SPICE UP YOUR DECODING INSTRUCTION




We all work with struggling readers, especially in Special Education.  In previous posts, I wrote about working on improving skills in comprehension. You can find SEQUENCING here and MAIN IDEA here.
 Today I want to focus on those students that have reading decoding issues. 
 No matter what reading issues students have, we want to make sure they receive all components of reading instruction. Our kids often come to us reading several years behind their grade level as or not reading at all. We want to make sure they get a well-planned reading instruction, not just instruction in the area in which they are behind.
What are some things we can do in our reading blocks to help these kids?

📘Break up the independent reading time into several different smaller timed sections. The kids could spend a small segment reading with a partner. 
     ðŸ“—Try letting the student listen to a partner read and then reading the same selection to their partner.
     ðŸ“™Have them listen to stories online at sites such as on STORYLINE ONLINE  , or  JUST BOOKS READALOUD . One of my favorites for many years is  RAZKidsRaz-Kids does require a  membership fee, but is well worth it. On Raz-Kids which part of the A-Z Learning, students can listen to books being read for practice and even record their reading so teachers can track the progress.  
     ðŸ“• Centers - If you use reading centers which is a great way to get in reading practice be sure your students have the ability to do the center individually or if pairing partners, keep students with similar reading levels together.
     ðŸ“— File folders games are an excellent way to work on reading decoding skills. They can be specifically tailored to the ability level of the student. I used a color code system when setting up my file folder centers. For example; Reading file folders all had a triangle on them then all the reading file folders were in colored folders such as red for beginning, green for emergent and so on. 

Word Work
Providing time for students to practice working with words is extremely important. Word Work gives them time to play with the word, practice and explore all the possibilities. While there are way too many to mention in this post, here are some of my favorites.
What are some great ideas for Word Work time that you use?

     ðŸ‘‰Foam Letters - these provide great tactile reinforcement and are great for letter sound work.
👉Letter Stamps - kids love these and these are a quite well used of capitals but also come in lowercase as well. These are a super way to practice stamping words. They are flexible to use when teaching any phonetic sound and kids adore stamping the letters. To spice things up I have different color inks the kid can use and this becomes a real higlight of center work for the kids.
Make it fun and flexible with easy activities such as these. They are easy to set up and extremely flexible no matter what phonetic skill you are working on. 

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