Word Recognition Interventions

After a student has learned to associate letters with their sounds, she is ready to move on to apply this knowledge to decode words. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to support your students' ability to decode single syllable words. As you read, consider which of these interventions best aligns with your students' strengths and needs in the whole learner domains. 

The following information has been sourced from Henry, M. (2010). Unlocking literacy: Effective decoding & spelling instruction (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: P.H. Brookes.

Blending sounds together is an extremely important linguistic task for students to learn as they begin to read words. Card blending drills help students identify changes in syllable pattern as the teacher changes the letters that are displayed. Initial consonant graphemes, including blends and digraphs, are laid face up on the table, followed by medial vowels, and then by final consonants to make one-syllable words or non-words. For groups, the teacher can set cards on the ledge of the chalkboard or use a flip chart with three columns. The teacher exchanges one or more of the displayed cards with new cards to make new words, real or nonsense, and the students sound out each grapheme before saying the complete syllable. Cards should be placed in a logical order following correct orthographic sequence. For example, x should not come in the initial position, and -ck should not follow a vowel digraph. The letters f, l, or s should not be placed singly at the end of the word, because each is usually doubled following a short vowel sound. Beginning readers need a great deal of exposure to card drills. Teachers are reminded to change the card infrequently at first, giving students the opportunity to practice each new letter and sound.

While blending sounds [using] cards, students should connect the vowel sound to the initial consonant sound to prevent choppy blending. The teacher should be sure that students say each word as a whole after saying its separate sounds. Once students can blend easily and fluidly, the blending drills may be given less often, and word lists can be substituted to enhance automaticity and fluency. Students read the words in the list, blending when necessary. Word lists are more effective for learning words and non-words with four, five, and six sound units and for learning multisyllabic words.

Following the card blending drills, teachers generally review a previously taught pattern or rule with students, introduce a new pattern or rule, and provide numerous opportunities for practice. Students read words, phrases, and sentences containing the target patterns and spell words from dictation. 

Explicit Instruction

To support your students' understanding of how to decode single syllable words, you should start by explicitly teaching this concept. This sounds like:

Explain the Skill/Concept. Define decoding graphemes and explain the activity ("Decoding means that we are going to sound out letters and turn them into a word." "Today we'll be blending letter cards." )
Model Skill with Examples. Think aloud about how you blend graphemes. ("I see three letters and I say the sounds they make, and then blend them into a word.../b/ /a/ /t/. Bat").
Model Skill with Non-Examples. Think aloud about how you identify when you've made an error ("Watch as I sound them out again /b/ /a/ /t/. Tab. Wait, that's not right, I'll try again. /b/ /a/ /t/. Bat."). 
Practice the Skill. Engage in the activity below to practice the skill with your student, providing feedback as necessary. ("Now you try sounding out the letters to make a word.")

Activity A: Decoding Single Syllable Words, Letter Card Drill
Give the student three (or more) cards to sound out into a word. "Here are three letter cards. I'd like you to say a sound for each letter and blend the sounds to read the word. Make sure to repeat the word after you sound it out."

Decoding Single Syllable Words, Letter Card Drill in Action 

Watch this clip to see how to execute a Decoding Single Syllable Words, Letter Card Drill. Notice the brisk pace the teacher uses to maximize instruction time and increase "At-Bats."

Activity Note: A variation of this activity is called Make a Word. In this strategy, teachers put letter cards in front of students. Then, they pronounce a word (such as 'bat') and ask student to make the word 'bat' using the graphemes (or letter cards) in front of them. This activity can also be implemented by having students write down the word instead of using word cards. Implementation note: You can use this activity to teach all the syllable types, not just CVC words. 

Activity B: Word Cards

Word Cards give students an opportunity to authentically practice sounding out the letters in a word. Word cards may or may not include a visual prompt where graphemes are separated (see example below). During a Word Cards activity, identify words that align to your objective and prompt students to read each word as fluently as possible. For example, if you recently taught the /am/ phoneme, you might choose sham, bam, ham, ram, and pam for a Word Cards activity.  "Look at these letters. See if you can blend them together to read a whole word."

To download thousands of Word Cards, click here.

Word Cards in Action 

Watch this clip to see how to execute Word Cards. Notice the different variations the teacher implements to keep the activity from feeling repetitive.

Activity C: Word Lists

Select five to six words that are aligned to a particular decoding skill (e.g., if you recently taught students the /sh/ phoneme, choose five to six words that contain /sh/ such as ship, push, dish, shame, dash) and about ten words that contain previously mastered phonemes for skill maintenance. Present each word in isolation, prompting the student to decode the word and then read it fluently. This is also an opportunity to ask questions that align with your objective; for example, ask the student, “Where is the /sh/ sound in the word ship?” (at the beginning), or “How many phonemes are in the word dash?” (3).

Word Lists Artifact

Click on the icon to download an example of a Word List.

Teacher: "Let's read a list of words with the digraph /sh/ that you recently learned. I'm going to show you a list of words, and I'd like you to read them to me." (Teacher points to list).

Student: "Ship. Push. Shame. Dash. Shake. Shop."

Teacher: "Which words use the silent e syllable?"

Student: "Shame. Shake."

Teacher: "Excellent work. Which words have the /sh/ phoneme as the final sound?"

Student: "Push and dash."

Henry, M. (2010). Unlocking literacy: Effective decoding & spelling instruction (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: P.H. Brookes.
Word list. Copyright at Relay GSE. New York, NY:  Relay Graduate School of Education. 

Think about the following scenario, which takes place after a teacher has explicitly taught decoding CVC words and has given students the opportunity to practice: 
     Teacher points to three letter cards: "Sound out the letters to make a word: b a t." 
     Student: "Bar." 

In such a case, what might you do? 

When you are planning your lessons, you should anticipate that your student will make errors throughout. Here is a series of prompts that you can use to respond to errors. Keep in mind that all students are different, and that students might respond better to some types of feedback than to others.

If your student struggles to meet your objective, there are various techniques that you might try, to adjust the activity to your student's needs.