This session explores how educators can utilize reading science and cognitive science so their PK-2 students can make rapid and lasting literacy gains by focusing on decoding, encoding, and other critical phonics skills.

We will accomplish this end by putting participants in your students' shoes and making them feel what it's like to learn to read for the first time (let’s be honest, we all forgot how we learned to read!).

This unique educational experience will pave the way for a science-backed approach to literacy, replete with practical classroom applications.

Topics Explores

• The Simple View of Reading (SVR) posits that both Decoding and Linguistic Comprehension play an indispensable role in Reading Comprehension. The Simple View of Reading is predicated on a simple fact: writing systems were invented to convey language, not meaning. Letters on a page are a kind of transducer that converts speech sounds, such as phonemes, into visual symbols and vice versa (D=Decoding). The meaning is supplied entirely by the reader.

• Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) posits that Working Memory limitations demand the limitation/removal of unnecessary information—Extraneous Cognitive Load—during the learning process so that information can pass through Working Memory and be stored in Long-Term Memory. Many learning programs (and teachers) ignore the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture as theorized by Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and overwhelm their students working memory with extraneous information. This session shows educators how to remove unnecessary information that might increase a student's Extraneous Cognitive Load.

• We will explore what the Science of Reading has to say about teaching methods that advocate teaching phonemic awareness without letters, letter names, long and short vowels, sight words, and the six syllable types.

Sources

The Simple View of Reading
Decoding, Reading, and Reading Disability, Philip B. Gough and William E. Tunmer, 1986; The Simple View of Reading, Hoover, W. A., & Gough, P. B., 1990
Cognitive Load Theory (CLT)
Human Cognitive Architecture, John Sweller, 2008
Visual Mnemonics
Pictorial mnemonics for phonics, Ehri, L. C., Deffner, N. D., & Wilce, L. S., 1984
Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction
National Reading Panel, 2000, 2-125.

Participants learn the unique history of the English language, why it has become a complicated alphabetic code, and how this unusual history prompted educators to advocate multiple approaches to reading instruction.

Participants will then experience the difference between two opposite approaches to teaching the alphabetic code: Print to Sound and Sound to Print, and understand why a Sound to Print approach can simplify the phonics experience for both teachers and students.

Building on this information, we introduce the CAPIT Method and the Singular Approach to Reading Instruction—a revolutionary and simplified approach to teaching reading and spelling.

We will also discuss why reading and spelling should be taught together. Research has shown that when students learn to read and spell, they outperform students who only learn to read: “Overall, results suggest that spelling sets up a higher quality representation in memory and highlights the importance of spelling in the development of word reading efficiency.”

Sources

The Unique Role of Early Spelling in the Prediction of Later Literacy Performance, Rebecca Treiman, Jacqueline Hulslander, Richard K. Olson, Erik G. Willcutt, Brian Byrne & Brett Kessler, 2019

Establishing word representations through reading and spelling: comparing degree of orthographic learning: Orthographic Learning during Reading and Spelling, Nicole J. Conrad, Kathleen Kennedy, Wafa Saoud, Laura, Scallion and Laura Hanusiak, 2018.

Participants will discover how children learn to read and spell and the proper role of Phonological Awareness in these processes. We will then explore strategies for teaching spelling and demonstrate that even so-called "sight words" can be taught logically without rote memorization. Lastly, we will also explore how spelling is embedded into the CAPIT Reading Curriculum.

Sources

The Self Teaching Hypothesis
Phonological recoding and self-teaching: sine qua non of reading acquisition, David L. Share.

Reading is not a collection of unrelated activities but rather a continuum of tightly related skills that require explicit and systematic instruction. This session highlights the importance of a systematic curriculum and demonstrates how the entire phonics curriculum is an integrated linear progression of discrete skills. Participants will “see” the big picture and broadly understand their students’ learning trajectories.

In Part 1, participants create an original phonics curriculum. We provide the building blocks, and participants systematize the scope and sequence.

Sources

Explicit Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction
National Reading Panel, 2000

The Importance of Explicit Instruction in Teaching and Learning
Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching, Paul Kirschner, Richard Edward Clark, John Sweller, 2006

A Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing CAPIT in the Classroom.

Reading theory is essential, but practices grounded in theory get the job done. This lecture is a step-by-step, hands-on session that will demonstrate how to teach phonics explicitly and systematically. We will guide participants through a phonics lesson and explain how to help students build knowledge one step at a time. Teachers will practice and model lessons.

Learning to read requires that children discriminate between phonemes (sounds). This task is even more difficult when students mispronounce the phonemes (NRP 2000, 2-104).

In this session, participants explore the sound system (phonemes) that underpins the English alphabetic code, discuss what makes a phoneme, and how many phonemes we use in English (the answer is not what many think); we will then divide the phonemes into categories and practice their pronunciations.

Sources

The Importance of Proper Pronunciation
National Reading Panel, 2000, 2-104

The Simple View of Reading
Decoding, Reading, and Reading Disability, Gough and Tunmer, 1986

The Nature of Writing Systems
Writing Systems: Their Properties and Implications for Reading Brett Kessler and Rebecca Treiman, 2015

The foundation of phonics is memorizing letter shapes, the sounds of speech, and their relationship to one another. But every classroom has some students who struggle to learn these phonics facts and, consequently, can’t blend or segment words. All reading instructors should be well equipped to help such students. In this session, we learn and practice effective strategies for working with struggling readers to ensure they quickly master the relationships between letters and corresponding sounds.

Sources

Visual Mnemonics
National Reading Panel, 2000, 2-125

Pictorial mnemonics for phonics, Ehri, L. C., Deffner, N. D., & Wilce, L. S., 1984

• Participants will learn about The Simple View of Reading (SVR) and how it helps prioritize phonics instruction.

• Participants will discover how Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) can guide phonics instruction.

• Participants will gain an understanding of Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, and the difference between them.

• Participants will experience which phonemes are hardest to articulate and why.

• Participants will learn spelling exercises to help students become more fluent decoders.

• Participants will discover how to embed spelling activities into every phonics lesson.

• Participants will understand how to teach “sight words” using decoding strategies rather than rote memorization.

• Participants will understand what it means to have a logical skill progression and why some foundational skills must precede others.

• Participants will learn why it’s essential to know which consonants

  are voiced

  and

  which are

  unvoiced.

• Participants will learn ways to prepare the classroom for impactful phonics instruction.

• Participants will discover how to teach foundational skills

  explicitly and systematically

  using exact words, clear explanations, and unambiguous analogies.

• Participants will learn how to assess and remediate struggling students efficiently and effectively.