Cycle 8

This task returns to blending words with final stop phonemes: it, odd, and ate. (Own has two continuous phonemes.Some and seen have three continuous phonemes.) However, this time the instructor does not tell the students any of the words before saying them slowly.

This task introduces smaller characters that the students won’t read.  They shouldn’t pause their finger beneath them either.

Later, the curriculum will teach students how to read various letter combinations and double consonants and how to do so without using the specialized orthography.  In these early stages though, teaching students to ignore the “small sounds” enables them to read words like paid, duck, and game in story passages far earlier than they would otherwise be able to.  This allows them to begin developing their other reading skills (vocabulary, print concepts, syntactical awareness, fluency, prosody, comprehension skills, etc.) while they are still learning their sound-symbol correspondences.

This is the first Word Reading task in which students read five words.

Correcting the student:

• If the student’s finger stops beneath the small a, or if the student reads an /ă/ sound, say: “Don’t read small sounds like that.  Just read the big sounds, and skip any small ones, like this: /ēēēt/.  Let’s touch and read it together: /ēēēt/.  Good.  Your turn by yourself…”

If the student says a wrong sound or pauses between the sounds, follow the flowchart to correct them.

Remember that students shouldn’t write a line over the e but should still say /ēēē/.

As in all types of tasks in this curriculum, students must do the task correctly before moving to the next task. But, in Writing tasks, mastery means saying the correct sound, not writing a perfect symbol. Don’t worry if the student isn’t yet able to write smooth lines. It is still worth it for them to do this task. Applaud their effort, and move on.