Victoria...multisyllable words and PGx

Thanks for the input. Actually, that’s pretty much the approach I teach, and pretty much what I was advising.

Rod, the chunking part is what is SOOOOO hard for many, many LD readers. They won’t just know where to chunk and what vowel sound to use. I use the O-G 7 syllable types. This helps alot. However, nothing prepares students for the schwa. No one can know in advance what vowel will be a schwa (when the reader does not know the word). I do find utility in teaching closed syllables (short vowel followed by consonant sound), open syllable (long vowel sound in many syllables that end with vowel) and so on. When we practice carving up words, we underline the vowels and place the letter “v” underneath. We then connect the vowels with a swoop and mark the consonants inbetween. The CC pattern is easy, no sweat, they learn this in a hurry. The VCV pattern is a bear. I teach what we call way #1 and way #2:

1. V/CV (open syllable and vowel is long)

2. VC/V (closed syllable, vowel is short)

The trick is to carve up the word, ID the syllables, read them as you have ID’d them and determine if this sounds like a word. If it does not, they you go to the way you did not try.

This works like a charm in structured lessons. However, getting students to follow the steps and to shift when they don’t arrive at a word on their own is another issue entirely. I have not got this piece worked out. I do know that after 2-3 years of practice, over and over many of my students do get much better at reading multi-syllable words in the context of reading.

I think a determinant is how well they will master this is how many years they were permitted to practice sloppy and inappropriate decoding skills. When I get students late 4th to 5th grade, I don’t get this fixed before they move on to 7th.

I know how hard I work on teaching decoding multi-syllabic words with my students. I marvel at the folks who would have us believe that we just use the lesson plans in this book or that program, and in a matter of hours every child will be decoding along their merry way.

If anyone has the key that will accomplish this, please share it!

Oops, I guess I violate your “no rules mandate.” I like the O-G syllable types because it gives us something to hold on to and a way to make sense. I nonethless find getting students to try different ways w/o much coaching and reminding to be the place where things fall down, moving from guided practice to independent application. Too many LD youngsters will miscall words and not bat an eye, even when they are reading nonsense. A good argument in favor of INSISTING that they use context, after they apply sound, to read and in that order.

Got me wrong there, absolutely no rules is *not* my mandate, it’s what PG people say is so great about their program.

My mandate is Keep It Simple, which means as few rules as possible and those ones crystal clear.

I do

0. recognize vowel pairs like ai or oo or oi
1. *VCCV* - first vowel is probably short; try long if that fails but unlikely
2. *VCV* - try the first vowel long first, short if that doesn’t work
3. see if you recognize a compound or prefix or suffix
4. pronounce all vowels stressed, and when you speed up and recognize the word the unstressed vowels fall to schwa naturally

This is a manageable list and breaks all but the nastiest cases.
Actually rules 3 and 4 are applied before 1 and 2 but are more complicated to verbalize so I just model them first and mention later.

Hi Victoria and everyone, I do believe in no rules for teaching reading and that is why I love PG. After saying this, I do have three rules and they are for MS words. 1. A chunk is only a mouthful of sounds 2. You never split a sound 3. In a chunk, you will find a vowel sound, “er’ sound, or special ending. I know that this doesn’t pertain to the prefixes and suffixes, but they seem to do the trick for the kids. After I finish the program, I error correct with them reading and I teach them prefixes and suffixes.

…though I don’t hand them down from above, we discover them together — so sometimes the “rules” are different from one person to the next. I find lots of learners get most of the way just practicing those patterns, but going the extra step and verbalizing them improves both their ability to apply them in new situations and their ability to verbalize patterns.
Lots of students have “rules” that they’ve intuited anyway — that don’t hold up well as things get more complicated. Learning how to define and apply rules is a whole logic process; learning that has huge benefits of its own.

> Rod, the chunking part is what is SOOOOO hard for many, many LD readers. They won’t just know where to chunk and what vowel sound to use.

Hi Anitya,

I wish you could see how fast kids really do pick up on this. It’s a matter of hours, not years, and I work primarily with kids who are LD or are headed down that track. The strategy of teaching them to try different options for the vowels is the harder of the two things to teach….chunking is easy. Unless, of course, one insists on them chunking “according to Webster.”

Rod

Hi victoria,

Yes, please don’t take what I wrote as any sort of criticism…that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to provide my perspective on the multisyllable strategy used in Phono-Graphix. Some think it doesn’t work well, but I think that is primarily due to the way it is covered in Reading Reflex combined with its use by people who haven’t been formally trained in the method.

Not that the description in Reading Reflex is incomplete or anything, but it’s hard to convey just how simple teaching MS words can be if the proper groundwork is laid. Also, some people jump into formal MS teaching before the child is ready for it, which can cause the child unending frustration, and often sounds the death knell for the method being used….then it’s off to find yet another reading method.

I read your “rules” posted lower in this thread, and would only really debate the effectiveness of #2. I would guess that one causes the most confusion, but I could certainly be wrong about that, since I haven’t tried it…..Rod

So, Rod, how do you teach them to decode a word like “economics?” Walk me through it. I can see a child trying “E-CO-NO-MICS,” “EC-O-NOM-ICS,” “EC-ON-O-MICS,” There are probably atleast 4 different ways you can chunk this word and manipulate the vowel sounds. Granted, most students will get it because they have “heard” the word and can “cloze” in on the word via meaning. When meaning is totally absent, this can become a trial and error nightmare. How do you teach a child to chunk a multisyllabic word that has stressed-unstressed syllables, short vowels, long vowels and vowels that do not even make their “own” sound. I would love to know.

Can you walk me through a word? Try “irrevocably,” heredity” or “resident.”

Yes, sounds similar to what I do. My students know about the various pairs of vowels, the “r-controlled” vowels. These are not the problem at all. The difficulty is with a word that has the VCV, more than once, trying the variations is sometimes very confusing. Another thing, I have students who will do this just fine in structured lessons, every time. When the structure is removed, the application seems to vanish for many. The word “similar” would be an example of a very challenging word. They would try “SI-MI-LAR,” “SIM-I-LAR………It might take up to three tries to get the word right. When I am right there, coaching this all comes together. If I am not coaching, many will say “whatever” and move on, despite the fact that the word made no sense.

I have found that when I administer the Woodcock Johnson “Word Attack” subtest to students I have taught in this fashion, they tend to really apply what they know about decoding words. They get good scores on the subtest, often grade level. Then when they shift to reading real words, they slip to below grade level and below their “decoding level.” I oftentimes suspect that if I could just get more coaching time, 1:1, in a real reading situation, I could “train” them to apply their knowledge to authentic situations, however due to the daily time restrictions, the number of students on my caseload, I can almost never get this kind of intensity with any one student. When I read with a group of 4-6, if I stop to coach a child in the context of authentic reading, the other 3-5 become restless and the reading gets bogged down. It is a constant challenge to find better ways to operate.

Hi Anitya,

Sure, take “resident.” (this is hard to do in print…I spelled out “long” sounds, otherwise they’re “short.”)

I suppose that looks tough because using a VCV rule you’d get ree-sigh-deent. But I could be wrong…I don’t know the rule very well.

Anyway, if a kid is taught to read chunk-by-chunk, a fair number of kids would make their first attept “res-i-dent” assigning the /s/ sound to the letter “s.” They will be so close that they will almost certainly recognize “resident” (changing their /s/ pronunciation to a /z/ sound instead.)

The ones that get off to the tougher start will see the “re” and think it’s familiar (whether they’re familiar with the concept of prefixes or not) and will come up with something like “ree-si-dent” or even tougher, “ree-sigh-dent.” At this point, the trained guessers are very likely to say “recent!”…but that’s another issue.

After just a few examples, however, of asking them what else the “e’ can be, since “ree-si-dent” isn’t a word, they learn to try “re-si-dent,” or “re-sigh-dent.” In either case, they are likely to be close enough to recognize the word. It’s important, once they do think they’ve recognized the word to have them verify that all of the sounds they’re saying are really in the word (to get them to analyze, rather than to just guess.)

This type of instruction could easily be done in small groups, and it is intuitive to kids so they are capable of helping each other. It’s also important to realize that the purpose of all this is to build a phonetic base for the bulk of the words in the language. If a child can’t figure out a word the first time he sees it, but has to be told what it is, but then can figure out why it is what it is, he is much more likely to be able to read it later.

One thing I have found is that MS words will be frustrating to kids until they are reasonably secure in recognizing one-syllable words without having to sound them out. This enables them to “recognize” chunks, saying them as a whole.

I know it’s hard to believe that this can be done in a couple of hours of one-on-one, but it can. They won’t recognize every word they encounter, and the guessing habit is a bear to break, but the basic strategy is exceptionally simple and straightforward, once the proper groundwork has been laid.

Rod

Agree with you again, Rod. This is essentially what I do also, and yes, it works.

An interesting point about the example you use:

resident is of course rooted in the word reside, which *is* regularly pronounced ree-side. (or maybe a z sound to the s, depending where you come from)

If the student comes this close to the word, the meaning can be found. And a few mispronunciations can be gently corrected. Better reading with a few mispronunciations than illiterate because you have to wait for someone to teach you each and every word and force it into the memory banks.

One of the many things anti-phonics fanatics use as an attack against phonics is the idea of oral reading. I have read a textbook on teaching reading which stated that oral reading should never be used for instruction, that oral reading is a performance skill that must be practiced. Well, if you’re looking for a performance skill on stage with perfect declamation, then yes, practice and training may be necessary. But for just reading for information and enjoyment, perfect pronunciation on the first try is not required.

resign? s or z?

Did the principal resign in order to accept employment in private industry?

Will the all-star catcher retire or will he resign with the Red Sox when his current contract expires?

Will Red Sox management attempt to dissuade his decision to retire or will they endorse it with resignation?

Same word? Same spelling? Different pronunciation? Different meaning?

reside? s or z?

Does Jack reside in New Hampshire?
Does Jack intend to reside his home with vinyl clapboards?

Is Anitya correct in her opinion that context is of critical importance in reading ability? Can superb sound/symbol mastery fulfill that need?

Peace.

OK, thanks for taking the time with this. Yes, the guessing habit is a bear to break and that is the issue. Your methods are not that much different from mine. In either case, someone has to lead the student via questioning. When the questioning is removed, many students revert to the look/guess approach. On the “resident,” intuitively many students would try the first syllable as “ree” because so frequently “re” is a prefix and the “e” is long. Same with words starting with “pre,” however there are those few where the “e” is short, rather than long.

Last week I was administering the Woodcock Johnson, word attack subtest to a student. She got to the nonword “mafreatsun.” I heard her, under her breath, sound out “maf reat,” a couple of times. Then she abruptly stopped and said something that was completely different, save for the initial “m” sound, as though she was satisfied that that was pronunciation. This phenomenon of the child starting out, chunking the word and trying the first two chunks correctly, then giving up and making a wild*** guess. I see far too much of this when I am NOT structuring their efforts with questioning. Sadly, too many of the LD students seem to be perfectly happy with reading nonsense orally, with no attention to whether or not what they have read makes sense, fits the letters of the word. Or, this business of giving up when they are half to 2/3 the way there.

No, Arthur, superb sound-symbol mastery w/o meaning is not reading. The two must be used in concert.

Anitya wrote:
Date: 02-11-02 10:37

“No, Arthur, superb sound-symbol mastery w/o meaning is not reading.”

I agree with the above as I do with just about everything you post.

Anitya wrote:

“The two must be used in concert.”

Can sound/symbol skill be acquired incidentally or must it be taught explicitly?

Have fluent readers memorized, and are they able “say” (in their minds or aloud), most words as soon as they see them in print? Do they continue to employ a sound/symbol strategy for all words as they read?

Peace.

Hi All, I agree with Rod. I even have had kids brag about how fast they caught on to MS words. The key, I think, is how you approach PG and the advanced code work. In high school, I do at least 6 sounds in a 45 min class. We don’t read until the program is finished. I don’t want any more bad reading habits until they know the code. After all of the advanced code work, MS seems to make sense to the kids. I haven’t had any problems with kids learning MS words since I have used PG even in the toughest cases. I use the lesson plans that are in RR.

Again, the no-rules mandate is *not* mine! The PG advertising claims “no rules” and they say this is one of the great advantages of *their* system. Not mine, honest!

I worked for a while last year with a boy who had had excellent tutoring in a “no-rules” approach. He had exactly the problem being discussed here; could handle one-syllable and common vocabulary and ing, ed endings fine — too well, because he had gotten back into the rushing habit. But he fell down on analyzing new multisyllable words. If the reading was fairly easy he just rushed and slurred over them, and if it was more difficult he was very resistant. I made some limited headway but other problems (commuting) intervened so I couldn’t get very far.

With him I was starting to teach syllable rules — he was eleven and reading on grade level (after extensive tutoring) and was quite bright, so he was certainly ready to handle verbalized rules and a more analytical approach. It felt like talking to a brick wall because he had not had this kind of teaching before; if I had been able to stay longer I would have persevered; have had some success with this before.

I teach much younger kids often — presently two eight-year-olds in French, reading grade 2/3 level — and they are not ready to handle complex rules; just not analytical thinkers yet. And there are a lot of multisyllables in French. I find modelling works fine for almost all cases.