Have you ever come across students who stop reading and then look up when they get stuck on a particular word? They might be afraid of making a mistake or simply unaware of the decoding strategies they could use. “Sound it out.” This is what kids usually hear from their educators, parents, and peer helpers. At times, it’s all children do when approaching tricky words. You might have seen students who only say every sound in words and it often takes them a prolonged period to get through a page. Usually, by the time they get to the end of the sentence, they have forgotten the start.

Fortunately, this article can guide students in using several decoding strategies as required. When students rely on only one decoding strategy, they tend to become discouraged when it doesn’t work and eventually give up.

Every student can learn to be a flexible reader. They can try alternate sounds and different strategies to help them decode those challenging words.

DECODING READING STRATEGIES

Whenever students begin to read, they mostly start by looking at the pictures. It’s one of the comprehension strategies they apply, without even noticing it! As such, you should encourage them and approve that it’s a strategy that may help them comprehend and improve their reading. Quite frankly, some students may find the transition to focusing on the text to be difficult. But, the acknowledgment and encouragement of what they’re doing well will aid in fueling their desire to take risks.

All educators should teach strategies explicitly. They should think out loud about the strategies they employ to help you figure out the difficult words. It would be prudent to use a book they’ve previously read so that the students may focus on the decoding instead of the comprehension. The following strategies will help:

Begin by creating a solid foundation for phonological awareness

First, you need to consider the importance of a solid foundation of phonological awareness. Each student needs to be able to hear the distinctions between two sounds, break any word into its singular sounds and even blend those sounds. Quite frankly, phonological awareness is commonly taught in Kindergarten and 1stgrade alone and to progress whether or not kids have understood the concepts. Quality phonological awareness instruction entails teaching advanced phonemic awareness concepts like manipulating phonemes. Studies have proven that it’s also vital to teach these phonological skills to the degree of overlearning and automaticity.

Syllable Types & Syllable Division

This decoding strategy can be the first step when a student encounters an unknown word. Once a student locates vowels, and syllable divisions and then identifies syllable types, s/he will be able to break any word into bite-size pieces. In most cases, interventions fall short here.

Marking vowels

The vowels are the most challenging parts of most words when it comes to most students. Locating and marking the vowels facilitates syllable division, as well as pronunciation and decoding. It would help to teach kids the breve and macron markings to help them mark vowels with the right sound. Additionally, saying the actual vowel sound before trying to blend the word is usually helpful.

Searching for familiar spelling patterns

Searching for familiar spelling patterns like digraphs, chunks, or blends is also an integral skill that can help with decoding words. Kids can make connections from familiar words to unknown words that have a similar spelling pattern. For example, if a student already knows the word cold, it may help them read a word like golden or withhold. It would also be best l if students identify patterns such as silent letters.

Segmenting & blending

Students must be proficient at segmenting and blending. It’s a phonemic awareness skill conducted orally before the introduction of different spelling patterns. In case a student doesn’t know how to blend, they won’t have the required skills to decode new words. Similarly, being able to segment any word into sounds is vital when it comes to spelling.

Recognizing affixes, base words & roots

Apart from breaking a particular word into syllables, being able to locate and comprehend affixes, base words and roots is an essential element of reading and spelling the trickiest words. This understanding is often crucial when it comes to spelling, as well as for pronunciation of words and certain word parts. It’s highly beneficial for decoding multisyllabic words.

Emphasize the use of meaning clues

Even the most proficient reader will need to apply context clues when it comes to reading and understanding heteronyms. These are words that share the same spelling but are pronounced differently and have different meanings. Some examples include bow (front of a boat, ribbon), wind (breeze/roll-up), and sow (plant seeds, female pig).

Students should learn how to use their fingers to mask certain words and word parts

Marking up a word with color or pencil is certainly helpful. However, there are moments in each student’s life when this kind of text marking isn’t an option. Educating students on how to cover syllables or suffixes with their fingers is a great substitute that generally makes decoding instruction less visually overwhelming and more multisensory.

Trace new syllables or difficult word parts

Whenever a student is facing difficulties with decoding a given word part, they can trace that part on the desk or table while they say the sounds. Apart from making the word part much more memorable, the act of tracing usually activates the kinesthetic and sensory pathways that students used when they originally learned a particular word.

Set them up for success

Well, there’s much that instructors can do to set any struggling reader or a student with dyslexia up for success. One of the fundamental things is to choose decodable text carefully that’s controlled and within the kid’s zone of proximal development. Picking fonts and font size keenly can also play a huge role in a student’s success.

All things considered, teaching a student to think about their thinking (become metacognitive) regarding decoding in reading will be useful in many ways. The key first step is to model the above decoding strategies to demonstrate to a kid how you could think your way through your reading to decode new words. Transfer the task slowly onto them while ensuring less scaffolding from you.

You should also have a healthy reading habit of asking children to implement the decoding strategies separately. The gradual release of responsibility is generally developmentally appropriate. Let’s take a closer look into this.

How to Foster Independence

As previously stated, if you’d like students to utilize strategies independently, you need to restrain yourself from helping too much as you read with them. That means when a student gets stuck on a word, rather than telling them that word, wait! And when they gaze at you for assistance, wait some more as you look at the book. Although this can be quite challenging at first, stick with it! Always encourage any attempt they make and tell them that it’s good they’re trying a strategy.

Once they try, rather than telling them the term or even the strategy to implement, you could request them to think of a particular strategy they could try. If they have a hard time, just remind them to check out the anchor chart. Get them to try a strategy to find out whether it works. And in case it doesn’t, keep encouraging them to think of a different strategy they could try. Eventually, that student will attempt decoding that word.

And what happens next? They gaze at you again! But it’s time to ignore them again. And when they ask you whether it’s right, avoid confirming or denying. Ask them to look at the picture to see whether it makes sense. Remember, this is a key step. Although you certainly want to reaffirm when your kids are correct, by doing so, you might take away the independence they require to figure it all out for themselves.

As an instructor, it’s worth knowing that if they’re having difficulties with too many words, then the book might not be at their reading level. You should focus on giving them enough of a challenge, but without frustrating them.

Conclusion

Teachers should ensure that they fill their students’ reading toolboxes with a few things:

  • a wide range of decoding strategies for solving unknown words,
  • explicitly instructing children on how to use them, and
  • offering many practice opportunities.

Each student should confidently solve reading exercises without resorting to guessing or even skipping words. Quite frankly, these are flimsy strategies.

All students should know that a strategy is basically a plan to do a particular thing WELL. Skipping words or guessing isn’t a plan for reading well. Kids should be empowered with quality strategies that work. When you ask them an important question like, “what should you do when you get to a word you don’t know?” they should be able to communicate what to do. Hopefully, the above decoding reading strategies will help!