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Knowledge and Skills Statement

Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--beginning reading and writing. The student develops word structure knowledge through phonological awareness, print concepts, phonics, and morphology to communicate, decode, and spell.

Use a decoding inventory assessment. Ask students to read a list of words that focuses on specific spelling patterns. Record the number of words they read correctly and use the following scoring guide:

Mastery—80%+ correct
Approaching—60%–79% correct
Intervention Needed—59% or less correct

Examples:

  • Short vowel multisyllabic words: insist, cannon, velvet, expect, collect, insect, random, cotton, insult, pretzel, distant, absent, admit, jungle
  • Long vowel multisyllabic words: rotate, railroad, airplane, table, between, snowflake, female, sideways, maybe
  • Long and short vowel combination words: robot, chosen, include, escape, weekend, invite, translate, mistake, pancake, explode, sunshine, eaten
  • Variant vowels: (a, ae, ai, ay), (aw, au, al, all), (oi/oy), (oo, ou, ui, u, ew, ue), (oa, oe)
  • Trigraphs: spl, scr, shr, squ, thr, sch, spr
  • Initial consonant blends: r-blends (br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr), l-blends (bl, fl, gl, pl, sl), s-blends (sc, sk, sm, sn, sp, st, sw), tw, qu
  • Final consonant blends: double consonants (ff, ll, ss, zz), or st, sk, sp, nd, nt, nk, mp, rd, ld, lp, rk, lt, lf, pt, ft, ct
Consonant blends are two or three consonant phonemes before or after a vowel in a syllable (e.g. initial blends bl, gr, sp, str, tw and final blends nd, sp, mp, rk)
Decoding is the process of translating written speech into verbal speech sounds by applying knowledge of letter-sound correspondences. It is the ability to recognize letters, apply their associated sounds, and blend the sounds to form words. Decoding applies to reading words, not comprehending word meaning.
Phonetic knowledge is the understanding of sound-symbol relationships and spelling patterns.
A trigraph is a three-letter combination that represents one phoneme (e.g. -tch, -dge, -spr, -squ, -spl, -scr, -shr, -squ,- thr, -sch). These are also known as consonant clusters.
Variant vowels are various corresponding spelling patterns for a vowel sound or a variety of spelling patterns for one vowel sound (e.g., long a spelled a, a_e, ai_, _ay) Other examples include (aw, au, al, all), (oi/oy), (oo, ou, ui, u, ew, ue), (oa, oe).

Research

1. International Literacy Association. (2018). Explaining phonics instruction: An educator’s guide [Literacy leadership brief]. Newark, DE: Author. Retrieved from https://literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/ila-explaining-phonics-instruction-an-educators-guide.pdf

Summary: In this guide from the International Literacy Association, answers to the questions following questions are explored: (1) What is phonics?; (2) When are students ready to learn phonics?; and (3) How is phonics taught? 

2. What Works Clearinghouse. (n.d.). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade: practice guide summary. Washington, DC: Institute of Education Science. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/21

Summary: This practice guide provides four recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Each recommendation includes implementation steps and solutions for common obstacles. The recommendations also summarize and rate supporting evidence. This guide is geared towards teachers, administrators, and other educators who want to improve their students’ foundational reading skills.