Decoding Strategies
TO INCREASE READING FLUENCY
Action Plan
WHAT WAS IMPLEMENTED?
I implemented explicit decoding instruction, Elkonin boxes, and repeated reads during guided reading groups and guided reading rotations. These strategies were implemented to help students improve oral reading fluency through the improvement of decoding skills.
WHY WAS IT
IMPLEMENTED?
Explicit decoding instruction focuses on teaching students reliable and effective strategies for reading individual words. This is time that students are given to review words they know and incorporate new words that build on a previous skill. Teaching students a decoding strategy provides readers with tools and strategies that they can use to read unfamiliar words.
Elkonin boxes or sound boxes help students decode unknown words by segmenting the words into smaller parts they know. This technique uses boxes provided by the teacher based on the number of distinct sounds a word has. Students can use a dry erase marker to write the sounds in each box. The student then slides a small chip into the boxes as they say the sound. Teachers often begin with simple consonant-vowel-consonant words to help students see that words can be broken up, or segmented.
Repeated readings can help students develop automaticity and fluency with words by reading a passage more than once. This intervention improves reading rate, accuracy, as well as comprehension. Students are asked to read a passage while a teacher or peer keeps record of words missed or skipped. Using this intervention is a strategy that can increase a student’s reading rate, but more importantly, it can help identify underlying causes for non-fluent reading such as decoding errors.
HOW WAS IT
IMPLEMENTED?
During guided reading, students were given many opportunities to show what they knew about words and phonics patterns. Students read timed passages, completed multiple choice assessments, and read stories that used words and phonics patterns being taught that week.
While my students read, I collected data on decoding strategies I noticed them using. If they became stuck on a word, I used that as a teaching moment to point out what strategy may work best with that word.
Students would read the same passage five times in a week. After the one minute read, they would graph their results on their own personal graphs to see their progress each day. Data was collected from the errors they made to guide my instruction.
Students were also given a variety of opportunities to use and manipulate new words. They used Elkonin boxes to practice any new words they did not know in the repeated read or to review any phonics skills.
WITH WHOM
WAS IT
IMPLEMENTED?
Explicit decoding instruction, Elkonin boxes, and repeated reads were implemented with all 17 of first grade students. However, my data focused on six students of high, average, and low level reading abilities. The students were selected based on their performance on the AIMSweb PLUS reading assessments as well as observations during guided reading. These students worked with myself and my CADRE associate.
HOW WERE THESE STRATEGIES DIFFERENTIATED?
Students who were on an IEP, an Individualized Education Plan, were given a one-on-one setting for repeated reads that worked best for them. The graphs used to record the number of words for my lower readers went up to 125 words per minute rather than 200 words per minute to help with student confidence and anxieties. Students got to experience words in a variety of ways each day through Elkonin boxes, word work, and stories in the district's reading curriculum. Students who were reading the On-Level Fresh Reads successfully with no errors on a consistent basis were moved up to the Advanced selection of Fresh Reads.
Timeline
