Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities - Division on ...

gled with letter-sound correspondence because
of severe speech problems prevent<strong>in</strong>g
him from articulat<strong>in</strong>g sounds correctly. Carl’s
speech therapist <strong>and</strong> teacher used gestures to
help Carl remember sounds <strong>and</strong> pronounce
them correctly. With<strong>in</strong> about 5 months of <strong>in</strong>struction,
Carl’s NWF score began to <strong>in</strong>crease,
<strong>and</strong> he is currently very near mastery on this
measure. Rachel’s NWF scores began to improve
somewhat after a few months of the
<strong>in</strong>tervention, but she did not reach the benchmark
of 50 until she had participated <strong>in</strong> the
<strong>in</strong>tervention for almost two years.
Teach<strong>in</strong>g Students to Read Words Sound by
Sound
In our curriculum, students are taught the
strategy of read<strong>in</strong>g words sound by sound (i.e.,
sound<strong>in</strong>g out). As described earlier, this strategy
requires students to apply their knowledge
of letter sounds <strong>and</strong> PA. As letter sounds are
taught, students quickly apply letter sound
knowledge to words made up of those letters.
The sequence is also carefully organized to
gradually <strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong> difficulty. Initially, the
teacher leads the pac<strong>in</strong>g of sound<strong>in</strong>g out, requir<strong>in</strong>g
students to slowly say each sound before
say<strong>in</strong>g the entire word. As student skill
with sound<strong>in</strong>g out <strong>in</strong>creases, the amount of
time the teacher allows for sound<strong>in</strong>g out decreases.
Eventually the students no longer say
the sounds aloud, but are taught to say the
sounds only when they do not know the word
immediately. Later <strong>in</strong> the curriculum, students
learn to become flexible decoders. In
other words, they are taught that many words
do not sound out quite right, but that sound<strong>in</strong>g
out usually produces a pronunciation that
is close enough to figure out the word.
Integrat<strong>in</strong>g Phonemic Awareness <strong>and</strong> Word
Recognition Skills
A technique we used to assist students <strong>in</strong> transferr<strong>in</strong>g
PA skills to pr<strong>in</strong>t was Stretch <strong>and</strong> Spell.
Us<strong>in</strong>g the same term<strong>in</strong>ology used dur<strong>in</strong>g PA
activities, students stretched each word <strong>and</strong>
wrote the correct spell<strong>in</strong>g of the word. After
participat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the <strong>in</strong>tervention for approximately
one year, Jacob was stretch<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong>
spell<strong>in</strong>g words such as sack, star, <strong>and</strong> help. As
Jacob wrote each word, he repeated the
sounds one at a time, writ<strong>in</strong>g the letters that
represented each sound. This technique
l<strong>in</strong>ked PA (i.e., segment<strong>in</strong>g), letter-sound correspondence,
<strong>and</strong> sound<strong>in</strong>g out words.
Jacob, Carl, <strong>and</strong> Rachel Develop Sound<strong>in</strong>g Out
Skills
Jacob, Carl, <strong>and</strong> Rachel have all made
progress with sound<strong>in</strong>g out, but to vary<strong>in</strong>g
degrees. Early <strong>in</strong> the <strong>in</strong>tervention, sound<strong>in</strong>g
out was a challenge for both Jacob <strong>and</strong> Carl,
as they struggled with severe deficits <strong>in</strong> shortterm
memory. While sound<strong>in</strong>g out a word,
they would frequently forget the first sound,
so mat became at <strong>and</strong> ran became an. Currently,
Jacob is able to read many words without
sound<strong>in</strong>g them out first, though Carl cont<strong>in</strong>ues
to struggle <strong>in</strong> this area. Rachel has
made excellent progress with this strategy <strong>and</strong>
is now learn<strong>in</strong>g to decode words more flexibly,
<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g multisyllabic words.
Teach<strong>in</strong>g High Frequency Sight Words
362 / <strong>Education</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Developmental</strong> <strong>Disabilities</strong>-September 2009
The last skill <strong>in</strong> the word recognition str<strong>and</strong>
was high frequency sight words. These words
were presented as tricky words that should be
recognized quickly. Once students recognized
letters, a few sight words were <strong>in</strong>troduced, but
the pace of the <strong>in</strong>troduction of sight words
<strong>in</strong>creased as phonics skills developed. Jacob
struggled to keep up with the other students
<strong>in</strong> his group. His teacher provided him with
extra time to practice these words so he could
rema<strong>in</strong> with his <strong>in</strong>structional group. Carl <strong>and</strong>
Rachel also needed extensive practice with
these words, but progressed at least as quickly
as the other students <strong>in</strong> their <strong>in</strong>structional
group. Teachers assisted students <strong>in</strong> apply<strong>in</strong>g
this skill dur<strong>in</strong>g text read<strong>in</strong>g. They provided
scaffold<strong>in</strong>g by rem<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g students that a word
was a “tricky word” <strong>and</strong> ask<strong>in</strong>g them to read it
fast, supply<strong>in</strong>g the word when needed.
Mak<strong>in</strong>g Word Recognition Activities Mean<strong>in</strong>gful
One technique we used to l<strong>in</strong>k mean<strong>in</strong>g to
word recognition activities was build<strong>in</strong>g sentences
with word cards. Although not specifically
found <strong>in</strong> our <strong>in</strong>tervention, our teachers
adapted sentences from the decodable text,
writ<strong>in</strong>g the words on sentence strips <strong>and</strong> cut-