Read by Sounds and by Sight!

 Today I'm excited to chat about one of my favorite things... structured literacy is an area that I'm passionate about, and I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about it, so let's dive in! 

One area of focus for me has been working with students to develop strong phonemic awareness/decoding skills. Since my first Comprehensive training (and since retaking the training this summer) with IMSE I've had opportunities to work with students and apply these strategies. One of my favorite activities is using the blending board with large sound cards in which students blend the sounds into words after they study the sound. 

I've also attended some workshops through IDA and Learning Ally in which I heard Dr. David Kilpatrick share his research. These experiences completely renovated how I view and now explain the difficulty students experience being able to read words without having to sound them out. Dr. David Kilpatrick describes this process as orthographic mapping. and they are now to of my favorite words because it's the description many teachers I have been looking for to describe the process. It's how we can explain to families how their children learn to read words by sight, and it's helped me as a case coordinator for I&RS to consider what area of reading students need the most help with. 

Now when I hear others use the term "sight words"  I always ask for clarification. I personally think we've all been using the term incorrectly, and one of my goals is to use and define it correctly. Considering orthographic mapping, sight words are any words that can be read, (well, simply said, ) by sight. These include phonetically regular as well as irregular words.  

High frequency words such as "is, the, was" are words seen frequently in text. These and other words that do not have a typical phonetic pattern should be explicitly taught. There were updates to the red word routine through IMSE's training that help with this, and make it complete. The best part of the routine is when the teacher and student analyzes each sound of the word to determine if it's expected or unexpected. These are things we should be consciously aware of, especially how we determine what constitutes a sight word. 

Let's all do our part as teachers of reading and literacy leaders to learn more about this process, deliver instruction effectively, and communicate clearly to others what it is and how it works, so word spreads fast and we can infuse best practices for our students and their families to assist them in reading! What are we waiting for? Let's start now! 

Final thoughts: Keep researching orthographic mapping, Dr. David Kilpatrick, and other resources that can help you learn more about it. Keep using the term "sight words" correctly and encourage others to do so. And finally, keep trying strategies that will continue to help students with decoding and reading fluently. Every ounce of effort is worth it! 


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