Transcript Module: Advanced Decoding - Curry School of Education

Advanced Decoding
Strategies
Sharon Walpole
University of Delaware
Michael C. McKenna
University of Virginia
Today’s Goals
Review decoding demands presented by
more advanced texts
Review syllable types
Consider strategies and procedures
teachers can use with children who struggle
to read multisyllabic words
Consider applications to needs-based
instruction
Back in School . . .
Select one instructional strategy to
implement and a set of words to teach
Try it in needs-based instruction with
struggling second- or third-grade
students
Make materials or procedures for
your teachers to use in their needsbased groups
Let’s take a look at a
wonderful piece of
children’s literature often
included in basal
reading programs.
Think about your
struggling second- and
third-grade readers.
Which words would
cause them trouble?
One hundred years ago in Paris, when theaters and
music halls drew traveling players from all over the world,
the best place to stay was at the widow Gateau’s, a
boardinghouse on English Street.
Acrobats, jugglers, actors, and mimes from as far
away as Moscow and New York reclined on the widow’s
feather mattresses and devoured her kidney stews.
Madame Gateau worked hard to make her guests
comfortable, and so did her daughter, Mirette. The girl was
an expert at washing floors. She was a good listener too.
Nothing pleased her more than to overhear the vagabond
players tell of their adventures in this town and that along
the road.
Think about your readers
Which words do you think
struggling readers would find
hardest to decode?
What makes them hard?
Some GARF Assumptions
 Our overarching goal is to create competent,
flexible readers who can read real literature for
real purposes.
 Phonics and word recognition strategies will
never be 100% effective, but they can drastically
cut down on the number of unknown words in a
text.
 You need not teach children extensive “rules” to
be systematic and explicit in your instruction.
 Teachers serving struggling second- and thirdgrade readers need help supporting children to
work through multisyllabic words.
A CAUTION
The decoding strategies we are
discussing can only be used with
readers who are proficient decoders of
almost all spelling patterns in singlesyllable words. If they are not, needsbased instruction should be focused
on teaching those patterns that the
children do not know.
What are the basic types of
English syllables?
Louisa Moats presented
strategies for reading
big words at our
Funded Conference.
Let’s review the syllable
types that she shared
with us.
Syllable Types in English Spelling
1. Closed
A syllable with a short vowel
spelled with one vowel letter
ending in one or more
consonants
2. VowelA syllable with a long vowel
Consonant-e spelled with one vowel, and one
consonant and a silent e
3. Open
A syllable that ends with a long
vowel sound, spelled with a
single vowel letter
cat
pit
up
ate
ice
ode
so
be
fly
Moats, 2005, Reading big words: Syllabication and advanced decoding
Syllable Types in English Spelling
4. Vowel Team/ A syllable with a long or short
vowel spelling that uses a
Diphthong
vowel combination
5. Consonant-le An unaccented final syllable
containing a consonant before
l followed by a silent e.
6. R-controlled A syllable with er, ir, or, ur, ar.
Leftovers
boat
pound
read
bottle
uncle
able
fir, her
for, fur
Some syllables don’t fit! Often bottom
tariff
they are unaccented final
gallup
syllables.
Moats, 2005, Reading big words: Syllabication and advanced decoding
Can you apply these?
Take words we’ve chosen from Mirette on the High
Wire and categorize them by syllable type.
Here are some hints:
 A particular syllable can be of only one type.
 Check the vowel sound first; it will often give you
a hint.
 All words with two vowels together or with the
diphthongs oi/oy/ou/ow are vowel teams.
What difference does it make to know
the syllable types if my children can’t
identify syllables?
We can actually teach children
strategies for identifying
syllables. We can also use
strategies to help them to
practice reading syllables.
Using Syllabication
Ganske, K. (2006). Word sorts and
more: Sound, pattern, and
meaning explorations K-3. New
York: Guilford Press.
Ganske provides a set of 6 tips that
teachers can give children to help
them to recognize and use
syllables in decoding.
1. Look for known words; divide between
them (e.g., hall-way, foot-ball)
2. Look for double consonants; divide
between them (e.g., muf-fin, smit-ten)
3. Look for two consonants together; divide
between them unless they are digraphs
(e.g., cac-tus, pub-lish, a-phid)
4. Look for sets of three consonants; keep
digraphs and blends together (e.g., anthem, in-stant)
5. If there is only one consonant between
two vowels, break the word before the
consonant and try the long sound in
the first syllable (e.g., ho-tel, e-vent).
6. If that doesn’t work, break the word
after the consonant and try the short
sound in the first syllable (e.g., manage, ov-en).
What do you notice about the
words once you’ve broken
them into syllables?
Using Syllabication
Louisa Moats also
taught us a decoding
strategy based on
syllabication.
Let’s review it.
Reading Big Words







Underline each vowel or vowel team except for
silent e.
Box any word endings you can see.
Circle any prefixes you can see.
Use syllable types to decode each vowel sound.
Blend the syllables together.
Say the whole word and see if it makes sense.
Try a different way if it doesn’t.
Ask for help if you can’t get the word.
Let’s review the Reading Big Words procedure
with a set of big words. Remember to actually
mark the words in the order that Moats
suggests.
(use the list of words we’ve provided
to try it out)
Coaches’ Corner
What are the strengths and weaknesses of
Moats’ approach and Ganske’s
suggestion?
Does anyone have good syllable-level
decoding strategies already built into their
core or their intervention programs?
How effective are they with struggling
readers?
Beck, I. L. (2006). Making
sense of phonics: The hows
and whys. New York:
Guilford Press.
Read Chapter 6 to learn a
strategy for practicing
multisyllabic decoding.
SyllaSearch



A set of two- and three-syllable words is
introduced, first as wholes and then with
separate syllables written on cards.
The syllables are set into a three-column
matrix, out of order.
Children rebuild the words from their
syllable cards, reading the syllables as
they work.
What are the words?
yes
hol
ro
in
bust
i
dent
ter
struct
low
tial
day
Coaches’ Corner
Can you see any potential uses for
SyllaSearch in your needs-based groups
or centers?
Wouldn’t it be layering if teachers
used these strategies?
No. In GARF, we use
additional teaching strategies
during needs-based time to
support word recognition.
Let’s Plan . . .
How could you find words to teach using a
syllabication procedure, Reading Big
Words, or SyllaSearch?
What materials could you make for
teachers to make this easier?
In your second- and third-grade needsbased groups, how could you integrate
more advanced decoding practice?
Back in School . . .
Select one procedure from today’s presentation to
implement.
Select words from your own instructional
materials.
Try it out in needs-based instruction with
struggling second- or third-grade students.
If it works, think of ways to make it easier for your
teachers to do it.
Be prepared to share at the next coach’s meeting.
References
Beck, I. L. (2006). Making sense of phonics: The
hows and whys. New York: Guilford Press.
Ganske, K. (2006). Word sorts and more: Sound,
pattern, and meaning explorations K-3. New
York: Guilford Press.
Moats, L. C. (2005). Reading big words:
Syllabication and advanced decoding. Boston,
MA: Sopris West.