OnTrack Reading

Preparation:

Write the Main Rule and its Three Exceptions on the board again.

Choose five challenging content-area words from your text or the class’s assigned reading.

Familiarize yourself with the lesson plan.

Class time elapsed: 0 minutes

Review the Main Rule and the Three Exceptions

Remind the class that the First Vowel Sound should always be attempted first in an unfamiliar word.

Point out that a Marker is called that because it marks the preceding vowel as a First Vowel Sound.

Point out that Doubled Consonants were devised to preserve the First Vowel Sound so that words like hopping wouldn’t look the same as words like hoping which have Second Vowel Sounds in them

Add that whenever a chunk has another sound added to it under the Third Exception, that chunk almost always also uses the First Vowel Sound.

Sum up by saying: “So, if you always use the First Vowel Sound in every chunk on your first attempt at decoding an unfamiliar word, any chunks that had more sounds added to it by an Exception are probably being correctly pronounced. This means that you can work on the other chunks and leave the Exception Chunks alone. They are already correct. This is why it is so important to always try the First Vowel Sound on your first attempt at the word.”

Class time elapsed: 3 minutes

Discuss the Third Vowel Sounds of a, e, i, o and u

a: The /o/ sound in want, ago and father

e: None

i: The /ee/ sound in ski, taxi and ravine

o: The /oo/ sound in to, do and movie

u: The /oo/ sound in truth, flu and super. (Also, mention that the letter u has a fourth sound, the /oul/ sound in put, push, pull, bush and bull, but that they already know most of the words where the fourth sound is used.)

Class time elapsed: 8 minutes

Write one of the challenging content-area words on the board without chunking it. Discuss chunking it according to the Main Rule, applying any Exceptions as they occur. Use First Vowel Sounds for the single vowel letters and a common option for any vowel digraphs, such as ea, ou and ie.

Write the word in its chunked form next to the original word, leaving a space between each chunk and marking a 2 or 3 over any single vowel letter that is not the First Vowel Sound. Underline all digraphs and put an accent mark on the strongest syllable.

Repeat this process for the other content-area vocabulary words you’ve chosen, discussing any new code that surfaces, such as the digraph ou representing the /oo/ sound in the word routine, as well as the ending digraph ne representing the /n/ sound (which is quite common.)

Conclude by telling the class that you will be putting about five such vocabulary words up on the board each day and discussing how the code works in them. Tell them to suggest words that they found difficult to decode in the assigned material, as well.

Class time elapsed: 10 minutes

Notes to the Teacher:

Applying the Third Exception results in what phonics teachers like to call a closed syllable, and closed syllables nearly always have short vowel sounds (First Vowel Sounds) in them. Thus, trying the First Vowel Sound results in a correct result when the chunk is added to under the Third Exception. (The “ol” and “al” words discussed in a previous lesson violate this quite often, e.g., gol-den and fal ter.)

That’s it! Ten lessons of ten minutes each. I suspect that some will take 15 or 20 minutes, and that you’ll have to split a few of them up if you’ve only allotted ten minutes per class period, but at worst you should be able to complete the entire lesson plan structure in 20 days or less.

If you follow up by decoding content-area vocabulary words on a daily basis, both you and your students should become quite comfortable with the English code, including all of its various pronunciation options and even the spelling options. The spelling ability of many of your students might improve significantly, since they will no longer be oblivious to the internal construction of many longer words.

To assist you in organizing the English code in your head I’ve included two PDF files here that you can download. They list the options for the vowel and consonant spellings which have more than one common pronunciation. The most common option is listed first, the second most common is listed second, etc., so when coding a word like trouble, split it after the vowel sound, trou ble, underline the digraphs ou and le and put a 4 over the ou to denote the /u/ sound.

Download the Vowel Overlap Options

Download the Consonant Overlap Options

Return to the Table of Contents

The next topic in the Guide discusses ideas for modifying the Spalding Method (one of the best full-classroom methods of reading instruction, in my opinion) to be consistent with the instructional techniques used in the Junior High Phonics Program and in the OnTrack Reading Advanced Code Workbook.

Next topic: The Spalding Method, or return to the OnTrack Reading Home Page.