Now Let’s Put Those Sounds Together Into Words

Once you have taught the sounds and sound combinations so that the student can crack the code, you can teach them to read words and stories. In our learning center, which opened in 1979 and has always given parents a money-back guarantee for their child’s learning, we use Direct Instruction programs. In our programs, no sound is ever presented to the student in any word until that sound or sound combination has been taught previously in isolation.

No word ever can appear in a sentence, a word list or a story unless all of the sounds and sound combinations have already been taught. There is never a need to guess. Words that are not phonetically regular are taught using a different strategy.

We do not sound out phonetically irregular words. We also do fluency checks with sounds, words and stories to make sure that the student is fluent in both pace and accuracy.

Here are some tips to help your students.