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CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

The SRS 1 Teaching Pathways The diagram indicates the Teaching Pathways at SRS 1 for the Catch-up Beginner and Catch-up 1 learners. It shows the approximate time spent teaching, as well as the teaching and reading materials and how the learner records the spellings.

Learning Outcomes for SRS 1 Always uses sounds and knows how words work and understands the reversibility of the code.

Skills: Segmenting and blending: Sounds out letters from left to right blending to make real words

Key 1: Knows that sometimes one letter represents a sound: c-a-t

Becoming secure in the knowledge that s/he can make sense of any word by decoding

Key 2: Knows that two letters may represent a sound: f-i-sh

to the code 1

Foundation

1 sound = 1 letter + introduction to 2, 3, 4

1 sound = 2 letters 3 1 sound = more than one spelling

Key 3: Knows that one sound may have many spellings: /ee/ m-e t-r-ee t-ea-m s-u-nn-y k-ey Self corrects errors

4 1 spelling = more than one sound

Syllables The fluent reader is confident and happy about reading

Key 4: Knows that one spelling can have more than one sound: ea: t ea m h ea d

Beginner

Catch-up 1

SRS 1

SRS 1

13 steps over approx 13 weeks

2-3 weeks

1 sound per week

2 sounds per week

1 sound per week - max 5 spellings

1 sound per week - max 5 spellings

Taught when appropriate; fits logically into the system.

Compound words and simple two-syllables

Spellings recorded

‘Sound Snip’ dictionary

Teaching Materials

• White board • Letter tiles and pictures • Reading cards • Cut up words • ‘Really Reading’ • Interactive worksheets

Reading Materials

Reading real books at appropriate level ‘preparing readers’

‘Sound Snip’ dictionary or Sound dictionary

Teaching SRS 1

Teaching SRS 1

Activity: spell spot: Spell spotting helps them to recognise spellings in context

Learner Type

Key

2

Can manage two and three syllable words

Activity: spell sort: Enjoys sorting and ordering spellings

Before beginning teaching the learner is assessed, they then follow the appropriate teaching pathway

Note: The Sound Snip Dictionary approach is designed for the ‘kinaesthetic’, hands-on learner of any age.

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Glossary A great effort has been made to simplify the teaching language and to avoid unnecessary jargon.

Some terms are necessary.

Chapter 10 – Appendix Contents page

Glossary 219 Further Reading Terminology

223

References and recommended reading

226

SRS Terms used to describe Concepts or Activities The framework of the English spelling Code: there are 26 letters of the alphabet, but there are 40+ spoken sounds and 176 common spellings. This means that most spoken sounds in English have multiple spellings.

The Reading Wall: A simple diagram to illustrate the incremental nature of the SRS teaching. The teaching is simple, systematic and logical. As the lessons progress, so knowledge and understanding are increased. The formula ‘simple to complex’ underpins the teaching. The incremental building of one sound upon another, builds up or extends the text that the learner can read.

Keys of the Code – the English spelling code follows four principles or keys: These keys are taught through the ‘hands on’ activities. The learner understands that Key 1: a sound can have one letter/spelling c-a-t Key 2: a sound can have two letters /spelling f-i-sh Key 3: a sound can have more than one spelling e.g the sound /ee/: tree. leaf, me, sunny, key, field etc.

Key 4: a spelling can have more than one sound e.g spelling ‘ea’: leaf /ee/, bread /e/, great /a-e/ Spelling alternatives – the major spellings of a single sound, for example the /ee/ sound: me, tree, leaf, sunny, key, eve, field, receive. These demonstrate the 3rd Key of the code. Spellings are always presented within the context of a word. (Note: SRS 1 introduces the most common spellings; SRS 2 teaches all the spellings. The common words with rare spellings (exceptions) are shown in italics, for example the spelling ‘eo’ in ‘people’.

Spell Sort – an activity in which the alternative spellings are sorted into categories, for example: /ee/ tree

leaf

sunny

she

green treat funny

Appendix

Appendix

me

This activity teaches the 3rd Key. The ‘Key’ (sample) words are given so that the teacher and learner can refer to the spellings, e.g. “It’s the /ee/ in team” or “It’s the /ee/ in field”.

Spell Spot – an activity which involves searching for a particular sound spelling (e.g. /ee/) in a story. The learner is using sound to identify the alternative spellings. They read the word aloud. Learners often enjoy using colour to identify the different spellings. This activity trains the reader to identify the spelling in the context of the word, whilst reading. It demonstrates the 3rd Key of the code.

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Sound Sort – an activity which involves recognising that certain spellings can represent more than one sound and sorting the words into these different sounds, e.g. the spelling ‘ea’, can represent three sounds: /ee/ – l ea f, /e/ – b r ea d, and /a-e/ – g r ea t. Use the term sound switch (see below) when they need to try another sound!

NOTE: ‘ea’ as a unit is meaningless. The learner must always meet the grapheme/spelling within the context of a word. This strategy teaches the 4th Key. Sound Switch – error correct; if the learner reads great as ‘gret’, s/he sound switches to ‘great’ and self-corrects. This demonstrates awareness of the 4th Key. Syllables – are described as ‘chunks’ or ‘parts’ of words. They are split following speech patterns, for example: fu/nny or funn/y but spellings are never split: NOT fun-ny.

Note: splitting funn/y or litt/le for example, make noticing the spelling easier.

SRS teaches the learner how to split longer words into chunks or parts: e.g. com /pu/ ter.

‘Tricky’ spelling – identifying any difficult spelling within a word, for example: because – b e / c au se accommodation’ – double letters: a /cco/ mmo/ da/ tion or the /shun/ at the end of the word When a word has been broken into parts (a word puzzle) and the sound spellings identified within each part, the ‘tricky’ element stands out and is easy to learn.

Encoding – Transcribing sounds into symbols; from sounds to their spellings: spelling Phoneme – The smallest unit of speech that people can hear: corresponds to consonants and vowels (sounds).

Phoneme awareness – The ability to hear and remember the order of phonemes in words.

Phonological awareness – The ability to hear and remember a variety of units of sound within words, syllable, syllable fragment (onsets/rimes), phonemes.

Digraph – Two letters standing for one sound, e.g. ch and ur in ch ur ch Schwa vowel – Term for a ‘squashed’ vowel sound, e.g. basket /baskit. May sound like a swallowed ‘uh’ sound. Also known as the most common vowel sound in English, represented as ∂ in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Only words with two or more syllables may have a schwa. It ‘happens’ in the second or third syllable woman/womun, contentment/contentmunt, hesitate/hesetate.

Syllable – A speech unit contained within a word, or constituting a whole word, which consists of one vowel plus any consonants, e.g. com/pu/ter Phonics – A generic term for any reading method that teaches the relationship between letters and sounds. A method of teaching reading based on the sounds of letters, groups of letters, and syllables.

General Terms Alphabet- A writing system based on phonemes (individual consonants and vowels)

Phonetic – speech sounds in words.

Code- Any system in which arbitrary symbols are assigned to units within a category. The numbers 1-10 represent units of quantity. Letters represent units of speech sounds ( phonemes).

Alphabet code – A writing system based on phonemes (sounds); symbols have been assigned to each sound – a letter or combination of letters; these represent the code.

Opaque alphabet code – An alphabetic writing system in which there are multiple spellings for the same sound

Synthetic Phonics – teaches from the sounds (phonemes) to the graphemes (letters); the sounds are taught in isolation then blended together (i.e. synthesised), all-through-the-word. The emphasis is on allthrough-the-word segmenting and blending from the start of teaching. Some programmes teach the 40+ sounds and their main spellings; a complete teaching of the 40+ sounds and all their spellings might be known as ‘linguistic phonics’.

Appendix

Appendix

Transparent alphabet code – An alphabetic writing system in which there is rarely more than one spelling for the same sound.

Phonetics – The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their production, combination, description, and representation by written symbols. During the 19th century, phonics was commonly used as a synonym for phonetics. In the 20th century, phonics acquired its present meaning as a method of teaching reading.

The Phonic Screening Test introduced by the Government in 2012 Consonant – A sound that involves contact and movement between one or more speech articulators

The phonics screening check is a short and simple assessment of phonic decoding. It consists of a list of 40 words, half real words and half non-words, which Year 1 children read to a teacher. Administering the assessment usually takes between four and nine minutes per child.

Vowel – A sound in which the articulators do not stop or curtail the flow of breath.Vowels add volume to speech.

The check is designed to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard and have grasped the essential skills that underpin good reading.

Consonant blend or consonant cluster – Two or more consonants in sequence in a word e.g str in street

The check includes non- words such as tox, bim, ulf, blan, geck, tord, thazz, quemp, jound, terg, fape,stroft and blurst illustrated by small monsters to indicate they are ‘nonsense’ words. Teachers should be aware of this and play with ‘legal’ syllables to build non-words. e.g ‘blur’ or ‘-ulf’ or ‘-ound’ are legal, they exist in English words. Don’t over do it! The reason for learning to read is to read real words and real books.

Decoding – Translating symbols back into sounds; from letters/symbols to sounds: reading 220

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Sound Sort – an activity which involves recognising that certain spellings can represent more than one sound and sorting the words into these different sounds, e.g. the spelling ‘ea’, can represent three sounds: /ee/ – l ea f, /e/ – b r ea d, and /a-e/ – g r ea t. Use the term sound switch (see below) when they need to try another sound!

NOTE: ‘ea’ as a unit is meaningless. The learner must always meet the grapheme/spelling within the context of a word. This strategy teaches the 4th Key. Sound Switch – error correct; if the learner reads great as ‘gret’, s/he sound switches to ‘great’ and self-corrects. This demonstrates awareness of the 4th Key. Syllables – are described as ‘chunks’ or ‘parts’ of words. They are split following speech patterns, for example: fu/nny or funn/y but spellings are never split: NOT fun-ny.

Note: splitting funn/y or litt/le for example, make noticing the spelling easier.

SRS teaches the learner how to split longer words into chunks or parts: e.g. com /pu/ ter.

‘Tricky’ spelling – identifying any difficult spelling within a word, for example: because – b e / c au se accommodation’ – double letters: a /cco/ mmo/ da/ tion or the /shun/ at the end of the word When a word has been broken into parts (a word puzzle) and the sound spellings identified within each part, the ‘tricky’ element stands out and is easy to learn.

Encoding – Transcribing sounds into symbols; from sounds to their spellings: spelling Phoneme – The smallest unit of speech that people can hear: corresponds to consonants and vowels (sounds).

Phoneme awareness – The ability to hear and remember the order of phonemes in words.

Phonological awareness – The ability to hear and remember a variety of units of sound within words, syllable, syllable fragment (onsets/rimes), phonemes.

Digraph – Two letters standing for one sound, e.g. ch and ur in ch ur ch Schwa vowel – Term for a ‘squashed’ vowel sound, e.g. basket /baskit. May sound like a swallowed ‘uh’ sound. Also known as the most common vowel sound in English, represented as ∂ in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Only words with two or more syllables may have a schwa. It ‘happens’ in the second or third syllable woman/womun, contentment/contentmunt, hesitate/hesetate.

Syllable – A speech unit contained within a word, or constituting a whole word, which consists of one vowel plus any consonants, e.g. com/pu/ter Phonics – A generic term for any reading method that teaches the relationship between letters and sounds. A method of teaching reading based on the sounds of letters, groups of letters, and syllables.

General Terms Alphabet- A writing system based on phonemes (individual consonants and vowels)

Phonetic – speech sounds in words.

Code- Any system in which arbitrary symbols are assigned to units within a category. The numbers 1-10 represent units of quantity. Letters represent units of speech sounds ( phonemes).

Alphabet code – A writing system based on phonemes (sounds); symbols have been assigned to each sound – a letter or combination of letters; these represent the code.

Opaque alphabet code – An alphabetic writing system in which there are multiple spellings for the same sound

Synthetic Phonics – teaches from the sounds (phonemes) to the graphemes (letters); the sounds are taught in isolation then blended together (i.e. synthesised), all-through-the-word. The emphasis is on allthrough-the-word segmenting and blending from the start of teaching. Some programmes teach the 40+ sounds and their main spellings; a complete teaching of the 40+ sounds and all their spellings might be known as ‘linguistic phonics’.

Appendix

Appendix

Transparent alphabet code – An alphabetic writing system in which there is rarely more than one spelling for the same sound.

Phonetics – The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their production, combination, description, and representation by written symbols. During the 19th century, phonics was commonly used as a synonym for phonetics. In the 20th century, phonics acquired its present meaning as a method of teaching reading.

The Phonic Screening Test introduced by the Government in 2012 Consonant – A sound that involves contact and movement between one or more speech articulators

The phonics screening check is a short and simple assessment of phonic decoding. It consists of a list of 40 words, half real words and half non-words, which Year 1 children read to a teacher. Administering the assessment usually takes between four and nine minutes per child.

Vowel – A sound in which the articulators do not stop or curtail the flow of breath.Vowels add volume to speech.

The check is designed to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard and have grasped the essential skills that underpin good reading.

Consonant blend or consonant cluster – Two or more consonants in sequence in a word e.g str in street

The check includes non- words such as tox, bim, ulf, blan, geck, tord, thazz, quemp, jound, terg, fape,stroft and blurst illustrated by small monsters to indicate they are ‘nonsense’ words. Teachers should be aware of this and play with ‘legal’ syllables to build non-words. e.g ‘blur’ or ‘-ulf’ or ‘-ound’ are legal, they exist in English words. Don’t over do it! The reason for learning to read is to read real words and real books.

Decoding – Translating symbols back into sounds; from letters/symbols to sounds: reading 220

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Reading and Spelling Skills

Memory

These skills are ‘intimately connected’ in the act of reading and spelling.

Segmenting – identifying each sound in a word by ‘sounding out’; separating each sound spelling by sounding out: splitting words into their individual sounds either by saying each sound or by saying each sound and writing it, e.g. the word ‘cat’ can be segmented c-a-t; the word ‘train’ can be segmented as t-r-ai-n. In order to spell a word the learner must segment it into its component sounds and choose the right grapheme (spelling) to represent the sound. Writing appears to go from sound to symbol, however the two processes (segmenting and blending) interact.

Blending – pushing/merging the individual sounds back again to make/pronounce the word. After a learner recognises (sounds out) each sound – not each letter (e.g. sh -i-p not s-h-i-p) – they merge(synthesize) each sound together to make the word. A learner is reading if they sound out the individual sounds, hear the whole word and say the whole word. Reading appears to go from symbol (the cue on the page) to sound. In reality the processes are interacting. See quote by Diane McGuinness below.

Sound Processing – the ability to hear and remember the individual sounds in a word. Learners need to be trained to hear/be aware of the individual sounds in words and the ‘transitivity’ of sounds (e.g. the sound /p/ can be at the beginning of a word, in the middle or at the end: ‘pot’, ‘pop’, ‘tap’, ‘spot’). This skill can be exercised by building words and incorporating a change, e.g. from ‘and’ to ‘sand’ to ‘hand’ to ‘had’.

This skill supports accurate spelling. Sound Processing is sometimes called ‘sound analysis’, ‘phoneme awareness’, ‘phoneme discrimination’ or ‘phoneme identification’.

NOTE: All SRS lessons are built around these key reading and spelling skills. The learner exercises these skills throughout each activity and the skills are re-emphasised in the supporting interactive worksheets.

The reversibility of the code is thus made clear at all times.

Recall memory – memory retrieved from a long term memory store without benefit of prompts or clues. For example an essay test involves recall memory.

Recognition memory – memory retrieved from a long term memory store that is assisted by prompts and clues. For example a multiple-choice test involves recognition memory.

Types of Learners Visual Learners: Learn through seeing; they process information best when they see it.

Auditory Learners: Learn through hearing and speaking; the auditory learner is very focused on speaking and listening. They often need to “say it to learn it.”

Kinaesthetic Learners: Learn through doing; the kinesthetic learner must “do” something to learn it.

They are ‘hands on’ learners.

Multi-Sensory Teaching and Learning: This means that all three modalities are used: visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. In this way the needs of ALL learners will be met. SRS is based on a wholly ‘multi-sensory’ approach where the learner sees what they hear and writes what they hear and see simultaneously.

In particular children and older learners who are struggling with reading and spelling will gain if the teaching is ‘multi-sensory’.

Segmenting and Blending “There is considerable confusion about the terms segmenting and blending and how these relate to reading and spelling. Many people believe that reading involves blending, and spelling involves segmenting.

According to this view, when we read, we rapidly translate letters into phonemes and blend them into a word.

When we spell, we say the word, segment the sounds, translate each sound into a letter or letters, and write it down. This is not what happens.

Children see an unfamiliar word ‘sting’.

To spell the word ‘sting’ the children say the word, hear each segment in sequence, and blend the segments into the word as they write. Segmenting and blending are intimately connected in both reading and spelling.

Even when reading and spelling are efficient, and it seems like processing is instantaneous, it is not. The same sound by sound analysis continues, only at a phenomenal speed. This is what is meant by automaticity.

Our brains operate in the realm of milliseconds, while conscious reflection operates in the realm of seconds.

We become aware of the interplay of these two processes when we see a word we cannot read or start to write a word we cannot spell.”

Diane McGuinness, Early Reading Instruction, MIT 2004, p162.

(these terms do not represent the ‘synthetic phonic’ approach to reading).

Basal Reader (US) or Reading Scheme (UK) – a reading programme that includes all elements of a curriculum; designed by education publishing houses for use in the classroom, for example The Oxford Reading Tree.

Onset – a technical term that refers to the initial consonant or consonants that precede a ‘rime’ (see below); ‘b’ in bag, ‘sw’ in swim, ‘str’ in ‘street’ represent an onset

Appendix

Appendix

To read the word, they sound out each phoneme (segmenting): /s/ /t/ /i/ /ng/.

Then they blend the sounds into the word and check the outcome. It is quite common for beginning readers and poor readers to segment correctly and blend incorrectly: /s/ /t/ /i/ /ng/- sing.

Further Reading Terminology

Rime – a technical term for the final portion of a word that ‘sounds like’ other words (rhymes), for example: ‘-and’ in ‘band’, ‘bland’, ‘brand’ or ‘-ag’ in: bag, rag, sag or ‘-im’ in: swim, brim, grim Sight words – printed words that children are asked to memorise visually as a string of letters or as a shape. For example the Dolch sight word lists 220. These are the first 24: a, can, I, go, get, see, me, have, not, did, run, and, my, the, is, to, you, in, like, said, it, for, was, we…

A true sight word contains rare spelling patterns (e.g. yot = yacht).There are very few. SRS suggests that: one, once, two, who, are, eye, are, the, of, are usefully treated as sight words, although they can all be decoded.

Try some tricky words yourself- specialist botanical, medical or scientific words that you do not read or spell easily!

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