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Thank you for choosing this Reading Champs Instructional Handbook (this publication). The information contained within this and other publications within this series is intended to provide a schema for sequential development of the basic skills necessary to succeed in learning to read--at any age. Each individual handbook presents a highly-focused view on a specific topic.

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Systematic Phonics Sequence:
Easy Start Diagnostic Inventory
Teaching Word Recognition

Being able to transfer the sound of a word into the spelled word itself is a critical step in developing literacy. Most teachers of ESL students can tell you that being able to speak the language is a vital step to learning how to read and write, but many students find it difficult to transfer familiar sounds to their printed (written) counterpart. In most non-English languages, vowels only have one sound and some of "our" consonants do not make the same sound for them as they do for us. "V" might sound like a "B", "ch" might not sound like an "sh", "LL" should sound like "Y" ... but you get the idea.

Diagnostic information from formal or informal assessment is important. Without this, it is difficult to know which elements of the systematic phonics sequence to teach or review. If you do not have this information already, look at the Easy Start Diagnostic Inventory and Informal Reading Inventory elsewhere in this series.

For example: Do your students know basic sight words? What skills have they acquired for sounding out unknown words? Do they know the short vowel sounds? Do they know the long vowel sounds? Can they blend letters and sounds easily to form words (for example s-a-t to "sat")? Can they read the consonant blends (such as st, br, etc.)

Do they know the consonant combinations or diagraphs ch, sh, th, and wh? Can they recognize vowel combinations such as oa, ai, ou, and ow? Can they read (and pronounce properly) vowels followed by 'r'; such as ar, er, ir, or, ur?

CSML-007 / 090220

Copyright 2007, 2009 -- Rita M. Wirtz, M.A., and Donald E. Werve, Jr., M.Ed. -- All Rights Reserved