It seems so simple to us now.

"I can never thank you enough for introducing this program to us. G*** is doing so well. It is so hard to believe that about this time last year she had given up. She loves to read and we often fuss at night because I have to ask her to put down a book to go to sleep. It was very heartbreaking to see your child so upset with just trying to put sounds together so she could read a sentence. It seems so simple to us now."
Hannah G.

Please allow us to brag, just a little?

We're working feverishly on the new STEPS Online Graduate class! It's all online and is a terrific class for parents or teachers. Registration begins August 1st. Until then, I thought I might share from the stack of parent and teacher notes I've got here. We're teachers, not business marketers, so we sometimes forget to share all the kinds things folks have said. If you're thinking of taking a graduate class or just working with your children on their reading, writing, and spelling in the upcoming year, you might enjoy seeing what other folks have had to say about STEPS.

"Spelling is just about everything!"

Just caught an interview with this year's National Spelling Bee winner, Anamika Veeramani, on Fox News. She was asked how she memorized so many words. She said she was not very good at memorizing, but that she learned the parts of speech, definition and etymology of words to learn to spell them. Then with the STEPS quote of the day she said, "That's why spelling isn't about memorizing. Spelling is just about everything!"

When you teach spelling with STEPS, you don't rely on children to memorize list after list of words. Like these super spellers, you'll teach students to spell sound by sound. The spelling of each sound is determined by its etymology. Even at a young age this study of the history of words and how their form and meaning have changed over time can turn a boring memorizing activity into a valuable lesson on geography, history, and vocabulary. And if you're really good, you might just be a spelling bee STAR!

Facebook Friends

I know many of you follow us on our Facebook page. Thanks! I just had to share a post from an old teaching buddy. Her son is 10. He said,

I hope when I become famous, I will still have time to read....unless I become famous for reading. That would be even better!

 

Summer tutoring in the Summerville area

STEPS Reading Center provides one-on-one tutoring for students of all ages. Our specially trained teachers work with your child to learn the letter sounds and how to write them either in manuscript or cursive. Students will learn all 70 phonogram sounds and then how to blend those sounds together to read. Your child will also be taught the process of spelling and the rules that determine the correct spelling of English.
Sessions meet 2 hours per week.
We are currently accepting summer students for the Summerville, SC area.
Sessions are available for Tues./Thurs 8-4.
Phone: 843-875-5169
Contact us now for scheduling.

Path to Success

Over the years I've read volumes of research pointing to "indicators of success" in reading and writing. This anecdote is sure proof that this little girl has the path to success all figured out! No research grant necessary. Taking ownership for her learning at this young age bodes well for her future endeavors! Thanks, mom, for sharing!

A couple of weeks ago my daughter lost a tooth and one of the first things she said was, "I wonder if I can still say my STEPS!" Then she went to her room and I heard her say, "Blue cards, numbers 1 through 26..." And she said them all! :)

If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, a video is invaluable!

The skill of blending sounds together can be practiced in so many different ways. You can employ the help of the computer and join a STEPS class, create stacks with your color-coded cards, or use magnetic letters on the refrigerator. In this video the teacher is using a magnetic doodle board. This is a fun and easy way to manipulate the phonograms for quick blending practice. Notice how the teacher says the sound of each letter as she writes allowing the student to see and hear it at the same time. While the main focus is on blending, the teacher is able to refine the accurate production of the sounds and continue toward the goal of automatic recall of the sounds. Have some blending fun using nonsense or real words.

Summer Tutoring Available

STEPS Reading Center provides one-on-one tutoring for students of all ages. Our specially trained teachers work with your child to learn the letter sounds and how to write them either in manuscript or cursive. Students will learn all 70 phonogram sounds and then how to blend those sounds together to read. Your child will also be taught the process of spelling and the rules that determine the correct spelling of English.
Sessions meet 2 hours per week.
We are currently accepting summer students for the Summerville, SC area.
Sessions are available for Tues./Thurs 8-4.
Phone: 843-875-5169
Contact us now for scheduling.

Let the Computer Do the Flipping!

The STEPS class, Fluency 101, has multiple presentations that are perfect for differentiated guided practice with blending. You can choose between the automatic pace of the transitions that are set for the desired fluency goal or user controlled presentations with or without audio.
The computerized practice can be done whole group or individually and it avoids awkward vowel consonant combinations, r controlled vowels, or sometimes just embarrassing words. I can think of a few that I would not want my students blending!
Some of the blending activities in Fluency 101 do include audio and user controls. The video sample activity below does not include audio and the automatically advancing phonograms encourage a fluent, quick pace. This activity would be used as your student's ability to blend sounds improves. Integrate phonogram practice and the skill of blending by using this activity on your Smartboard™ for whole class practice.
It is important to remember that this blending practice uses ALL first sounds, so short vowels every time!

Wear Out Those Blue Cards

Learning the accurate, isolated sounds of English to the point of automaticity is not an end unto itself. It would be similar to learning the addition facts and never using them to solve a problem. STEPS instruction has students using the sounds shortly after their introduction to blend the sounds of nonsense syllables. Blending nonsense syllables provides practice with the left to right directionality of reading. Practicing with nonsense syllables takes away the "guess the word" inclination and keeps attention on the process of accurate, quick decoding.
The small student-sized cards are easy to use when flashing for sound/symbol retention and blending activities in a pocket chart or desk top.
Stack up the Blue Set phonogram cards in three piles: consonants, vowels, consonants.
Go through sound, sound, sound: /v/-/a/-/p/
Blend the sounds dragging out the vowel sound slightly: /va....p/
Say the syllable quickly: /vap/
Remove a card from a stack to practice blending a different syllable.
For this type of practice use only the first, most common sound, of each phonogram and remind students that the vowel opens our mouth and the final consonant's job is to close our mouth.
STEPS offers computerized blending activities and more in the online class, Fluency 101.

Reading Fluency Class!

FREE SUPPORT!----Often students have learned the code necessary to read, but they are stuck reading slowly grinding it out, one word at a time. Building fluency is the key to helping a child learn to love to read! In this FREE course, learn how fluency impacts reading comprehension and how to build it in readers of all ages.

Success! Isn't this where we heading?

If you've ever had one of your own children learn to read, you know what a milestone this can be! This little guy is in kindergarten. He's known the Blue Set of phonograms for a while, but is just learning the Green Set. With those tools in hand, he's beginning to be able to decode easy readers. But the real giant leap is when they begin to try their hand at reading all alone! He's working through an old favorite, The Boxcar Children.

To help encourage your kids to develop independence in reading, try these ideas:

• Set aside a quiet time each day. She may be too old for naps, but quiet no-TV time makes reading more likely.
• Set 2 bedtimes. Everyone's in bed by 8:00, but anyone who's reading can be up until 8:30!
• Set the stage. Stick-on lights, like the one in this photo, make even a bottom bunk a reading nook.
• Of course, read aloud to your kids, but make read-alouds from longer more complex chapter books. It's a great place to read the classics - especially the ones you missed as a kid! Bambi by Felix Salten is a terrific read aloud. Do they have to understand every word or really "get" the details? No, the idea is that they read for themselves what they can, but you read aloud to show them what's out there in the world of books!
• Take a page from New Zealand. I've never been there, but they're supposed to have one of the highest literacy rates in the world. And one reason that's credited is the Saturday morning reading time. It's  tradition that Saturday mornings are spent in bed reading. Instead of hopping up to Saturday morning cartoons, kids find books placed on their pillows by, no doubt, tired moms and dads. So everyone is expected to sleep in a little extra and enjoy some quiet reading time. So if it's not a tradition, it should be! Try it at your house this weekend.

Phonogram Video Examples

This video example is "b" from the Blue Set.
STEPS teaches the phonograms through a multi-sensory approach so students see the printed symbol, hear the sound, and write and say the phonogram together. The face to face direct instruction of the phonograms includes discussion on how it feels to produce the sounds. Pointing out the placement of the teeth, lips, tongue, and where the air flows helps students that have trouble with auditory discrimination.
STEPS Support classes "How to Use the Phonogram Packet", "Phonogram Lab", and "STEPS Teacher Resources" contain Phonogram Video Examples of all the color-coded sets.
Stay tuned to the Blog for some tips on how to prevent students from reversing the letter "b" and "d"!

Spotlight on Phonograms

phono (sound) + gram (to write)

phonogram- the written symbol of a letter or letters representing a sound

There are approximately 45 sounds in the English language. So here is where the fun begins, we can spell those45 sounds in about 70 different ways. STEPS students learn the 70 phonograms to the point of automaticity. For reading, they must recognize the phonogram quickly to say the sound when they see it. And to spell, they must be able to quickly write the phonogram when they hear the sound. When these 2 processes become automatic, students can read, write, and spell with ease.

The first STEP is to learn the sounds. Teachers prepare themselves by studying the sounds in STEP 1. In STEP 4, students are taught the letters of the alphabet and how to write them. Progressing through the STEPS more phonograms are introduced in STEPS 9, 11, 14 and 25. STEPS has a variety of ways to help teachers, parents, and students learn the sound/symbol relationships of the 70 basic phonograms in STEPS Classes.

New Twist to Bingo

This new twist to bingo has students listening to the sounds and writing the phonogram on blank PHONO Bingo cards. Let your child make game boards for the whole family. In a school setting, each student builds a PHONO Bingo board to make a class set. Perfect practice with any of the color-coded sets because it provides students the opportunity to listen to the sound of a phonogram, visualize the correct symbol in their head, then quickly and correctly write the letter.

Print blank PHONO Bingo Boards to get started.
Choose the color-coded set your child is learning.
Now here's the important part, as you build the game board be sure to say the sound not the letter names. For example, if I want my students to write "oi," I would say, "/oy/ that we MAY NOT use at the end of English words." Students pick a space, any space, to write the phonogram as they repeat "/oy/ that we MAY NOT use at the end of English words." The phonograms have to legible and neat for others to use the bingo card so it's a great way to practice manuscript or cursive writing.

Free Brain Space!

Every year when standardized test results rolled in reading comprehension scores were an area of weakness. Year after year we worked to improve this school-wide. As teachers we found out the hard way that more and more reading comprehension practice did not improve reading comprehension. It was only after trying a different approach to fixing the comprehension problem did we see gains. Teaching students explicit phonics to the point of automaticity and how to effectively use the sounds for decoding was the key to marked improvement in comprehension.
As a committee member for, The Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, Marilyn Adams commented, “In fact, the automaticity with which skillful readers recognize words is the key to the whole system…The reader’s attention can be focused on the meaning and message of a text only to the extent that it’s free from fussing with the words and letters.”

Researchers have found that the speed with which a child can read a sentence or paragraph is a vital force in how well he will be able to understand it. If he struggles with each word, he hasn’t the necessary “brain space” to think about the text as a whole. After years of working with students we find this true even at the word level. If he struggles with recalling the sounds, decoding new words is inaccurate or very slow.
STEPS encourages sound fluency and continues to quick blending of nonsense syllables in preparation to read words and connected text with speed and accuracy. Free up that brain space so your students can understand what they read. I'd even love to save enough brain space so that they can find their socks and pick them up!

STEPS Class That Has It All

STEPS Teacher Resources is the 24/7 repository of STEPS Tools! This is the class that keeps resources covering STEPS 1-25 at your fingertips.
Join the online community of teachers and parents with access to STEPS classroom teaching aids, printable homework paper, videos of STEPS instruction, multimedia games and worksheets for use with STEPS.
Sign up or renew a class.

True Confession

Prior to understanding explicit phonics and the spelling rules that are the standard for written English I passed on the following wealth of information found in the basal reading teacher's manual, "A vowel is any letter that is not a consonant. A consonant is any letter that is not a vowel."
True confession. I stumbled and mumbled my way through the definitions without realizing their importance. An appalling lack of information about the two types of letters that build words! I can't get those students back but I am a testament that teachers should never stop their own learning process.
STEP 6 provides you with all the information you need to ensure that even young students understand the concepts of vowels and consonants. You can help them feel the difference between a vowel and consonant sound. Encourage them to pay attention to consonant sounds that close their mouth and vowel sounds that leave their mouth open. Practice stretching out a vowel sound to see if they can make it loud. Watch as they produce consonant sounds that have them hissing or spitting but truly understand the purpose of these short, quick sounds.
Take your students' knowledge further than reciting the vowels, "A,E,I,O,U and sometimes Y." STEPS Support offers classes that will keep you learning!

Going Green on St. Patty's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Going GREEN in the STEPS world means learning the GREEN Set, phonograms 27-50. This set includes common vowel and consonant multi-letter combinations that are taught in pairs. Many of these pairs are taught with the spelling rule that determines its use in a word. Grab your phonogram cards from the Green Set, click to print Free PHONO Bingo Cards, find something green to use as markers and you'll be ready. Be sure to keep the focus on the sound and not the letter names. After shuffling the Green Set of cards, the Leprechaun Leader pulls the "ai" phonogram card and says, "/A/ two letter /A/ that we MAY NOT use at the end of English words." Little Leprechaun repeats the sound and rule as he covers the "ai" on his card.
Switch cards and let your wee student be the Leprechaun Leader and call out the sounds.
Complete sets of the PHONO Bingo versions are available for the Blue, Green and Yellow phonograms in the STEPS Reading Center class, Just Games. Want to learn the sounds? The Phonogram Packet is a great tool to get started learning the sounds.

STEPS Manuscript Log

(GREEN COVER) Made especially for use with STEPS, these Logs come preprinted in manuscript lettering with page formats, dotted middle lines, and sections for Wise Guide spelling words, vocabulary, and spelling rules. 2008 Edition Logs also include a special NO Change Check for adding derivatives. For grades K, 1 and 2

STEPS Cursive Log

(BLUE COVER) Made especially for use with STEPS, these Logs come preprinted in cursive with page formats, dotted middle lines, and sections for Wise Guide spelling words, vocabulary, and spelling rules, including the NO Change Check section for adding derivatives. For grades 3 & up