Remediation Suggestions

As I see it, our goal is to explore what we can do to help students to read, even those who are in the upper grades.  To do this, we want to make maximum use of minimum time.   To note why we should consider training of phoneme perception at the rate of speech, see Rationale.

I have been using the following technique, which I call the Phoneme Processing Program (PPP), for many years and have found that I can target the phoneme confusion that exists and help develop a clear perception of that phoneme, starting with the speech sound (phoneme) by itself and gradually progressing to the perception of that phoneme in the ongoing speech of their environment.  This technique has been useful for improving articulation, accent reduction, as well as improved decoding and spelling.

  • Throughout the program the student signifies perception of specified phoneme by tapping on the table with a coin when he/she hears the phoneme: first in isolation, next in nonsense syllables, then in words, and, finally in sentences.  As the student becomes more proficient at the sentence level, he/she no longer taps for the phoneme, but can then count the number in a sentence that is read at a speed that  approximates normal conversation.
  • Throughout the program, the teacher notes specific confusions at each level (e.g., confuses [s] and [th] in the final position in nonsense words)
  • The teacher also charts progress for the sounds that were designated for remediation on the PPT-R.
  • The details of the Phoneme Processing Program (PPP) will be available in the near future to those who express an interest.

Rhyming knowledge project:

If you have determined that your student struggles with decoding/spelling certain vowels or certain blends:

  • You might use alphabetic order to create rhyming words (as well as non-words). That is, have your student create, write and read all single syllable words that contain the short a, i and e vowels and end in each consonant of the alphabet. (For example, all words/non-words that rhyme with  --ab, --ac(k), --ad,  --af, etc.).    
  • After your student has created a number of lists, he/she may experience success in rapidly reading the list and charting his/her timed responses.
  • They can highlight those “words’ that are actually real words.
  • Then have student add to these lists, words that start with s-blends (e.g. stab, stack, stad, staf, etc.), r-blends (e.g., trab, track, trad, traf, etc.) and then l-blends (e.g., blab, black, blad, blaf, etc.).