Direct Phonics Instruction for Struggling Readers

As a special education teacher, I spend a lot of time focusing on foundational reading skills. Direct phonics instruction is a huge part of our day, and so important for my kids to learn how to be successful readers.

Although my students receive pull-out instruction for reading in the resource room, I try really hard to keep up with the grade level curriculum (Reading Wonders). I do admit that I'm about 3 weeks behind the gen ed classes for pacing.

I teach the same phonics patterns and follow the pacing from our Reading Wonders curriculum. I do make some adjustments as I feel it is necessary. Unit 1 Week 5 of Reading Wonders teaches S-Blends and R-Blends together. I felt like that was too much for my students so I divided the instruction into two weeks.

We start our weekly phonics instruction with a chart similar to this.

We practice reading the words together as a class. When I first introduce the words, I follow a "my turn, your turn" sequence. I first model for students how to blend the students and chunk any word patterns. I use a highlighter to show students the different chunks in words.

I use the same words for 2 days in a row (maybe 3 if they're extra tricky patterns). The first day we practice reading the words first as a whole group. Then I call on individual students to read the different colored rows and sometimes having them read columns just to keep them on their toes. :)

On the 2nd day, we practice reading the words but faster and with less support for me. After we've practiced reading words, students get to do their favorite part.

I call students up and give them a task such as "Circle the word in the purple row that rhymes with top." Not only are they having to practice their decoding skills, but they get to practice other skills as well. I'll use this time to practice things like:

*Rhyming

*Deleting and inserting sounds in words

*Grammar such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives

*Categories like animals, body parts, etc.

My students love being called up to read and circle words, and I like that I can use this time to differentiate extra practice tailored to each student's needs.

Of course, phonics instruction wouldn't be complete without lots of practice experiencing words in different ways during small group. 

I love Sound Boxes for tricky patterns like blends since it forces students to really think about every sound in the word.

I use any extra quick moments I might have to throw in extra practice writing words and differentiating between patterns.

Of course, my students most favorite thing to do is play games. I've created a bunch of phonics games, like this Beach Days CVC Game, to give my students more practice while having fun. I love sneaky practice!

This Catching Insects game focuses on Short I words and is part of my Unit 1 Games for Reading Wonders. We use games like this weekly, and it's always a hit.

And none of this instruction would matter unless we put it into practice reading it in text. I use a lot of decodable readers and leveled readers from the Reading Wonders series, plus other books I find.

On this day, my friend here was sooooo distracted by everything that he couldn't focus on the words at all. Finally, I covered up the pictures so he could focus on the words and not the pictures. Success from a simple sheet of paper!

And there you go, a brief look at phonics instruction in my classroom and some of the tools I use. Next week, I'll be back with how I plan sight word instruction.

Correcting Letter Reversals or Rotations

I'm joining up for another monthly Bright Ideas Blog Hop!  I love getting new ideas from other fabulous teachers!

This is a post I've been meaning to write for the last month!  So many of my students have letter reversals or rotations when reading and writing.  For students that have been doing this for several years, it can be really hard to correct.  

These are the kinds of mistakes I often see.  Many people just think of the b and d reversals, but there are often errors with rotations, such as reading a 'w' as an 'm'.

The n and u rotation is usually found in more severe struggling reader cases.

Here's how I correct the errors in my class.

This little trick most often fixes the error.  

Once students trace the letter in the air or on their desk, they typically say the correct sound right away.

It's important to use the same consistent key words so that students know the letter - sound - key word correspondence.

Sometimes, you just have to tell them the sound if the other tricks didn't work.  No reason to beat a dead horse!

Hopefully, this has corrected the error.  These tricks also help when a student is writing a letter in reverse.

I hope this helps!  If you enjoyed this bright idea, please consider joining me on Facebook or Instagram for more great ideas. 

For more bright ideas from a variety of other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Helping Struggling Readers: Errors Students Make When Decoding

I just had the opportunity to attend training for Orton Gillingham's multi-sensory approach for reading instruction.  This was by far the most beneficial training I've ever attended.  I walked away with strategies that I could use the very next day in my classroom.  If you teach reading and ever have the opportunity to attend Orton Gillingham training, I highly recommend it.

So now I'm here to share with you guys some of the awesome things I learned in training.  

One of the first things covered were the types of errors that students often make when decoding.  

I know you've seen all of these errors before, since I've seen them many times.  I never thought about how important it is to identify the type of error so that I would know how to correct the error.  These errors aren't exclusive to just students with learning disabilities or dyslexia, but they are often seen in students with disabilities.

Reversals with b and d are so common!  Our trainer brought up some great points.  B and D reversals are developmental.  But dismissing parent concerns by saying it's developmental probably isn't the best way to go about it.  At what point is the reversal no longer developmental?  Are we dismissing a legitimate disability if we say it's just developmental?  Instead of saying the reversals are developmental, we can tell parents that "We're working on it."  I love this approach!  It validates parents concerns and let's them know we're trying to help their child.

Rotations can signify a more severe learning disability, especially if they are confusing 'n' and 'u'.  Rotations are often harder to correct than just B and D reversals.

Oh man, I see this one every day with my students.  The short sound 'e' and 'i' seem to be the most commonly confused vowel sounds for my students.  They do sound similar after all and really require the student to listen carefully and master the sounds of each letter.

This can be a tricky error to correct, also.  The students are reading all of the letters and the word looks similar.  So it can be hard to convince students that they are reading the word wrong.

We just started working on reading short vowel words with blends.  This error was so evident in my students' reading.  Over and over again, they would leave off one of the blend sounds.  I'll often see students insert an 'r' or 'n' sound when reading words.  My class is going to need a lot more practice to make sure we're reading all of the sounds in a word!

This one is also a frequent error I see.  Students just don't know (or don't apply) the phonics rules to reading.  The Magic E rule is one that is frequently not used.  I've listened to so many students read the work 'make' as 'mack'.  

Our trainer pointed out that 50% of students do not need to learn all of the phonics rules in order to be successful readers.  The other 50% will need that explicit instruction and direct practice of phonics rules to successfully learn to read.  I don't know about you, but I don't believe I was ever taught phonics.  Maybe I went to school during a time when the whole language approach was popular?  It wasn't until I became a teacher that I learned phonics rules.  Even now, I sometimes have to double check the rules to make sure I teach my students the correct way.

Next up in this series will be the correction procedures for when students make these errors.  Now that we know the different types of errors, we need to learn how to help students read correctly and that can be the tricky part.

I hope that this was helpful information!