OnTrack Reading

Integrating the OnTrack Reading Phonics Curriculum’s method of decoding multisyllable words (see Multisyllable Decoding-1) with the Spalding Method as I’ve suggested revising it here turns out to be a trivial matter.

All you have to do is read and understand the Main Rule for chunking multisyllable words along with the Three Exceptions to the Main Rule, and then just apply them when you dictate words from the Ayres list. That is, you break the chunks up according to the Main Rule and its Three Exceptions, instead of following Spalding’s syllable boundaries.

Instructionally, you don’t even technically have to teach your child the rule and the exceptions, since most children will easily begin to infer the patterns you’re applying as long as you do so consistently. However, it can’t hurt to elaborate the reason for each chunk boundary either, and in doing so your child will then certainly pick up the method quickly. And with struggling readers, it is better to be explicit because such children are less likely to infer the patterns on their own.

The Main Rule and the Three Exceptions are repeated here for convenience.

Main Rule:

Stop each chunk after the vowel sound and try the First Vowel Sound.

Three Exceptions:

Add the next sound to the chunk if it is a doubled consonant.

Add the next sound to the chunk if the following chunk is “hard to say“.

Now, with Spalding’s marking system, your child will already be familiar with the concept of a First Vowel Sound, since it’s the first option for any vowel phonogram. You will, however, have to explain what is meant by a vowel sound.

And, if you introduce the phonograms x, ck, tch and dge as being markers, as instructed, they will also understand what you mean when you tell them to add a marker to the chunk. You will, however, have to tell them that dg becomes the marker in a word with more than one chunk (because the e, if present, usually ends up in the vowel sound of the following chunk.)

All that remains is for you to explain the concept of “hard to say” to your child, and they will then have all three exceptions at hand. Then, when you chunk a word for your child, in preparation for his entering it in the notebook, you just consistently mention the reason for stopping each chunk at a particular place with comments like “we stop after the vowel sound,” or “add the marker x to the chunk” or “add the /n/ sound because ‘ntil’ is hard to say” (un-til.)

You will find that dividing words according to the Main Rule and the Three Exceptions becomes quite easy after a little practice, and that coding words according to the revised phonogram structure suggested here is also very simple to do. However, to help ease the transition from Spalding’s coding of the words in the Ayres list to the one I’m suggesting here, I’ve gone through the first few hundred words and picked out examples that differ from Spalding’s coding. These examples are all coded for you and are listed in the following PDF file that you can download.

Download the Coded Ayres Words

Regarding coding, two types of words occur in which I usually give a child a choice as to how to think about the code in them. Near the end of the downloaded list above you’ll begin to find words that end in age, such as cabbage and words that end in ance, such as distance. The letter a in these words is coded as the third sound of the phonogram a (as in want) because that is actually the closest sound of the three choices. It’s really a schwa, of course.

The choice I offer a child is to decide on the first exposure whether, for purposes of better spelling, he wishes to think of the age ending as rhyming with the word age, (in which case the a-e phonogram is underlined and the g is marked with a 2) and whether he wishes to think of the ance ending as rhyming with the word dance in which case the phonogram a is left unmarked. Alternatively, you could make this decision for your child in advance and choose to present such words to rhyme with either age and dance.

This completes my attempt to revise the Spalding Method using elements of the Phono-Graphix curriculum as well as elements of the OnTrack Reading Phonics Curriculum that I’ve developed over the past few years. Again, I’ve never tried teaching a child using the Spalding Method, but I have used all of the techniques I’m suggesting with my own clients and have gotten excellent results in terms of the both code knowledge they’ve acquired and their ability to attack unfamiliar multisyllable words. If you do attempt to take all this and use it with your child, I would really appreciate some feedback on how it went.

And, for your convenience, all of the PDF files mentioned in this section on the Spalding Method are gathered together on the next page so that you can find them if you later decide to download them.

Next: PDF Files for Revising Spalding, or return to the OnTrack Home Page.