Targeted Literacy Instruction
Explore research-based strategies, interactive tools, and practical resources designed to enhance early literacy instruction.
DEVELOPING PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
Phoneme blending is the process of combining individual sounds (phonemes) to form a word. For example, hearing the sounds /c/, /a/, and /t/ and blending them to say "cat." It is an essential phonological awareness skill that supports reading fluency and word recognition.
“There is no comprehension strategy powerful enough to compensate if the student cannot read the words.”
DECODING AND PHONICS
Once students are familiar with a blending strategy they are able to quickly decode unknown words. Spelling Focused Word Reading is facilitated by an explicit focus on the vowel sound and any other difficult sound/spellings that hasten student ability to blend words with automaticity.
Phoneme segmentation is the process of breaking a word into its individual sounds or phonemes. For example, the word "cat" is segmented into the phonemes /c/, /a/, and /t/. It is a key phonological awareness skill that helps in understanding how sounds combine to form words, supporting early reading and spelling development.
“Students with strong phonological awareness will profit from phonics instruction more readily and are likely to become good readers, but students with weak phonological skills will struggle to become readers. More than 90% of students with significant reading problems have a core deficit in their ability to process phonological information. Without the capacity to attend to the individual sounds in words it is extremely difficult to match sounds to letters and decode words.”
Some students find long words intimidating, but many are easier to read by blending syllables instead of individual sounds. The Multisyllabic Word Blending approach helps students focus on key parts, like vowels and challenging sounds, one step at a time. To make this routine effective, use words students encounter in text, reinforcing syllabication and related spelling rules.
READING WITH AUTOMATICITY AND FLUENCY
The Sentence by Sentence Decodable Text routine builds fluency and automaticity by focusing on phonics elements and allowing all students to practice decoding. As students become familiar with sound/spellings, word chunks, and high-frequency words, decoding becomes automatic, enabling them to focus on comprehension. This routine helps students read with increasing fluency, effortlessly recognizing words while tracking meaning.
The Read It Fast routine gives students additional opportunities for practice and to ensure automaticity of words. Research shows that repeated exposure to words strengthens neural connections in the brain, particularly in areas responsible for word recognition and decoding (National Reading Panel, 2000). Fluent readers use less mental effort for decoding, leaving more capacity for higher-order thinking like understanding the text's meaning and making inferences.
“Fluency is the developmental process that connects decoding with everything we know about words to make the meaning of the text come to life. Fluency is a wonderful bridge to comprehension and to a life-long love of reading.”
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