Empowering Students: Teaching
Decoding and Spelling Skills to
Improve Reading in the Primary
Grades
By Stacey VanDruff & Kristin Lafferty
ORF Passage
Winter Dibels Passage – Grade 1 Benchmark Tests
Having a Checkup
I don’t mind going to my doctor’s office. There
are lots of things to do while we wait. My doctor
has puzzles I like to put together. There is a
big fish tank in the waiting room. It has yellow and
Black angel fish and pretty blue fish. When I stare
at the fish they stare back at me.
Every door has an animal painted on it. Inside
there are chairs that look like zebras, tigers, or
lions. Even the nurse wears zebras, tigers, or
Passage continued…
lions. They must like animals.
Then I have my checkup. First I stand on the
scale. Then the nurse measures me. She looks in
my ears. Then she asks questions about how I
feel. My mother helps me with the answers if I’m
not sure.
My doctor has taken care of me since I was a
baby. She comes in when the nurse is done. She
asks more questions. She says I look very healthy
Passage continued…
and won’t need to come back until next year.
I like having a checkup when I’m not sick. I
didn’t even have to have a shot. And the nurse
gave me some cool animal stickers.
Do you think first grade students can read
and spell these words by December?
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Ice cream
Strawberry
Doctor
Waterfall
Office
Weekend
Vanilla
What Teachers Learned…
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How to collect and analyze screening, progress
monitoring, and diagnostic data
LETRS® Professional Development
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Foundations
Module 2: The Speech Sounds of English, Phonetics, Phonology,
and Phoneme Awareness
Module 3: Spellography for Teachers: How English Spelling
Works
Connecting to The Classroom Phonology and
Phonics and Spelling- and Classroom Coaching
Delivering Explicit, Systematic, Multisensory
Instruction
How do you get your students there?
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Letter naming fluency: Do they know their letter
names and sounds? Do they know them
automatically?
+
Phoneme segmentation: Do they know how to
separate each phoneme (sound) in a word?
+
Nonsense word fluency: Do they know their sounds
well enough to automatically decode a new word?
=
A Fluent
Reader
By using the following scientifically-based
reading strategies our students are better
decoders, spellers, and writers than we
had ever hoped for them to be!
What Our Students Are Doing…
Mrs. Lafferty's First
Grade Trend Data
Mrs. VanDruff's First
Grade Trend Data
100
100
80
80
60
60
40
40
20
20
0
Intensive
0
Fall Winter Spring Fall Winter Spring
2008 2009 2009 2009 2010
2010
5
4
4
5
0
Intensive
5
0
0
0
0
16
11
5
25
10
79
89
95
75
90
Strategic
14
30
26
19
19
Strategic
B enchmark
81
66
70
76
81
B enchmark
Intensive
Strategic
Fall Winte Sprin Fall Winte Sprin
2008
r
g
2009 r 2010
g
Benchmark
Intensive
Strategic
Benchmark
Strategy 1: Scooping
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Scooping helps the students break up multisyllabic words.
Scooping makes smaller word parts which
are easier to read and write.
This strategy helps young readers develop a
sense of closed and open syllables.
How do you do it?
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Have the students clap out the syllables they hear
in a word. Ex: relax = re lax
Put a scoop under re and then a scoop under lax.
Examples of Scooping Multi-Syllabic
Words
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Instruct the students to decode the word by
first trying a CVC closed syllable approach.
If the word does not make sense, drop the
consonant and try an open syllable.
Strategy 2: Elconin Sound Boxes!
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Sound the word out first using your fingers before
putting the sounds in the sound boxes.
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This way, the students will know how many boxes they are
using. One Sound – One Box
Make sound boxes on white boards and floor with
electrical tape or gymnasium tape.
Have the students use sound boxes for spelling
words.
Laminate paper with sound boxes on them.
Use sound box examples with pictures above sound
box.
Laminate paper strips and tape to students’ desks.
Sound Boxeseach box represents 1 SOUND
b
s
l
l
ea
ee
ch
p
er
Strategy 3: Webs
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Phonics Webs
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Grammar Webs
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Write all the words that begin with /ch/.
Write all the words that begin with a long ‘o’.
Write all the nouns you know.
Write all the verbs you know.
Pre-Writing Webs
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Topic in the center and supporting details around
the center.
Strategy 4: Closed and Open Sorts
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Closed Sort – When the teacher directs the
students which way to sort the words. Ex:
Put all of the long ‘a’ words over here and put
all of the short ‘a’ words over there.
Open Sort – When the teacher gives the
students an opportunity to sort the words the
way they want to and the students must be
able to justify their sort.
Example of a closed sort.
Example of a closed sort.
Example of an open sort.
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How would you sort these words?
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net, better, sweet, neat, wet, red, reader, sneak,
pen, best
Possible sorts could be…
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By number of letters or sounds in the word.
By the number of syllables in the word.
By short vowel sounds and long vowel sounds.
By words with blends and words without blends.
Strategy 5: Best Bets
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Teachable moments of the day.
Effective way to manage ideas that just pop
up and the teacher addresses right then and
there.
Although it takes time to develop the best bet
lists, you will take your students further faster.
Best bet lists need to be displayed around the
classroom and referred to constantly.
Strategy 6: Use of Manipulatives
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Letter Tiles
Letter Fans
Counters
Grapheme Cards
Sound Boxes
We’re excited! How do we sell
these ideas to the students?
Flashy bulletin boards that support our
lessons! When lessons are posted around
the classroom, students can find the
information quickly and easily.
Heart (Sight) Word Bulletin Board
Fry List Bulletin Board
Digraph Bulletin Board
Vowel Team Bulletin Boards
Magic (Silent) “e” Bulletin Board
Diphthong Bulletin Board and Example
Million Dollar Word Bulletin Board
Floss Rule Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board - Don’t get “caught” on
these words!
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Teachers can
add & delete
words as needed
according to
what words their
students are
struggling with.
Organize!!!
• Students have an accessible binder
or folder that they are able to refer
to.
• Laminated sound box paper
• Laminated web
• Word building fans
• Syllable count paper
• Best Bets
• Web Journal
• Dictionary
Folder
Motivators
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Party
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Fry Guy French Fry Party twice a year
Personalized recognition for mastery of Fry Word
List on bulletin board.
Guest Readers Daily
One on one – read to the teacher
Games
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Less paper pencil seat work.
More student movement.
Checklist
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Letter to sound correspondence & distinguishing
between a vowel and a consonant
Auditory understanding of clapping syllables
Scooping – putting syllables in print
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Closed & open syllables
Sound Boxes / Best Bets
Webs
Sorts
Introduce more difficult multi-syllabic words to
enhance decoding skills.
Using the checklist as a guide, your
students will be able to decode these word
patterns by December.
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CVC words (cat)
Beginning and ending digraphs (shop, fish)
Beginning and ending blends (stop, jump)
Silent “e” (hope)
R-Controlled Vowels (fur)
Advanced Consonant Sounds (cent)
Silent Consonants (knelt)
Consonant Digraphs (patch)
Vowel Teams (coast)
Diphthongs (boil)
Cartoon by
Mark Parisi
ORF Passage
Winter Dibels Passage – Grade 1 Benchmark Tests
Having a Checkup
I don’t mind going to my doctor’s office. There
are lots of things to do while we wait. My doctor
has puzzles I like to put together. There is a
big fish tank in the waiting room. It has yellow and
Black angel fish and pretty blue fish. When I stare
at the fish they stare back at me.
Every door has an animal painted on it. Inside
there are chairs that look like zebras, tigers, or
lions. Even the nurse wears zebras, tigers, or
Not only is our students’ reading
improving, but their writing is
also improving!
Step by Step Learning guided us through the process of
tracking the students’ progress.
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Beginning, middle, end of the year
benchmark tests.
Progress monitoring for intensive, strategic,
and “just making” benchmark students.
Teacher documentation of strategies with
small groups to drive student achievement
higher.
Easy to use program to track data.
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Data is easily analyzed to help individual growth.
Is it working?
DATA
DATA
DATA
BELIEVE IT!
Our data indicates that over 50% of
our students are beyond the end of
the year oral reading fluency goal at
mid-year!
READ MORE!
WRITE MORE!
ASSESS IN MORE
EFFECTIVE WAYS!
We have empowered our 1st grade students, and
they feel confident reading and spelling these
words!
Cheerleader
 Scapegoat
 Housewife
 Drumstick
 Seashore
 Thunderstorm
 Hometown
 Bookshelf
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