Suggestions for older students struggling with reading and spelling.

This can be happening

Instead of this !SSP rewires the brain

for reading and spelling.

Because of brain plasticityit’s never too late.

Although we show children the most commonly used sound pics, to represent the speech sounds, children

need to know that this is often only one of them.For example that ‘f’ is just the first speech sound pic we

are learning, for the speech sound ‘ffff’. For most speech sounds there are more than one

sound pic so it’s important that children understand this, and are exposed to them all from Prep.

Jolly Phonics

RWI

Many children aren’t exposed to the whole code, and ‘phonics’ only taken so far within P-2. Many teachers in year 3 and up don’t include phonemic awareness and phonics activities within their planning, for a number of

reasons (eg a National Curriculum they have to follow that doesn’t include space for this!) however this means children have to learn words by memory

rather than working them out. They are unable to really participate in the wider curriculum as they still haven’t mastered the alphabetic code. Spelling

lists don’t help children learn how to spell words, other than by memory- often only short term.

Many children don’t ‘see’ words as being made up of speech sound pics.

Their understanding of sound pics is also limited. For example children might know that ‘s’ represents the ‘sss’ speech sound, but be unaware that ‘c’ can represent it also (and that there are another 6 or 7!) They don’t have a system for working out new words- either decoding or encoding – so it becomes a choice of memorising or guessing. Both of which can lead to feelings of helplessness. They can’t develop the parts in their brain needed, to actually figure it all out !

Did you remember them all?

Within SSP we teach these sound picsexplicitly, in this systematic order, however children also discover the other variations. The clouds really help with this!Children could have their own Speech Sound Pics album, to recordtheir discoveries.Stick a cloud on each page, and startlistening for that sound, and findingout which sound pics are used

After learning the sound pics in order they work out all sound pics not yet discovered.That’s the WHOLE of the English code! All can be seen visually using the Speech Sound Clouds and the Speech Sound Pics within them. Children can learn the 150 or so sound pics, and know how to read and spell over 95% of the English language. Children working smarter, not harder

Incase you aren’t sure of them all, please download all of the Speech Sound Clouds

There is a cloud for every speech sound in the English language, each showing every speech sound pic. It helps show childrenHOW the code works!

Involve the children and allow them to discover the code in meaningful ways.

There is a place for explicit phonics teaching, and also a place for facilitating understanding, and bringing the code to life !

Older children need to SEE the code and

how it represents our spoken language

as well !

Children need to see that ‘spelling’ can be fun, meaningful and so much EASIER to master !

Only a few words are memorised (at first) Children won’t need to memorise much of our English language (in print)

as they will understand it!

Older students need to see the skills and concepts that will be learning, and how their learning will progress- leading to a change in their brain!

Notes to those working with struggling older students

I would suggest starting a folder with older kids, that they get out when they do extra work with you- and also to do at home. They need to know that because we are teaching reading and spelling differently, they haven’t had certain teaching before, so were going to get them caught up - and the quicker they learn it all the quicker they will become confident!

They need this printing, laminating, and to learnthese in order.

What I would do with them is teach them to listen to a word, identify the speech sounds, write the lines, and then work out the sound pics.

This is possibly the best way to re-train their brains to start understanding the way the code works. The butterfly shows how the word was 'counted' and shows how they would work out the last sound (by finding the cloud) - they try ones, to see which looks right. If none do, then you write the word, and then they compare- and then write it themselves a few times. The 'train' shows how to count speech sounds- youll prob need to stop and think a lot too!!

They can discover sound pics on every day objects

Focus on saying the word, listening for speech sounds, and looking at the words to see which they are, and how ordered

Also start with a word, and use the SSP Spelling Approach, using the clouds to try different sound pics

Use readers that enable them to practice these skills

• Eg Talisman,which are from the sameauthors asDandelion Readersbut are more age appropriate

The Reading Whisperer™ urges schools to STOP USING PM READERSThey not only make the reading process more difficult for the majority of children, but can severely hinder decoding practice for the very children who need it most.

If you have them, don’t let children use them as readers until they are at the blue level, or they will start thinking that reading = memorising or guessing.

Use them for spelling practice – you read the words, the child figures out the sound pics (which are usually above their current level)

Readers are books the children can actually read, which means that they can decode around 85% of the words. By the time children reach the SSP Blue Level they will be able to read ‘real’ books anyway.

These skills must be taught if missed in Prep and Year 1

We want to assess children’s knowledge and ideas, not just what they can put on paper.

• Consider therefore using technology that allows children to do this for subjects such as science etc- and even within English, when the focus is on creativity.

Don’t keep children back, with low grades, because they haven’t been taught to read and spell with confidence.

Let’s get ALL Australians reading and writing – Read Australia!

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