When It Gets Tricky
Here’s a real life example of the importance of manipulating sounds from my intervention group last week: We were reading, and one of my students pronounced ‘down’ like ‘own.’ Sound familiar? This is where all that practice with deleting and substituting really pays off. As students start to learn that certain spelling patterns can make more than one sound, they need to develop some mental flexibility as they decode. Marnie Ginsberg refers to this concept as “set for variability.”
Because we’d been playing with sounds, she caught herself and said, “That doesn’t make sense,” tried the other sound of ‘ow’, and recognized that it was a real word that made sense in the sentence.
What’s Working in My Groups Right Now
Movement Makes It Stick: We literally “pull off” sounds for deletion and “swap” sounds for substitution. This not only gets them engaged, but helps me to monitor participation and check for understanding
Partner Power: I pair up my kids and let them be “sound coaches” for each other. The confidence boost when they help their partner? Priceless.
Keep It Light: Sometimes we have “silly sound day” where we practice with funny voices. Because why not? Learning should be fun!
Celebrate the Small Wins: When a student gets even part of a sound manipulation right, we celebrate. Whenever I give feedback to students, I start by telling them what they got right and then tell them what they need to fix. This helps to minimize feelings of frustration and prevents them from guessing because they can anchor to the part that they already got right.
Do Students Need to Master Deleting and Substituting Phonemes?
While deleting and substituting phonemes are important phonemic awareness skills, there’s an ongoing discussion in the literacy community about whether all students need to master them. These skills, often called “advanced phonemic awareness” (a term popularized by David Kilpatrick), are certainly valuable – but Kilpatrick himself suggests a more nuanced approach.
According to his research, once students can successfully blend and segment phonemes, they can develop these more advanced skills naturally through regular reading and writing activities.
Rather than requiring all students to master deleting and substituting in isolation, Kilpatrick recommends focusing these specific practice activities on students who show phonological deficits. It’s worth noting that research in this area is still evolving – as Timothy Shanahan points out, we need more studies to fully understand the benefits of deleting and substituting sounds, particularly for older struggling readers. The key takeaway is that while these skills are important, they don’t necessarily require intensive, isolated practice for every student.
Your Turn!
Start small, keep it playful, and remember – every little sound game that practices deleting and substituting is building those reading muscles. And hey, if something doesn’t work? Try something else! That’s what teaching is all about, right? Some days our sound lessons will be amazing, and some days… well, let’s just say there’s always tomorrow! The important thing is that we keep making these skills feel doable and fun for our kids.
