The whole purpose of phonics instruction is to help children learn the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters and letter combinations represent the sounds of spoken language — and that there is an organized, logical, and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.

Students, including older students who struggle with reading, need to know there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters. Knowing this allows readers to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words, and to begin to read with fluency.

Student are taught, for example, that the letter m represents the sound /m/, and that it is the first letter in words such as mice, men, and mouse. When students understand

sound–letter correspondence, and pattern-sounds correspondence they are able to sound out and decode new words.

Thus, programs of phonics need to follow the science of reading and need to be taught in an organized and logical sequence and explicit. Instruction must be precise when teaching letter sound relationships.

First: Consonants, short vowels, consonant digraphs, blends, open and closed syllables.

s, j, a, t, p, m, d, c, h, r, n, i, b, f, g, k, -ck, o, l, e, sh, th, u, w, ch, wh, x, y, z, qu

Here are great resources to help you:

BUNDLE - Fluency, Comprehension and Phonics For Older Students - 6 Resources

Remember that digraphs are two letters that make one sound. Digraphs include -ck, sh, th, ch, and wh.

PHONICS BUNDLE 2 Phonics and Fluency Practice For Older Students

End Blends: -lp, -st, -ct, -pt, -sk, -lk, -lf, -xt, -ft, -nd, -mp, -st, -lt, -nch - More end blends - Freebie.

SoR BUNDLE Multi-Syllable Word Units VC/CV, VC/V, V/CV, & VCe Phonics

GIANT INTERVENTION Bundle. This is a No Prep - Reading Intervention Program for older struggling readers. Aligned with the science of reading.

This program helps students learn multi-syllable words through phonics practice. These units concentrate on

VC/CV Multi-Syllable Words
VCe compound words
VC/V Multi-Syllable Words
V/CV Multi-Syllable Words

This bundle contains fluency, comprehension, word work, teaching Powerpoints, interactive workbook pages, assessments, task cards and more. This program is research-based - with the research is included.

This program works for resource, whole class, RTI, summer school, and more. If you are using this program with more than one student – partner up. Partnering students is engaging and lets everyone participate.

This program helps students build confidence while reinforcing learning; additionally, by reading, tracking and reading again, student exposure to each passage is maximized.

Multisyllabic Word Reading Research

To progress in reading, students must have strategies for decoding big words. From fifth grade on, the average student encounters about 10,000 new words each year. Most of these words are multisyllabic. (Nagy and Anderson 1984).

It is helpful for students to be familiar with the common rules for syllable division. Knowing these rules and being able to apply them flexibly will help students decode longer multisyllabic words. (Carreker 2005; Henry 2010b)

According to Shefelbine and Calhoun 1991, “Low decoders, correctly pronounced fewer affixes and vowel sounds, disregarded large portions of letter information and were two to four times more likely to omit syllables.”

Several studies have shown that teaching students strategies for decoding longer words improves their decoding ability. (Archer et al. 2006; Archer 2018.)

Recognizing a Decoding Problem Symptoms:

Guesses at words from context
Avoids sounding out new words
Confuses similar sounds, symbols, and/or words
Inaccurate reading of nonsense words or words out of context
Inadequate sight word vocabulary
Tires easily, looks away, is easily frustrated, hates to read

These strategies build word recognition and build strong readers:

Phonemic Awareness
Vocabulary/Morphology
Fluency

Teaching Syllabication

Syllabication instruction teaches a struggling reader strategies to decode multi-syllable words quickly.
Students learn to systematically break a multisyllable work into small manageable syllables, identify the vowel sounds within each syllable and “sound out” the word syllable by syllable.
As students progress through the lessons, they will internalize the process and apply it easily and effortlessly.
They will become faster, more efficient and fluent readers who comprehend at a higher level.

Fluency Research

To be considered “on level” in reading fluency, students should be able to read aloud an unrehearsed passage, (i.e., either narrative or expository, fiction or non-fiction that is 200 to 300 words in length) from a grade-level text, with at least 95% accuracy in word reading. As students read aloud, their reading should sound as effortless as if they were speaking (Hasbrouck & Glaser, 2012.) This does not come easily for some students, which is why fluency practice is so essential.

In order to be considered fluent readers, students in grades 9 through 12 should be able to correctly read 150 words per minute (Hasbrouck & Tindal, 2006). In 2006 and again in 2010, Hasbrouck and Hasbrouck and Tindal (respectively) put forth that “[i]t is sufficient for students to read unpracticed, grade-level text at the 50th percentile of oral reading fluency norms” and that “…teachers do not need to have students read faster because there is no evidence that reading faster than the 50th percentile increases comprehension.” See chart below.

The best strategy for developing and improving reading fluency is to provide students with many opportunities to read the same passages orally several times. These exercises provide such opportunities. On each passage, there is space for reading fluency calculations. The best part is that the passages are quick and make it easy for students to read aloud repeatedly – and often – without taking up a lot of valuable classroom time. The activities can also be spread over several days.

Intervention: Multi-Syllable Word Unit for Older Students VC/CV - Fluency Plus

Multi-Syllable Word TASK CARDS for Older Students VC/CV

Intervention: Multi-Syllable Word Unit for Older Students V/CV - Fluency Plus

Multi-Syllable Word TASK CARDS for Older Students V/CV

Multi-Syllable Word TASK CARDS for Older Students VC/V

Intervention: Multi-Syllable Word Unit for Older Students VC/V - Fluency Plus

Intervention VCe Compound Words