By: Josefa Beyer, TILT Reading Specialist
Whether our one-on-one tutors are embedded in schools or afterschool programs, we never know how much time we will have to work with students. Families move or change schools and afterschool care. And even if we had years to work with students, the clock of academic life is always ticking. When children cannot read at grade level, they gain less knowledge than their peers and they cannot fully demonstrate their true knowledge in writing. Of course, this impacts how children feel about school, learning, and themselves.
To help children attain grade-level reading skills ASAP, The Indy Learning Team has adjusted its teaching sequence so that students’ reading skills grow much more quickly. As a tutor, I am thrilled. My students are moving more rapidly toward grade-level texts and enjoying reading sooner. Their confidence spurs them to read for the fun of it and to work hard. For many, I will be obsolete soon. And that is a good thing.
What is different?
TILT’s new teaching sequence puts reading first. Students still spell during every lesson, but spelling rules are pushed back in the teaching order. Students get more time to read texts aloud at the end of every lesson. With more reading practice, students advance.
Students tackle multisyllable words very early in our new process. Once students master all letters and most of their corresponding sounds (plus digraphs like th and sh), students quickly graduate from single syllable to multisyllable words. During this early phase, we now teach all of English’s six syllable patterns in succession. This is very different! But knowing these patterns empowers students to read a larger cross-section of words much more quickly. Third graders who began lessons decoding sentences like, “Mad dogs jump,” will now decode, “Fifteen perturbed lobsters leap over the table while four seamstresses stumble in fear.”
With TILT’s new teaching sequence, tutors can more quickly close the gap between what students know and what they need to know to succeed in class (and life). As my students broaden their decoding skills, there are many aha! moments when their faces light up in recognition. They tell me how our lesson relates to something they just learned in class. My job then is to clarify anything that may have confused them OR, if their knowledge is solid, congratulate them and move to another lesson. TILT tutors have always taught according to what students know and do not know. The new teaching sequence helps us choose the next best lesson more strategically, whether it is a vowel team, suffix, prefix, or spelling rule.
What is the same?
TILT tutors are still trained in the Orton-Gillingham teaching method, which is especially impactful for students with learning differences like dyslexia. We still start with the basics: phonemes and graphemes (sounds and their corresponding letters) and vowels vs. consonants.
Our lessons still provide the predictable OG structure, and tutors always use repetition and multisensory learning so students retain knowledge as they advance from simple to more complex ideas.
TILT lessons still feature phonemic awareness activities, as needed. A student can have a great memory for words, but without the ability to breakdown words into individual sounds, students flounder.
TILT tutors continue to monitor student progress and respond to individual needs. In fact, our new assessment process is less cumbersome and can guide us sooner rather than later. We will slow down the teaching process, re-teach, or jump ahead depending on each student’s pace or challenges.
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