If you see readers who . . .

• try to sound out each individual letter in a word.
• look for help with reading words before trying to read them independently.
• use the first letter and guess when reading unfamiliar words.
• become stalled in their reading when they come across an unfamiliar word.

For children to be able to understand what they read, they must be able to decode words rapidly as well as accurately. This frees children to focus their attention on the meaning of what they have read.

When you’re reading unfamiliar or longer words, look for word parts or patterns and small words you know within the word.

We create frames made from cardboard or a flyswatter with part of the middle cut out to form a scaffold that readers can lay over a word to isolate a smaller chunk of it. Then, as students learn word families, patterns in words, digraphs, or blends, we think aloud and model using these “chunks” to help us read words.

We make a selection of text visible to students and read aloud, modeling the strategy.

For example: It was too late. The shop was closed.

I am not sure what that word is. I am going to use this frame to help me. I see sh. I know that s-h says sh. Then I see o-p. I know that says op. If I use these two chunks and put them together, I read sh – op, shop. Let me read the selection again. It was too late. The shop was closed. Using the frame helped me break the word into smaller parts and bring them together, reading the word correctly.

Slowing the process of looking for smaller parts in words, and using a frame when needed, helps train students’ eyes to look rapidly for those word parts.

Suggested Language

• What chunks do you already know? Now let’s put those together.
• Look at the word. Do you notice any smaller chunks that might help you read the word?
• Slow down and break the word into parts.
• How many chunks can you find in this word?
• Do you see any parts you know?

• For readers who have difficulty with this, show them how to mask the chunks or parts found in words by using their fingers to frame the chunk. Decode those chunks first, and then move on to tackle the whole word.
• Teach readers word families and have them look for them in their words.
• Instruction in a variety of digraphs, blends, prefixes, and suffixes will provide background knowledge to support readers when they use this strategy.

Also consider materials, setting, instructional practices, and cognitive processes.

These strategies may provide support before, during, and after teaching this strategy:

• Say the Word Slowly
• Listen Carefully to Sounds
• Try a Different Letter Sound
• Look Carefully at Letters and Words
• Map It