Basics: Phonics and Decoding

Learning ‘b’ and ‘d’ and Reading Short Vowel Words with Aiko, Second Grader

Music

Linda Farrell: Okay. We’re gonna have a lesson. And we are gonna have some fun …

Today reading expert Linda Farrell will be working with Aiko, a second grader here at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland.

Ms. Farrell will help Aiko with telling the difference between the letters ‘b’ and ‘d,’ keeping her eyes on the text rather than looking up to think of words, and reading words with short vowels.

Linda Farrell: Do you ever get your ‘b’s and ‘d’s mixed up?

Aiko: Mm-hmm.

Linda Farrell: Sometimes? Well, let’s see if we can’t fix that.

Linda Farrell: Aiko confuses ‘b’s and ‘d’s. She’s in the second grade. And it’s going to get in the way of her reading. So we have to fix that problem. Lots of children confuse ‘b’s and ‘d’s. They look alike. It’s a ball and a stick. So we know we have to straighten that out, because that’s going to hurt your reading because there are lots of words with ‘b’s and ‘d’s.

Linda Farrell: We’re gonna work on fixing that. So we’re gonna learn about our ‘b’ hand. Have you ever used your ‘b’ hand?

Linda Farrell: They have a ‘b’ hand. Their ‘b’ hand, it looks like a ‘b.’ Here’s the circle. Here’s the line. And we teach them to not guess and to slow down and compare your hand to the letter.

Linda Farrell: This is your ‘b’ hand, okay? So I’m gonna put this little rubber band on you, so you can remember which one’s your ‘b’ hand. So which one’s your ‘b’ hand?

Aiko: This one.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Linda Farrell: I don’t tell a kindergartener, a first grader, or a second grader, “It’s your left hand,” because they don’t know which one is their left hand. Sometimes I don’t even know which one’s my left hand. When we first teach it, we put something on their hand. We might put a sticker. I put a rubber band on Aiko’s hand so that when I say, “Where’s your ‘b’ hand?” she’s got something that reminds her. Three lessons she won’t need the rubber band anymore. She’ll know what it is. Some kids get it right away.

Linda Farrell: Would you put your ‘b’ hand up like this … and make a fist. And then put your finger out. Okay? That is your ‘b’ hand. And I’m gonna show you why it’s your ‘b’ hand. Go like this. We put this down here. And this letter is a ‘b.’ And your hand looks like this letter. Can you see that? We have the circle right here. Where’s the circle on the letter? Point to the circle on the letter. And where’s the circle on your hand? Yeah. Right there. Where’s the stick on the letter? Show me a stick on your finger. This is your ‘b’ hand because the stick is on the same side of the circle as your finger. So your finger and your, and the stick are on the same side of the circle.

Linda Farrell: Lots of kids get ‘b’s and ‘d’s mixed up — kindergarten, first and second grade. It does not mean that they have dyslexia. Students who have dyslexia have phonological processing issues. They do not differentiate sounds easily. Their problems are primarily related to phonological awareness. ‘B/d’ is about shapes. That is not about sounds.

Linda Farrell: Will you put your ‘b’ hand by the ‘b’? Yep. And is your finger on the same side of the circle as the stick or on a different side of the circle?

Aiko: Same side.

Linda Farrell: The same side. Yeah. Let’s go down here. Is this a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?

Aiko: ‘b.’

Linda Farrell: Okay. And when you answer, I want you to look down here and compare it. Here’s what you did. You went [looking upward]. Well, you’re not gonna figure it out unless you look and you compare. Okay. So you have to look and say, “Ooh, I can tell.” So is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?

Ms. Farrell’s explicit lesson about recognizing the shape of the letter ‘b’ will take some time to sink in for Aiko. And there’s a common habit she’ll need to deal with. When Aiko is working on identifying a letter, she often looks up to think, looking away from the letter.

Linda Farrell: The answer to what is an incorrect letter or an incorrect word is in the print. And we have to teach Aiko to keep her eyes on the print, on the words, when she’s reading, or the letters. I’ve worked with many kids that have this same difficulty. And I’ll say, “Keep your eyes on the words,” and they can’t do it, because their habit is so strong that they can’t try to do what I’m asking them to do and remember to keep their eyes down. So we just practice keeping your eyes down.

Linda Farrell: We’re gonna practice looking down here, okay? So I’m gonna ask you a question, and you can’t look up until I go like this [pounds fist], okay? So you keep looking down. Don’t look up. Look down. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist] Now you can look up. Okay. Let’s try it again. Look down. Look down. Look down. [pounds fist]

Eventually, Aiko will need to have images of words stored in her brain. This is critical to the immediate word recognition necessary for fluent reading. When students say a word without looking at it, they miss opportunities to develop those images.

Linda Farrell: So hold your hand up here. So I’m gonna go ‘a,’ cause I don’t need my ‘b’ hand. But do I need my ‘b’ hand for that letter?

Aiko: Mm-mm.

Linda Farrell: Yes, I do, cause that’s a ‘b’ or a ‘d.’ So I have to put my ‘b’ hand and … let me see. Is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’? Which one do you think? Ohp. Where are you gonna look?

Aiko: Down.

Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay. Is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?

Aiko: ‘b.’

Linda Farrell: Let’s try that. Put your ‘b’ hand next to that. Okay. Is your finger on the same or a different side?

Aiko: Different.

Linda Farrell: Different. So is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?

Aiko: ‘d.’

Linda Farrell: Yes. And we’re gonna keep looking down. Remember? You don’t get to look up until I stomp. Okay? So now, I want you … we’re gonna go just right to here. Okay? So watch me. ‘a, d, s, b.’ You do it. Okay. Put your hand up here for the ‘a.’ Okay. Do it.

Aiko: ‘a, d, s, b’?

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. See how far away your hand is? You gotta go like this. And you know where you looked when you read? You looked at me. But where are you supposed to be looking?

Aiko: Here.

Linda Farrell: Yep. At the letter. So. Okay. So we did those four. You do these four.

Linda Farrell: And this is isolated practice. I see lots of teachers who use a ‘b’ and ‘d’ hand or a ‘b’ hand. But they only do it when the kid misses a word. So, “Oh, you read ‘bog’ as ‘dog.’ Use your ‘b’ hand.” You don’t have to use your ‘b’ hand. If it’s not “bog,” it’s “dog.” We’ve gotta have isolated practice to rewire the brain … to stop guessing and start looking. And that’s what we did with Aiko. Aiko has pretty significant ‘b/d’ issues. With this kind of practice, she could solve her ‘b/d’ issues, I believe, in three to four weeks if we did this every day.

Aiko: ‘b’

Linda Farrell: You got it. Do you think you can do 10 in a row?

Aiko: Mm-mm.

Linda Farrell: I think you can. Let’s try it. Okay.

Aiko: ‘x, b, d, a’

Linda Farrell: [whispering] Hand down. Is your finger on the same side or a different side?

Aiko: Different, so it’s a ‘d.’

Linda Farrell: Yes. Okay.

Aiko: ‘o, b, c, d, j’

Linda Farrell: Ten out of 10! That’s …

After a little more practice with ‘b’ and ‘d,’ Ms. Farrell will help Aiko work on another skill … reading short vowel words without sounding them out aloud first. And Aiko will need to lean on her new skills … distinguishing between ‘b’ and ‘d’ using her ‘b’ hand, and concentrating on looking down at the words while she thinks.

Linda Farrell: Can you just read these words right here?

Aiko: Not, ran, tap, man, on.

Linda Farrell: Could you read these words right here please?

Aiko: Bib, ad …

Linda Farrell: Could you check and see if that’s a ‘b’ or a ‘d’? Use your ‘b’ hand. Is that a ‘b’ or a ‘d’?

Aiko: ‘d’

Linda Farrell: It is a ‘d.’ So what’s …

Aiko: ‘d’ … did

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Aiko: ad, /p - al/

Linda Farrell: What’s the word?

Aiko: Pal.

Linda Farrell: Look down. Always keep your eyes on the words.

Aiko: Gum. /k/. Kit. Hump.

Linda Farrell: Okay. You got five words right. Can you touch and say that word?

Aiko: Hug.

Linda Farrell: It is hug. Read them all again.

Aiko: Did, ad, /p/, pal, gum, /k - it/, hug.

Linda Farrell: Okay. You got six out of six right. When you read this word, you went /k - i - t/. Did you hear yourself do that? Okay. It’s okay. I want you to do that in your head. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna close our mouth until we’re ready to read the word. It goes like this. [pause] Did. [pause] Ad. I have to think those sounds in my head. So can you do that? Let’s read these.

Aiko: Cut, dig, pup …

Linda Farrell: [whispering] Mouth closed.

Aiko: … lip, kit, lot.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. Two things: you got five right. Can you? What’s that word?

Aiko: Kip.

Linda Farrell: It is kip. And the other thing is, you looked up. So we’re gonna practice looking down. Okay. You’re gonna look down, look down here until I stomp, okay? [pounds fist] You can look up. Okay? Do it again. [pounds fist] Now you’re gonna read, and you can’t look up until I stomp, okay? So remember, you’re not gonna look up until I stomp, so I’ll hold this, okay? So start reading.

Aiko: Cut, big, pup, lip, kip, lot.

Linda Farrell: [pounds fist] That was perfect. You kept your eyes down the whole time. Can you check and see if that’s a ‘b’ or a ‘d’? Use your hand. Use your ‘b’ hand.

Aiko: /d/

Linda Farrell: Yeah. So what’s the word?

Aiko: Dig.

Linda Farrell: It is. We’re gonna go over here … and again, don’t look up until I stomp. So read those.

Aiko: Hot.

Linda Farrell: You can use your ‘b’ hand, right there.

[Music]

In one short lesson, Aiko has made a lot of progress. She’s learning to keep her head down as she reads, focusing on the letters. She’s using her ‘b’ hand to help her identify her ‘b’s and ‘d’s more accurately. And she’s reading words as a whole rather than sound by sound. As she practices and works toward mastery of these skills, her reading will get better and better. 

Linda Farrell: Mud. You kept your eyes down and you got ‘em all right! Six out of six! Yes!

We’d like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.

Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary … and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools.

We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.

Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell

For more information about teaching reading, please visit

www.ReadingRockets.org (opens in a new window)

Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader

[Music]

Linda Farrell: What do we call that vowel sound? You say …

Calista: Short ‘o.’

Linda Farrell: You got it!

Calista is in first grade at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. She’s an early stage reader who sounds out letters accurately. And she can blend those letters together to form words.

Linda Farrell: Calista, could you please read this column.

Calista: /D/, /i/, /d/, did. /A/, /d/, add. /P/, /al/, pal. /G/, /um/, gum.

Reading expert Linda Farrell is helping Calista take the next step toward fluent reading … reading each word as a whole rather than one sound at a time. Their time together will include work on short vowel sounds, blending and manipulating sounds, reading whole words, and fluency. Ms. Farrell starts by making sure Calista has a strong foundation in her short vowel sounds.

Linda Farrell: We’re gonna learn some motions. Can you hold an apple in your hand? And when I ask you the short ‘a’ sound, you’re gonna say, /aaa/. Say it.

Calista: /a/

Linda Farrell: Now watch me. /Aaaaaa-pul/. You do it.

Calista: /Aaaaaa-pul/

Linda Farrell: Okay. That is going to remind you of the short ‘a’ sound. That’s our motion, so say, /aaa/.

Calista: /a/

Linda Farrell: And when I ask you what the short /a/ sound is, you’re gonna go /aaaa/. Do it.

Calista: /aaa/

Linda Farrell: For short ‘e,’ go like this. Watch me. Go /eeeeeh-j/.

Calista: /eeeeh-j/

Linda Farrell: So we want to start out by making sure she’s solid with her short vowel sounds. So that’s the first thing we did. And she did know her — when I said, “What’s short ‘a’?”, she knew it. She had to think a little bit. So what we did is we want her to — when she can’t remember the vowel sound real easily, we want to not have to give it to her. We want her to have a scaffold to learn it. So we taught Calista the motions that go with the vowel sound, so that if she can’t remember a vowel sound — what is the short ‘o’ sound? — then all she has to do … I can go like this and remind her, or she can go, oh, it’s /ah/, it’s octopus.

Linda Farrell: I tell you what we’re gonna do. We are gonna go to short ‘o.’ Are you ready? Okay. Here we go. /Aaaaahc-tuh-pus/.

Calista: /aaaaahc-tuh-pus/

Linda Farrell: Now we’re not gonna say the /k-tuh-pus/ part. We’re just gonna say /aaah/.

Calista: /aaah/

Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘o’ sound?

Calista: /aaah/

Linda Farrell: And make the motion.

Calista: /aaah/

Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘a’ sound?

Calista: /aaa/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘o’?

Calista: /aaah/

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we’re gonna learn short ‘u.’ You ready for short ‘u’? /Uuu-p/. Do it.

Calista: /uuu-p/

Linda Farrell: And the first sound in up is /uuu/.

Calista: /uuu/

Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘u’ sound?

Calista: /uuu/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘a’?

Calista: /aaa/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘o’?

Calista: /aaah/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘u’?

Calista: /uuu/

Linda Farrell: The vowel motions that we teach are purposefully motions. They aren’t static, because if I say /a/, /eh/, /i/, /ah/, /u/, you can hardly hear the difference between those sounds. /A/, /eh/, /i/, /ah/, /u/. And children who have phonological awareness difficulties, which is the biggest one of the — it is the biggest problem in reading issues — they don’t hear the vowel sounds easily. Listen to this: /aaaa/, /eeeeh/, /iiiii/, /aaah/, /uuuu/. They sound different. So we want to encourage the children not to say /a/. We want them to say /aaaa/; therefore, the motion that we use — which is holding an apple and then move it across the front of your body, left to right, motion of reading, /aaa/, and then /pul/ is what the rest of the word is, but we only say the first sound — everything encourages them to draw out that sound.

Linda Farrell: Now we’re gonna learn short ‘i.’ Are you ready for short ‘i’?

Calista: Mm-hmm.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Watch this. I went stomping … I went hiking, and I stomped and tromped in some poison ivy, and, boy, do I /iiiiiii-ch/. Do it. Do this.

Calista: /iiiii-ch/

Linda Farrell: /Iiiiiii-ch/. Do it.

Calista: /iiiii-ch/

Linda Farrell: Now, you have to smile real big when you say itch. Go /iiiiiiiii-ch/.

Calista: /iiiiiiii-ch/

Linda Farrell: Do it again. Short ‘i’ sound.

Calista: /iiiiiiii-ch/

Linda Farrell: Okay. And itch is the guide word. I made a mistake. I should have told you that /i/ is just like this: /iii/. We don’t even say the /ch/ part, just do this: /iii/.

Calista: /iii/

Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘i’ sound?

Calista: /i/. /iii/.

Linda Farrell: Make it go /iiiiii/.

Calista: /iii/

Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘a’ sound?

Calista: /aaa/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘i’?

Calista: /iii/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘i’?

Calista: /iii/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘a’?

Calista: /aaa/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘o’?

Calista: /aaah/

Linda Farrell: Short ‘u’?

Calista: /uuu/

Linda Farrell: You know your short vowel sounds!

Linda Farrell: Calista was very confident with her vowel sounds. She knew them. I would still have worked on them a little bit more, but she was confident enough for me to move on to the next step. So the next step with a kid who’s reading sound by sound isn’t really intuitive. It’s often a phonological problem. It isn’t a problem with the letters. The kid knows the letters. I know the letter sounds. I can blend the letter sounds into a real word. What they aren’t doing is thinking the sounds in their mind. They’re turning that word — if it’s hug, they look at it and they go /h/, /u/, /g/. And they are never getting the full visual picture of that word. To them it’s always an ‘h-u-g,’ a /h/, /u/, /g/. Not hug. So they haven’t moved to where they can read the whole word without breaking it into phonics. And that’s a step that we’re going to have to teach her to do, which is one of my favorite things to do, because it’s just, they just go from being really slow readers to just being normal readers once they can get this phonological representation.

Linda Farrell: We’re going to do something that we call sound chaining. Okay? I’m going to show you how it works. So I say, “Miss Linda, show me the sounds in ‘lip,’” so I go /l/, /i/, /p/, lip. You touch and say.

Calista: /l/, /i/, /p/, lip

Linda Farrell: Okay. What’s the first sound in lip?

Calista: ‘l’

Linda Farrell: ‘L’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?

Calista: /l/

Linda Farrell: What’s the next sound in lip?

Calista: ‘i’

Linda Farrell: ‘I’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?

Calista: /i/

Linda Farrell: Okay. And when I ask you, you point to it, okay? So what’s the first sound in lip?

Calista: /l/

Linda Farrell: What’s the next sound in lip?

Calista: /i/

Linda Farrell: And the last sound in lip?

Calista: /p/

Linda Farrell: And what’s the …

Calista: lip

Linda Farrell: Okay. So that’s lip. If I want to change lip to sip, I take out the /l/, and I put in a /s/. Touch and say sip.

Calista: /s/, /i/, /p/, sip

Linda Farrell: What if I wanna change sip to tip?

Calista: You take away this one and add this one.

Linda Farrell: Okay. So what did I take out? Sip to tip. Say sip to tip.

Calista: Sip to tip

Linda Farrell: Which one did I take out? If this is sip, take out …

Calista: The /s/ and add the /t/.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now I wanna change tip to Tim.

Calista: Hmm.

Linda Farrell: So let’s touch and say tip.

Calista: /t/, /i/, /p/, tip

Linda Farrell: Now touch and say Tim.

Calista: /t/, /i/, /m/, Tim

Linda Farrell: Which one’s different?

Calista: The last one.

Linda Farrell: So what do I take out of tip to change tip to Tim?

Calista: The last one.

Linda Farrell: And what sound do I take out?

Calista: ‘p’

Linda Farrell: ‘P’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?

Calista: /p/

Linda Farrell: Okay. Take it out. And what do I put in to make it Tim?

Calista: ‘m’

Linda Farrell: ‘M’ is the name of the letter. What’s the sound?

Calista: /m/

Linda Farrell: Okay. So now I’ve got Tim. Touch and say Tim.

Calista: /t/, /i/, /m/, Tim

Linda Farrell: I wanna change Tim to Tom.

Linda Farrell: When we work with sound-by-sound children, we make sure that they know the difference between letters and sounds and that they can manipulate sounds. Once they can blend and segment sounds confidently, we move to manipulating. How do we do that? We work with colored tiles. They don’t have letters on them, because we want the child to have no distraction with letters. What we want is the child to be thinking about sounds.

Linda Farrell: Touch and say tap.

Calista: /t/, /a/, /p/, tap

Linda Farrell: Can you change tap to tape?

Ms. Farrell gives Calista plenty of quiet time to think about which sounds are changing.

Linda Farrell: Let’s check that because … one thing you did right is there’s always only one tile that changes. Let’s touch and say tap.

Calista: /t/, /a/, /p/, tap

Linda Farrell: Touch and say tape.

Calista: /t/, /ay/, /p/, tape

Linda Farrell: Which one’s different?

Calista: Hmm. Middle.

Linda Farrell: Yeah. What sound do you take out of tap?

Calista: ‘a’

Linda Farrell: ‘A’ is the name of the letter. What sound do you take out of tap?

Calista: /a/

Linda Farrell: Okay. Take it out. And what sound do you put in to make tape?

Calista: /ee/

Linda Farrell: Say tape.

Calista: /t – ayp/

Linda Farrell: Touch and say.

Calista: /t/, /ay/, p/, tape

Linda Farrell: What sound was that?

Calista: /ay/

Linda Farrell: It was /ay/. Okay. So you put in the sound /ay/. If I want to change tape … sorry, yes … tape to take, which one do I change?

Calista: This one.

Linda Farrell: Yes. What sound do I take out of tape?

Calista: ‘p’

Linda Farrell: What sound?

Calista: /p/

Linda Farrell: Yeah. Okay. And what sound to I put in to make it take?

Calista: /k, k/

Linda Farrell: Now this time, when I ask you to make a change, keep your mouth closed and think about it. Okay? Okay. So don’t open your mouth. You can think the sounds in your head. So we’ve got take to make. Okay. Look down. You can look down. Take to make. Can you say take to make?

Calista: Take to make.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Which one changes? Keep your mouth closed. Don’t … you have to think the sounds, okay?

Calista: /t/

Linda Farrell: Okay. So take out /t/. And what are you going to put in for make? What sound?

Calista: /m/

Linda Farrell: /M/. Okay. Can you change … now, again, mouth closed. Okay. But I’m gonna ask you to say make to mate. Say that. Make to mate.

Calista: Make to mate.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Close your mouth, and think about which one. When you know, touch it.

Calista: [points to the letter]

Linda Farrell: Okay. What sound comes out of make?

Calista: /k/

Linda Farrell: Yep. What sound goes in for mate?

Calista: /t/

Linda Farrell: Okay …

Linda Farrell: One of the things Calista does is I say, “What’s the first sound?” and she gives me the name of the letter. And we’ve got to get sound-by-sound children to think in terms of … there are letter sounds, and there are letter names, because the name of the letter, the first letter in phone is ‘p,’ but the first sound in phone is /f/. And if she doesn’t get the difference automatically and quickly, she’ll always be struggling with reading. It’s easy to teach. It’s no big deal. And I think that you see Calista make great strides in her reading.

Now we’re at the point where Ms. Farrell will push Calista to a higher level of reading — from reading words sound by sound to reading whole words.

Linda Farrell: Could you please read this column?

Calista: /D/, /i/, /d/, did. /A/, /d/, add. /P/, /al/, pal. /G/, /um/, gum. /K/, /it/, kit.

Linda Farrell: Students who read sound by sound see a letter, make it a sound, see a letter, make it a sound, see a letter, make it a sound. So this is what’s happening. What that keeps her from being able to do is develop a visual imprint of words and word patterns on her brain. And you never look at the word as a whole. We’re trying to get Calista to look at the word as a whole, as opposed to looking at it letter, by letter, by letter.

Linda Farrell: Now what I’d like you to do is I want you to go back, and this time keep your mouth closed before and think the sounds and don’t open your mouth until you know what the word is and can read it. Okay?

Calista: Did.

Linda Farrell: Keep going.

Calista: Add. Pal. And. Mud.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Phew. You got pretty good there, didn’t ya, closing your mouth.

You can sense the wheels turning in Calista’s mind as she works silently to sound out the letters and put the sounds together into a word. Next comes work on fluency.

Linda Farrell: Let’s start right here.

Calista: Can. The. Lad.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now go back and read it. Again.

Calista: Can. The. Lad.

Linda Farrell: Now can you go back and read it, Can the lad? Okay. Read it.

Calista. Can the lad.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Calista: Be. In. The. Mud.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Read it like you’d say it.

Calista: Be in the mud.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now read the whole sentence.

Calista: Can the lad be in the mud.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Can you read that one?

Calista: Kim was hot. And got a fan. Kim was hot and got a fan.

Linda Farrell: Okay. We’re gonna go and read a couple of sentences now. Those were phrases, and they turned into sentences. Could you please read this sentence?

Calista: Gus. Got. Mud. On. The. Rug.

Linda Farrell: Okay. And now we’re gonna go read a passage. Okay. What’s the title?

Calista: Don and Pip.

Linda Farrell: Okay?

Calista: Don was a lad. Pip was a pup. Don and Pip had a run. The sun was hot.

Linda Farrell: She was getting faster as she closed her mouth. She made more mistakes than she would make if she read sound by sound. She didn’t make that many mistakes, but she did make more mistakes. But that’s okay, because that’s what happens when you start changing a habit, is you go backwards a little bit. She’ll eventually, and I think fairly quickly, be a much faster reader and a much more proficient reader.

Linda Farrell: Do you ever read a book that you like?

Calista: Mm-hmm.

Linda Farrell: Calista made a lot of progress in this lesson, and she is on her way to being a top-notch reader.

Music

We’d like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.

Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary … and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools.

We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.

Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell

For more information about teaching reading, please visit

www.ReadingRockets.org (opens in a new window) (opens in a new window)

Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

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Reading Multisyllable Words with Xavier, Third Grader

[Music]

Xavier: I think, he — he’s kind of bad.

Linda Farrell: Oh. Dog Man is?

Xavier: Yeah — at his job.

Linda Farrell: He sure is. He chews the table leg. Oh my gosh.

Reading expert Linda Farrel is working with Xavier, a third grader at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland. She’ll be helping him learn how to read multi-syllable words.

Xavier: … going to study Flippy’s brain.

Linda Farrell: When we visit classrooms, it’s a big issue: “The kids do well with small words, but they can’t read big words.” So I’ll ask a student to read. And they look at a word and it’s volcanic and they read volcano. Or it’s fanatic and they read fantasy. So they guess the most common word that has that configuration that that word looks like it has. What they don’t know is how to break a word into syllables so that you’re not reading a big word that you have to memorize, but you’re just going, “Oh, there’s a little word, a little word, a little word.

Linda Farrell: I’m gonna have you read some nonsense words. They all have short vowels. So, could you just read these three nonsense words.

Xavier: Nad. Naf. Nef.

Linda Farrell: Good. Alright. What are these three?

Xavier: Zib. Zid. Zash.

Linda Farrell: Your, uh, this is pretty easy, isn’t it. Yeah. This is too easy. We’re done with that one. Okay? Now I’m gonna teach you about reading two-syllable words. This is kinda fun.

Linda Farrell: We started with nonsense words with Xavier because often syllables are nonsense words … that when you combine them they become real words. So teaching nonsense words is not an exercise in futility. It is preparing children to read multi-syllable words.

Ms. Farrell now knows Xavier can read one-syllable words with short vowels. Next she checks to make sure he knows what a syllable is, because breaking long words into syllables is the key to the strategy she’ll be teaching him.

Linda Farrell: I just remembered something. I have to make sure you know what a syllable is. Okay. So look at me. My name is Linda. It has two syllables in it. Lin. Da. Linda. So what’s your name?

Xavier: Xavier.

Linda Farrell: How many syllables in your name?

Xavier: Four.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Let’s stomp them.

Xavier: /Ex/, /ay/, I mean, /ex/, /zay/, /vee/, /er/. Xavier.

Linda Farrell: You got it.

Linda Farrell: How many syllables in computer?

Xavier: Com-pu-ter. Three.

Linda Farrell: Yes. You got it. So you know what a syllable is. Alright. Cause that’s really important if we’re gonna read these big words. So if I look at this word, and I want to know how to read that, the first thing I have to do is figure out how many syllables are in it. And I can do that by figuring out what the vowels are. Do you know what the vowel letters are?

Xavier: ‘A, e, i, o ,u.’

Linda Farrell: You got it. Those are the vowel letters. So here’s what I know. Every syllable has a vowel in it. So in order to figure out how many syllables there are, I have to count the vowels. So can you tell me … how many vowel letters do you see in that word?

Xavier: Two.

Linda Farrell: Yep. Are they together or apart?

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: They are apart. If I have two vowels — letters, and they’re apart, I’m going to have two syllables. So I’m gonna draw two lines right here, and I have to have a vowel letter in every syllable. So can you break that word into two syllables for me?

Linda Farrell: Now this is a nonsense word, so we’re gonna read it. What’s the first syllable?

Xavier: Jod. Pum.

Linda Farrell: What’s the word?

Xavier: Jodpum.

Linda Farrell: So read it again.

Xavier: Jodpum.

Linda Farrell: And the word is …

Xavier: Jodpum.

Linda Farrell: That’s a nonsense word. I just made it up. I literally just made that word up right now. I’ve never even seen that word before. But we now know what to do if we have a word that we don’t know. So let’s try another word.

Xavier: Volcano?

Linda Farrell: Oh! You got the first two syllables — you got the first syllable right. How many vowels do you see?

Xavier: Three.

Linda Farrell: Together or apart.

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Read each syllable.

Xavier: /Vol/, /cay/ …

Linda Farrell: Hmmm. What’s that middle syllable?

Xavier:  … /can/, /ic/.

Linda Farrell: Touch each syllable and read it.

Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/ …

Linda Farrell: Mm-hmm.

Xavier: /ks/

Linda Farrell: Wait. Wait. What’s that?

Xavier: /ic/

Linda Farrell: Yeah. Let’s do it again.

Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/. Volcanic.

Linda Farrell: You just read volcanic. So what are the syllables in volcanic?

Xavier: ‘O’ …

Linda Farrell: Those are the vowels. What’s the first syllable?

Xavier: /Vol/, /can/, /ic/.

Linda Farrell: I’m gonna ask you to do something. I’m erasing this. Okay. So say volcanic.

Xavier: Volcanic.

Linda Farrell: How many syllables in volcanic?

Xavier: Three.

Linda Farrell: Okay. I would like you to please see if you can spell each syllable in volcanic. So draw three lines right up here.

Linda Farrell: Do you think you can spell volcanic? What’s the first syllable?

Linda Farrell: What’s that syllable? What’d you just spell?

Xavier: /Vol/.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Next one.

Linda Farrell: Now write the whole word.

Linda Farrell: Oh my gosh. You just spelled volcanic. You couldn’t even read it and now you can spell it. That is pretty good. Do you want me to see if I can get a really hard one for you?

Linda Farrell: In teaching Xavier word attack skills, it’s very important that we choose words with short vowels that have only one vowel all by itself. So you’ll see we’re not going to have words with ‘silent e,’ we’re not going to have words with vowel teams. So we need two questions that we can ask Xavier that can help him break a big word into syllables so that all it is is little small words that he has to put together to read a big word. The two questions are … how many vowels do you see? Are they together or apart? And what we teach him is that … if you see three vowels and they’re apart, you’re going to have three syllables, because every syllable has a vowel. And then we teach him to draw a line for each syllable, write each syllable on a line, and then read each little word and then put them together.

Linda Farrell: Let’s see if we can try this one.

Linda Farrell: How many vowels did you see?

Xavier: Three.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Could you underline them please?

Xavier: I mean four.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Four vowels. Are they together or apart?

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: So how many syllables?

Xavier: Four.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Linda Farrell: Could you move that ‘n’ over there? Okay.

Linda Farrell: Okay. So read each syllable.

Xavier: /Con/, /tic/ …

Linda Farrell: What’s that?

Xavier: /ti/, /tin/

Linda Farrell: What’s this?

Xavier: /ti/

Linda Farrell: /t/, /i/. What is it?

Xavier: /ti/

Linda Farrell: Okay. So it’s …

Xavier: /Con/, /ti/, /nin/, /tul/. Continental.

Linda Farrell: You just read continental. Are you ready for another one?

Xavier: Mm-hmm.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Here we go. Let’s try this one.

Linda Farrell: How many vowels do you see?

Xavier: /o/ and /i/, /e/

Linda Farrell: Okay. So how many? You can underline them if you want.

Linda Farrell: Why don’t you start here and go this way. Yeah.

Linda Farrell: Okay. So how many?

Xavier: Four.

Linda Farrell: Together or apart?

Xavier: Apart.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Linda Farrell: Do you wanna try to read it without breaking it into syllables? Try it.

Xavier: Accosh — accomplishment.

Linda Farrell: What was the word?

Xavier: Accosh — accomplishment.

Linda Farrell: It’s accomplishment. You are right.

As Xavier grasps the strategy, you can see him thinking through the two questions: How many vowels? Are the vowels together or apart? And he’s able to read big words without writing out the syllables.

Xavier: Wil-ming-ton.

Linda Farrell: What’s the word?

Xavier: Wilmington.

Linda Farrell: Wilmington! It’s the name of a city …

Linda Farrell: Xavier does a great job of learning how to attack a word. After this lesson he has a strategy to help him break words into syllables and read them. He will need lots of lessons. We start with short vowels, then we move to ‘silent e,’ then we move to vowel teams. So it’s explicit and it’s systematic when we’re teaching him this. Xavier responded beautifully to reading these long words.

[Music]

Linda Farrell: We’re gonna do one more. It is …

Xavier: Electric — cal. Electrical.

Linda Farrell: You got it! That was a good one to end on. High five! Yes!

[Music]

We’d like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.

Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary … and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools.

We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.

Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell

For more information about teaching reading, please visit

www.ReadingRockets.org (opens in a new window)

Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

Mastering Reading Accuracy

Maryland third grader Xavier is sharing one of his favorite books with reading expert Linda Farrell. Ms. Farrell is going to help him focus on reading every word accurately.

Linda Farrell: Can you read some of this to me? Can you read?

Xavier: Look. We’re heroes because we save the world from Flippy. This — it says here that scientists are going to study Flippy brain.

Linda Farrell: Get the ‘s’ on that.

Xavier: Studies …

Xavier: -dy …

Linda Farrell: What’s this word right here — this one right here?

Xavier: Flippy’s.

Linda Farrell: Yeah. Read that whole thing again.

Xavier: It says here that scien- scientists are going to study Flippy’s brain.

Linda Farrell: Keep going.

Xavier: Dog Man, I have a important job for you.

Linda Farrell: What’s that word?

Xavier: An.

Linda Farrell: Keep reading again.

Xavier: Dog Man, I have a, an important job for you.

Linda Farrell: Can you read that — an important.

Xavier: An.

Linda Farrell: Read it again.

Xavier: … important. Dog Man, I have an portant job …

Linda Farrell: Okay. We’re gonna do this. Read this with me. An.

Xavier: An.

Linda Farrell: Important.

Xavier: Important.

Linda Farrell: Now do it. So read An.

Xavier: An.

Linda Farrell: im

Xavier: im

Linda Farrell: por

Xavier: por

Linda Farrell: tant

Xavier: tant

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now, read it again.

Xavier: Dog Man, I have an important job for you.

Linda Farrell: Keep going.

Linda Farrell: One of the things I notice is that teachers often will let an inaccurate reading slip by if the meaning isn’t changed. Ah, it’s close enough. Move on. And that is setting students up for poor comprehension.

Take for example a sentence like, “The horse got a cold.” If a student leaves out the article a and reads it, “The horse got cold,” the meaning changes significantly.

Linda Farrell: That one little word that seems so inconsequential, a, made a difference in meaning. “The horse got cold” and “the horse got a cold is different.” We never know when that’s going to make a difference in comprehension. We have to build good, strong reading habits for students. And that means as a teacher, it’s my job to help my students develop accurate reading habits so that they don’t miss a question on a comprehension test because they misread a sentence. They left off an ‘s.’ They left off, they left out an article. They added an article. They read present tense instead of past tense. They read – they read a contraction incorrectly. All of those can lead to poor comprehension. And we need, in kindergarten, first and second grade and even third grade, to be making sure that our students read accurately. It’s our responsibility.

Xavier: Who wants to protect the scientists? Who’s a good boy protector?

Linda Farrell: Wait. Who’s what?

Xavier: Who’s a good boy — good protector.

Linda Farrell: Yeah.

Xavier: Who — who wants to protect an, and survive?

Linda Farrell: And what’s that word?

Xavier: Surva — suh-verve?

Linda Farrell: Okay. I’m gonna tell you that ‘v’ is — that ‘e’ is silent. So what does that say?

Xavier: Serve.

Linda Farrell: You got it. So read that again.

Xavier: Who wants to protect and serve?

Linda Farrell: We’re teaching students, our children, that every letter does make a difference and that when you come to an unfamiliar word, you have to pay attention to every letter. And then when you read that word two or three times, it then becomes a word that you’ve seen before and you just read it because it’s part of your vocabulary and you’ve seen that spelling before.

[Music]

Linda Farrell: And what does he do? Does he save people?

Xavier: Yeah. He helps people. These are …

Mastering ‘Silent e’ and Becoming More Fluent with Michael, Third Grader

[Music]

Michael: I couldn’t find my house.

Linda Farrell: When you went back, you couldn’t find your house?

Michael: No.

Michael is in third grade at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. Reading expert Linda Farrell will be helping him work toward mastering the ‘silent e’ letter pattern. It’s part of a plan to speed up his reading.

Linda Farrell:  When we assessed Michael, I found him to be a very interesting student. He’s in the third grade, and he’s a very slow reader. He was quite accurate … not perfectly accurate, but he did pretty well in text. And he understood what he read.

Linda Farrell: Just start reading right here, and you’re gonna read right to the number, okay?

Michael: Don was a lad. Pip was a pup. Don and Pip had a run. The sun was hot.

Linda Farrell: Okay …

Linda Farrell: And when we dug deeper into Michael, what we found is that he has almost mastered basic skills. But it’s the almost that’s keeping him from being faster and more accurate. The good thing about him is that he’s not a guesser. That’s why he’s slow. He’s trying to get it right. He’s not trying to race through and guess.

Michael can read many words accurately. But he reads slowly. To find out why, Ms. Farrell first checks to make sure that Michael knows his vowel sounds, both long and short.

Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘a’ sound?

Michael: Short ‘a’ … /a/.

Linda Farrell: /a/. What’s the short ‘e’ sound?

Michael: /eh/

Linda Farrell: What’s the short ‘i’ sound?

Michael: /i/

Linda Farrell: The short ‘o’ sound?

Michael: /ah/

Linda Farrell: And the short ‘u’ sound?

Michael: /u/

Linda Farrell: You do know your vowel sounds — your short vowel sounds. Do you know your long vowel sounds?

Michael: [nods]

Linda Farrell: What are they?

Michael: /ay/, /ee/, /eye/, /oh/, and /you/

Linda Farrell: You got it. Okay.

Then she checks Michael’s phonemic awareness. That’s his ability to notice, to think about, and to work with the individual sounds in words.

Linda Farrell: Now we’re gonna stretch a couple of words, okay? The way you stretch words is you go like this. Get ready. Okay, sit up straight and get ready. Okay? I’ll say a word and you repeat it. Bake.

Michael: Bake.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we stretch it. /b, ay, k/ … bake. You stretch it.

Michael: /b, ay, k/ … bake

Linda Farrell: Okay. And I’m gonna ask you what’s the vowel sound in bake. Do you know the vowel sound in bake?

Michael: /ay/

Linda Farrell: /ay/. And what do we call that vowel sound? Short ‘a’ or long ‘a’?

Michael: Long ‘a.’

Linda Farrell: Great. Ready? Back. Repeat?

Michael: back

Linda Farrell: Stretch back.

Michael: /b, a, k/ … back

Linda Farrell: What’s the vowel sound in back?

Michael: ‘a’

Linda Farrell: ‘A’ is the name of the letter. Can you stretch back?

Michael: /b, a/ …

Linda Farrell: Stop right there. What’s that sound right there?

Michael: /a/

Linda Farrell: /a/. When I ask you for a sound, it has to be one of the sounds on your fingers. So the vowel sound in back is what?

Michael: /a/

Linda Farrell: What do we call that sound?

Michael: Short ‘a.’

Linda Farrell: Ready?

Linda Farrell: Even though Michael knew his short vowel sounds and he knew his long vowel sounds when I asked — pretty well for somebody who hadn’t really been having phonics lessons. And he could, I’d say stretch the sounds, /b/ /i/ /t/. He could stretch that. “What’s the vowel sound in bit?” “‘I.’” He wanted to go and give me the letter, which tells me he’s not thinking in terms of sounds. We have to straighten out all that. What’s the sound? What’s the name of the letter? What do we call the sound? And we worked with some of that with him so that when I went to this is an /a/, and this is an /ay/, he could think in terms of sounds.

Linda Farrell: Tight. Repeat.

Michael: Tight.

Linda Farrell: Stretch.

Michael: /t, eye, t/ … tight

Linda Farrell: What’s the vowel sound in tight?

Michael: /eye/

Linda Farrell: What do we call it?

Michael: A long ‘i.’

Linda Farrell: Ready? Fish.

Michael: /f, i, sh/ … fish

Linda Farrell: Vowel sound?

Michael: /i/

Linda Farrell: What do we call it?

Michael: Short ‘i.’

Linda Farrell: You got it. You’re getting it aren’t you?

Next Ms. Farrell has Michael read a passage containing consonant-vowel-consonant words like hat and ran, further checking that short vowel knowledge.

Linda Farrell: Try the gray box.

Michael: Don got a tan hat. He sat on a log. He had a nap in the sun.

Linda Farrell: I think this is just a little teeny tiny bit too easy for you. So we have to get harder.

Michael: Yeah, it was really easy.

Linda Farrell: It was.

But when Ms. Farrell gave Michael a passage with the ‘silent e’ vowel pattern – including words like ‘luke’ and ‘rice’ – his accuracy fell off.

Linda Farrell: Now I’m just gonna ask you to read this right here. Okay?

Michael: Mike went to a lake with luck. They rode, rode their bikes to the lake. They had rick, I mean, rike, lim, limes, chips, and cake in a blackpack.

Linda Farrell: A student who can tell you /i/ is the short ‘i’ sound, /eye/ is the long ‘i’ sound, can tell you all the rules, and yet they don’t read it correctly, the word correctly — that’s often a result of a slow print processor. What happens is … when print gets there, they have a slow reaction time to pulling out what that print is trying to say, whatever sound, whatever word.

Michael can get faster by fully absorbing and mastering the ‘silent e’ spelling pattern, so that when he sees a word with a vowel, a consonant, and an ‘e’ at the end – such as lake — he automatically knows that the vowel will be long. How can he master this?

Linda Farrell: Not teaching him rules. He knows the rules. I didn’t ask him, but he could have told me the rule that ‘e’ jumps over. What we do is get him to recognize the pattern. If it’s one letter, it’s a short sound. If it’s that letter plus an ‘e,’ it’s a long sound. And we’re trying to get him to recognize the pattern.

Linda Farrell: Now I’m going to do some teaching. And I’m gonna see if you can get this 100% next time, if you can get all the words right. And here is the teaching we’re gonna do. We are going to learn about ‘silent e.’ I bet you’ve heard ‘silent e’ before, haven’t you. Okay. So we’re gonna learn something called two-finger touch and say. So when you touch with one finger, you’re gonna say /a/. That’s the short ‘a’ sound, so touch with one finger. Are you — if you were to write your name, yeah. So touch with this finger, okay?

Michael: Okay. /a/

Linda Farrell: Okay. When we touch like this, we’re gonna say /ay/. When it’s an ‘a’ and an ‘e’ together, go /ay/. Can you do that?

Michael: /ay/

Linda Farrell: Okay, so go …

Michael: /a/, /ay/

Linda Farrell: Now watch me touch and say this word. /M, a, d/ … mad. You do it.

Michael: /M, a, d/ … mad.

Linda Farrell: So I used one finger to touch that ‘a.’ Now watch this. I have an ‘a’ and an ‘e’ here. So I’m gonna use two fingers, so watch me. /M, ay, d/ … made. You do it.

Michael: /M, ay, d/ … made.

Linda Farrell: Okay, and you go like this: /m, ay, d/ … made. You do it.

Michael: /M, ay, d/ … made.

Linda Farrell: Okay. So you know about two-finger touch and say.

Ms. Farrell thinks this multisensory technique will help Michael internalize his ability to recognize the ‘silent e’ letter pattern. It takes a while to learn this approach, but it will be worth it.

Linda Farrell: Now, we’re gonna just practice, right here. So I want you to practice saying /ay/, /a/, /ay/, /a/, /a/, /ay/. Okay.

Michael: /ay/, /a/, /ay/, /a/, /a/, /ay/

Linda Farrell: Let’s do this one again. Okay?

Michael: /a/, /ay/, /a/, /a/, /a/, /ay/, /ay/, /a/, /ay/, /a/

Linda Farrell: Ten out of 10. Okay. Now what we’re gonna do is we are gonna practice touch and say. So can you touch and say that word?

Michael: Rat.

Linda Farrell: Okay. And here’s how we touch and say. /R, a, t/ … rat. /R, ay, t/ … rate. You do it.

Michael: /R, a, t/ … rat.

Linda Farrell: Touch and say that one. Now what do you do when you have an ‘a’ and a …

Michael: /R, ay, t/ … rate.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Touch and say that one again.

Michael: /R, a, t/ … rat.

Linda Farrell: Okay.

Michael: /R, ay, t/ … rate.

Linda Farrell: Try that one again.

Michael: /R, ay, t/ … rate.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we’re gonna try something a little different. This time I’m just gonna go /a/, rat, /ay/, rate. You do it.

Michael: /a/, rat, /ay/, rate

Linda Farrell: Okay. Try it again.

Michael: /a/, rat, /ay/, rate

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now you’re gonna do these. Just like you did rat and rate, do these. Okay.

Michael: /a/ …

Linda Farrell: Watch me. I’m gonna do this. /Ay/, mate, /a/, mat, /ay/, tape, /a/, rack, /a/, tap, /ay/, rake. You do it.

Michael: /Ay/, mat — mate, /a/, mat …

Linda Farrell: One finger. Do two fingers.

Michael: /Ay/, mate, /a/ …

Linda Farrell: [whispering] One finger.

Michael: /Ay/, tape, /a/, rack, /a/, tap, /ay/, rake.

Linda Farrell: You just got all those right. We’re gonna try something a little different this time. I just want you to touch the vowel sound. Say it. Don’t even read the word. So you’ll go like this: /ay/, /a/. Okay? You do it.

Michael: /ay/, /a/, /ay/, /a/, /a/, /ay/

Linda Farrell: Okay. Can you do that one more time? I wanna make sure you’re touching with one finger when you should and two fingers …

Michael: /a/ …

Linda Farrell: Wait, wait.

Michael: /Ay/. Wait. /Ay/, /a/, /ay/, /a/, /a/, /ay/.

Linda Farrell: Oh! It was perfect. Okay. Now go back and touch with two fingers and then read the word. Okay. And, uh, down here.

Michael: /Ay/, mat — mate.

Linda Farrell: Start again.

Michael: /Ay/, mate…

Linda Farrell: Go /ay/, mate …

Michael: /Ay/, mate, /a/, mat …

Linda Farrell: [whispering] One finger. One finger.

Michael: /A/, mat, /ay/, tape, ra- … /a/, rack, /a/, tap, /ay/, rake.

Linda Farrell: Okay …

Linda Farrell: That skill is recognizing spelling patterns. It is incredibly important, because many people will tell you the English language is nutso. It — sometimes a letter is spelled this way and sometimes the letter is spelled that way. And the English language is not nutso. It follows patterns. It follows lots of patterns. Most of the time in a one syllable word when you have a vowel and then you have a consonant and an ‘e’ at the end, that vowel is going — with that ‘e’ — is going to spell the long vowel sound. It’s not random. It is absolutely not random. Strong readers — and especially strong spellers — pick up these patterns automatically. Those who struggle to learn to read or look like they’re struggling, who need more practice really, they don’t pick them up on their own; and that’s where we come in. We’re teachers. That’s when we get to teach as opposed to just guide. So understanding the spelling patterns in English will tell you with about 80% accuracy what that vowel sound should be.

Linda Farrell: See if you can do that whole row … 10 words. And you’re gonna do /ay/ and then read the word. Okay? And make sure you get your fingers right. You can go slowly. I don’t care how fast you go.

Michael: /a/, stack …

Linda Farrell: Let’s try that — what happened? What happens when you …

Michael:  …/ay/, stake, /a/, stack …

Linda Farrell: [whispering] Touch that with one finger.

Michael:  … /a/, stack …

Linda Farrell: What?

Michael:  … /a/, mad, /ay/ — wait, I mean /a/, fat, /ay/, made.

Linda Farrell: You would see, even though he knew the word was shake, he would read shack, then he’d say, “No, shake,” because he wants that word to come out before his brain has processed. One of the things we would want to do if we were working with him long term is get him to slow down first, because if he’d slow down, he would eventually get faster, because he would be in the habit of doing things accurately. And he would be using the patterns. He has every ability to be an accurate reader if he can recognize the patterns — and to read at a reasonable rate.

So Ms. Farrell focuses on accuracy, knowing that speed will come later, once Michael has really mastered the skill.

Linda Farrell: That was 100% perfect. High five on this one, too. Okay, now you’re gonna read some — you don’t have to do the /ay/, /a/. You just read the words.

Michael: Okay.

Linda Farrell: Okay? Okay. So what, what line do you wanna do?

Michael: I wanna do that one.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Do number four.

Michael: Shad, glade, same, Sam, pane.

Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we’re gonna go back to that passage that we just read. Let’s see if you can read it again. Go.

Michael: Mike went to a lake with Luke. They rode their bikes to the lake. They had rice.

Linda Farrell: What you saw is that once we taught Michael how to read long and short ‘a,’ he applied it in the paragraph the next time. And we didn’t have him read a new paragraph. We had him read the same paragraph. Once he reads that paragraph accurately, we’re going to go to another one. But if it takes him 10 times to read that paragraph accurately, we’re going to keep reading that paragraph accurately, applying his new skill that he had used.

Michael: They also had Coke to drink.

Linda Farrell: 30 out of 30. You got 30 out of 30

Linda Farrell: He made an improvement. And had we had more time, I think we would have seen him making even more improvement as he practiced. Michael was a real good example of the importance and necessity of practicing to mastery. Even though he’s in the third grade, we need to make sure that we get his basic phonics and his even advanced phonics straightened out and that he’s accurate at those, automatically.

[Music]

We’d like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read.

Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary … and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools.

We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.

Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell

For more information about teaching reading, please visit

www.ReadingRockets.org (opens in a new window)

Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.