Start supporting decoding in your classroom with a solid plan.
The first step you can use to support decoding in your Early Readers is to choose a great Phonic’s resource. One that includes the use of Phonemic awareness skills. Our school has chosen to dedicate ourselves to U.F.L.I. (Pronounced you-fly) this year. I will link their website below so that you can look if interested. The manual is the only cost and it is supplemented with a large variety of free resources. I really like this one, who doesn’t like free things!?! I began using it last year along with two other colleagues.
We all used it in different ways, I started using mine in small groups for my students that needed intervention. My colleague used hers daily for whole group lessons. Our third counterpart began mid-year and continued whole group until June. Our results were all similar. Excellent for our early readers in helping them to excel. I began this year teaching U.F.L.I. whole group to my class. I started day one using this resources as I believe in the value it brings to my students.
The Second way you can Support Decoding in Early Readers is practice. It really does make perfect (sense).
The second step is to practice daily. Use your chosen resource and don’t waiver. Consistency is the key to the success of your students with whatever program you are choosing to use. Most programs work on scaffolding. Which means the program is designed to build off of each step. The program will then fold back into that same step repeatedly over time. If you have to miss a day it won’t undo all the work that you and your students have put in. We do go home on the weekends but it might make it harder to stay on track, so try not to.
The Science of Reading talks a lot about Orthopaedic Mapping in the brain as the main way that our minds process information and break down codes. Through repetition of these skills we are training our brains to break down alphabetic codes into simple patterns that help us decode any word for the rest of our lives. It is a skill that if used correctly through structured intervention instruction, will give your students life long success. As I tell my students if you can read, then you can do anything. So we practice.
Next, you need to make that practice integrated and fun.
The third step is put it all into play. While it is a daunting task I have begun to switch over all of my literacy centres to things that promote decoding words, encoding and prefixes. It helped a lot that my admin supported this shift and contributed to many of my purchases. In the elementary grades (in all the elementary grades) the importance of hands on practice and the kinaesthetic experience is essential to growth. Having the opportunity daily to interact with spelling and decoding has kept my students both interested and progressing forward. I have different levels in my centres ranging from CVC words to Vowel teams. In all of the centres though the approach is the same. Say the word out loud, spell the word with a marker, pop the word with a pop it (which replaces Elkonin Boxes), build the word with magnets. The differentiation comes into play with the word lists the children are using.
Sound Walls and Vowel Valley is the Fourth Step to supporting decoding in Early Readers!
The fourth step that I have been using for a few years now is the integration of Sound Walls and Vowel Valley’s and the discontinued use of word walls. I use these newer resources in the same way as I used to use Word Walls. I will teach a lesson from the wall, play a game with the wall and reference it often when the kids are writing or trying to remember a spelling rule. The major difference is that I can now point out regularly the sounds that words make when we decode them. This directly relates to the problem they are having with decoding their words. Just so much more effective in achieving my overall reading instructional goals. Highly Recommend.
The Fifth Step, Last but not Least is to Include a Musical Finisher.
Music seals it all in for our students. The repetition of the same phonic’s song really helps with recall when they are searching for a sound. I personally love “The Better Alphabet Song” on Youtube. It covers all the sounds that I teach and does it in a systematic way that helps with recall and muscle memory. If you haven’t checked it out, you should. I also love The Secret Stories but that is a post on its own. Wishing you the best of luck as you shift into a different literacy routine. My best advice is keep the good things you have always done, rich culturally diverse read aloud’s, writers workshops, independent and friend reading times and then start to include these newer elements. You will find your students excel quicker than we could have imagined and it feels so good.
With Love, C.
