Teaching Students to Read Words: Effective Strategies for Students with Reading Difficulties

1. Teaching Students to Read Words: Effective Strategies for Students with Reading Difficulties Rollanda E. O’Connor University of California at Riverside Jekyll Island, Georgia, 2008

2. From Early Literacy to Skilled Reading • Oral language • Phonemic awareness • Letter to sound correspondences • Decoding words • Recognizing words • Building reading fluency • Comprehending language • Comprehending written text • (good spelling would be nice, too!)

3. Milestones Toward Effective Intervention • Determine where the child falls on the reading continuum • Choose an intervention with a strong research base • Shore up preskills while maintaining age-appropriate oral language

4. Word Study Strategies • Phonic Analysis • Teach most common sound for each letter • Structural Analysis • Letter combinations; Silent –e rule • Multisyllable Word Strategies • Dropping a silent –e; Doubling rule; Affixes; BEST • Morphemic Analysis • Teach meaningful parts of words • Contextual Analysis • After a student tries a pronunciation: Does that make sense?

5. The Likely Suspects… • Kindergarten • Understanding & use of the alphabetic principle • First Grade • Alphabetic principle • Phonics and decoding words • Second Grade • Alphabetic principle, phonics and decoding • Reading fluently • Third Grade • Phonics and decoding, fluency • Multisyllable words, morphemes, and comprehension • Fourth Grade • Decoding, fluency, multisyllable words, morphemes • Active comprehension of sentences, paragraphs, and passages

6. Interventions in Kindergarten • Segmenting • Blending • Letter Sounds • The alphabetic principle • [and meanings of words]

7. Stretched Blending

8. Teaching Letter Sounds • Avoid alphabetical order (Carnine et al., 1998) • Use cumulative introduction • Teach short vowels in kindergarten • Start teaching letter sounds as soon as possible • Integrate letter sounds with phonological awareness activities (Ball & Blachman, 1991; O’Connor et al., 1995) • Assess letter knowledge, and begin “catch-up” instruction immediately

9. Onset-rime with 1st Sound

10. Segment 3-phoneme Words

11. Ex: Segment to Spell a m s t i f

12. Measuring Progress to the Alphabetic Principle • Rapid Letter Naming • Segmenting • Goals: • >50 Letters per minute • >30 segments per minute

13. Rapid Letter Naming • Time: 1 minute Number correct:________

14. Segmenting • "I will say a word, and you tell me the sounds you hear in the word. My turn. I can say the sounds in Mike. M--i--ke. Your turn.” (1 point/phoneme)

15. Interventions in First Grade • Segment to Spell • Phonics • High frequency words • [and meanings of words]

16. Phonics • Teach common sounds first • Teach blending letter sounds • After ~20 sounds are well known, add consonant digraphs like th, wh, ch • After consonant digraphs, introduce letter combos (ee, ar, ing, or, al, er, ou) • Next add the silent -e Rule

17. ai says /aaa/. ai says—

18. Blending • For stretchable sounds: • Don’t stop between the sounds • fast • For stop sounds • Blend the consonant-vowel first: • fi — x • ba - m

19. The problem with word families Discuss this problem with a colleague.

20. Word Building (p. 65) pet—pot—pat—pad—sad—sod

21. Sight Words • 25 high frequency words make up nearly 1/3 of all print for primary readers • 100 high frequency words make up nearly 1/2 of all print

22. 28 High Frequency Words

23. Teaching Sight Words • Constant time delay • Spelling words aloud • Word walls [ok, but be CAREFUL]

24. How Regular a Language is English?

25. Patterns in the 100 Most Common Words • th: that, than, this • or: for, or, more • ch: much, [which] • wh: when, which, what • ee: see, three • al: all, call, also • ou: out, around • er: her, after • ar: are, part

26. Teaching Silent -e • One generalization covers them all: • “When there’s an -e at the end, the vowel says its name.” • Is there an -e at the end? • Game sit hop hope ram

27. Assess Progress in Phonics • Most common sound for each letter • High frequency letter combinations • Lists of 25, 50, 75, 100 common words

28. Interventions in Second Grade • Common letter patterns & affixes • Fluency • [and meanings of words]

29. Highly Regular Letter Combinations

30. Small Moves toward 2-Syllables • Inflected endings: -ed, -ing, -s, -es • Words that divide between consonants • Every syllable has at least one vowel • Words that end in –le

31. Words That Divide Between Consonants

32. Words that End in –le

33. Generate words that are decodable if: • Students can add –le • Students can divide words between consonants

34. Most Common Affixes • Prefixes • Un-, re-, in-, dis- account for 58% of words with prefixes(White et al., 1989) • Suffixes • -ly, -er/or, -sion/tion, -ible/able, -al, -y, -ness, -less

35. Why Bother Building Fluency? • One piece of the comprehension puzzle • Minimum fluency requirements(Good et al., in press; O’Connor et al., 2002) • Silent reading is NOT effective in improving fluency (NRP, 2000) • Building fluency requires frequent, long-term practice

36. Strategies to Increase Fluency • Rereading (Dowhower, 1991; Sindelar et al., 1990) • Partner reading (Fuchs et al; 1998; Greenwood et al., 1998) • Control the difficulty level of text (O’Connor et al., 2002)

37. 2 Methods of Partner Reading • Modeled reading (PALS) • Each student reads in 5 minute intervals • Strongest partner reads first • Allows a model for the poorer reader • Sentence-by-sentence (CWPT) • Partners take turns reading sentence by sentence • Reread with other student starting first • Encourages attention and error correction

38. Assess Reading Fluency • Listen to student read aloud for 1 min from Grade level text • Mark errors and omissions • Help with hard words after 3 sec, but count as error • Count the words read correctly in 1 min

39. Reading Rates

40. Interventions in Third Grade • BEST • Morphemes • Rules for combining morphemes • Comprehension strategies • [and meanings of words]

41. BEST for Multisyllable Words • Break apart • Examine the stem • Say the parts • Try the whole thing

42. BEST Examples (Shackleton) • understandingly • expedition • unknown • Antarctic • Uninhabited

43. Glass Analysis • May • What word? • Which letter says /mm/? • Which letters say /ay/? • A-y. What sound? • M. What sound? • [take away letters and ask what’s left] way layer delaying day paying payment rays mayor Sundays

44. Every • What word? • Which letters say /ev/? • Which letters say /er/? • Which letter says /y/? • E-v. what sound? • E-r. What sound? • y. What sound? • [take away letters and ask what’s left] never clever evident devil crevice nevertheless level several revolution

45. Teaching Vocabulary Words

46. Prodigy • A prodigy is a person with wonderful talent. • What’s a prodigy? • What do we call a person with wonderful talent? • Is Harry Potter a prodigy? • How do you know? • Michael Smith has no special skills. Is he a prodigy? • How do you know? • What does prodigy mean? • So--What would a child prodigy be? • Mozart was a child prodigy.

47. Expedition • Expedition means: a long trip or journey. • What does expedition mean? • What word means a long trip or journey? • What’s another way to say: Shackleton took a long trip to Antarctica? • Lewis and Clark took canoes from Washington, DC to Washington state. Was that an expedition? • How do you know? • I walked next door. Did I take an expedition? • What would you call a hike from Brunswick to Savannah?

48. Features of Vocabulary Instruction • Tell the definition or synonym. • Have children repeat it. • Have children use the word and the definition at least 7 times during your instruction.

49. Your turn: • Dissect • Intelligible • Dwelling • License

50. Teaching Morphemes to Older Students --The meaningful parts of words-- • “not” • Un, dis, in, im (disloyal, unaware, invisible, imperfect) • “excess” • Out, over, super (outlive, overflow, superhuman) • “number” • Uni, mono, bi, semi (uniform, monofilament, bicolor, semiarid) • “in the direction of” • Ward (skyward, northward) • “full of” • Ful (merciful, beautiful)