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Word Recognition 2010

Introduction

By upper elementary, students are expected to begin reading for learning rather

than learning to read. In many cases that is not the reality that students or teachers

face. Currently, in my third / fourth grade multiage classroom, there are students

reading well below their grade level. Knowing that one of my students is three grades

behind in their reading level seems like a daunting task. He is supposed to learn

genres, authors, comprehension strategies and participate in book clubs; all while only

being at a first grade reading level. Middle School looms in his near future. How can I

move him ahead quickly preparing him for reading in the middle school? According to

Otaiba and Fuchs, “The gap between poor readers and their more accomplished peers

widens over the elementary years,” (2002, p.300). How do I close the gap before he

leaves me next year?

Reading is the cornerstone of all learning. “Gaining access to the information

taught in middle and secondary school content area classes requires that all children

exit the elementary grades with good reading comprehension capacity,” (August, Snow,

Carlo, Proctor, Rolla de San Franscisco, Duursma, and Szuber, 2006, p. 352).

Students must possess multiple skills to be successful in reading and which will provide

them with more success in life. It is not as simple as just being able to sound out a

word, but rather much more complex. One must be able to decode words phonetically,

automatically recognize high-frequency words that may not follow alphabetic patterns,

understand vocabulary, read fluently as well as comprehend the text at hand. As Moats

states, “A child cannot understand what he cannot decode, but what he decodes is

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meaningless unless he can understand it,” (1999, p. 18). One must find a balance

between all aspects of reading as they develop into the reader they need to be. August

et. al discusses, “That literacy development as acquisition of lower level skills and

higher level cognitive components that interact,” (2006, p.352). The reader’s mind is

doing so many things at once as it interprets the words and the text as a whole. The

reader is an active participant. What happens when there is a piece of that puzzle

missing?

Background Information

This was the case for my lowest reader, Sean. How could he focus on all the

comprehension strategies and really dig deep into his books, if he had a large gap in his

reading abilities. Earlier in the year, after giving him our district assessments, I knew it

would be a long road ahead for him. Using Houghton Mifflin Running Records, I

determined his instructional level was dark blue at the first grade reading level and his

Dibels oral reading fluency assessment was 17, much below average. Sean receives

special education services for reading as well as writing. He is pulled out of the

classroom for 30 minutes of writing and 30 minutes of reading each day. Sean also is

pulled during library for about 15 minutes a week to work on speech. He also struggles

with math concepts beyond single digit addition and subtraction and gets some support

2 times a week for 20 minutes. He is always coming and going from my classroom

creating even more gaps. In turn, he lacks a solid foundation that adds to the challenge

of school for him.

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Beyond digging deeper into his academics, one must have more background on

his experiences. George discusses the importance of needing, “A picture of the whole

child in a meaningful context and to pinpoint the sources of learning difficulties,” (2008,

p.18). So before I discuss the study, let me give some insights into whom Sean, the

person and student is. Sean is a Caucasian 10 year old boy whose primary language is

English. He has been in the district his entire school career, but has been in 3 buildings

and had numerous teachers during those moves. He was suspended quite often in his

previous school for physically fighting with children. This year, he has been working

hard on his anger and has had much improvement. With that being said, when he gets

frustrated, upset or angry, aggression is often times the outcome. His frustration can

also lead to shutting down and refusing to work. Much of this stems from the fact that

he has difficulty with language expression and therefore resorts to physical ways to

show how he is feeling and to get his point across. This also makes friendships very

straining. For the most part, he is a quiet loner. He doesn’t seem to want friends or

every try to interact. When he does, the frustration takes over and he ends up pushing

them away. In terms of his family, he has little support at home. Homework is never

returned, phone calls unanswered. He has many obstacles to overcome on his journey

of becoming a proficient reader.

As I got to know to Sean, there were things very evident. He disliked reading

immensely and wasn’t going to read easily. In early September, students filled out

Reading Inventories (Artifact 1). His survey screamed that he did not enjoy reading or

read any books. That was further supported as I observed in the first week or so of

school during reading workshop time. He was reluctant to browse our classroom library

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or stick with a book. Instead he spent time wandering and even avoided looking at the

pages. As reading workshop continued to draw more and more children into relaxation

and excitement that reading can bring, he began to slowly come around.

One major goal in my reading classroom is to create an inviting atmosphere

where books are loved and shared. Our large classroom library provides children with

countless options of all reading levels and genres for their independent reading. The

lamps and cozy rug area reminds students that it is a pleasure to read, not just a school

assignment (Standard IV).

Sean soon followed in other students’ footsteps and took advantage of our

reading workshop. He would search for books he wanted to read and lounge on the

carpet. Linnenbrink and Pintrich discuss that motivation is a “dynamic, multifaceted

phenomenon,” (2002, p. 313). My first goal was to tap into his motivation. I was not

going to be able to get through to Sean if he didn’t see some sort of enjoyment or

purpose in reading. After many conversations with Sean, I discovered some of interests

and was able to point him in the direction of some books that I thought would suit him.

He was eager to look at those and kept them in his book box. This was a huge step for

him and we celebrated the small victory. As he became more comfortable in our

reading workshop environment, I challenged him to check out other books at his level.

At this point, he was very receptive because of the relationship we had and the

enjoyment reading had brought to him so far this year. Our reading workshop provided

him access to reading books at his reading level where he could gain the confidence he

needed to continue reading. “One of the most important motivational beliefs for student

achievement is self-efficacy, which concerns beliefs about capabilities to do a task or

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activity,” (Linnenbrink and Pintrich, 2002, p.315). He began to see that reading books

was possible and increased his motivation along with the idea that reading can be about

what he likes as well. This environment and relationship would set the stage for

challenging him even further as a reader (Standard III & IV).

Pre-Assessment

With low fluency, comprehension and reading level, it was now time to dig

deeper into what Sean needed as a reader. I needed to uncover his strengths and his

weaknesses. Because he was so low I started almost at the beginning for assessing

him. In fourth grade, teachers are not required to do phonemic awareness testing, but I

knew that I needed to know where he stood. I began with the MLPP Phonemic

Awareness Assessment (Artifact 2). According to Scarborough & Brady, phonemic

awareness involves manipulating individual phonemes in spoken words (2002, p. 313).

I needed to know if Sean understood that words are made up of sounds or phonemes

and where those sounds are in the words. According to his assessment, he was able to

correctly identify all eight sets of words, if they rhymed or not. He was also able to take

that one step further and correctly provide a word that rhymed for eight rhyming pairs of

words. The second part of that assessment was phoneme blending where he had to

hear separate phonemes and put them together as a word. He was able to blend 15

out of the 16 sets correctly. The third part of the assessment was phoneme

segmentation or breaking the words apart into phonemes. He completed all 8

successfully. From this assessment, it was clear to me that Sean understood that

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words are made up of sounds and he could put small words together as well as break

them apart (Standard I, II & V).

My next step was to move on to the MLPP Sight Word / Decodable Word List. I

already knew that from his Dibels Oral Reading Fluency assessment that he was not

fluent with a score of 17. The sight word assessment would hopefully give me

information if this piece of reading, recognizing frequently used words in reading was

one aspect of reading that he was missing. He recognized 39 out of the 40 words from

the preprimer and the primer lists only missing, ‘these.’ Instead he replied with ‘there.’

This must have been an error the first time because the next two times, he said it

correctly. The first grade list is when his word recognition started to break down. He

correctly responded with 13 words out of 20. With the second and third grade list, he

was able identify 6 words out of 40. I knew that I needed to focus on the first grade

words that he missed. One part of reading is fluency and a strong basis for sight words

is needed for that to happen. Sean was missing most high frequency words from first,

second and third grade. That was one aspect that was holding him back as a reader

(Standard II & V).

Flip the Sound Lesson

Using the assessment and the words that he missed, many of them had long

vowels in them. After thinking about how I could incorporate a set of words with a

strategy so that they might make sense to him, I decided upon Flip the Sound Strategy

from The Café Book by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser. The GLCEs put a large emphasis

on knowing the 220 sight words as well as being able to use strategies for decoding

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unknown words. My lesson would focus on a strategy for decoding words; specifically

using the 5 words that he missed that would fit with that strategy. I wanted to provide

him with a reason for sounding out those words in a certain way. Giving him just a set

of flashcards with the words to memorize would not have given him a background that

allowed the words and sounds to make sense. Sean already understood that letters

and phonemes make sounds and he knew the different sounds of vowels. I needed to

introduce that as a strategy for decoding words and in this case a way to recognize

sight words (Lesson 1). I began by reviewing what sight words were, frequent words

that are in text. When planning my lesson, I also wanted to give Sean a context for

those words and not learn them in isolation. A short sight word story with all 5 words

was used as the backdrop for learning the words just as other words would be learned

while reading an independent book (Standard I, II, III, V & VI).

I conducted the lesson during one of my one-on-one conferences with Sean

during reading workshop. It was set up as a typical lesson that I would have with one

student. He brought his book box that had his books, poetry folder, reading response

journal and pencil. When beginning the lesson, I provided an introduction to a new

strategy that we can use when we come across a word that we do not know called

Flipping the Sound. I then modeled how to take a short vowel sound that we may say in

‘each’ and flip it to try the long vowel sound. I then explained that the reader has to

decide if that new sound makes sense. After direct instruction and modeling of the

strategy and breaking the word apart on a sticky note, I provided guided practice

(Artifact 4) for the student on the 4 other sight words that the student missed on his

assessment. After working with Sean, I reminded him that this is a strategy that he can

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use anytime he comes to a word that doesn’t seem to make sense with the sounds he

tried first. He can try another vowel sound to see if it makes more sense. Then I had

Sean use the same sticky note method when he came across a word that he tried the

strategy on (Artifact 5). Sean also kept the sight word story and a set of cards with the

words on them in his book box as a way to practice the strategy and to recall the words.

After the lesson, I gave Sean several days of practicing the sight word story, his

set of cards with the strategy written on top as well as with his reading materials and

sticky notes. The day of the lesson, after he completed his individual practice with his

book, I used that as an informal assessment (Artifact 5). I noticed that he was able to

jot down 5 words and underline the vowels where he tried a different sound. Another

informal assessment took place each day as I checked in on him to see how the

strategy was going. As he read to me, he would try a few sounds for unknown words.

The MLPP Sight Word / Decodable Word List Assessment (Artifact 3) allowed me to

see if the strategy had helped him to understand and recognize those words. I

reassessed the same words starting with the Primer list. My goal was to focus on the 5

words that was in the lesson, each, through, because, does, and say. Sean recognized

all 5 of those words correctly. As we continued with the word list, he still missed the

words that we had not discussed a strategy for such as ‘true’ and ‘any.’ He did try some

more words than his first attempt such as, ‘weather,’ ‘insects,’ and ‘promise.’ They were

incorrect, but he was trying to put the sounds together. However, on the second grade

list, with words like, ‘gate,’ ‘pain,’ and ‘pride,’ he did not attempt. I would have thought

that he may have tried those since they fit with the Flip the Sound strategy (Standard I,

III & V).

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As I looked at my objective of providing a strategy to aid in word recognition, I

can honestly say that from Sean’s results on the MLPP Sight Word / Decodable Word

List, the lesson accomplished that. However, I question the transfer of that strategy into

Sean daily reading. He was able to take the words that we worked with and practice

them with the strategy, learning the words themselves, but how do I get that strategy to

be a daily occurrence? He used the sticky notes the first day after I modeled it and

when I checked in with him he could show me how to sound a word out differently to try

to get the word, but is it something that he is using without my prompts or questions or

check ins? Will he be able to learn new words with the strategy for word recognition or

just as a way of decoding? I wanted him to be able to see that there was a strategy for

reading words that may have a different vowel sound. Is it possible for the strategy to

transfer into word recognition of those words without providing the extra sight word story

and cards for each word? At this point I am not sure. I think that I need to continue to

focus on this strategy and continue to revisit it with him during our conferences. The

more that I model the strategy, the more likely it will become a part of his reading.

Another question came up for me after looking more closely at Sean’s individual

Flip the Sound Practice sheet. There were a few words that struck me after looking

over for a couple of days, ‘clouds,’ ‘boiling,’ and ‘moved.’ Thinking to those and even

‘through’ that I focused on in the lesson, made me think that there are vowel

combinations that are more difficult than just short and long vowels. He was using the

strategy, but was this strategy helping him to decode words? I think that as I mention

above about revisiting this strategy, I think that it may need to be broken down into more

lessons. For example, more time should be spent on some of the vowel combinations

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such as ‘oi’ or ‘ow.’ There are many vowel combinations that produce sounds other

than long or short. This would give Sean access to another way of recognizing those

patterns and in turn other sight words that may follow a similar pattern (Standard I, II

& III).

Chunking Lesson

After conducting the first lesson and having much success with relating a

strategy to the sight words, I wanted to provide Sean with another strategy for decoding

words. Using the MLPP assessment, I analyzed the next section of words that Sean

missed from the second grade list. For the most part, they were larger words made of

more phonemes. I thought that chunking would be the next step in creating a pattern

for him to see in sight words. He already had a good basis of phonemic awareness so

this was just a matter of extending that to blend more sounds together (Standard I, II, III

& V).

I conducted the lesson during another one-on-one conference with Sean during

reading workshop (Lesson 2). When beginning the lesson, I reminded him that sounds

are put together to make words. I then explained how sometimes those words, even

sight words can be made of more sounds or even have smaller words in them. Using a

new sight word story, I explained that we would be working on a new strategy that we

can use when we come across a word that we do not know called Chunking. I modeled

how to take a word like, ‘promise,’ and break it into two parts and sound out each

separately being putting the sounds together. I first modeled using my fingers covering

up one side where I saw a part of the word that I could sound out, ‘prom’ and then

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moved my finger to cover up that part, revealing ‘ise.’ After sounding out each, I put the

sounds together. I also modeled on a sticky note breaking up the word, separating the

parts. I explained as last time, that the reader still has to decide if those sounds

blended make a word that makes sense in the sentence. With direct instruction and

modeling during the lesson, Sean worked on the remaining 4 highlighted sight words in

the sight word story (Artifact 6). I reminded Sean that this chunking strategy can be

used anytime he comed to a word that he doesn’t know. He can look for parts or

sounds that he knows and then can try to put those sounds together. Or if it is a bigger

word, he can even look for smaller words that he knows. Sean then had the opportunity

to practice this strategy on his own using the same sticky note technique that we did

together when he came across a word that he tried the strategy on. Sean had some

difficulty with knowing where to break up some of the words so I modeled a word from

his reading book before he worked on his own. The word we came across was

‘wonderful’ so it actually needed to be broken up into three so we discussed looking at

each word and breaking it into the parts that you know. He then continued working

independently with his book and marking on sticky notes. The sight word story and the

new set of cards went into his book box for him to continue to practice (Standard VI).

As with the earlier lesson, Sean worked on this strategy for several days as I

checked in on him. He spent time with the sight word story, the cards with the strategy

written on top as well as with his reading materials and sticky notes. When it came to

analyzing his individual work as an informal assessment, it seemed to still show that he

was unsure about how to chunk some of the words. He put down 4 words from his

book, but only 2 of them were broken up with the dash. Both of those words contained

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smaller words that he knew, ‘every-one’ and ‘sleep-ing.’ The other 2 words, ‘rabbit’ and

‘spring’ were just written. When I discussed it with him, he said he knew ‘rabbit’

because of the picture and he didn’t know what to do with ‘spring.’ We then discussed

that using the picture is another strategy when we come across unknown words and

that we don’t have to use every strategy for a word, but one that helps us the best. We

talked about how strategies are like tools that we can pull out when we need them and

how as readers we have to pick the right tool that will work for the job. Not all tools will

work for each word. We also talked about how to break up ‘spring’ and what parts of

the word he recognized, ‘ing’.

I continued to meet with Sean over the next couple of days about chunking words

from his book. I then reassessed for the third time with the same words starting with the

Primer list on the MLPP Sight Words / Decodable Word List Assessment (Artifact 3).

My instructional goal was to key in on the 5 words from the lesson, still, morning,

weather, insects and promise. Sean easily recognized all 5 of those words correctly.

The same words that were missed from both earlier assessments were still unknown for

Sean with the exception of one, ‘begins.’ Now, we never came across that word during

our conferences together, but we did discuss ‘began’ for the Flip the Sound strategy

during his independent practice during lesson 1. This word actually fits for both Flip the

Sound and Chunking strategies. When I asked him after the assessment about how he

knew the word, ‘begin’, he said because this is ‘be’ and this is ‘gin’ without any

hesitation. So I am not sure if he came across this word in one of his stories and

worked out the strategies at that point and it just stuck or if he picked it up somewhere

else. Due to Sean having a hard time expressing language, explanations are a

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challenge for him. He couldn’t explain to me how he knew the word or what strategies

he used to figure it out, but he decoded it somehow (Standard I, III & V).

Conclusion

Looking back over the last couple of weeks, Sean has learned a remarkable

amount. He went from being at the first grade level of the MLPP Sight Word /

Decodable Word List (Artifact 3) to almost the third grade. He has learned 12 words in

the last couple of weeks. At this point it is difficult to say how much impact these 2

lessons have made to Sean’s overall reading. As I continue to conference with Sean, I

will be able to see whether or not he puts those strategies into daily use over time. I am

sure I will need to continually reinforce those strategies. I will also need to see how well

those sight words transfer into his independent reading. I know that he can recognize

them on the lists, the cards and the sight word stories, but I look forward to how he

reads those words in the context of his books. I am hoping that as time goes on I will be

able to see if his word recognition and phonemic awareness has progressed due to

these lessons.

There is still so much to do, but I am excited with how much progress he has

made in such a short time and what he can achieve in the coming months. I think that

the strategies I provided Sean are great strategies as students are reading and come to

unknown words. I need to dig deeper into each lesson and provide more examples of

different kinds and spend more time on each strategy.

As I think about my next steps for Sean, I need to take the next leap into more

individualized word study. Providing Sean with resources at his level and focusing on

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lessons based on his needs has made all the difference. Instead of teaching word

study or spelling as a whole class, I would like to move to creating groups based on

student need.

Next, I want to give Sean more background on the sound and letter visual

representations. Scarborough & Brady (2002) discuss that, “Graphemes are the basic

elements of a writing system that are combined to represent the oral language (in

English, the phonemes) in the visual modality… the graphemes are not just individual

letters, but also digraphs and longer letter combinations,” (p.321). The writing (spelling)

system of the language is orthography according to Scarborough & Brady (2002, p.

321). In order to increase Sean’s awareness of orthography and graphemes I need to

shift to word study. I want Sean to be able to recognize words through both paths,

decoding and sight recognition as Scarborough & Brady mention (2002, p.325). In

order to achieve that, I need to give Sean more opportunities to work on graphemes and

their phonemes. Moats points out, “fundamental flaws found in almost all phonics

programs…is that they teach the code backwards,” (1998, p.3). Most children learn the

alphabet and then the sounds they make, leaving out many of the phonemes. Moats

believes that, “Awareness and use of such organizational patterns, not memorization of

rules, facilitates learning; the goal of insight is to read more fluently, not to recite

orthographic trivia,” (1998, p.6). Using this type of word study would allow Sean and

other students to focus on the sounds that letters or letter groups make and in turn

provide them with the practice of sight recognition. Sean would have more background

on the long/short vowels, vowel combinations and different consonant sounds.

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These patterns and groups of graphemes would also give Sean the ability to see

parts of words as units rather than individual letters. Cunningham says that readers

develop the ability to chunk based on which letters go together in a larger word. They

read almost all the letters of each word (1996, p.197). For most words, this visual

information is recognized as familiar patterns with which spoken words are identified

and pronounced,” (Cunningham, 1996, p. 198). I would like to conduct lessons on

some of those patterns that Sean could begin to recognize in his reading as he used his

Chunking strategy. Another aspect of reading larger words is morphology.

Cunningham (1996) says that, “When looking at all the words readers are apt to meet,

affixed words outnumber basic words by a factor of four to one,” (p.192). With this in

mind, teaching basic morphology may help Sean and other readers to recognize more

words easily. “Patterns and morphological relationships are the keys to unlocking

pronunciation, spelling and meaning,” (Cunningham, 1996, p. 216) (Standard I, II, III, V,

& VI).

As I continue to challenge Sean as a reader, I want to find a balance of learning

to read, reading to learn and reading for pleasure. I think that this is the first year Sean

has experienced excitement around reading and is willing to push himself further. Ivey

discusses the idea of balanced literacy as a way for all leveled readers to get what they

need, decoding and comprehension, (2002, p.237). Sean needs to get a variety of

strategies for decoding, comprehension, vocabulary and have time to explore reading

his interests. I look forward to the work that Sean is going to accomplish year.

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References

Al Otaiba, S., & Fuchs, D. (2002). Characteristics of children who are unresponsive to early literacy intervention: A review of the literature. Remedial and Special Education, 23, 300-316.

August, D., Snow, C., Carlo, M., Proctor, C., Rolla de San Francisco, A., Duursma, E., & Szuber, A. (2006). Literacy development in elementary school second-language learners. Topics in Language Disorders, 26, 351-364.

Boushey, G. & Moser, J. (2009). The Café Book. Stenhouse Publishers. Portland, Maine & Pembroke Publishers, Markham, Ontario.

Cunningham, P. M. (1998). The multisyllabic word dilemma: Helping students build meaning, spelling, and reading "big" words. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 14, 189-218.

George, P. D. (2008). Is It Language, or Is It Special Needs? Appropriately Diagnosing English Language Learners Having Achievement Difficulties. In Inclusive Pedagogy for English Language Learners. New Work: Laurence Erlbaum.

Linnenbrink, E. A., & Pintrich, P. R. (2002). Motivation as an enabler for academic success. School Psychology Review, 31, 313-327.

Michigan Department of Education. (2004). English language arts: Grade level content expectations (v.12.05). Lansing, Michigan: State of Michigan.

Moats, L. C. (1998). Teaching decoding. American Educator, 22, 1-9.

Moats, L. C. (1999). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading should know and be able to do. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers.

Scarborough, H. S., & Brady, S. A. (2002). Toward a common terminology for talking about speech and reading: A glossary of the "phon" words and related terms. Journal of Literacy Research, 34, 299-336.

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Lesson 1: Word Recognition – Flip the Sound Strategy

Subject: Literacy

Grade Level: 1-4 (any student that needs sight words) Date: 11/22/10

Duration: 30 minute one-on-one

Lesson Objectives: Teach student Flip the Sound strategy for short / long vowels for aiding in word recognition.

GLCE’s: R.WS.03.01 automatically recognize frequently encountered words in printwhether encountered in connected text or in isolation with the number of wordsthat can be read fluently increasing steadily across the school year.R.WS.03.02 use structural, syntactic, and semantic cues including letter-sound,rimes, base words, and affixes to automatically read frequently encountered words,decode unknown words, and decide meanings including multiple meaning words.R.WS.03.04 automatically recognize the 220 Dolch basic sight words and 95common nouns.R.WS.03.06 acquire and apply strategies to identify unknown words or wordparts; self-monitor and construct meaning by predicting and self-correcting, applyingknowledge of language, sound/symbol/structural relationships, and context

Materials: story worksheet of sight words with words highlighted (see attached) Flip the Sound worksheet (see attached) Sticky notes Notecards of words (kept in bookbox)

Resources:

Sight Word / Decodable Word List (Michigan Literacy Progress Profile, 2001) The Café Book by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser

Rationale/ Background:

Fluent readers must be able to sound out words as well as know sight words. Sight words are high-frequency, sometimes irregular, words that do not follow alphabetic rules or common spelling-sound correspondences. Some words can flip the sound of the vowel from a long to short or vice versa for the word to make sense. The student can try a different sound until they hear a word that makes sense. The purpose of this strategy is to facilitate students’ automatic recognition of words that cannot be sounded out while providing a strategy for decoding words.

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Opening: The teacher reminds student that we have been working on sight words that we see frequently in books. The teacher will say, “Sometimes when we sound out words, they always don’t seem to make sense in the sentence. Today we are going to learn a strategy called, Flip the Sound. It can help us to find the right word in our sentence. We are going to practice with the sight words we worked on yesterday. Here is a short story.” Read the first sentence aloud to the student. Teacher say, “See this word that is highlighted…it is a sight word, ‘each.’ If I sound it out with the short e, ‘ech’ it doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t know that word. So I am going to try a long e sound.” I flip my hand over as I try both sounds. Teacher says, “Yep, I know that word; it makes sense in the sentence. Let’s try the next sentence together…let’s look at ‘because.’ This is one of the words we worked with yesterday. Let’s try flip the Sound.” Remind the student to flip their hand from palm side up to palm side down for a visual of the strategy. Now try it using the long vowel sound. Well, that makes more sense. So anytime you come to a word and try one way to say the vowel, but it doesn’t make sense, you can flip it to try other ways.

Middle: Teacher says, “Now it is your turn.” Have the student continue to read the short story. When they come to each highlighted sight word have them try both short and long vowels to see which one makes sense. Use the sticky notes to write down the words for the student to see and try both sounds. Remind them to try to the hand motion as another visual cue. Continue with some guided practice with a few more words from the story, through, does, say.

Conclusion: The teacher then has the student do independent practice using their independent book. Tell student that they can use this strategy anytime they come to word that doesn’t seem to make sense, try flipping the sound. Say, “When you are working at your reading spot, use these sticky notes to mark down words you tried that strategy. Model with the book they are reading. Underline the vowel where you tried both sounds to see which one made more sense.” Explain that they can read the short story each day to practice their words. (Provide student with notecards of the sight words that they are working on with the strategy written at the top as a way to review that can be kept in their book box).

Adaptations and Extensions: For students who have difficulty flipping the sound, continue to provide guided practice. Instead of having independent practice with their own books, provide more sight word stories with the words that they need. For students who seem to understand already, add words from the Dolch list for them to work on. You may also want to talk about flipping the sounds other than vowels such as c as /k/ or /s/.

Assessment: Use the independent practice sheet to assess if student is selecting words that can flip the sound. Also look to see if they are underlining the sound that they should be flipping. If student is competing independent practice correctly after multiple sessions, the teacher will give the sight word assessment again. Provide a list of the words for students to read while the teacher marks on the recording sheet. While doing the assessment, if the student correctly says the word, a check is placed next to

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the word on the recording form, if the word spoken is incorrect; the teacher writes the student’s response in the space next to the word. After giving the response the teacher adds up the correct number of responses and records the score at the bottom of the page. If the student misses 5 words in a row or 7 from one column, stop the assessment. After going through the assessment, go back and ask students about the words that were incorrect that would work for flip the sound, and ask them if there is a strategy that they can try to figure out that word. This is a way to monitor if they are recalling and can use Flipping the Sound Strategy for some of the words. If student is not completing independent practice correctly or missed the words that were taught with strategy, reteach the strategy of flipping the vowel sound with lots of guided practice if needed. Another way to assess is to have the student read the sight word story again to make sure they can transfer the words into a reading.

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Name __________________Date _________________

Flip the Sound

Book _______________________

Words I tried flipping the sound…

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Flip the Sound Sight Word Story

Each and every day, I love to come to school because there are so many things to do. I walk through the doors and say, “Let’s get started!” Does anyone else feel that way?

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Lesson 2: Word Recognition – Chunking Strategy

Subject: Literacy

Grade Level: 1-4 (any student that needs sight words) Date: 12/1/10

Duration: 30 minute one-on-one

Lesson Objectives: Teach student a strategy for chunking words that will aid in recognition of sight words.

GLCE’s: R.WS.03.01 automatically recognize frequently encountered words in printwhether encountered in connected text or in isolation with the number of wordsthat can be read fluently increasing steadily across the school year.R.WS.03.04 automatically recognize the 220 Dolch basic sight words and 95common nouns.

Materials: Worksheet (see attached) Sticky notes Sight word story (see attached) Notecards of words (kept in book box)

Resources: Sight Word / Decodable Word List (Michigan Literacy Progress Profile, 2001) The Café Book by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser

Rationale/ Background:

There are so many parts to being a fluent reader. One must be able to sound out words as well as know sight words. Sight words are high-frequency that students must be able automatically recognize. The purpose of this strategy is to facilitate students’ recognition of words by finding word parts that they know and using those to decode the words.

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Opening: The teacher explains that the words we speak are made up of individual sounds all put together. Say, “Sight words are words that we frequently find in our books and stories that we just learn by memory. Bigger words are made of smaller sounds or words that we may know. We can learn those words by putting the sounds or words together. Let’s take a look at this short story.” Read the first sentence aloud to the student. Teacher say, “See this word that is highlighted…it is another sight word, ‘promise.’ It is a bigger word, but I am going to look for sounds that I know or smaller words inside it. Let’s see, well I see ‘prom’ as I cover up ‘ise’ with my finger.” “Now I am going to cover up ‘prom’ with my finger to see if I know the other part…ise sounds like ‘is’ to me… so prom – ise. That makes sense. Let me read that part of the sentence now to make sure it works.” Reread part of sentence aloud…yep that works. I am going to jot that down on my sticky note into parts, prom-ise as a reminder. Say, “Let’s try the next part together…let’s look at ‘outside’ and try the chunking strategy. Remind the student to cover up parts of the word to find smaller sounds or words they know. “What sound or word do you see in that word?” Check to see if they recognize ‘out’ and ‘side’ and guide them if needed. “So if you know out and side you can put them together to say ‘outside’. Have student jot down on sticky note in parts, out-side. So anytime you come to a bigger word, look for sounds or words that you know that are in the bigger word and then try to put their sounds together.

Middle: Teacher says, “Now it is your turn.” Have the student continue to read the short story. When they come to each highlighted sight word have them try to break the word into chunks. Have student use the sticky notes to write down the words for the student to see both chunks and sounds of the whole word. Continue with guided practice with a few more words from the story, insects, morning, weather and still.

Conclusion: The teacher then has the student do independent practice using their independent book. Tell student that they can use this strategy anytime they come to bigger word. Say, “Look to see if you can chunk the word into smaller parts or sounds and then put them together. Say, “When you are working at your reading spot, use these sticky notes to mark down words you tried with this strategy. Break the words into chunks on the sticky note. Say, “Don’t forget to practice reading your sight word stories.” (Provide notecards of words that they are working on with strategy written at the top that can be kept in their book box).

Adaptations and Extensions: For students who have difficulty breaking down words into chunks continue to provide guided practice or go to words with smaller parts or start with sounds. Instead of having independent practice with their own books, provide more sight word stories with the words that they need. For students who seem to understand already, add words from the Dolch list for them to work on.

Assessment: Use the independent practice sheet to assess if student is selecting words that can be chunked. Also look to see if they are chunking the words or the sounds correctly on the sticky note. If the student is competing independent practice correctly after multiple sessions, the teacher will give the sight word assessment again.

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Provide a list of the words for students to read while the teacher marks on the recording sheet. While doing the assessment, if the student correctly says the word, a check is placed next to the word on the recording form, if the word spoken is incorrect; the teacher writes the student’s response in the space next to the word. After giving the response the teacher adds up the correct number of responses and records the score at the bottom of the page. If the student misses 5 words in a row or 7 from one column, stop the assessment. After going through the assessment, go back and ask students about the words that were incorrect that would work with chunking, and ask them if there is a strategy that they can try to figure out that word. This is a way to monitor if they are recalling and can use the Chunking Strategy for some of the words. If student is not completing independent practice correctly or missed the words that were taught with strategy, reteach the strategy of flipping the vowel sound with lots of guided practice if needed. Another way to assess is to have the student read the sight word story again to make sure they can transfer the words into a reading.

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Name __________________Date _________________

Chunking Sounds

Book _______________________

Words I tried to chunk…

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ChunkingSight Word Story

Mom made a promise that I could go outside this morning. The weather is rainy though. I bet there would be some good worms and insects to find in the mud. Maybe she will let me still.

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