Last week on the blog I nerded out about how the human brain accomplishes an incredible feat every time a person learns to read; it creates new connections between regions of the brain that were never intended to be connected. These new neural connections become the brain’s “reading circuit.” The instruction the learner receives determines, to a certain extent, how strong and efficient those neural connections will be. The science behind reading has gotten a LOT of buzz lately, which is amazing, because the more we know, the more we can empower our students to become strong readers. The obstacle we have to overcome, however, is the mistranslation of science. At this point, many of us have heard that we need to teach various components of reading, such as phonics, spelling, and phonemic awareness. The natural tendency is to organize these skills into something that looks like this: 10-minutes of phonemic awareness, followed by 20-minutes of phonics, 10-minutes of spelling, and maybe if you have time, throw in a few minutes of handwriting practice for good measure. But, wait! What about the integration of the reading brain? Isolated skill practice won’t build the neural connections required in the brain. I recently heard scientist and reading researcher Mark Seidenberg on his podcast say that isolated skill practice is "doing violence to the way the language and reading and writing systems actually work because these systems are not independent." Phew. He does not mince words. The instructional task at hand: integrate skill practice so that the regions of the brain required to create the reading circuit become integrated. We have to create opportunities for different parts of the brain responsible for different tasks to “talk” to each other. This creates neural connections and as students become more adept at these tasks, the neural connections become strong and efficient.

“Word chaining” (also called “word building”) is an activity that integrates several skills: phonemic awareness, decoding, and encoding. And, when put to the empirical research test (read more about that here), it was shown to boost comprehension! Practice with word chaining is a wonderful example of how to break down the barriers between isolated skill practice and interweave the sub-components of reading. As students engage in this activity they are building the neural connections required for automatic word recognition and spelling. You can easily use Elkonin boxes, letter flashcards or tiles, or tokens with a whiteboard for this activity. Here is what this looks like:

● Always prepare a list of words ahead of time. Match the words to the phonics skill you are studying.

● Ask student to say a word, for example, “mad”

● Ask students to count the sounds in the word, using dots or tokens

● Have students write the word or use magnetic letter tiles to spell it

● After they spell the word, make sure they tap each sound and then say the word again.

● Ask the student to change one sound so that “mad” says “sad” and repeat the process of counting sounds, this time with the new word. Make sure that the student says the new word. Keep going for 7-10 words.

● TIPS: only change one sound/spelling at a time; make sure students are identifying which SOUND (not letter) to change; do not tell the student which letter to change. If they make a mistake you can prompt them to tap the sounds in the word to check their work. Tapping each sound will help them isolate each sound and identify which one to change. Have them read the word they created, even if it isn’t the word you prompted them to create, and guide them through sound discrimination until they can correctly identify which letter to change. If the student needs extra support, try to elongate the word for the student and have the student segment the sounds. This task of segmenting the sounds is one that is critical for the student to develop. Remember: all of this work they are engaged in is building essential neural circuitry!

● There are three ways to change the word

○ Change a sound: “change a sound so that cat says bat”

○ Adding a sound: “Add a sound so that “ in” says chin”

○ Deleting a sound: “take a sound away so that “ tan” says an”.

Here are two more examples of word chains:

1. fish—dish—dash—bash—bath

2. Deck—check—chick—pick—prick—trick—truck—track

Spending time each day building words through word chaining will strengthen the neural synapses in your students’ reading circuit, allowing them to grow into strong readers and writers. Here’s to ending isolated skill practice and creating opportunities for integration.