Fostering Automatic Readers,
Writers, and Spellers
USING DIRECT, EXPLICIT,
SYSTEMATIC, AND
CUMULATIVE METHODS TO
IMPROVE THE READING OF
OUR STUDENTS
JODI HIRSCH REIN
Improving Our Students’ Reading
 Through a better understanding the language
system
 By understanding how the language system
impacts a students’ reading ability
 Teaching the patterns of English
 Using multisensory learning strategies in the
classroom
The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled Reading
(Scarborough, 2001)
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE
LANGUAGE STRUCTURES
VERBAL REASONING
Skilled Readingfluent coordination of
word
reading
and
SKILLED
READING:
fluent execution and
comprehension
coordination of word
recognition
and text
processes
comprehension.
LITERACY KNOWLEDGE
WORD RECOGNITION
PHON. AWARENESS
DECODING (and SPELLING)
SIGHT RECOGNITION
Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually acquired over years of instruction and practice.
Discourse/Pragmatics
The purposeful use of language
Syntax
The order in which words are put together to make
meaning—grammar
Semantics
The meaning of words and sentences
Morphology
The way words are constructed of prefixes, roots,
and suffixes
Phonology
Speech sounds in the language
Levels of Proficiency
 Accuracy: is the ability to perform the task correctly
with help
 Fluency: is the ability to perform the task correctly,
independently taking time and effort
 Automaticity: is unconsciously performing a task
which frees up all your cognitive resources for higher order
thinking
 Children who have not achieved automaticity in reading
may seem to read fluently and with expression, but
don’t comprehend what they have read
Developmental Red Flags for
Reading Difficulties
Delay in speaking
Pronunciation problems: children should have little
to no problems saying most words by 5-6, should not
be confusing the order of sounds
Insensitivity to rhyme: children should hear rhyme in
pairs of words and be able to do other phonological
Awareness tasks
Word retrieval: children who talk around a words in
order to avoid words
Letter names and sounds: Children who enter
preschool and do not know all the letters and sounds
are those who later may have reading problems
Good Readers
•They accurately process internal details of each word
including the phonological, morphological and orthographic
features.
•They have strategies to break words into syllables are to break
down the phonemes within words and syllables.
•They translate print to speech rapidly and accurately.
•They are able to attend to the meaning of what they are
reading and read with comprehension.
Poor Readers
• Often have weakness in phoneme awareness and phoneme
manipulation skills
• Decode slowly and inaccurately or decode smoothly without
comprehension
• Have difficulty with spelling
• Exhibit language processing difficulties
• Have poor inferencing skills
• Avoid reading, say that they do not want to read
Speed and Accuracy

Students need to be reading quickly enough to
be able to process upper level grammar.
Phonological Awareness
 The ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of
language at the phoneme, word, and syllable level.
 This is an entirely oral language skill that is assessed and taught
entirely without text.
 These skills are not easily acquired and need to be systematically
developed.
 When we add text, the skills being practiced are phonics skills
and tasks are much harder.
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the strongest
predictor of reading success in young
children and lack of skills in this area can
contribute to reading problems into
adulthood
Phonemic Awareness
Children who lack phonemic awareness are unable to distinguish or
manipulate SOUNDS within SPOKEN words or syllables. They would
be unable to do the following tasks:
 Phoneme Segmentation: what sounds do you hear in the word hot?
What's the last sound in the word map?
 Phoneme Deletion: what word would be left if the /k/ sound were taken
away from cat?
 Phoneme Matching: do pen and pipe start with the same sound?
 Phoneme Counting: how many sounds do you hear in the word cake?
 Phoneme Substitution: what word would you have if you changed the /h/
in hot to /p/?
 Blending: what word would you have if you put these sounds together? /s/
/a/ /t/
 Rhyming: tell me as many words as you can that rhyme with the word eat.
Teaching Phonemic Awareness:
Sequencing Phonemic Awareness Skills
Teaching Phonemic Awareness:
Sequencing Phonemic Awareness Skills
How We Develop Phonics Skills?
 Ensure that students have strong skills in phoneme
(sound) manipulation before introducing text.
 Teach the patterns of language: the spellings of the
sounds, the syllable types, and the syllable dividing
rules.
 Use multisensory methods to teach the
connections between text and the sounds of
language.
What is Multisensory Instruction?

A multisensory method stimulates the visual,
auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic sensory
channels at the same time.

Simultaneous oral spelling (SOS) is the basis of
the Orton-Gillingham multisensory reading
remediation method. The student writes or
traces the spelling pattern saying the sound out
loud.
How do we bring this to the classroom?
 Have students read out loud in class
 Repeated reading is well documented to be a very




effective way to increase reading speed and accuracy.
Use peer tutors
Use choral reading
Have students read aloud at home what they have
read in school
Have students partner with younger students to read
aloud to them
Tools for the Classroom
 Air Spelling
 Sound Blocks
 Sandpaper
 Carpet
 Chalk
 Wiki Sticks
 Playdough
 Sand
 Rice
 Jeans/Clothing
Teach Spelling Patterns
 Teach spellings and their most common positions in
words:
 For example: LONG A SPELLINGS:
 ai is most often used at the beginning and in the
middle of words mail, aim
 ay is found at the end of words may, Friday
 eigh is found anywhere in a word eight, neigh, weight
Teach Spelling Patterns
 Avoid teaching more than one spelling of one sound at
a time:
 For example: teach ai and ee in one lesson, don’t
teach ee and ea in one lesson
 Teach one sound for one spelling at a time:
 Teach ea as /ē/ in one lesson
lead, speak
 Teach ea as /ĕ/ in another lesson bread or as a
sight word
Teach Spelling Patterns
 Avoid teaching exceptions to a spelling rule in the same
lesson as you are teaching the rule
 Do practice different spellings in a practice dictation:
1. tail
 2. say
 3. main
 4. tray


Does the sound come in the middle or at the end of the
syllable?
Teach the Syllable Types
A syllable is a word
or part of a word
with 1 talking vowel.
Syllable Patterns - CLOVER
 C – closed – has one vowel and usually a short sound that is





closed in by a consonant at, cat, struct
L – consonant le – (-ble, -cle, -dle, -ckle, -fle, -gle, -ple, -tle)
bubble, uncle, handle, rifle, giggle, apple, kettle, pickle, huddle
O – open –one vowel, usually long sound, opened at the end
and is not closed by consonant – ro, me, hi, go, tri
V – vowel team – two vowels together that usually make one
vowel sound - ee, ea, oi, ou, ow, oa, aw, oy, ew – ouch, stream,
spoil, float
E – silent e – VCe – e at end makes first vowel have a long
sound - ake, ite, ube, ade, eve, ane, ize, ate, ile, oke
R – r controlled – all the vowels are controlled by r, er, ir, ur,
or, ar– her, third, purse, sharp, earth
Teach Syllable Division Rules
Teach Word Parts as Vocabulary
 pro means “ahead”
 ject means “to throw”
 or means “thing that” or noun
 Projector
 a projector is a thing that throws
(light) ahead
Writing and Tracing Words as Part of
Spelling and Vocabulary
 least __________: the least has less than any other
 ____________________________________
 most__________: the most has more than any other
 _____________________________________
 difference_______: the amount of one is less than the other
 ____________________________________
Differentiating Instruction
 Different students need differing amounts of
practice. Some need many perfect repetitions of a
skill to learn it to automaticity
 Computer
 Work in small groups
 Train peer tutors
 Train parents to work on skills at home
 Repeated Reading
By Fifth Grade:
 Students need to be reading passages with
sentences longer than two clauses.
 They need to be reading grade level texts at
at least 120 WPM without errors and with
comprehension
 Elementary students need to practice
reading non-fiction texts fluently and
accurately
Every Student Can Learn to Read Well
 By learning the patterns of written and spoken language

The spelling patterns

The syllable patterns
 By practicing the patterns using simultaneous oral
spelling
 By learning the word parts, what they mean, and when
they are used
 Insist that students re-read passages that they struggle
with.
Resources
 Words their Way – Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston
 PAF (Preventing Academic Failure) – Bertin, Perlman
 How to Teach Spelling – Laura Rudginsky, Elizabeth Haskell
 Explode the Code – Nancy Hall, Rena Price
 Beyond the Code
 Megawords – Kristin Johnson
 Project Read, Phonics Guide – Green, Enfield
 Vocabulary from Classical Roots
 Vocabulary through Morphemes
Megawords
Book 1: Syllable
Patterns
Book 2: Common
Suffixes and Prefixes
Books 3&4: Schwa
and Advanced
Suffixes
Books 5-6: Vowel
and Consonant
Variations
Books 7&8:
Unaccented Vowel ,
Advanced Syllables
and Prefixes
Vocabulary
From Classical
Roots
Vocabulary
Through
Morphemes
Advanced Reading Skills for Our Students
We need to continue to address decoding
after children have learned to read in order
to make sure that they reach the level of skill
and automaticity that will serve them in
middle and high school.
We do that by teaching the patterns of
written language including the meaningful
word parts that contribute to the child’s
vocabulary.
A final thought about reading…
 “…Socrates never knew the secret at the heart of
reading: the time it frees for the brain to have
thoughts deeper than those that came before….the
mysterious, invisible gift of time to think beyond is
the reading brain’s greatest achievement; these builtin milliseconds form the basis of our ability to propel
knowledge, to ponder virtue, and to articulate what
was once inexpressible—which, when expressed,
builds the next platform from which we dive below
or soar above.”
 - Maryanne Wolf in Proust and the Squid