Teachers should help students learn to decode words by starting with the simplest aspects of reading and moving to the most complex aspects. For example, the teacher should help students learn to associate letters with sounds before before helping the student understand syllable patterns. One approach is to use leveled books, which are books that have different levels of difficulty. This allows teachers to give children books the teacher believes will challenge the student, but not too much. Then, the teacher can give the students increasingly more difficult books to read.
Teachers can have students learn the etymology of words so they can begin to recognize the commonalities among different words, helping them guess their meaning. For example, students may learn the prefix “anti” means “opposed to.” Therefore, anti-venom stops venom. However, teachers should let students know they cannot always guess the meaning of the word in this way. For example, antibodies do not combat the body.
Teachers can have students sound out the letters in the words. Once they hear the word sounded out, they can recognize the meaning of the word and the teacher can ask the student to sound out any word that he has difficulty with.
The teacher can project individual letters on to a screen and have students identify what the letters are. Then, the teacher has the students make the sounds that correspond with the letters. As students become more proficient, the teacher shows them words and has them sound them out. Since children can get letters mixed up, such as “b” and “d,” teachers can show them words that only slightly vary. For example, the teacher could show children the words “dig” and “big.”
Children must identify letters before they can put them into words. Educators often have students learn the ABCs as a way to remember each letter of the alphabet. Then, to help children learn to visually identify words, the teacher can take individual letters and arrange them in the order of the alphabet. These can be cards with an individual letter on them, cutouts of letters or anything else that clearly indicates a letter. The teacher can put the letters out of order and have the children rearrange them in alphabetic order.