Education Week - January 25, 2023 - 9

Panel of 2000 may be partly to blame.
Heavily publicized nationwide, the panel
recommends combining the following techniques
for teaching children to read: phonemic
awareness, phonics, fluency, guided oral reading,
teaching vocabulary words, and readingcomprehension
strategy.
The report does reference writing,
particularly in the context of phonemic
awareness and phonics, as students are learning
how to manipulate sounds and letters. But it
does not specifically mention encoding-or
other granular aspects of writing. And even
today, there is much less published research on
the elements of effective writing instruction.
" I've done a number of national surveys, "
Graham said. " Writing and encoding see much
less emphasis in the curriculum than reading
does. "
Other literacy experts share similar
experiences. " Most phonics instruction is
heavily focused on decoding. They want kids to
learn how to read words. They might do some
encoding, but it's often an afterthought, " said
Margie Gillis, a nationally recognized literacy
expert and the president of Connecticut-based
Literacy How, Inc., a company that creates
professional-development curricula for pre-K
through middle school.
Reading professor Amy Murdoch says she's
seen schools " plop in " phonological-awareness
programs that are disconnected to the other
important elements of early literacy like
spelling and writing.
Why encoding matters, and what it
looks like in the classroom
" You can't separate the different strategies of
language, " said Murdoch, an assistant dean and
associate professor in the School of Education
at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.
That's particularly true for encoding and
decoding. " We really drive home the point that
[decoding and encoding] are reciprocal, and
they bootstrap each other, " Gillis said.
The brush strokes that, ideally, children begin
practicing even before kindergarten form the
essential building blocks of encoding: letters
and, subsequently, words and sentences.
Teaching proper letter formation through
repetition breeds automaticity, which is critical
for the writing process, say literacy experts.
" I'm a stickler for letter formations. If our kids
are not forming letters correctly to automaticity,
that impedes them in spelling and writing,
because they're having to then think of how to
form those letters, " said literacy expert Casey
Harrison.
When students develop letter automaticity,
they can shift their focus to whatever it is they're
writing, points out Harrison, an Austin, Texasbased
licensed dyslexia therapist and founder
of The Dyslexia Classroom, which provides
resources for dyslexic learners as well as online
courses for educators, parents, and therapists.
Carrie Norris, the director of K-8 curriculum
and instruction for the Transylvania County
schools in North Carolina, has witnessed
firsthand the advantages that come with a
focus on early letter formation among her
district's kindergartners. " They learn how to
do strokes first-students doing horizontal,
vertical, diagonal, and circle strokes, " said
Norris, who added that she's seen a significant
improvement in students' ability to form letters
correctly when given consistent and step-bystep
practice opportunities in kindergarten.
But even the earliest stages of encoding
should not be happening in a vacuum,
the experts explain. " We are tying muscle
movement and tactile kinetic letter formation
with hearing the sound and associating it with
its name, " said Gillis.
Spelling assignments
often miss the mark
Very young students just beginning to connect
their understanding of phonetic awareness to
writing letters and words may struggle with the
fine motor skills these tasks require. Making it
fun can help. Gillis suggests having students
write on a plate of shaving cream. Colored sand
is another favorite, as are grooved surfaces that
feel good on students' fingertips. " It doesn't
have to be 'drill and kill', " she said.
Despite ample evidence of the reciprocal and
necessary relationship between decoding and
encoding, some traditional assignments continue
to miss the mark. Take spelling lists, for instance.
" I still see spelling instruction whereby lists
of [spelling] words are sent home that may or
may not have some spelling patterns in there, "
Harrison said. " It makes me realize the deep
connection between sound-spelling for reading
and sound-spelling for writing is not fully
understood. "
She doesn't suggest getting rid of the
age-old spelling list, rather, revising how it's
used. " Spelling instruction should be part of
daily literacy lessons, " Harrison said. " But
we want students drawing on their soundsymbol
knowledge and connections to reading
instruction. "
Harrison explains her version of the spelling
test. As a former classroom teacher, and now as
a licensed dyslexia therapist, she'll make a video
of the spelling concept of the week (for example,
spelling with the final /k/ sound or vowelconsonant-e
pattern) and use it all week in class
as the students focus on decoding and encoding
"
If our kids are not forming
letters correctly to
automaticity, that impedes
them in spelling and writing,
because they're having
to then think of how
to form those letters.
CASEY HARRISON
Licensed dyslexia therapist
words containing the rule. On Friday, students
have their spelling test. Harrison picks 10 to 20
words containing the rule and has the students
write the words using the concept they'd learned
that week.
When students spell the words correctly,
Harrison knows they haven't simply memorized
a list of words they were apt to forget later.
Rather, they've mastered a phonetic rule of the
English language that they could apply to other
words they attempt to read or spell.
" I tell them: I can't teach you every word in the
English language. But I can give you the tools to
apply to new, unknown words for reading and
spelling, " Harrison said.
The science of reading movement has been
largely led by advocates of students with
language disabilities. And as with decoding,
teaching encoding in a systematic, explicit
manner can benefit all kids but is particularly
critical to those with processing disorders.
" These are our students who are struggling
in accessing the phonological code, " Harrison
said, referring to students with dyslexia. " They
really need it broken down into a very systematic
approach, where things are explicitly taught. "
Students who are unable to spell words
experience cascading effects like lower scores
on assignments and a disconnect between
oral and written language, which can lead to
poor self-esteem and a negative outlook on
schoolwork, Harrison observes. When students
become proficient readers and spellers, the
opposite can occur.
" I want to empower students, " Harrison said.
" We do that by connecting the reading and the
spelling. " n
Coverage of students with learning differences
and issues of race, opportunity, and equity
is supported in part by a grant from the
Oak Foundation, at www.oakfnd.org. Education Week
retains sole editorial control over the content
of this coverage.
THE SCIENCE OF READING AND WRITING | 9
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Education Week - January 25, 2023

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