door to spelling for many kids-including older kids who have previously struggled with spelling. In fact, if I could teach only two spelling concepts to kids, this would be the second one I would choose.

# data[].attributes.body
the ability to read and write fluently and comprehensively

# data[].attributes.body
the rules of language that govern how words are joined to form sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into text.

# data[].attributes.body
application of knowledge of letter-sound relationships in order to correctly read words

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is Decoding|What is Phonics|How to Sound Out Words|Phonics for Kids | Teaching Phonics| Phonics

# data[].attributes.body
how prosody, words, and sentence structure are interpreted

# data[].attributes.body
ability to connect phonemes to graphemes, leading to word recognition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Orthographic Mapping: What it Is and Why It's So Important

# data[].attributes.body
ability to read quickly, accurately, and expressively

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reading Fluency Strategies for K-2 Learners | how to teach reading fluency in first grade

# data[].attributes.body
a six stage theory regarding the development of children's reading skills

1. pre- and pseudo-reading
2. initial reading and decoding
3. confirmation and fluency
4. reading for learning
5. multiplicity and complexity
6. construction and reconstruction

# data[].attributes.body
a five stage theory regarding the development of children's reading skills

1. pre-alphabetic
2. partial alphabetic
3. full alphabetic
4. consolidated alphabetic
5. automatic

# data[].attributes.body
a quantitative measurement that analyzes both reading difficulty and reading ability

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
More Than a Number: What's a Lexile Measure?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many state assessments, mid-year tests, and reading programs report students' progress using a Lexile measure. But the number is not just a measurement of student growth-it can be a tool for challenging students and promoting a love of reading. What is the number?

# data[].attributes.body
the learning "sweet spot"; tasks that are neither too simple (therefore dull and not enriching) nor too difficult (therefore frustrating and anxiety ridden) for a student to complete with or without some assistance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A topic in Learners' conceptions and thinking A concept that has been much used in educational discourse, deriving from the work of Lev Vygotsky *, is the Z.P.D.: the Zone of proximal development. As with the related term ' scaffolding ', often the usage is somewhat vague.

# data[].attributes.body
the principle of cumulative advantage; when applied to reading, it highlights the growing disparity through grade levels between children who struggled in the beginning versus those who did not

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Edublox Online Tutor | Development, Reading, Writing, and Math Solutions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Reading is essential to success in our society. A study by Gallup on behalf of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy found that low levels of adult literacy could be costing the U.S. as much as $2.2 trillion a year (Nietzel, 2020).

Adults who have very poor reading skills compose a large number of those who are high school dropouts, unemployed, living in poverty or receiving government assistance, and/or incarcerated.

Reading is a skill that serves society as well as the individual throughout his life, yet it is a skill that many people take for granted. For most children, reading is acquired effortlessly as they progress through the early school years, and it serves as the primary mechanism used to acquire knowledge throughout their education.

Children's literacy skills grow rapidly during the elementary school years. They begin with an understanding of the alphabetic principle of letter-sound correspondences and progress to understanding prefixes and suffixes, as they decode unfamiliar words. Children continue to refine their comprehension skills as they move from answering simple questions related to picture texts to identifying cause and effect in narrative and expository literature. As children reach the end of elementary school, they can take part in oral presentations, read nonfiction text, and "publish" their original writing.

Reading in the adolescent years brings new demands for the reader. While adolescents have usually mastered the fundamentals of word analysis and recognition, they continue to learn about the Latin and Greek origins of words and expand their vocabularies as they become more sophisticated readers. Adolescents bring their acquired knowledge and experience to learn from the text they read and acquire new ways to learn from text. Students must be able to problem-solve, read from two different perspectives, and reflect on and analyze reading material. Adults continue to rely on their reading skills for keeping pace with advances in their profession, staying informed of current news, and engaging in reading for pleasure (Giess, 2005).

Typically, students with reading difficulty have struggled academically throughout school, often just barely passing each grade level. Some of these students never received good reading instruction and experienced poor environmental conditions in childhood. Some have a specific learning disability in reading, often called dyslexia.

Dyslexia has been recognized as a learning disability for many decades. Some dyslexia experts maintain that the term "dyslexia" should be reserved only for people who experience difficulty with reading. Other experts argue that dyslexia describes a broad set of neurological differences that impact a wide range of capacities, including listening, speaking, reading, writing, sequencing, and remembering. All dyslexia experts agree that dyslexia accounts for why some children have more difficulty learning to read than their peers. Even a small delay in reading can, in a few short years, translate into a significant gap between what a child is expected to read at school and what he or she can learn from reading.

This gap is often exacerbated for children with dyslexia because they tend to avoid reading. It's an understandable avoidance; for these children, reading is arduous. But avoidance puts them at an even greater disadvantage. This phenomenon is referred to as the "Matthew Effect," a term coined by Robert K. Meron in 1968 and adopted for education by psychologist Keith Stanovich in 1986. In the biblical story of Matthew, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In the case of young readers, good readers read more and get better at reading, whereas less-skilled readers read less and fall farther and farther behind their peers. In time, the difference in reading ability can become significant and begin to impact other areas of learning, such as vocabulary development and comprehension. Other capacities, like speaking and writing, can also be influenced by the amount of reading a child does. For many children with dyslexia, delayed progress in these areas diminishes their self-esteem and motivation to complete schoolwork, both of which can further hinder the ability to learn at school (Franklin 2018).

In the words of Stanovich (1986):

Slow reading acquisition has cognitive, behavioral, and motivational consequences that slow the development of other cognitive skills and inhibit performance on many academic tasks. In short, as reading develops, other cognitive processes linked to it track the level of reading skill. Knowledge bases that are in reciprocal relationships with reading are also inhibited from further development. The longer this developmental sequence is allowed to continue, the more generalized the deficits will become, seeping into more and more areas of cognition and behavior. Or to put it more simply - and sadly - in the words of a tearful nine-year-old, already falling frustratingly behind his peers in reading progress, "Reading affects everything you do."

Studies attempting to confirm Matthew Effects in reading report mixed results. Protopapas and team (2015) followed 587 Greek students of varying reading, spelling, and vocabulary skills for two years, from Grade 2 through 4. The authors conclude that the Matthew Effects pattern was not evident. However, there was no evidence of eventually closing the gap either. Thus, "although the poor students may not be getting poorer, they do not get sufficiently richer either."

Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) followed up on 11th graders who were administered a battery of reading tasks in 1st-grade. Ten years later, they were administered measures of exposure to print, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and general knowledge. First-grade reading ability was a strong predictor of all of the 11th-grade outcomes and remained so even when measures of cognitive ability were partialed out.

A meta-analysis of 78 studies reports that 33 studies (42.3%) indicated a decreasing achievement gap, 20 (25.6%) indicated stable achievement differences, and 18 (23.1%) indicated an increasing achievement gap or Matthew Effect. Furthermore, 6 (7.7%) results indicated a pattern of delayed compensation, which means that these studies first found increasing and subsequently found decreasing achievement differences (Pfost et al., 2014).

The Matthew Effect has led to several legal issues over the years, such as the 1997 court case of James Brody versus the Dare County Public Schools. After being administered an IQ test in the 3rd grade, James Brody was found eligible for special education. After three years of special education, he was retested. According to the new testing, his IQ had dropped from 127 to 109. Two years later, when James was retested again, his IQ had dropped even further. Experts testified that James's declining IQ test scores were an example of the Matthew Effect, and evidence that James was not receiving appropriate remediation. The Administrative Law Judge and the Review Officer agreed and found that the school district had not provided James with an appropriate education (Briggs, 2013).
.

Closing the gap: A parent's testimony

My son Preneil was diagnosed with dyslexia in June 2010. He was in Grade 7! We were both quite unsettled and not sure of the way forward. Not only did he have to attend a school program to help learners struggling with reading but he also had to work with me every night completing exercises in eye movement and word recognition. The issue that troubled Preneil the most was that he was labeled by fellow students as a "remedial" child. Preneil's confidence was always quite fragile given his small stature and quiet, introspective nature but this diagnosis dragged him back even further.

Both his teachers and I picked up quite early in his schooling career that Preneil struggled with reading. I had his eyes and hearing tested but found that both were fine. He participated in several reading programs but there was no significant improvement in his reading. His teachers never recommended that he be tested for ADD or any reading disability, so it never occurred to me that Preneil could be dyslexic. To find out when he was 13 (Grade 7) filled me from feelings of anger and annoyance to sadness and despair. I had not been able to give Preneil the support he needed and I could only imagine the frustration he experienced from one class to the next. The program he attended in school didn't show any improvement in his reading.

He entered high school and the first 6 months were difficult to say the least. Preneil was withdrawn and tried very hard to "look" happy because he didn't want to worry me. At the end of the 2nd term he had failed Afrikaans [additional language] and obtained 42% for English. Our morale was at an all time low. I did not know how to help my child.

As is common with 21st century moms I spent many hours on Google researching possible solutions. I came across Edublox and found out that there was a center in our area. But it was only after a glowing reference from a previous participant of Edublox that I registered Preneil into the program. The facilitator at Edublox, Susan, confidently told me to give her 18 months to turn Preneil around.

Preneil has been in the program for 22 months, attending one lesson per week. His English has jumped from 42% to 58%; he is writing compositions that bring tears to my eyes. His imagination and vocabulary is astounding even though his spelling needs a little more work.

Preneil was reassessed for dyslexia in April 2013. The report indicated that only a few symptoms of dyslexia could be picked up. Preneil has managed to overcome this difficulty which we can only ascribe to his participation in the Edublox program.

I trust you are well and still hold fond memories of Preneil and I.

I wanted to drop you a short note to thank you for the time, effort, knowledge and skills that you invested in Preneil during his time at your center. I firmly believe that it was this foundation that helped him pass Matric [12th grade] comfortably with an A in Math Literacy. More importantly, Preneil achieved 63% in English! For Pren and I this is the greatest achievement! We will always be most appreciative of your support and encouragement.

Preneil will be following a career in Human Resources at TUT this year.

Thank you and Take care.

Regards,

.

Authored by Susan du Plessis (B.A. Hons Psychology; B.D.) who has 30+ years' experience in the LD field.
Page last reviewed: May 21, 2021.
Next review due: May 21, 2023.

Briggs, S. (2013). The matthew effect: what is it and how can you avoid it in your classroom?

Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 934-945. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.33.6.934

Franklin, D. (2018). Helping your child with language-based learning disabilities. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Giess, S. (2005). Effectiveness of a multisensory, Orton-Gillingham influenced approach to reading intervention for high school students with reading disability (Unpublished dissertation). University of Florida.

Nietzel, M. T. (2020, September 9). Low literacy levels among U.S. adults could be costing the economy $2.2 trillion a year.

Pfost, M., Hattie, J., Dörfler, T., & Artelt, C. (2014). Individual differences in reading development: A review of 25 years of empirical research on Matthew effects in reading. Review of Educational Research, 84(2), 203-244. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654313509492

Protopapas, A., Sideridis, G. D., Mouzaki, A., & Simos, P. G. (2011). Matthew effects in reading comprehension: Myth or reality? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(5), 402-420. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219411417568

Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 360-407.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"Matthew Effect" in Reading: Why Children with Reading Difficulties Fall Farther and Farther Behind

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading is essential to success in our society. A study by Gallup on behalf of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy found that low levels of adult literacy could be costing the U.S. as much as $2.2 trillion a year (Nietzel, 2020).

# data[].attributes.body
understanding of the conventions of the written language, such as: we read and write from left to right, top to bottom; syntax; organization, etc.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Many children who do not have trouble learning how to read do have trouble understanding what they read. Yet surprisingly, comprehension instruction did not receive much attention from reading professionals until the 1970s, with the arrival of the cognitive revolution. Having renounced behaviorism, psychology's new cognitive paradigm defined mental activity in terms of information processing and viewed comprehension as the integration of information from a wide variety of sources. Applied to reading, comprehension is seen as a product not only of the information presented on the printed page but also of the reader's prior knowledge. Despite its importance, true comprehension instruction is still not widely offered to children in the primary grades. But young children can benefit from explicit comprehension instruction (Meyer & Wijekumar, 2010; Williams, 2003), and teaching them about the ways in which text is structure is a promising focus for such early instruction.

Text structure. Text structure is one specific type of prior (or background) knowledge that skilled readers possess. Good readers can identify important information in a text and are aware of how other textual information relates to the important propositions. They can do this even when, as often happens, the text is not well organized. These readers are applying cognitive patterns-rhetorical structures-that they have already acquired, first via their oral language experience and later via their reading. These patterns guide them to the recognition that (for example) a given text compares two entities, or that it presents a problem and a solution to that problem. Readers who can identify the structure of a text are better able to locate the information they need for successful comprehension.

Expository text is challenging for many students as it often deals with complex and unfamiliar content and is structured in a variety of ways. Although recently there has been a press toward providing all students with more exposure to expository text, many students are still often finding expository text hard to understand. One problem is that the instruction in many classrooms is discussion-based, with little or no explicit instruction. In addition, because content-area textbooks may be too difficult for students to read easily, teachers often read them aloud in class and rely on this approach in conjunction with class discussion to impart information. This has the adverse and unintended consequence of further reducing opportunities for students to develop their ability to read expository text on their own.

Instructional intervention. My students and I developed a full-year intervention to teach text structure to second-grade students at risk for academic failure (Williams, 2008). The intervention is called the Close Analysis of Structured Texts (CATS). The content of the intervention fulfills the New York State Standards for second-grade social studies and focuses on U.S. communities past and present: Native Americans, Colonists, Pioneers, Immigrants, and present-day City-dwellers. CATS is based on text processing theory (Kintsch, 1998) and incorporates classic principles of instructional design. Specifically, students are introduced to content in small increments, moving from the simple to the complex. Teachers provide modeling, including scaffolding that fades as instruction progresses, and opportunities for guided and independent practice and ongoing feedback. Students are taught the five basic text structures (sequence, comparison, cause-effect, description, and problem-solution; Meyer, 1975), along with linguistic signals (clue words such as but, finally, because; graphic organizers; and generic questions that help students focus on essential textual information).

A central feature of CATS is a series of short texts that have a very strict structure in which paragraphs are pared down to their essentials. This allows students to identify the underlying structure of simple, well-structured texts. Through practice, students can more quickly develop a specific mental representation for each individual structure. This mental representation serves as a template that they then can bring to bear (as prior knowledge) on the longer and less-well-structured texts that they encounter in their regular reading. Students do close reading and analysis of these texts, underlining the central information, circling the clue words, and crossing out distractor sentences. They summarize the paragraphs, both orally and in writing. Of course, close attention to text structure cannot serve as a complete reading curriculum. The intervention also included teacher read-alouds from social studies trade books, class discussion, vocabulary instruction, and whole-class and individual activities that incorporated a substantial amount of writing. The content of the short well-structured texts was taken from the content of the trade books.

Below are two examples of target paragraphs taken from the Comparison module of CATS. The first paragraph was used in the introductory lesson. The second comes later; it is longer, and it includes distractor sentences (details not part of a comparison or contrast).

Example 1: Saltbox homes and Dutch Colonial homes were the same and different. Saltbox homes were made with wood; however, Dutch Colonial homes were made with brick. Both Saltbox homes and Dutch colonial homes were cold in the winter. Saltbox homes had one room, but Dutch Colonial homes had many rooms.

Example 2: Town criers and post riders were the same and different. Both town criers and post riders were important people for communication in colonial times. Town criers delivered news to the people; post riders also delivered news to the people. The town criers walked through the streets, but post riders rode horses. Post riders delivered letters that were written with a goose feather and ink. People heard the news right away from the town crier; however, it took a month or two months for a letter to be delivered by a post rider.

A series of randomized clinical trials has provided solid evidence for the effectiveness of this intervention. First, we conducted evaluation studies of each of the instructional modules separately (one for each of the five text structures). Findings were promising with second and third graders, middle school students, and adolescents with learning disabilities. We then did an evaluation of the full-year program with second-grade students ( N = 258; Williams, Kao, et al., 2016). In all of the evaluation studies, we compared CATS to a program that did not contain text structure instruction but, rather, focused on the content, as is more traditional in reading comprehension instruction. Both programs covered the same social studies content and used the same materials, including the well-structured paragraphs. In these studies, intact classrooms were assigned to one of three conditions: CATS, the comparison program, or a no-treatment control.

Outcome measures were based on oral and written summaries of texts that students had not seen before the test. The summaries of the CATS students included more accurate information than did those of the other two groups. This was true even for texts that contained information completely unrelated to the content of the intervention, as well as on texts that were ill-structured. In addition, students who received the comparison program did not acquire more social studies content than the CATS students. This was assessed via vocabulary and recall of details about the content of what had been taught in class. Thus, including text structure training did not deprive children of the opportunity to learn content. Findings from the year-long evaluation were positive and significant: 21 out of 22 comparisons showed significant effect sizes, ranging from 0.52 to 2.00, and the other comparison showed a positive but non-significant, effect size of 0.34.

In conclusion, our evaluation of the CATS intervention demonstrates that children can benefit from explicit comprehension instruction as early as second grade and that achievement can be increased by encouraging a focus on text structure. Such instruction provides a strong foundation for further progress as students encounter increasingly more complex texts in higher grades. Text structure is a valuable component of comprehension instruction at all levels, and it is important to start it early.
This post is part of a special series curated by APA Division 15 President Bonnie J.F. Meyer. The series, centered around her presidential theme of "Welcoming and Advancing Research in Educational Psychology: Impacting Learners, Teachers, and Schools," is designed to spread the dissemination and impact of meaningful educational psychology research. Those interested can learn more about this theme in Division 15's 2016 Summer Newsletter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching Text Structure Improves Reading Comprehension

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many children who do not have trouble learning how to read do have trouble understanding what they read. Yet surprisingly, comprehension instruction did not receive much attention from reading professionals until the 1970s, with the arrival of the cognitive revolution.

# data[].attributes.body
instruction method whereby teachers model reading to young students who participate in the storytelling

# data[].attributes.body
(LEA) an instructional approach that promotes reading and writing through the use of personal experiences and oral language

# data[].attributes.body
the basis of a new word that is a stand alone word in its own right

# data[].attributes.body
word parts that change the meaning of the words they attach to

# data[].attributes.body
a word or word part that has meaning and contains no smaller part that has meaning

# data[].attributes.body
high frequency words that children are taught, typically using top-down reading methods, so they are recognized and read without the use of decoding strategies; for advanced readers, most words are sight words since we no longer need to decode them

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sight Words, Orthographic Mapping, Phonemic Awareness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What, exactly, are sight words? How are they created? How are they related to orthographic mapping? What phonemic awareness skills are necessary for a child to become a competent reader and speller? And what method of teaching most facilitates sight word creation and orthographic mapping? To better understand these topics, some specialized vocabulary is helpful.

# data[].attributes.body
the ability to recognize words correctly and near effortlessly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
The Classroom | Empowering Students in Their College Journey

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For people who have been reading and writing for years, it's unthinkable to imagine a time when they could not recognize letters or words. However, as children learn to read they must begin to connect the symbols they see on the page with the letters they have heard and spoken.

One of the key aspects of teaching reading is teaching word recognition, both by sight and sound. There are a number of strategies that teachers can employ to get students to recognize words.

What Is Word Recognition in Reading?

When a reader with years of experience reads a page, he doesn't stop and read every word and wonder what it means. What experienced readers do that allows them to read quickly and efficiently is called word recognition.

The more fluent a reader is in word recognition, the easier it will be for him or her to comprehend complex text and challenging abstract concepts. On the contrary, slow word recognition means constant reading and analysis of words and sentences. When readers struggle with word recognition, their memory and their comprehension skills are quickly drained from spending so much time on analysis.

Learning Word Recognition

The best way to gain word recognition is repeated and consistent exposure to the same words over and over. This is simple for avid readers, but it is something critical for children who are just beginning to read or who are given the opportunity to look at books regularly.

Despite the fact that the English language is vast and rich and contains a tremendous vocabulary, the fact is that only around 100 words comprise about 50 percent of the words that all people read in English each day.

This means that constant exposure to the words that most people need to read to navigate their lives is not difficult to orchestrate. These words are around and available. When a child begins to remember that the letters "a-n-d" spell the word "and," she will immediately recognize it and move on to the next word. There is no more sounding out, no more analysis. Their word recognition propels them forward as they read.

How to Teach Contextual Word Recognition Activities

Understanding word recognition is simple. Being able to teach word recognition is hard. This is a particular challenge for teachers who have a classroom where students are at varying levels of experience and competence with the material. The most consistent and successful way for children to learn word recognition is to expose them over and over to text that contains these words, particularly text that is not especially challenging to comprehend.

The more children are exposed to books with the same words in them, the sooner they will recognize the shape and size of a word rather than needing to read it.

Use More Clues

Context clues are when readers rely on the ancillary content of a sentence or a page to guess at what word might be suggested. In this way, the context can help the reader to anticipate the word. Another great way to help students recognize words is to provide syntactic clues or word order clues.

Often the structure of a sentence will help a student to guess whether the word that is next is a verb, a noun or an adjective. Outside the realm of words, pictures or illustrations can help to bridge a connection between the picture of the word and the spelling of the word. This association may be especially helpful for students who are highly visual. Contextual word recognition activities are among the most valuable.

What Are Some Good Word Recognition Strategies?

Science has shown that the human brain is hardwired for speech, but the same is not said of reading or writing. The facts of this are that the language, English, is an invention, as are all languages. This means that the brain must extend itself and create a new neural pathway that helps to translate the marks you are seeing on the paper and connect them to the sounds you use when you speak. This is a tremendous feat for the human brain.

When you look at things from this perspective, it makes sense that learning to read can be hard for some people. This is in part because when you write words, you break them down into smaller blocks called phonemes. These blocks are essentially the 'atoms" of words. Unlike languages like Chinese, where a character can stand for a whole word or an entire syllable, the English language has an alphabet where words are broken down to individual sounds, and the sounds are rearranged.

This means that in order to read and write in the language, young readers must be able to identify and separate the different sounds in the words and recognize them as the symbols they see written out on the page. This means that teaching word recognition strategy will likely involve not only extensive reading on the part of the child but extensive speaking and mirroring the speech by associating it with the written word.

What Are Some Word Recognition Activities for Young Readers?

Begin by helping students sound out the words they are seeing. Whether or not they get the word quickly is not the issue. Having them work through each sound while looking at the word that is made up of those sounds creates a connection.

Once they have sounded out what the letters in "pat" do, they will be able to read that word. They will, with repetition, be able to understand when they see that word again that those sounds are made by those shapes.

Help the student identify the word "chunks." This is especially useful with older readers who are working on understanding compound words. By sounding out the chunks and then putting them together, the student will start to be able to recognize and identify specific word "families." This word recognition activity for middle schoolers will help them to identify words that they already know, and then put those words in context and see if they are able to make sense of the sentence.

Asking a student what a particular word looks like or reminds them of can often be a good jumping off point for identifying the word they are faced with. If there's a letter in it that reminds them of another word, start there. See if making that letter sound and indicating which part of the word it shows up it helps to create a moment of recognition for the student.

What Are Word Recognition Strategies for Diverse Learning Levels?

As difficult as it is for the average student to learn how to read words with instant, automatic recognition, it is even more challenging for students with special needs. Kids with special needs who struggle to learn word recognition might see letters in reverse position and may mix up the sounds of letters that look similar, such as "d" and "b" or may struggle to place sound chunks together.

This is why it is important for teachers to have word recognition activities for preschoolers at the ready just in case there is a need to work on basic skills with students.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is one of the most critical aspects of true word recognition. Phonological awareness means being able to identify and be aware of sounds as they are found in different words and applying that phonetic knowledge when you encounter an unfamiliar word. Word recognition games around phonemes are popular and can be done as a parent or a teacher.

One example is asking children to identify the sounds at the beginning of several words that start with the same letter. Then ask the children to identify the sounds at the end of several words that end in the same letter. This will strengthen their understanding of these letters and their spoken counterparts. This will help them to recognize the letters as functioning entities next time that they encounter them.

What Is the Difference Between Word Recognition and Word Identification?

Word recognition describes the cognitive act of remembering or recognizing a familiar word that has been seen before. Word identification, on the other hand, is the process of decoding the meaning of the word through its phonetic sounds. In other words, sounding a word out. These are two methods by which students internalize new vocabulary words.

Even the most seasoned reader occasionally encounters a word that he or she has never seen before. In the case of an exceptionally long or oddly spelled word, the reader does not resort to word recognition. They have simply never seen this word before. The process that then takes over is called word identification. This means that the reader will slowly sound out the word, recognizing the phonemes he or she has seen before, and thus be able to read the word.

Reading comprehension is, of course, the ultimate goal. Both word recognition and word identifications are strategies and skills that when honed, can help increase overall comprehension. The more words a reader is able to instantly recognize and process, the faster he or she will be able to comprehend what is being read. This means that the occasions where a word needs to be sounded out, identified, processed and understood is far rarer. The result is that comprehension isn't slowed down by constant reflection and analysis.

Word recognition activities are not designed simply to increase the vocabulary of the student. If this is a byproduct of word recognition that is wonderful, and it is part of the reason why avid readers have such large vocabularies. However, the goal of word recognition is the improvement of reading comprehension. Whether someone is reading the directions on a dangerous household chemical, or reading a bedtime story, the ability to immediately recognize and subconsciously process every word helps.

Fluency is achieved when a reader has sufficient word recognition to be able to comprehend everything he or she is reading. This means that the reader isn't slowing down every third word to figure out what the word is, and thus forgetting what came before. This type of difficulty can lead to reading sentences over and over and over again with no clear comprehension. Increased recognition leads to increased speed and facility with language. This, in turn, leads to increased comprehension and ultimately, fluency.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For people who have been reading and writing for years, it's unthinkable to imagine a time when they could not recognize letters or words. However, as children learn to read they must begin to connect the symbols they see on the page with the letters they have heard and spoken.

# data[].attributes.body
effortless word recognition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the most significant barriers to fluent reading and good comprehension is lack of 'automaticity' - the ability to quickly and accurately identify letters, letter-sound correspondences and isolated words. Children who have not developed automaticity in decoding by the beginning of Year 2 are at risk for reading failure ( Berninger et al., 2006). In this blog I will talk about how you can help a child to achieve that vital automaticity.

What is Automaticity in Reading?

When we achieve automaticity in a skill, we no longer have to consciously think about each individual step in the process. Instead, we can do it without effort, sometimes even while consciously thinking about something else. We can activate or perform the skill quickly. Automatic skilled performance develops with extended practice after a high level of accuracy has been reached.

Do you remember when you were learning to drive a car? You had to think about every action you made. You probably drove slowly in order to be able to process simultaneous actions and information. After direct instruction and repeated, focused practice, it became possible to drive without consciously thinking about each action, even to 'have a quiet word' with the fighting kids in the back seat and drive, simultaneously!

Reading, like driving, is a complex process. It requires two key separate but inter-related skills - word identification and comprehension. In reading, automaticity is the ability to rapidly, effortlessly and accurately recognise or decode words. 'Expert' readers are able to decode words with minimal attention to the activity of decoding. There are few words they must sound out or closely examine, and they can instead accurately recognise words on sight. The 'L plate' or 'novice' reader usually lacks automaticity, often reading slowly, with effort, and often making errors.

Why is Automaticity so Important?

At any given time, we have a finite amount of cognitive energy to give to an activity or process. When we achieve automaticity in lower-level skills (e.g. word recognition), we free up working memory for more complex, higher-level skills (e.g. comprehension). The slower word identification is, the longer previously read letter-sound correspondences and words have to be held in working memory. Working memory may become overloaded by lack of automaticity.

Comprehension may be reduced, not because the reader is unable to understand the text but because too much cognitive energy has had to be put into decoding. Cognitive load is reduced as automaticity increases.

The faster text is processed, the easier it is to access meaning directly and integrate new information with prior knowledge. Consequently, automaticity has a very significant impact on reading comprehension.

Automaticity also plays a key role in the oral reading fluency which is required to effectively share the written word with an audience in the classroom, workplace, home etc. Given the importance of automaticity, educators should ensure that the novice reader develops automaticity at the letter, word, and text level to decrease cognitive load and increase comprehension.

How is automaticity different to fluency?

Automaticity is a prerequisite to fluency. Fluency requires not only automaticity and accuracy in word identification but also prosody (intonation, expression and phrasing) at the text level. For more information, have a look at my blog post on fluency.

What Are the Steps in Developing Automaticity in Reading?

It goes without saying that automaticity in any skill is the product of instruction and multiple practice opportunities.

These are the steps to developing automaticity:

1. Provide explicit systematic instruction

Explicit, systematic, highly structured, step-by-step, carefully sequenced, cumulative, multisensory instruction supports and develops automaticity. Implicit, incidental, haphazard instruction that involves only one sense (e.g. vision) and leaves out important steps does not. There is a plethora of research indicating that systematic synthetic phonics instruction is the most effective form of reading instruction for the novice reader. If you'd like to learn more, you can read these case studies from schools using Phonics Hero across the globe:

2. Develop accuracy in ALL key components of decoding

Accuracy is a prerequisite skill for automatic word recognition, therefore teachers must dedicate significant amounts of instructional time to developing accuracy in each of the following components of decoding:

1. Letter-sound correspondence (incorporating letter discrimination) (Letter level)

2. Blending skill (Word level)

3. Irregular word recognition (Word level)

4. Application of these skills in the reading of decodable text (Text level)

Accuracy is best achieved through appropriate instruction that begins at the student's point of need, followed by frequent (daily) focused practice with direct corrective feedback. 90-96% word recognition accuracy is equated with ability to read at instructional level, 97-100% word recognition accuracy with ability to read at independent level and less than 90% accuracy is equated with frustration level in reading.

3. Develop mastery in decoding

Skills and knowledge learned to the level of automaticity are better retained in long-term memory than skills and knowledge developed only to high accuracy. The goal, then, is mastery. 'Mastery' is defined as 'effective transfer of learning in authentic and worthy performance.' Students should not be considered proficient readers until they can read accurately and with comprehension. This is why accuracy in reading of words in isolation is an insufficient measure of automaticity in reading.

A novice reader may able to decode a passage of text, but if their working memory is devoted completely to decoding they won't be able to extract meaning from the text or visualise the given scene. And so the student must be given multiple opportunities to apply his/her decoding skills to the reading of decodable text and demonstrate comprehension of the text read.

4. Provide opportunities to overlearn

Practice should be continued beyond demonstration of mastery-a process called 'overlearning'. Just as a professional pianist doesn't stop practising a piece once it has been played correctly, a reader should not stop practise reading words once they are read correctly. The average reader needs to see a word 4-14 times before it can be read with automaticity. A struggling learner may need to see it 40 times. Extensive exposure to print is vital - the more reading a student does, the more often specific words are seen, the more automatically words will be recognised. The challenge, of course, is finding ways of making overlearning enjoyable.

Using Phonics Hero to Develop Automaticity

Explicit systematic instruction

The principles of systematic synthetic phonics instruction underpin all of Phonics Hero's products. The Phonics Lessons cover each of the 44 phonemes of English, using over 3,700 decodable words and 2,400 sentences with pronunciation videos, fluency drills and phonics games to give you the structure and resources to teach phonics explicitly and systematically.

The most commonly used representations of sounds are taught first. Students are taught how these sounds can be blended to form many words. They are moved through 'levels' of the alphabet code, from the simple to the complex, in a systematic way. Differentiation is provided to ensure that each student is working at the appropriate level.

Explore the Resources with a Teacher Account

Developing accuracy in decoding

The Phonics Hero lessons and games systematically teach students all aspects of decoding: letter-sound correspondence, blending and reading of both regular and irregular words. The Child Accounts contains 850 enjoyable skill-based games that encourage daily practice, at school and home, developing the accuracy needed for automaticity.

The games can be used for consolidation and revision in the classroom, by individual students or in a group with an interactive whiteboard. A Placement Test is provided to ensure that the correct starting point is chosen for each student. Errors are corrected sensitively and immediately. The performance of a student on each game is automatically recorded so that the teacher can monitor the accuracy level attained by a student in live reports. Pre- and Post- assessment paper-based tools are also provided to help the teacher determine accuracy levels.

Developing mastery in decoding

Once the student has demonstrated accuracy in blending sounds and reading isolated words, (s)he is then required to apply decoding skills to the reading of captions and sentences (by using the toggle to switch to sentences in Phonics Lessons and 'Step 6' of the Phonics Hero games). The student is asked to match captions/sentences with pictures or to complete a sentence to determine the student's level of comprehension.

Providing opportunity to overlearn

Phonics Hero's unique games are so attractive that students will want to play them over and over. There is no chance of the student getting bored because Phonics Hero only uses the same game, on average, 1.2 times. They are also incredibly varied thematically: monsters, princesses, animals, superheroes and more!

In addition, Phonics Hero offers 12 free phonic worksheets covering each skill for every level of the program - over 220 worksheets. It is also possible to buy packs that target specific phonemes e.g. the R-controlled Vowels Worksheet Activities.

Ideas for Additional Practice Opportunities

While most students who have struggled with reading are helped by systematic synthetic phonics instruction to become accurate decoders, the development of automaticity is crucial to for every child to become a fluent, efficient reader who has full comprehension - and enjoyment - of a text. I hope that you now are more aware of the steps you can take to help children develop that automaticity on their journey to become confident, skilled readers.

References

'Paths to Reading Comprehension in At-Risk Second-Grade Readers' Virginia Berninger et al, August 2006 Journal of Learning Disabilities 39(4):334-51

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developing Automaticity in Reading | Phonics Hero

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Automaticity in reading is critical to becoming a skilled, fluent reader. Shirley Houston shares her top teaching tips to gain automaticity.

# data[].attributes.body
an instructional tool that has children segment words into their individual phonemes to promote spelling and reading

# data[].attributes.body
the unconventional spellings that pre-literate children derive based on their knowledge of the alphabetic principle and phonemic awareness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Encouraging kindergartners' attempts to spell unknown words on their own can help them become better readers, according to a recent study by two Canadian researchers.

Gene Ouellette, an associate professor of psychology at Mount Allison University, and Monique Sénéchal, a psychology professor at Carleton University, have done a number of studies on how invented spelling plays into literacy acquisition.

"What we've found over the years is there seemed to be something with kids who are doing invented spelling on their own that's really helping them learn how to read," said Ouellette in an interview. "I'd say it's like the missing piece" in early literacy instruction.

Integrating Reading Skills

Invented spelling (also known as inventive spelling), as explained in Ouellette and Sénéchal's recent study, published in the journal

Developmental Psychology, refers to "children's spontaneous or self-directed attempts to represent words in print." Children generally start with the first sound in a word; for instance, they might spell dog by writing a d, possibly followed by random letters. Then they typically represent final sounds ( d becomes dg), and gradually children will include the sounds in the middle.

"It's an engaging and cognitively strenuous activity," said Ouellette, "It helps bring together all the skills kids use when they learn how to read," including alphabetic knowledge and phonemic awareness.

The researchers' recent study followed about 170 students from kindergarten to 1st grade. It found that children who did more invented spelling and were better at it tended to have stronger literacy skills after a year.

The results, the researchers explain, were causal-meaning that by statistically controlling for how well students knew the alphabet or could listen for sounds, they could see that invented spelling led to better reading (and not the other way around).

With this study, the researchers "have mapped the powerful beginning reading-writing connection, moved us closer to being successful teachers of reading in 1st grade, and cleared up decades of confusion," J. Richard Gentry, who was not involved in this study but conducted early research on invented spelling in the 1980s, wrote in Psychology Today.

Fears About Teaching the 'Wrong Way'

To put this into practice, Ouellette recommends that teachers let students attempt to write words before showing them the correct spelling. "Instead of giving them a word list and telling them to memorize it, before a student has ever seen the word, you'd encourage them to spell it," he said. "It's a spelling-first approach."

But the idea of encouraging self-directed spelling does worry some people.

Critics of the tactic are often concerned students will learn incorrect spellings for words and hang onto them.

"People get super defensive" about invented spelling, said Ouellette. "They think we're saying you should just let kids spell how they want and never teach them the right way."

But teachers can be supportive of students' attempts without actually reinforcing misspellings, said Oullette. After students try to spell a word, the teacher can show them the correct spelling and talk about how the spellings differ. "You gradually shape them into the correct spelling," he said.

As some will remember, invented spelling was once seen as part of the "whole language" approach to reading, which minimizes phonics in favor of simply exposing students to text. That approach fell out of favor in the 1990s based on research showing that students learned to read better through systematic phonics instruction.

Ouellette emphasized that the way invented spelling was used in his research is distinct from the whole language approach, and not compatible with it. "That approach has children writing passages and narratives with invented spelling," he wrote in an email. "We are advocating word-level work. ... We would also help [children] discover how to improve their spellings over time. "
Top Image: Ellis, a kindergartner, visited the Education Week offices with his mother, assistant managing editor Lesli Maxwell, on Take your Child to Work Day last week. He documented his experience in this note, concluding that his mother is a "gurnalist." Lower Image: Ellis writes his mother a card "for a vare speshil resin." -Lesli Maxwell for Education Week. Related stories: For more news and information on reading, math, and STEM instruction: And sign up here to get alerts in your email inbox when stories are published on Curriculum Matters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Invented Spelling Leads to Better Reading, Study Says

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Encouraging kindergartners' attempts to spell unknown words on their own can help them become better readers, according to a recent study by two Canadian researchers. Gene Ouellette, an associate professor of psychology at Mount Allison University, and Monique Sénéchal, a psychology professor at Carleton University, have done a number of studies on how invented spelling plays into literacy acquisition.

# data[].attributes.body
the string of letters that follow the onset of a word

# data[].attributes.body
the knowledge that there is a relationship between the sounds that are heard and the letters that are seen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Reading Simplified - streamilined instruction, accelerated achievement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What's the first step we should take when teaching someone to read? Most people probably assume it's teaching the letters of the alphabet. However, the alphabet letters are NOT really the true foundation of how our written code works. The foundation is actually the alphabetic principle , which is the concept that our written language is a code for sounds.

Written words consist of sounds () that are represented by letters and letter combinations (). Once a child unlocks the alphabetic principle, she opens a doorway to becoming a good reader.

In this article, we explore why understanding the alphabetic principle is the true first step in learning to read. We'll also show how you can use the Build It activity to help pave the way for the alphabetic principle...on the road to a lifetime of reading.

What is the Alphabetic Principle?

The alphabetic principle is the concept that our written language is a code for sounds. All words are built from sounds, or phonemes, which in written form are represented by letters and letter combinations, called graphemes. In other words, graphemes are a code for sounds (phonemes). Learning to read is the work of cracking this code. The alphabetic principle is the first insight one must have in order to begin "de-coding" more and more words.

To read unfamiliar words, the reader must first understand the idea that the sounds in words can be represented by squiggles on a page. This is not an idea that comes naturally to most humans. Indeed, what an amazing accomplishment the creation of an alphabetic writing system was as this form of communication revolutionized the world. Yep, even a bigger deal than the iPhone or TikTok!

We don't recognize words by how tall or short or long they are; we don't recognize words by just the first or the last letter sound. Rather, we translate particular symbols as visual representations of individual sounds (phonemes)--in their very specific, left-to-right order--in words.

For instance, to crack the code of the word "reading," one needs to know that these graphemes represent these phonemes:

The process of decoding sounds and symbols as in the image above is the work the developing reader needs to practice and grow in. The very first step is even recognizing that a code exists to help us read and that this code is a code of sound-symbol associations.

Why Begin with the Alphabetic Principle Instead of the Alphabet Letters?

U.S. culture begins the teaching of reading by teaching the alphabet. First, we usually guide our 2, 3, 4, and 5 year-old children to learn to recognize the letter names of the 26 letters of the alphabet, right?

But the alphabet is just a supporting player in how the code works. The true first step in learning to read is grasping the concept that sounds in words are pictured with letters and letter-combinations. That's an "Aha!" we should be teaching our preK students to grasp.

And when we think we're giving students the building blocks by teaching the alphabet letters, we're actually leaving important information out. :O

Our written code is not exactly based on the 26 letters of the alphabet...it's based on the 44(ish) sounds in our language! The letters are just tools to build other representations of phonemes. For instance, the letter "s" can represent the

Some representations of the /s/ sound include more than just the letter "s" too, as in the "se" in "house." And the "ce" in "nice" doesn't even include the letter "s!"
Bonus trivia: the /s/ sound is the second phoneme often represented by the "x," as in "box." Do you hear the /ks/?
Here's another mind-bender....

You may have been taught--and taught this yourself as I once have--that "the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y." But this is an alphabet-centric view that ignores the true nature of our code. Actually, there are about 15 vowels, including /oy/, /ow/, and /er/. The so-called long and short vowels are of our English vowel sounds.

Thus, while most teachers start early readers off by talking (and singing!) the alphabet, this is not the introduction that researchers have demonstrated reveals the alphabetic principle. Instead, through experiments with preK children, researchers have revealed that the alphabetic principle is induced by tuning in kids to the sounds of words and pairing these sounds with specific letter combinations( 1).

Teaching the alphabetic principle helps students understand that:

1. Our written language is a code for sounds, and

2. These sounds () can be represented with a lot of different letters and letter combinations ().

(In other words, the 26 letters of the alphabet alone do not depict the true nature our sound-based spelling system works.)

This almost feels like a secret code, and it kind of is!

Crack this code, and your students will be on the road to reading with confidence!

The Alphabetic Principle Is NOT the Same as the Alphabet

Are you getting the idea now of how the alphabetic principle is different from the alphabet itself? They're related, of course, but when we talk about the alphabetic principle, we're just thinking of the concept about how our code works. In contrast, we define the term "the alphabet" as related to the specific recognition of the letters and/or sounds of the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Thus, the alphabetic principle is the big concept or idea that one can learn all at once and have for a lifetime, but the alphabet, and other graphemes such as "sh" or "igh" are bits of phonics information that will take time to learn, bit by bit.

Significantly, the sounds, in particular, help build the concept of the alphabetic principle, but the letter names themselves can actually trip young kids up.

Why? 🤔

The initial sounds in the names of some letters, such as "s," "h," or "n" do not begin with the sound we say when we see that letter....

Say the letter "s" slowly. What sounds do you hear?

/e----ssssss/.

Did you notice how the name of the letter "s" begins with the short "e" sound, as in "egg?"

So what happens when a very beginner is trying to read a word like "sat" and he begins with /e----ssss/? He's unlikely to make the connection that the "s" in "sat" is the /s/ sound.

As a result he may be less likely to grasp the concept of the alphabetic principle. Wah. Wah.

It's even crazier for the letter "h." What sounds do you hear in that letter?

/aytch/! Yikes!

What does that have to do with the first sound in the word "hen?"

That's why we suggest avoiding the letter names until the child has the concept of the alphabetic principle and is on his way to good decoding strategies. The letter names come quickly after a child is already reading. At that point, they will have plenty of mental "hooks" on which to stick.

In addition, even if children are learning the letter-sounds themselves, they still may not "get" the concept of the alphabetic principle. This is especially true if the letter-sound instruction is divorced from real words and phonemic connections. (I write more about the importance of integrating all of these concepts here.)

After you understand the distinctions I'm writing about here among the alphabetic principle, the alphabet, letter-sound knowledge, and phonemic awareness, you won't let this trip up your students!

The Fastest Way to Teach the Alphabetic Principle

The fastest way I've found to teach the alphabetic principle to early readers is to draw students' attention to how to connect letters to their most common sound or sounds. One easy way to do this is with the word work activity, Build It.

Build It demonstrates:

The alphabetic principle,

The concept of a word,

Left-to-right tracking,

Letter-sound knowledge,

Phonemic segmentation,

Early decoding, and

Early spelling.

It sounds like a lot to cover, but the exercise is very approachable. The key to Build it is teaching the letter sounds and all of these concepts like the alphabetic principle in context, not in isolation.

How to Know Whether or Not Your Student Is Ready for Build It

Introducing letter-sound relationships to young readers is a lot easier than you might think, especially when you use Build It to help speed things along! But how do you know if your student is ready for Build It?

In the video below, there's a ton of great information about the alphabetic principle, and about the Build It activity. One clip in particular, about three and a half minutes in, shows a short session working with a four-year-old boy who is not quite ready for the Build It activity.

Take a look at this video.

In the clip above around the 3:30 mark, this student doesn't yet have the background knowledge of letter sounds, and he struggles to perceive the sounds at the beginning of words. (This is also called weak phonemic awareness, in particular phoneme segmentation. He couldn't yet segment the words properly without the teacher doing the work for him.)

As a result, he probably doesn't yet get the concept of the alphabetic principle. He doesn't yet understand how our written language's 'secret code' works.

This young four-year-old wasn't quite ready-and that's perfectly okay! Different kids are ready at different times. He needs some preparation first, but this early introduction to letter sounds in the context of Build It acted as a great testing ground to determine his readiness.

You can do the same with your students. Check in periodically with an activity like Build It to determine if they are ready to start learning more about our code.

Paving the Way with Build It

The Build It activity encourages kids to build one word at a time using manipulatives first. In this activity, we focus on the sound of the letters, rather than teaching the letter names or letter sounds in isolation.

Build It helps students to begin learning to read in a multi-sensory way, helping them to develop these 3 most vital early concepts and skills:

How our written language code works,

How to segment words into individual sounds (phonemes), and

Recognizing letter-sounds.

In the same video, you'll also see at around the seven and a half minute mark a three-and-a-half-year-old boy who is definitely ready for the Build It activity!

He is hearing the sound, and understanding the concept of the sound. In other words, he can segment fairly easily, and demonstrates his phonemic awareness well. This shows that he is the perfect candidate to start the Build It activity.

Later on in the video, at around nine minutes in, you can see a four-year-old girl who was ready and able to engage with the Build It activity.

She was picking it up, making connections, and building words with confidence! You can see how she already knew some letter sounds, and was practicing phonemic segmentation, letter-sound knowledge, and the alphabetic principle in the activity.

She demonstrated everything that the Build It activity is designed to teach early readers. She found the phonemic segmentation to be a little more difficult when it came to the middle vowel, which is typical. However, she did manage to spell the word and get the concept of the alphabetic principle and is well on her way to learning how to decode.

Struggling with the Build It Activity

If your students get it, awesome! If you find that your students continue to have issues with Build It after several coaching attempts, it's time to take a break from this activity.

Some kids are just stronger at perceiving the sounds than others, and that's totally fine. If kids were never taught the concept of the alphabetic principle and don't connect letters with sounds, they're more likely to struggle. Once your child's phonemic awareness improves a tad, s/he will begin to crack the code and see how sounds and symbols match up to make words.

The first 2 activities suggested below will be helpful preparation for these students who are struggling with Build It. In addition, we have a video example that can be sent to parents to encourage them to practice phoneme segmentation with their child at home. This oral-only approach is another way to prepare the child for Build It and it can be done on-the-go as in the car trip game demonstrated in the video. I also have a few other tips in this guest post at Imagination Soup.

If you need more persuasion for why to start with the alphabetic principle and not the alphabet, you can find lots of tips on our previous video and blog - " How the Alphabet Done You Wrong...And What to Do Instead."

3 Easy Steps to Early Reading Success

Even though thousands if not millions of children are confused about the alphabetic principle, it's actually not that hard to guide a child to "get it."

Are your students not quite ready for Build It? Here are 3 easy ways to build the alphabetic principle in children as young as 2 or 3 years-old to help them prep:

1. Storybook tracking of print and phonemes,

2. Phoneme identity matching activities, and

3. Build It activity

Let's dig in....

Storybook Tracking of Print and Phonemes . When you're enjoying a book with a child, or a group of children, occasionally draw your finger under each word carefully. Occasionally exaggerate and elongate the sounds in the word as your finger runs underneath the word.

For instance, perhaps you're reading Where the Wild Things Are. Try reading this sentence like this as you drag your finger under each word slowly:

"And /mmmmmma----kss/, Max, the king of all /wwi-----llllllld/, wild things, was lonely and wanted, to be where someone loved him best of all."

So, one is drawing attention to the sounds in words by exaggerating the sounds in a word, here and there. This is a painless way to implicitly hint at the alphabetic principle.

Occasionally, note what sound a word begins with ("So Max's name begins with the /mmmm/ sound. Do you see the /mmmm/ here?") Researchers have tested a somewhat similar approach called "print referencing" and have found that it does cue children into important early information about how the code works.

For instance, Laura Justice and her colleagues led an experiment of 23 preK classrooms of children with economic, social, or developmental risks, including 9 Head Start settings( 3). One group of preK teachers read storybooks to the children in a "business as usual" approach. The experimental group of teachers, on the other hand, added the print referencing intervention taught by the researchers. These teachers would reference print as they were already reading a storybook by:

1. Asking questions about print,

2. Commenting about print, and

3. Tracking their finger along the text while reading.

After 30 weeks of these types of storybook experiences, the experimental group outpaced the "business as usual" storybook group in print concepts, alphabet knowledge, and name writing, as demonstrated by the chart below.

"As the results of this study make clear, the present work extends prior findings concerning the positive impacts of print referencing intervention to the preschool classroom as applied by teachers working in a range of program types and as delivered within large- group, classroom-based reading sessions four times weekly. The results show the value-added benefits of teacher reading with a print referencing style to approximate .5 SD on measures of print concepts, alphabet knowledge, and emergent name writing above those we see with exposure to teachers' typical storybook reading practices. Importantly, children's performance on such measures is consistently linked to later outcomes on measures of word reading and spelling (National Early Literacy Panel, 2004), suggesting that print referencing may exert positive impacts on children's future reading performance" (p. 77). (4)

I noticed the power of this storybook print and phoneme referencing approach with our oldest daughter when she was merely two years' old. I had been occasionally drawing attention to the sounds of words as I read aloud to her. I would also point to some words as I read them.

One day we were together at a store and she pointed to the exit sign. She pointed her finger at the sign and said, "/lllllleeeeeev/" (i.e., "leave"). Did the sign actually say, "leave?" No, she couldn't read and she didn't know many letter-sound correspondences at this point.

However, even at just 2 years' old, she did demonstrate the insight of the alphabetic principle--those funny squiggles represent sounds in meaningful words. She was well on her way!

2. Phoneme Identity Matching Activities. As we see in the activity Build It above, the concept of the alphabetic principle is intertwined with phonemic segmentation ability and letter-sound knowledge. However, very young children sometimes find it difficult to segment even a simple CVC word into its individual phonemes.

Have no fear!

There's a bridging activity that will pave the way for phoneme segmentation skill and ease of engaging in Build It. Try phoneme identity matching tasks as a simpler version of phoneme segmentation.

As early as 1990 researchers demonstrated that 4 year-olds could be easily taught phoneme identity( 5). And Montessori preschool teachers have been teaching this activity for over 100 years! If you need some inspiration or resources for this just google "Montessori sound matching" and you'll find lots of ideas like these....

Select words that begin with continuant consonants --these are sounds that can be continued or elongated allowing the adult to draw attention to that specific sound in the word. I often choose words that begin with /s/ or /m/ in words such as "sat," "sit," "mom," or "map." Find or create pictures or objects of a few concrete words that begin with these sounds.

First, teach the children to notice how your first batch of words all begin with the same sound (i.e., "mom," "match," "monkey," "man," and "moon"). Encourage them to stretch out that first sound in each word as you do: "/mmmmmm/." You can point to the letter "m" on a letter-sound card and/or at the beginning of word cards, as well, but in this first stage you'll be mostly aiming to just draw their attention to the phoneme (not the grapheme, or letter).

Next, if the child is getting the hang of it, introduce a second sound and various objects/pictures for it (i.e., /s/ and "sun," etc.). Follow the same procedure as above to try to get them to attend to the first sound in these words.

Then the fun begins! Create 2 columns--one for each of the 2 contrasting sounds that have been taught so far. Tell the child that you're going to sort the objects/pictures into one of two categories (i.e., "/mmm/ or /sss/"). Sort the first object in each category for the child and then invite him to begin sorting the objects into the relevant column.If the child makes a mistake, give specific feedback, such as,

"Actually, I hear a /mmmmm/ at the beginning of /mmmmmoon/. But this column is for the /sssss/ sound as in /sssssun/, like this picture of the sun we have here. So where should this picture of the mmmmmoo--n go?"

As the child succeeds at the task, continue to teach more initial phonemes. Then try similar ending phonemes, as in the /t/ in "mat," "sit," "bit," "elephant," or "minute." If this activity is going well, fold in the single graphemes into the sorting activity so the child begins to associate the letter "m" with the /m/ sound and so on.

When your students are matching a few phonemes by the beginning of words, they are likely ready to begin Build It. Yeah!!

No need to wait to cover all of the sounds in the alphabet before beginning Build It. (Remember the alphabet doesn't guide our early reading instruction--the alphabetic principle does. And the best activity for teaching the alphabetic principle is Build It.)

Try replacing the phoneme identity matching activity with Build It now, as Build It will accomplish more early reading developmental gains.

Since many phonological awareness curricula don't attempt awareness at the phoneme level from the beginning of instruction, you may doubt that your 3, 4, or 5 year-old beginning student will be able to handle this. Let me assure you that many researchers have demonstrated that young kids can handle this type of activity. For instance, Brian Byrne and Ruth Fielding-Barnsley tested this (as have others) and they concluded...

3. Build It Activity. The third core activity that I would suggest for the preK tykes is Build It, just as described earlier in this article. When your young charges are ready for Build It, recall that they will be learning:

1. the concept of the alphabetic principle,

2. phonemic segmentation,

3. letter-sound knowledge, and

4. early decoding and spelling.

These 3 activities above can be implemented in the same season of schooling, but they also represent a bit of a developmental continuum:

The print-disinterested 2 or 3 year-old can have her awareness to phonemes as well as print heightened by the first activity--Storybook Tracking of Print and Phonemes. This will lay the groundwork for the second activity--Phoneme Identity Matching activities, which most 3 and 4 year-olds should be able to learn.

Finally, with a few days or weeks of phoneme identity, most children will be ready for Build It. This step is so exciting because you are now unlocking for your students how the code works, establishing a firm foundation for later code breaking skill!

Still stuck? Try this hook!

Here's a super short video by Katy Broadbent also explaining the alphabetic principle and offering another bridge activity to help lead to the child understanding the alphabetic principle:

What Is the Difference Between the Alphabetic Principle and Phonemic Awareness?

Because most of us didn't learn about the terms "alphabetic principle" and "phonemic awareness" in school--even if we were in teacher training programs!--these terms may still be slippery. Let me clear up any confusion you may be having still about the difference between the alphabetic principle and phonemic awareness.

First, the alphabetic principle is an "aha!" or concept about how our written language works. Phonemic awareness, on the other hand, is the perception of individual sounds (phonemes) in words. A child who had received phonemic awareness instruction could have awareness of the phonemes in the word "sat," for instance, if I speak the word orally only: She could perceive that "cat" is made up of the /c/ /a/ and /t/ sounds.

However, she may still not "get" that those specific phonemes relate to specific graphemes (letters and letter combinations) to help her read the word "cat."

Why can't she read the word "cat"? It may be because she doesn't understand the concept of the alphabetic principle--that sounds in words are represented by letters.

OR, she may not know sufficient letter-sound knowledge in order to decode the spellings in the word "cat." If she doesn't recognize the letter "c" as a representation of the sound /c/, how can she read "cat"?

Thus, the concept of the alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness, and letter-sound knowledge (phonics knowledge) work together to help the young learn recognize words. Each sub-skill supports one another, but they are different. We show the beginning reader how all these pieces work together in the activity Build It (and other Reading Simplified activities that we introduce later).

Assessment of the Alphabetic Principle, Phonemic Awareness, & Letter Knowledge

Here are some diagnostic questions you could ask if you're not sure where your young student's challenges are coming from:

Perhaps the following diagram of the

Does the child attempt to translate a letter in a word into a sound in a word (even if the attempt is the wrong sound)? If so, then this may be a sign that the alphabetic principle is beginning to be grasped.

Is the child not able to segment the first sound in a word, such as "sat"? If so, then this is a sign that phonemic awareness is weak.

Can the child segment the first sound in "sat" but she cannot recall the /s/ when she's directed to the "s" letter? If so, then she is lacking letter-sound knowledge --for at least the letter "s." But she's got at least the beginning stages of phonemic awareness developing!

Are you seeing now how all the pieces of early reading come together--but they start with the alphabetic principle?

instructional developmental sequence that we follow at Reading Simplified may help. With a hat tip to Hollis Scarborough for popularizing the concept of learning to read as the weaving together of a variety of strands of sub-skills via her so-called Reading Rope( 7), here's our version of the Word Recognition strand that's more of an instructional sequence :
Notice how the first strand of this developmental process is the alphabetic principle. Voila!

Now see below for the encircled 3 first strands in this instructional model: the alphabetic principle, phoneme segmenting (one form of phonemic awareness) and Basic Code knowledge (as in consonants, short vowels, and consonant digraphs).

They weave together early on for the child who is off to a good start with cracking the code.

Nevertheless, these are only the beginning stages. Grasping the concept of alphabetic principle is important, but it's not the same thing as being skilled at using or applying the alphabetic principle.

To truly learn how to decode the thousands of words in our language and then recognize them by sight, more reading skills will be necessary. That's what the rest of the Development of Sound Based Decoding diagram suggests. To become good at decoding, one needs more than just the concept of how the code works.

The developing learner needs more phonemic awareness skills, deeper code knowledge, and automaticity with decoding strategies. These are the skills we specialize on here at Reading Simplified so please plan on coming back for more core activities.

Thanks for heading down this rabbit hole with me about the alphabetic principle. Even though it may seem insignificant to some, I hope I've persuaded you of the importance of beginning your reading instruction with the concept of the alphabetic principle. It will help you avoid so many wrong paths and accelerate beginners into real reading faster than anything else I've ever witnessed!

Here's Julie's experience as her Pre K grandson springboarded from Build It to other core Reading Simplified activities...

Watch the full live video replay about the heart of this message from our Facebook live show. 👇🏾

FREE Build it Wordlist

Want to try Build It for yourself?

Leave your first name and email address below to receive your FREE PDF set of letter-sound cards. Then jump right in with Build It.

If you decide to try Build It with a beginning student or early reader, let me know how you get on in the comments below!

References

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Paving the Way for the Alphabetic Principle - Reading Simplified

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
TEACHERS! - What if I told you there was a way to introduce young kids to reading BEFORE teaching them the letters of the alphabet? It sounds unbelievable, but it's true. Head over to readingsimplified.com to find out how teaching kiddos the alphabetic principle FIRST can save you hours of instructional time!

# data[].attributes.body
a single, unbroken speech sound that usually contains more than one phoneme

spring- 1 syllable
win/ter- 2 syllables
au/tum/nal- 3 syllables...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is a Syllable? | Open and Closed Syllables | Kids Academy

# data[].attributes.body
a speech sound characterized by the fact that the breath is obstructed in some way  after passing the vocal chords

Bb, Cc, Dd, Ff, Gg, Hh, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz

# data[].attributes.body
a speech sound characterized by the fact that the breath is not obstructed past the vocal chords

Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, Uu

# data[].attributes.body
the ability to recognize phonemes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Structured Literacy | Pride Reading Program

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Rhyming is the first step in developing phonological awareness. Why is rhyming important? It is important because rhyming draws attention to the different sounds in our language and that words actually come apart.

Because rhyming skills are significant predictors of children's later success in learning to read, every effort should be made to give young children the opportunity to develop these rhyming skills. ( Majsterek, Shorr, & Erion, 2000; Mitchell & Fox, 2001). Here are some strategies and activities on how to practice rhyming with your children so that they will have the opportunity to develop strong phonological awareness skills.

Identify and Practice Rhymes

You can begin teaching rhyming by asking your child to identify and practice rhymes by manipulating, adding, deleting, or substituting sounds in words. Some examples of doing this are:

"Tell me all the words you know that rhyme with the word "hat."

"Close your eyes. I am going to say 2 words. If they rhyme, raise your hand. If they don't shake your head."

"Listen to these words - mop, plop, flop, tag. Which of these does not rhyme?"

"Can you finish my sentence for me. The cat sat on the _______."

Rhyme with Letter Tiles

Use Letter Tiles to build rhyming words from the same family by placing the letter tiles for the ending sound in a row and stacking beginning letter tiles to make different words.

Rhyme with Beanbags

You will say a word (e.g., hat). You will then pass a beanbag (or anything else that is soft) to the child. The child will think of a word that rhymes with hat, say the word hat aloud and then pass the beanbag back to you.

The game continues with the beanbag being passed back and forth until you and the child can not think of any more rhyming words.

At that point, whoever is holding the beanbag begins the game with a new word.

Read Stories and Poems Aloud

You can practice rhyming with your child by reading stories and poems that use a lot of rhymes aloud together.

As you read, begin drawing attention to the sounds of the rhyme. For example you can say, "I hear rhyming words... dog and bog rhyme!"

You can also ask your child to predict the next word in the rhyming story (they love doing that). "The hog sat on the _______."

As you read these rhyming books aloud, you will want to really exaggerate the sound of the rhyming words.

You can also have your child create their own Rhyme Book! Create the book with five blank pages. Have your child draw pictures of objects that rhyme or cut out rhyming pictures. Then bind the pages into a personal rhyming book.

Another option instead of making a book...you can make a collage with pictures of objects that rhyme with one another.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id="optin_4″]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonological Awareness is a critical component for future blending, decoding and reading skills. Here are some specific strategies that you can use with your child for teaching phonological awareness.

# data[].attributes.body
a picture of a sound; a letter or combination of letters that represents one or more sounds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Understanding phonograms is vital to your child's success in reading and spelling-but the thought of teaching them may seem intimidating. Fear not! Phonograms are actually very simple to understand and easy to teach.

Let's start with a quick definition.

What Are Phonograms?

A phonogram is a letter or combination of letters that represent a sound. For example:

The word comes from Greek and is literally translated as the "written symbol for a sound."

Why Should You Teach Phonograms?

Simply put, phonograms make learning to read and spell much easier!

Take a look at the word . If you pronounce the word slowly to hear the individual sounds, you will hear four different sounds: /p/-/ă/-/s/-/t/. For each sound, we can write down a phonogram. This 10-second video shows exactly how this is done.

That was an easy example, but the same principle also applies to multisyllable words. Here's the word .

As you can see, your child doesn't need to remember w-i-n-t-e-r as a random string of letters. Instead, he can just segment the word and represent each sound with a phonogram.

Listen to the Phonograms with Our Free App

Just click a button below to hear the correct pronunciation of the phonograms.

(If you are on a slow internet connection, there may be a slight delay. The downloaded version of the app will not experience this delay.)

You can download the free app on your computer, tablet, or phone here.

The button colors match the colors of our letter tiles to reinforce learning, and the phonograms are arranged in logical groupings, matching the labels provided with the letter tiles.

Phonograms Are Like Building Blocks

Phonograms are the building blocks of almost every English word. In fact, a study of 17,000 words showed that the vast majority of words follow the regular phonogram sounds. Only 3% of the words are completely irregular (such as said and of). ¹ This means that there are very few words that must be learned through repetition and rote memorization.

Since phonograms represent sounds, the number of letters in a word doesn't necessarily correspond to the number of phonograms. Here are some examples:

How to Teach Phonograms

If you've been hanging around our blog for a while, you know by now that we teach everything very incrementally, step-by-step. It would overwhelm most kids to have to learn all the phonograms at once, so we teach just a few phonograms at a time. Once your child has mastered those, we introduce a few more.

Flashcards (known as Phonogram Cards) are an efficient way to teach and review the phonograms, and we include them right in the All About Reading and All About Spelling programs.

The front of the card shows the phonogram. This is the side you show your student.

The back of the card has information for you, the teacher. It shows the sound of the phonogram, along with a key word.

If you are using All About Reading or All About Spelling, these steps are included right in the lesson plans.

1. Show the Phonogram Card.

2. Demonstrate the sound.

3. Have your student repeat the sound.

4. After several repetitions, see if the student can say the sound without your prompting.

The goal is to flip through the flashcards and have your student say the phonograms without pausing to think.

Organizing Your Phonogram Review Cards

To stay organized, sort the Phonogram Cards behind three dividers:

"Review" divider: Cards that your child is currently learning go here.

"Mastered" divider: This is where you'll put the Phonogram Cards that your child knows inside and out.

"Future Lessons" divider: This is the parking spot for cards that haven't been presented yet.

And this is important: after your child knows the phonograms, don't forget to review! Quickly flip through a handful of cards at the beginning of every lesson to keep them fresh in your child's mind.

Download These 3 Free Printable Games to Practice Phonograms

There's no better way to review phonograms than by playing a game! Choose one of these games (or all three!) to make practice time go by more quickly.

If your phonograms review and practice sessions are falling a little flat, here's a great hands-on activity that you can slip in whenever you have a few extra minutes. It's so much fun your child might not even realize he's practicing!

Check out our super fun (and kind of gross) Swatting Phonograms activity!

Playing games is a great way to reinforce learning with children, and our easy-to-assemble printable game boards give you five different ways to have fun with phonograms! It's as easy as 1-2-3-just download, print, and play!

Get instant access to Fun with Phonograms!

It's easy to review phonograms when you have a great game to play! And who doesn't love a good game of Bingo? Just print our jungle-themed bingo boards and grab your phonogram cards. You're ready to go!

Download the PDF for Phonogram Jungle Bingo!

The Bottom Line for Teaching Phonograms

With phonograms, reading and spelling are much easier! Here are a few things to keep in mind:

An understanding of phonograms is vital to your child's success in reading and spelling.

Phonograms are simple to understand and easy to teach.

Tools like the Phonogram Cards, the Phonogram Sounds App, and simple games are a great way to help your child master the phonograms.

Review is essential!

Was this post on phonograms helpful to you? Let me know in the comments below! And then download our " 20 Best Tips for Teaching Reading and Spelling " for even more great information!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Teach Phonograms (+ FREE Phonogram Sounds App)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Understanding phonograms is vital to your child's success in reading and spelling-but the thought of teaching them may seem intimidating. Fear not! Phonograms are actually very simple to understand and easy to teach. Let's start with a quick definition. A phonogram is a letter or combination of letters that represent a sound.

# data[].attributes.body
teaching method involving matching the spoken language to individual or groups of letters

# data[].attributes.body
the ability to focus upon and manipulate phonemes in spoken words

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Phonemic awareness is an important skill to teach kids who are getting ready to learn to read or who are struggling to get the hang of basic reading. Phonemic awareness is an understanding of phonemes and how they work together to create words.

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can be differentiated in a word. For instance in the word "cat," the phonemes are the "c" sound, the "short a" sound, and the "t" sound. A child who possesses phonemic awareness can segment sounds in words (for example, pronounce just the first sound heard in the word cat) and blend strings of isolated sounds together to form recognizable word forms.
Side Note: I am aware that phonemic awareness is not the only approach to teach reading or the best approach for every child. Some children never develop an understanding of how letters make certain sounds or how those sounds blend together to make whole words. Some children who read, learn through memorization of word shape, order of letters, etc. However, research indicates that early teaching of phonemic awareness before actual reading is introduced, and explicit instruction in phonemic awareness for children who are struggling to get the basics, is highly beneficial and can actually prevent reading problems down the road. If phonemic awareness training is not working, we naturally try other approaches.
What is the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics?
Phonemic awareness is an understanding about spoken language. Children who are phonemically aware can hear the word (b - a - t) said in three separate sounds and tell you it is bat. They can tell you all the sounds in the spoken word dog. They can tell you that, if you take the last sound off cart, you would have car.

Phonics, on the other hand, is knowing the relation between specific, printed letters (including combinations of letters) and specific, spoken sounds. You are asking children to show their phonics knowledge when you ask them which letter makes the first sound in bat or dog or the last sound in car or cart.

Recent longitudinal studies on reading have demonstrated that the acquisition of phonemic awareness is highly predictive of success in learning to read, and to decode (i.e., sound out a word, blend it together to figure it out) in particular. If children understand that words can be divided into individual phonemes and that phonemes can be blended into words, they are able to use letter-sound knowledge to read and build words. To read more about phonemic awareness and how it relates to reading acquisition see Phonemic Awareness and the Teaching of Reading A Position Statement from the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association.

Below are helpful strategies for teaching phonemic awareness.
1-Show printed material to your child and talk about the sounds and structure of the words:

Research suggests that the greatest impact on phonemic awareness is achieved when there is interaction with print, along with paying specific attention to phonemes, sound/word structure. Seeing the words, hearing the sounds, and studying the structure with a coach (parent, teachers, etc.) allows them to make the connection between what they see and hear, a crucial skill for reading. It is also helpful to point to each letter and say each sound.

2 - Play letter games/phoneme substitution games:
Research shows that letter/sound games help develop phonemic awareness. Here are some game ideas:

Take turns thinking of a word. Have the adult and child work together to say each sound in the word. Write down the word (adult or child) and say each sound individually pointing to the letter(s) that make that sound.

Pick a word and take turns switching the first sound in the word to see how it changes the word or switch the last sound to see how it changes the word and sound (e.g., turn cat into bat or pop into pod).

Put letters on index cards (e.g., give your child a, t, and c and ask them to arrange them into cat, and talk about each sound-you can do this with a variety of words-rat, pot, bed, mat, etc.).

Play a rhyming game. Take turns thinking of words that rhyme with cat, dog, big, etc. Look at the words, talk about the structure and what makes them rhyme.

Play the song lyric game by changing a phoneme in a song to see how it changes the meaning of the lyrics. For example, "Pop Goes the Weasel" could be changed to "Hop Goes the Weasel." After changing the lyrics talk about how changing a phoneme gives the song a different meaning.

Related Article: 10 Fun Activities to Teach Your Child Letter Sounds 3 - Use auditory, visual, tactile (touch), and kenisthetic (movement) representations of sounds to teach phonemic awareness:
Many successful training studies include concrete representations of sounds to help children understand how to manipulate sounds in a word (e.g., Ball & Blachman, 1991). For instance, auditory cues are in play when children are asked to clap the number of syllables they hear in a spoken word. (Let's clap the sounds in cat!)

Or you could use visual/tactile cues like blocks or chips to represent each sound in a word (e.g., writing each sound or letter on each chip and seeing how you could manipulate the chips to change the words or letters). How about making letters out of play-doh and using those letters to create words, switch sounds around, etc.).

Kinesthetic cues are used when children jump as they repeat sounds, say a rhyming word, or say each sound in a word. How about using your body to make letters (give me a C, give me an A, give me a T!).

Model for your child how to clap the sounds or syllables in a word, jump while saying letter sounds, or use play-doh or blocks to manipulate or change words around.

4 - Provide Early Writing Activities:
Research also indicates that early writing activities are helpful for developing phonemic awareness. Let your child guess how to spell words. If they are correct, talk about why. If they are incorrect, provide guidance on what letters need to be changed and why.

If they can't write letters yet, have them tell you what letters they think would make up a word, or use play-doh, magnetic letters, blocks or the computer to make words. Show your child how to take your thoughts and put them on paper. Use simple sentences like "I am hungry" or "I love cats!" I also love using dry erase boards for writing practice!

5 - Practice at Home Before School Starts (if you didn't do this it is okay-just start practicing now):
Research shows that children who are frequently exposed to print and phonemic awareness activities at home prior to starting school have higher levels of phonemic awareness. Parents can model phonemic awareness by reading aloud to their children, talking about the spelling, structure, and sounds in a word; showing their child how to write a word while saying the sounds; or leading games that incorporate letter and language play. Give your children opportunities to practice early reading skills by talking, singing, rhyming, and playing guessing games.

We also know that many kids love the IPAD and do well with fun, interactive computerized games! A great app to practice phonemic awareness is Kindergarten Reading,Tracing, and Spelling-Learn to Read First Words School Adventure!
Keep Your Cool
Remember to always stay calm when working with a child or student, even if you think they should be getting something that they are not getting. If you get frustrated with them, they may start to feel anxious, angry, inferior, stupid, etc. which will lead to a less productive learning session. Keep practice sessions short (5 to 10 minutes for younger children or children who get easily frustrated and 10 to 15 minutes for older children or children who can work for longer periods without frustration), unless the child is eager to keep going. For suggestions on ways to encourage children to complete tasks or activities they do not want to do, read 3 Ways to Use Timers to Encourage Homework and Chore Completion and How to Use Schedules to Improve Children's Behavior.
Video Presentation
Do you teach phonemic awareness? What strategies do you like to use?
Thank you for visiting educationandbehavior.com. We are a free resource for parents/caregivers, educators, and counselors. Browse our topics/categories from the navigation bar above! Receive our updates on Facebook.
You might also like these articles: Recommended Tools for Teaching Phonemic Awareness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Fun Research-Based Reading Strategies to Teach Phonemic Awareness: An Early Reading Skill

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonemic awareness is an important skill to teach kids who are getting ready to learn to read or who are struggling to get the hang of basic reading. Phonemic awareness is an understanding of phonemes and how they work together to create words. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can be differentiated in a word.

# data[].attributes.body
the sound a vowel makes in an unaccented syllable

# data[].attributes.body
letter combinations that represent a single sound

# data[].attributes.body
written letter or letter group that represents a single sound

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is a grapheme?

A grapheme is a written symbol that represents a sound (phoneme). This can be a single letter, or could be a sequence of letters, such as ai, sh, igh, tch etc. So when a child says the sound /t/ this is a phoneme, but when they write the letter 't' this is a grapheme.

These are all the phonemes in the English language (and some of the graphemes used to represent them):

Learing to encode words: handwriting foundations

By the end of Reception children should be able to write all the above graphemes ( encoding). Children will learn the letters of the alphabet, saying each sound out loud and writing the letter, but they will also learn how to put letters together to make individual sounds.

The importance of carefully and thoroughly teaching children how to form letters cannot be underestimated (for lots more information about how children learn to write, and how you can support handwriting at home, see our Handwriting learning hub). Obviously, it is really important that children know the letters that go with each sound, but it is also important that they form these letters correctly. Usually letters 'start from the top' apart from d and e. Children need to know how to form letters correctly, as when they come to join their letters, they will not be able to do this if they are forming them in the wrong way.

Teachers teach children how to form their letters correctly by giving demonstrations on the board, or by writing letters large in the air (with their backs to the children). Children are sometimes given sheets with letters on them which are marked with start points and arrows, so that children are aware of where to start and which direction to go in.

Learning to spell: encoding

In English the sounds in words (phonemes) are represented by different combinations of letters when we write them down. In other words, one sound can be represented by a number of different graphemes according to the word it appears in and different graphemes can represent more than one sound. For example, in the words below, the letters 'ch' represent the /k/ sound in chemist, but the /sh/ sound in chef.

Find more information about what spelling patterns and words children are taught in each year of primary school in our parents' guides:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A grapheme is a written symbol that represents a sound (phoneme). This can be a single letter, or could be a sequence of letters, such as ai, sh, igh, tch etc. So when a child says the sound /t/ this is a phoneme, but when they write the letter 't' this is a grapheme.

# data[].attributes.body
the smallest unit of language that has no meaning of its own

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
They will also move onto words containing consonant clusters (two consonants placed together) such as trap (tr is a consonant cluster) or bump (mp is a consonant cluster). Both of these words each contain four phonemes as although consonant clusters involve letters being 'clustered' together, you can still hear the two separate sounds.

They will then start to learn that a word could have a sound in it that is made up of two letters, for example:

is made up of three phonemes: /b/ at the start, /oa/ in the middle and /t/ at the end.

The middle sound /oa/ is made up of two letters, so this is called a digraph. A digraph is a phoneme (single sound) that is made up of two letters. The digraph above, /oa/, is a vowel digraph, because it is made up of two vowels.

A digraph could be made up of consonants, for example:

The /ch/ in chip is a consonant digraph, where the two letters make up one single phoneme.

A single sound can also be made up of three letters, and this is called a trigraph. For example:

The /igh/ in this word is one sound that is made up of three letters, so this is a trigraph.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
They will also move onto words containing consonant clusters (two consonants placed together) such as trap (tr is a consonant cluster) or bump (mp is a consonant cluster). Both of these words each contain four phonemes as although consonant clusters involve letters being 'clustered' together, you can still hear the two separate sounds.

# data[].attributes.body
an affix seen at the beginning of a root word

# data[].attributes.body
an affix seen at the end of a root word

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What are affixes? | Reading | Khan Academy