Yesterday, I had the pleasure of modeling reading small group instruction at one of my PreK-8th Grade schools. According to the teacher, none of the students in this particular second grade class met benchmark at the beginning of the year. Although the teacher saw great improvement at the middle of the year assessment, all students again scored below benchmark. Utilizing the West Virginia phonics lessons, I began with the short vowel a lesson, which included focusing on mouth formation when making the short vowel sounds, phoneme mapping using Elkonin boxes, writing dictated words and phrases, and decodable text. These elements are very important, particularly for struggling readers. When students struggled with auditorily hearing the short a sound, I was able to refer them back to mouth and tongue placement. When mapping the sounds, this allowed students to segment the sounds in each word and subsequently write the sounds they heard. One student had a history of struggling with reading and subsequent behavior issues. At first, he was reluctant to participate. However, after feeling success in this activity, this student began focusing on instruction and misbehaviors diminished. It was a joy to work with these students, especially seeing students excited about feeling success in reading. I'm looking forward to another great day working with students. If you are interested in West Virginia Phonics Lessons, please visit https://sites.google.com/a/wvde.k12.wv.us/reading-first-information/phonics-lessons . Please feel free to contact me if you would like additional information about reading interventions. Have a great day!
Donna
Donna