We’ve posted a lot of information on this blog about teaching right-brained, visual/spatial children to read, but some concepts bear retelling because they are so important. A right-brained learner needs so much to see all the material they are taught with a global view so they can find patterns in it. What follows are some ideas for teaching sound spelling patterns to right-brained learners. By the way, I taught all my students this way, as even the predominantly left-brained learners gained more from this approach than from concepts taught in isolation.
But first, I wanted to share a few links that might help as you teach your students to read. The first link is to a blog post that gives some ideas for helping children transition from stylized SnapWords™ sight word cards to unadorned high-frequency words in text. Next is a post that contains tips for teaching right-brained students to read and then a post on teaching the long vowel sounds in a story before having them attempt to read it. The last link I wanted to share is to a free booklet of activities to use in learning and reviewing SnapWords™. This booklet provides teachers and parents with plenty of ideas for not only recognizing high-frequency words, but also for comprehension and using them correctly in sentences and in writing.
We recently came out with a book called The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns that details all the sound spellings in English. The lessons are done for you in the book, but the following might clarify how to teach using this approach.
Teaching sound spellings:
Let’s say you are going to tackle long A vowel sounds.
1. On your whiteboard or chart paper, list the various spellings like this:
a-e ay ai a
(Also, use pages 16-17 in Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns)
Tell the students that when they see these letters, they will know to say A (long sound of a).
2. Under a-e write a few of the following words in a column so your students can see the pattern that is made of a-e in all the words:
Face, lace, mace, pace, race,
bade, fade, jade, made, wade,
age, cage, page, rage, sage, wage,
bake, cake, fake, lake, make, rake, take, wake,
bale, dale, gale, hale, male, pale, sale, tale,
came, tame, dame, fame, game, lame, name, same, tame,
bane, cane, lane, mane, pane, sane, vane, wane,
cape, gape, nape, tape,
base, case, vase,
ate, date, fate, gate, hate, late, mate, rate,
cave, gave, pave, rave, save, wave,
daze, faze, gaze, haze, maze, raze
3. Have the children use their whiteboards. Tell them you are going to call out words that use the a-e pattern. Don’t mix them up. Start with the “ace” words and call them out one at a time--face, lace, etc.--using the collection of words above.
4. Next have them start a new spelling. Tell them this one will be “ade.” Call out the ade words from the list above.
5. Continue until you have done all the words listed above even if you break this into two sessions. The reason for including all those words is that they will learn most easily that this is a spelling pattern that occurs throughout our language and it will be easier for them to notice words that include a-e after having practiced.
6. Do page 16 in the Sounds book by having them highlight in yellow only the letters a-e, nothing else. Read the sentences together and notice how the pictures illustrate the sentences. When you feel they are ready, have them use their whiteboards and you read one sentence at a time very slowly so they can write the target words (the ones in bold print). When they can do this pretty easily, tell them excitedly that you are going to bump up the difficulty level and you are going to mix up the words. Please do not use letter names or tell them the spellings of the words. Sound out the words and encourage them to sound out loud as they write them. I always made my students sound out loud no matter how old they were. It makes a huge difference for them.
WORDS for AY:
Bay, day, gay, hay, jay, lay, may, nay, pay, ray, say, way, bray, clay, cray, gray, play, pray, slay, spray, stay, stray, sway, tray.
(Point out that when the students hear long a at the END of words, it will be spelled AY.)
WORDS for AI: Also use page 17 in Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns.
Aid, laid, maid, paid, raid
Ail, bail, fail, hail, jail, mail, nail, pail, rail, sail, tail, wail
Lain, main, pain, rain, vain, wain
Bait, gait, wait
(Point out that when the students hear long a in the MIDDLE of words, it will be spelled AI.)
The exception to this is MAY-BE, however, the AY comes at the end of a syllable in that word.
This same rule applies to words with OI and OY. OI in the middle of words, OY at the end of words except LOY-AL and ROY-AL.
Be sure to do all this to give your right-brained learners a solid base before having them read the Easy-for-Me™ Books. When you are ready to introduce a story, scan the storyline with them to find their sight words (which you can post on the wall near where they are reading) and to locate words that use the long A spellings. If during reading they come to a sight word and hesitate, rather than letting them guess wrong, simply point to the stylized word as a prompt. In subsequent readings of the stories you could turn the SnapWords™ over so the backs of the cards are visible.
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