Ms. Cotton's Corner – education resources

Recently I’ve been blogging about my journey of exploration into the Science of Reading. Be sure to check out some of these other posts if you’ve missed them:

1. Science of Reading is More than Just Systematic Phonics
2. The Knowledge Gap – a Book Review
3. What is Science of Reading Anyway?
4. What is Science of Reading? – Part 2

The more I dive into the Science of Reading, the more I am using the Simple View of Reading and Scarborough’s Reading Rope to guide instruction in my classroom. In the process of evaluating my own practice, refining my teaching, and always improving, I have had so many questions about decoding. Maybe you do too! In this blog post, we will answer all of my questions, and hopefully some of yours! Read on to learn:

What is Scarborough’s Reading Rope?

We need to teach ALL of these components in order to help our students become skilled readers. However, because decoding is such an important skill for early readers, I’m diving into that first. I have always taught decoding, but I haven’t always looked into the research to understand WHY I should teach it, or HOW I should teach it. so, let’s do that now.

First things first. Let’s make sure we are talking about the same thing.

What is Decoding?

Decoding is more commonly referred to as sounding out. When students see letters on the page and use their knowledge of the sounds that letters make to pronounce the word, they are decoding. Encoding is the opposite of decoding. It’s easiest to think of encoding as spelling. When students use their knowledge of the sounds that letters make to write or say the letters in a word, they are encoding. Both processes are essential in developing literate students.

Decoding and encoding are opposite processes, although they work together to improve literacy for students.

Scarborough’s Reading Rope lists decoding as one of the essential strands that leads to skilled reading. Decoding unfamiliar words is essential to reading. Students must be able to sound out new words. There are approximately 220,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, and there is no way we can teach students to read them all. Decoding unlocks their ability to encounter a new word, and teach themselves!

What Does Research Tell Us About Decoding?

The National Reading Panel Report from 2000 makes it clear that decoding is an important component of reading instruction, especially in the early grades. They analyzed 38 studies focusing on phonics instruction. Synthetic Phonics programs and Analytic Phonics Programs focus on teaching students to use their knowledge of letter sounds to blend and pronounce words. There are other types of phonics programs, but those are the two that intentionally focus on decoding. Key findings in the Report include:

• Decoding instruction/Synthetic Phonics was found to have an effect size of .45, which means that it has a moderate impact on reading growth.
• Decoding intruction is most effective in kindergarten and first grade. The effect size of phonics instruction in kindergarten was .56 and in first grade was .54. The effect size in grades 2-6 was only .27. That is a clear indication that decoding instruction is a key part of the first two years of school, and is less effective after that.
• Decoding instruction is effective in increasing text comprehension in young students (.51). However, the effect size was only .12 for students older than first grade.

These findings have been replicated in many studies since this report was first published in 2000. I’m taking two big ideas from this research to implement in my classroom this year.

• Decoding instruction needs to be systematic.
• Students need to master decoding by first grade.

That led me to wonder, what was the best order to teach the letters and sounds? I highly recommend that you read the Decoding Tutorial published by the Reading League. They are the group of educators leading the charge to bring research and science to our instruction. The Decoding Tutorial states:

“There is no agreed upon, evidence-based sequence for introducing sound-symbol correspondences. It makes the most sense to begin with high utility letters such as a, m, t, i, s, f, p, and r… because these high utility letters can be combined to make a large number of simple words.”

That makes perfect sense to me. I began the year with a letter/sound boot camp, introducing all of the letter names and sounds in the first month of school. Of course, very few students have mastered all of the sounds, and I didn’t expect them to. Using this research, I am now circling back to teach the sounds more deeply. In my next blog post I will share the order that I am presenting the letters and sounds.

What do Students Need to Know Before They Learn to Decode?

Students need to begin to develop phonemic awareness before learning to decode. In the Decoding Tutorial the authors suggest that children should be taught that “spoken language can be segmented into words, into syllables and into phonemes” (or sounds). That’s where phonemic awareness comes in. As students learn to hear the sounds and segments in words, they are putting in place the foundation for strong decoding skills. But it’s not necessary for students to master all of the sounds before they begin decoding instruction.

I began the year with an emphasis on rhyming and syllables. As part of our Literacy Calendar, we clap and say our names, and then identify how many syllables are in each. For example, when we clap ‘Isabella’, we clap 4 times, and then hold up 4 fingers to show 4 syllables. By now, kids are doing well with this routine and are pretty expert and clapping syllables. We are ready to move on to new words with this concept. Our Literacy Calendar also includes rhyming songs, chants and finger plays. Identifying syllables and hearing rhyming words are both early concepts in developing phonemic awareness.

What Does This Look Like in a Kindergarten Classroom?

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I was going to try a few things with my current unit on bears. Here’s what I did last week.

1. Helped my students develop their phonemic awareness skills by clapping the syllables of key vocabulary words like hibernate and omnivore.
2. Continued working with rhymes with the Jump Rope Chant “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear”.
3. Introduced decoding with target vocabulary like den and cub.
4. Reinforced the sound of the letter /b/ by hearing it at the beginning and end of target vocabulary like bear and cub.
5. Continued to develop knowledge of language structures by reading a sentence together and having the students illustrate it.
6. Increased background knowledge by reading non-fiction text about bears and by teaching my students a song which included key concepts and vocabulary about bears.

In my next blog post, I will into specifics about what I did, and include LOTS of free printables. See you soon!

Happy Teaching!

Susan