Differentiating Instruction for Word Recognition and Fluency

1. Differentiating Instruction for Word Recognition and Fluency Sharon Walpole Michael C. McKenna

2. Agenda • Who needs this type of instruction? • What data must be gathered? • What planning decisions must be made? • What are some tricks of the trade?

3. We are combining ideas from Chapters 4 and 5

4. Remember our plan

5. Remember our plan

6. What are we trying to teach? • These children still need to work on decoding, but they can segment and blend phonemes to read some words. • They will work on coordinated activities to learn new letter patterns and review patterns previously taught. • They will work with words and with phonics-focused texts during small-group time.

7. How will we know when we’ve accomplished our goal? • When children’s initial readings of their phonics-focused texts are accurate, we can redirect our tier 2 time to fluency and comprehension. • Remember that our goal is to make each of our groupings temporary and targeted.

8. In our tiered system, who is likely to need this type of differentiated instruction?

9. What data can we use to identify the children?

10. DIBELS KLNF and PSF low riskDIBELS KNWF high risk or some risk • We KNOW: These children are not quite on track for achieving the spring first-grade ORF goal. • We NEED to know: Which letter sounds and patterns they need and whether they have been taught.

11. Let’s find out • Give a phonics inventory or a spelling inventory to see which sounds and patterns they need. • Use your phonics scope and sequence to see whether they’ve had an opportunity to learn them yet!

12. DIBELS First-Grade PSF low riskNWF some risk or high risk • We KNOW: These children are not on track for achieving the spring first-grade ORF goal. • We NEED to know: Which letter sounds and patterns they need and whether they have been taught.

13. Let’s find out • Give a phonics inventory or a spelling inventory to see which sounds and patterns they need. • Use your phonics scope and sequence to see whether they’ve had an opportunity to learn them yet!

14. DIBELS Second-Grade ORFhigh risk or some risk • We KNOW: These children are not on track for achieving end-of-third-grade goals. • We NEED to know: Whether it is strictly a fluency problem, or whether there are underlying word recognition problems.

15. Let’s find out • Give a phonics or spelling inventory to see which patterns they need. • Do a high-frequency word inventory to see which words they need to learn. • If these data are adequate, then you will know that you need to focus on fluency and comprehension rather than word recognition and fluency.

16. Now you’re ready! • Do you have one group or two? • Think about the word recognition data; group children with similar specific needs (e.g., consonant blends, or short vowels, or r-controlled vowels). • Think about how low their oral reading fluency is. Will you be able to use any of the grade-level materials, or will you have to use materials designed for an earlier grade level? • Combine all of the items that they don’t know onto one list.

17. Combining these results will provide you a collection of known and unknown items for each child; their needs will probably not be exactly the same. However, group so that unknown patterns are as similar as possible.

18. To make your plan, start with the patterns • Rank order them according to the order in which they were taught in the scope and sequence, so that we teach the simpler ones first. • Link them into like sets of two (and then you can add a review pattern each day to make three). • For example, you could link two specific initial consonant blends (bl-, cr-). • For example, you could link short a and short e. • For example, you could link -or and -ar. • For example, you could link -ai and -ea.

19. Now find your texts • Gather all of the phonics-controlled texts that come with your core or supplemental materials. Work with your coach and your team to find specific titles that are the best match to the phonics items that you need to teach. Consider texts for your grade level and also for the grade below yours. • Let the phonics items you have selected provide the order for the texts you will use.

20. Now choose your strategies • Read pages 58 to 69. Letter names and sounds (earlier in the chapter) should be too simple for this group. Choose sounding and blending if the phonics data show intensive needs. Choose letter patterns or teaching by analogy if the needs are isolated to vowel patterns. • All children are likely to benefit from the high-frequency word strategy.

21. Vary how your students respond • Remember that there are many ways for students to respond to instruction in small groups. Build in variety to increase engagement. • In addition to oral responses, children can • spell words • signal their answers in an “every pupil response” format (e.g., holding up one finger or two against the chest).

22. Sounding and Blending Script • We are going to start today by sounding and blending some words. The way that you do that is to look at each letter, say each sound out loud and then say them fast to make a word. • Listen to me. /p/ /i/ /g/ pig. Now you try: /p/ /i/ /g/ pig. • When you come to a word that you don’t know you can sound and blend it.

23. Letter Patterns Script • Today we will work on reading and spelling three vowel patterns. The /at/ pattern is the sound at the end of the word cat. It is spelled a-t. The /et/ pattern is the sound at the end of the word pet. It is spelled e-t. The /it/ pattern is the sound at the end of the word sit. It is spelled i-t. • First I want you to listen to words and tell me whether they sound like cat, pet, or sit. • Let’s look at the spellings for all of the words that sound like cat. Notice that words with the /at/ sound have the a-t pattern. You can use that pattern when you read or spell a-t words.

24. Decoding by Analogy Script • When I don’t know a word, I look for the first spelling pattern (the vowel and what comes after). I think about my clue words and find a word with the same pattern. The clue word might be located on the word wall under the vowel letter. I tell myself that if I know this clue word, the new word must sound like it. Then I look for the next spelling pattern. When I’ve come to the end, I blend the syllables together and check to see that my word makes sense.

25. Example of a Decoding-by-Analogy Word Wall

27. Child encounters: shrill

28. Teacher: Start with the vowel. Do you see a chunk you know?” Student: ill Teacher: Right! And can you find a word on the wall with that chunk? Remember to look under the letter i. Student: pill Teacher: Yes, and if take off the p and put shr at the beginning, how would you say it? Student: shrill

29. High-Frequency Word Script Today we are going to learn to read and spell some really useful words. The first word is from. Say that word. Now watch me count the sounds in from. /f/ /r/ /u/ /m/. We hear four sounds. Say the sounds with me. Now watch me spell the word from. The first sound we hear in from is /f/, and it is spelled with the letter f. The second sound we hear in from is /r/, and it is spelled with the letter r. The third sound we hear in from is /u/, and it is spelled with the letter o. The last sound we hear in from is /m/, and it is spelled with the letter m.

30. High-Frequency Word Script (cont.) Three of the letters and sounds in from are easy to remember. The only one that is tricky is the o. Remember that in the word from, the /u/ sound is spelled with the letter o. If you remember that, you can easily read and spell from.

31. Now think about fluency procedures • Read pages 70-79. You will need to consider several things: your level of support and strategies for organizing repeated readings. • Remember that your goal is to allow the children to practice using the phonics patterns that they are learning; these texts will not likely lend themselves to discussion.

32. Since your goal is to allow the children a chance to practice decoding, try to start at the bottom, with whisper reading.

33. Gather or make all of your materials • Word lists, word cards, phonics-controlled books, teaching scripts, white boards, notebooks – everything you need • (Hint: Use books with word lists in them; it’s faster.) • Remember that our goal is that you plan for three weeks at a time

34. The very weakest group* *Minute allocations are simply an example based on a 15-minute session.

35. A more typical group* *Minute allocations are simply an example based on a 15-minute session.

36. A more advanced group* *Minute allocations are simply an example based on a 15-minute session.

37. Try it out! • Remember that we are hoping for a cycle, with teacher reflection. Your goal is to move these children into a fluency and comprehension group, but you’ve got to be successful here first. • You may need to repeat a particular lesson for two days. That’s fine. You also may need to step in with echo or choral reading. That’s fine too. • At the end of the three weeks, you can use data collected as part of the instruction to inform your next moves.