Decoding: The Missing Piece
Do you remember that secret sauce that I have been talking about? You know, Phonemic Awareness and Alphabet Knowledge and how they come together in a beautiful harmony to help set our readers up for success! If you missed it, go back and read these posts!!
If you have been along for the journey (your reader’s journey that is) let’s dive in! Once students understand the connection between reading, writing, and speech sounds, they are ready to start decoding!
Decoding isn’t as easy as you would think for kiddos which is probably why reading is so slow and labored for our students as they begin their journey. Decodability also depends on what students have been taught.
When we as adults read, we do so effortlessly. As you are reading this blog post, your eyes are skimming over the words fluently and understanding exactly what you are reading. But, have you ever really thought about the process in which it takes to read with so little effort?
Would you be surprised if I told you that the process you go through to read is the exact same process that our beginning readers use? It’s true! In order for us to read, we must Look at the sounds within the word, understand what sound each letter makes, segment that word into individual phonemes and then blend it back together as we read the word….and that my friends is the process of decoding. So how can we help our readers navigate the decoding journey?
All you need is 10-15 minutes a day and here are my favorite activities!
Segment and Write
Segment and Write is a strategy I use almost daily. I love it because it incorporates phonemic awareness, letter sounds, decoding and encoding. Win, win right?
Step 1
Give each student a segmentation box, chips, and an expo marker
Step 2
Call out a word or provide picture support (dog)
Step 3
Instruct the students to push up one chip for each sound they hear in the word. /d/ /o/ /g/.
Step 4
Ask students to write the corresponding letters in the box below each sound.
Step 5
Ask students to segment and blend one last time.
Word Building
Word building is a powerful activity that helps students to sequence sounds in words. Students are asked to create words in a specified sequence, changing one sound at a time. You can do this two different ways:
Ask the student to spell the word cat. Students can use letter tiles or magnetic letters to spell the word. Then guide them through the process. Change the letter c to the letter s. Then asks: What's the new word? The student then pushes one letter at a time as they sound out the word s-a-t and blends it back together /sat/. This activity supports students in blending/decoding.
Ask the students to build the word cat, then ask them to change one sound to make the new word /sat/. In this activity, students have to map the sounds in their heads to try to figure out which letter to swap out.
Say
Pull down the letters to make the word /dog/
Step 2
Change one sound to make the new word /log/
Step 3
Change one sound to make the new word /lag/ What vowel did you change? Can you tap out those sounds and blend them back together for me?
Step 4
What would this word be if we added a /f/ at the beginning?
Word building helps to support students in recognizing and decoding patterns in words. The important thing to remember is to only change one sound/letter at a time.
Mystery Word
This is by far one of my students’ favorite activities. They giggle almost every time we do it. After teaching students several patterns, I write a long nonsense word on the whiteboard and ask them to decode it. We practice breaking the word apart and saying the sound. This activity encourages students to attack unknown words using their decoding skills!
Decoding in Isolation:
These decoding strips are great for serving as a reminder to students as they read. Good readers always look through the word, segment each sound/chunk/syllable, and then blend it back together. Once they have gone through the steps, they ask themselves- Does that make sense?
While it is so important for them to use this skill within the text, it is equally as important to practice in isolation as well. Simply give the students some word cards, and a decoding strip (I also through in a fun pointer or some “decoding glasses”
Decodable Texts
I could do an entire blog post on decodable texts, because they are SO important. When we are teaching phonics, it is important to follow that instruction with connected text! It is important for them to practice the strategies we have been teaching them. With this being said, decodable texts are meant to be used for a short window of time as students are first learning decoding skills. When students read leveled texts that are predictable, they do not have a chance to practice phonics skills. This will in turn create bad reading habits, encouraging students to use picture clues, patterns (of the text), and memorization. Decodable texts will encourage students to sound out unknown words.
I hope you found this post helpful. Decoding is such a crucial component to literacy success and it comes together when we teach phonics and phonemic awareness together!