OnTrack Reading

Preparation: Write the Main Rule on the board.
Write the letters a, e, i, o and u on the board
Select words from the word list below or download this PDF file containing them: Download the Word List for Lesson 6

Class time elapsed: 0 minutes

Ask the class to recite the First Vowel Sounds as you point to them on the board in random order.

Ask the class if they remember what the Second Vowel Sound of each letter is. (Answer: the letter names, /ae/, /ee/, /ie/, /oe/ and /ue/.

Ask the class to recite the Second Vowel Sounds as you point to the letters on the board in random order.

Ask the class to respond with the correct choice when you point to a random letter while you say either “First” or “Second.”

Class time elapsed: 3 minutes

Write the word minus on the board.

Ask a student who is least likely to recognize the word to read the word.

Make corrections until the student is saying “m/i/ nus” using the First Vowel Sound in both chunks (unless your student happens to hit the correct pronunciation in the process.)

Ideal Situation: Student ends up at mi nus, and doesn’t recognize the word.

Write the word minus on the board again but with a space between the chunks (mi nus.)

Ask the same student what the Second Vowel Sound is, pointing to the letter i.

Correct the student until the response is /ie/.

Ask the same student to say the first chunk using the /ie/ sound (pointing to the letter i.)

Ask the student to say both chunks again.

See if the student can recognize the word minus after this effort.

Less Than Ideal Situation: Student immediately gets the word right after a couple of corrections, jumping right past the m/i/ nus indicated by the Main Rule without trying it.

Inform the student that his first attempt should have been m/i/ nus (using First Vowel Sounds throughout the word) and that he should then avoid jumping to a guess (minutes and menace are common guesses here) and decide that m/i/ nus is not a word. Only then should he test the Second Vowel Sound in the first chunk and see if that results in a word. Point out that he did this immediately, almost automatically, and that that is the end goal, but that you have to make sure he understands the steps to follow.

Class time elapsed: 6 minutes

Move to the next word on the list. Write taper on the board.

Ask another relatively weak reader to read the word, saying each chunk separately.

Ideal situation: Student says tapper.

Tell the student that the word could be tapper, but that tapper is spelled with two p’s, so it’s not tapper, but that so far he’s done everything correctly.

Point to the letter a and ask what the Second Vowel Sound is. Get just the response /ae/ if possible, without the student jumping to the whole word.

Ask the student to say the first chunk using the /ae/ sound and then to read the word.

Make corrections as necessary until the student says taper correctly.

Class time elapsed: 7 minutes

Continue to write words from the list on the board and calling on students to read them. If they don’t know the word immediately, they are to apply the Main Rule first and then test the Second Vowel Sound. The words on the list with three syllables were chosen specifically because changing the vowel sound in the first syllable to the Second Vowel Sound will generate the correct pronunciation.

Word List for this Lesson

2-Syllable Words
amen (a men)
bacon (ba con)
basic (ba sic)
basis (ba sis)
saber (sa ber)
sacred (sa cred)
tasted (ta sted)
raven (ra ven)
hatred (ha tred)
crisis (cri sis)
sinus (si nus)
client (cli ent)
diet (di et)
item (i tem)
pilot (pi lot)
silent (si lent)
riot (ri ot)
tripod (tri pod)
modem (mo dem)
open (o pen)
broken (bro ken)
program (pro gram)
bogus (bo gus)
bonus (bo nus)
crocus (cro cus)
spoken (spo ken)
hotel (ho tel)
locust (lo cust)
omit (o mit)
poet (po et)
protect (pro tect)
robot (ro bot)
frozen (fro zen)
siphon (si phon)
humid (hu mid)
cubic (cu bic)
unit (u nit)

3-Syllable Words
violent (vi o lent)
violin (vi o lin)
violence (vi o lence)
coconut (co co nut)
prohibit (pro hi bit)
photograph (pho to graph)

Class time elapsed: 10 minutes

Notes to the Teacher: Your students should be beginning to realize that it is useful to know the First Vowel Sounds using this approach, and they should be starting to commit them to memory intentionally by now.

Also, the reason for picking on the weaker readers for the examples is not to embarrass them, but to attempt to get someone to illustrate the steps in the process. A student who knows the word “minus” on sight is not the best choice here, but you will need to judge whether or not a particular student will be too embarrassed by failure when you decide whom to call upon for the examples in this lesson.

Regarding corrections, students will sometimes seem to be approaching a correct result and then will revert back to an original guess even after they have correctly stated both chunks in the word. For example, a student might say m/i/-nus…minutes! at first, and after correcting will arrive at m/ie/-nus, but when blending the two chunks together, the /t/ sound resurfaces and he says minutes again. This is quite normal behavior for struggling readers and is probably because their main strategy up to now has been “reaching for a guess.” Once the guess is established, it’s hard to shake. Use judgment as to how frustrated a particular student is becoming if he fails, after two or three efforts, to shake the guess, and simply tell him the answer. Then, tell him that it’s the guessing habit that is getting in the way and explain that it’s very difficult to overcome, but that it can be done as he gets better at applying the Main Rule and then testing for a different vowel sound option.

Your goal is always to get the Main Rule properly applied, and then to ask the student “what else can this be?” while indicating the vowel letter that needs to be tested for its Second Vowel Sound.

Students, meanwhile, need to progress by dumping the guessing habit in favor of a strategy that works. To do that, they need to learn to trust themselves to apply the Main Rule and then judge whether the “word” they’re coming up with is a word at all, and if it is not, to test the vowel sounds by trying another viable option which, up to now, is just the Second Vowel Sound.

For now, though, stick to working with the word lists in daily lessons and avoid giving your students the impression that they are becoming prepared to read most multisyllable words. They probably still have a lot of code to learn and they have not yet learned enough in these mini lessons to comfortably decode most multisyllable words.

Next mini-lesson: Exception 1 - Markers

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