September 6, 2025 • 15 mins
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Are your students good readers, but poor spellers? If so, you are not alone. Spelling Success in Action addresses phonics, orthography, and morphology to give students a well-rounded understanding of how our language system works.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jocelyn (00:00):
Welcome to this episode of the Structured Literacy
Podcast.
My name is Jocelyn and I am sopleased to welcome you here.
One of the wonderfuldevelopments in schools in the
past couple of years is that thefocus on explicit literacy
instruction has extended to theupper primary grades.
When we first ran our workshopand online course Build the
(00:21):
Foundations for your UpperPrimary Liter literacy block,
teachers were dabbling.
Now, in September 2025, manyschools are actively
establishing consistentpractices in years three to six.
One of the main areas of focusfor many teachers is fluency.
With the adoption of normedreading assessments like
(00:42):
DIBble's, we are more consciousof the importance of fluency
than ever.
Having normed assessment, wherewe have unambiguous data about
rate and accuracy, means thatteachers have a real picture,
often for the first time, ofwhere students are up to in
fluency.
As they say, where focus goes,energy flows.
(01:03):
Seeing students struggle meansthat we want to act.
This means that the focus inmany three to six classrooms is
establishing repeated readingpractices to address fluency
challenges.
This is a great thing to do andI have no doubt that teachers
are seeing benefits.
It's also possible that thereare students whose data isn't
(01:27):
moving appropriately, despiteconsistent repeated reading.
Let's dive into why this mightbe and explore some key actions
To nut out this issue.
We need to go back to thebeginning and unpack the
elements of fluency.
Fluency has three componentsaccuracy, rate and prosody.
(01:48):
Accuracy is obviously aboutreading words correctly.
We've always measured accuracy.
What we're looking for, though,is 96% accuracy of an unseen
text to say that a student is ontrack.
Rate is the speed at which astudent reads In normed
(02:08):
assessment.
This is measured in words,correct per minute.
This changes each year andvaries over the grades of school
.
Year one is around 60 words perminute, year two 90 words per
minute, and then theexpectations increase and
fluctuate from there dependingon which tool you're using.
The third area is prosody, andthat relates to phrasing and
(02:33):
expression.
When we understand thecomponents of fluency and how to
read our data, we're in a goodposition to understand the needs
of our students and makedecisions for instruction.
Having data and being able toprofile students means that we
can easily choose instructionalactions that respond to their
(02:55):
needs.
This kind of data analysisenables responsive teaching,
which is why it's an importantinclusion in leading learning
success.
Teachers learn to identify oneof four broad categories slow
and accurate, speedy andaccurate, slow and inaccurate,
and fast and inaccurate.
Each of these learning profileshas specific reasons and
(03:20):
responses.
Now let's circle back to thefocus of this episode, which is
repeated reading and when it canand might not be of greatest
use.
Student Profile 1 is thestudents who are already fluent.
These students will show up asbeing green or blue in dibbles
(03:41):
and when you listen to them read, they have lovely phrasing and
expression.
These students are not thetarget focus for repeated
reading.
For students who are alreadyfluent readers, the focus shifts
to wide reading to increase thenumber of texts they're
encountering In your partnerreading time in the literacy
block.
These students may well expressresentment at being asked to
(04:05):
re-read texts that they havealready read well and that they
already understand.
And that's fair enough Ifstudents are speedy and accurate
, but their prosody isn't great.
You can address this throughreading across the curriculum,
by having shared text thatstudents read with you and that
(04:28):
you can highlight sentences andphrases for repeated reading
across the class to point outthe prosody.
The second reading profile isthe student who is accurate but
slow.
This group of students benefitsthe most from repeated reading
of grade-appropriate texts thatare a little trickier than they
(04:49):
could read themselvesconfidently.
And what I'm talking about hereare not students who are still
learning to decode.
We're talking about studentswho've reached the threshold and
they may be accurate, asidentified in your assessment
data, but slow.
We have a research to theclassroom series all about dyad
(05:11):
reading as a form of repeatedreading to support students in
this category, and we'll put alink in the show notes on our
website.
It's also worth noting thatmorphology instruction is
extremely useful for thesestudents because it helps them
to read more accurately andquickly, because they can use
the morphemes to lift words fromthe page rather than the
(05:33):
graphemes, which is a much moreefficient process for long words
.
If your school is usingspelling success in action,
you've got all that you need tomake this happen.
The third student profile arethose who are fast but
inaccurate.
There could be a few reasonsfor this profile, but the first
(05:55):
thing to do is to reinforce withthe student that first comes
accuracy, then comes speed.
Inaccurate, fast readers areprobably rushing, either from
habit or because they have somechallenge with attention and
impulse control.
No-transcript it's good forthem to do partner reading as
(06:30):
well, so we're not saying onlyreading with adults, but they
really do need an adult in thepicture.
It's also important toinvestigate phonics and word
level knowledge for thesestudents, because the reason for
the inaccuracy could be a lackof knowledge at that level.
This needs to go beyond thecorrect letter sounds in Dibbles
(06:51):
, because Dibbles doesn't testfor the full code.
Most of what you need to scorea green or blue result in
correct letter sounds in Dibblesis the basic code with just a
couple of vowel digraphs.
So you can find a free wholeclass spelling test that will
tell you what code knowledgestudents are missing on our
(07:12):
website atjostensemaeducationcom.
Forward slash free dashresources.
We'll put the link in our shownotes.
If a student can recallgraphemes and spell words well,
they will be able to read them.
It would be a case study of onefor this not to be the case.
A spelling test is a reliableand efficient way to check on
(07:36):
student knowledge at this level.
The last profile is profile four, which are students who are
slow and inaccurate.
They are the ones that keep usawake at night.
It's important to remember whenwe're thinking about these
students that accuracy comesfirst and speed comes later.
(07:58):
So the main focus for thestudents in this category is to
address accuracy concerns.
That means the primary focusfor these students is phonics.
It's important that students inthis slow and inaccurate
category have phonics tested forreading as well as spelling.
You don't need a specialintervention-focused test for
(08:22):
this.
The phoneme-graphemecorrespondence assessment
included with your phonicsprogram is just fine.
Resource room members andschools using Reading Success in
Action have access to one ofthese assessments.
The question you are answeringhere is which specific graphemes
is the student missing?
The response is to teach thesegraphemes in a direct, explicit
(08:46):
way.
That includes both reading andwriting of words reading at
sentence and text level andwriting at sentence level.
It is also a good idea toinvestigate phonological and
phonemic awareness difficultiesfor a student who is obviously
having trouble blending.
So if the student can blend butthey don't know the code, then
(09:09):
your focus is on the code.
If the student is strugglingwith the blending and with the
code, then both of those need tobe a focus.
But I do need to say that theanswer to the blending or the
phonemic awareness piece is notoral phonemic awareness.
It is word work with graphemesthat the student has learned.
(09:30):
Doing some diagnosticassessment and acting on what we
find prevents the situationthat many teachers and students
are finding themselves in at themoment.
There's a lot of energy goinginto text-level reading practice
but minimal, if any,improvements in reading fluency.
(09:50):
And I'm going to say this againand invite you to make a big
banner for your classroom andyour staff room First comes
accuracy, then comes speed.
Without accuracy, built on asolid foundation of phonics
knowledge, nothing else we do isgoing to make the difference
we're looking for in fluency.
(10:12):
Once the phonics foundationsare there, that is, the student
can read and write with 60 to 70graphemes we need to deepen
their knowledge of morphology totake them the next step beyond
single-syllable words.
I know it feelscounterintuitive to be
discussing spelling and phonicswhen we're talking about
(10:34):
addressing student fluency.
After all, surely text-levelfluency issues require a
text-level focus, while choosingthe right text for fluency work
is important and you will havestudents reading different texts
in the partner reading time inthe classroom.
Text-level reading alone willnot address fluency issues if
(10:57):
the student cannot reliably andautomatically lift the words
from the page because theirfoundational knowledge is weak.
So there you have it.
When repeated reading doesn'twork, it's likely because we
haven't matched the interventionor approach to the student's
specific needs.
For fluent readers, it's aboutexpanding their reading diet.
(11:20):
For accurate but slow readers,repeated reading with
appropriately challenging textis perfect.
For fast but inaccurate readers, we need to slow things down
and address both accuracy andany underlying phonics gaps, and
for slow and inaccurate readerswe need to go right back to
(11:41):
those foundational phonicsskills.
Remember, assessment informsinstruction.
It is also the way we evaluatethe impact we're making with the
work that we're doing.
For students who are older andsitting in that slow and
inaccurate space, don't expectto see fluency gains overnight,
(12:02):
but we should be seeing themwithin a term or two, but we
really should be noticing themat sentence and phrase-level
first word level accuracy,leading up with practice to the
phrasing and phrase levelaccuracy, then sentences,
(12:25):
because that's what's going toget us and them to that text
level fluency we're looking for.
Also, remember this if thestudent is a naturally slow
processor, that is, everythingthey do is slow and you know
that they need more thinkingtime than all the other students
all of the time.
Don't push for them to befaster.
(12:47):
They cannot read faster thanthey think and speak.
So for those students, whatwe're looking for is accuracy
and reading that is at the rateof the normal speech.
I know that you can feel likethere are a lot of moving parts
in this fluency piece, but usedata as your friend, pinpoint
(13:08):
the reasons for the lack offluency and address them one at
a time.
Thanks so much for joining mefor this episode of the
Structured Literacy Podcast.
I hope this has been useful inhelping you think through your
fluency instruction challengesin a more targeted way.
Until next time, happy teachingeveryone.
Bye.
Welcome to this episode of the Structured Literacy
Podcast.
My name is Jocelyn and I am sopleased to welcome you here.
One of the wonderfuldevelopments in schools in the
past couple of years is that thefocus on explicit literacy
instruction has extended to theupper primary grades.
When we first ran our workshopand online course Build the
(00:21):
Foundations for your UpperPrimary Liter literacy block,
teachers were dabbling.
Now, in September 2025, manyschools are actively
establishing consistentpractices in years three to six.
One of the main areas of focusfor many teachers is fluency.
With the adoption of normedreading assessments like
(00:42):
DIBble's, we are more consciousof the importance of fluency
than ever.
Having normed assessment, wherewe have unambiguous data about
rate and accuracy, means thatteachers have a real picture,
often for the first time, ofwhere students are up to in
fluency.
As they say, where focus goes,energy flows.
(01:03):
Seeing students struggle meansthat we want to act.
This means that the focus inmany three to six classrooms is
establishing repeated readingpractices to address fluency
challenges.
This is a great thing to do andI have no doubt that teachers
are seeing benefits.
It's also possible that thereare students whose data isn't
(01:27):
moving appropriately, despiteconsistent repeated reading.
Let's dive into why this mightbe and explore some key actions
To nut out this issue.
We need to go back to thebeginning and unpack the
elements of fluency.
Fluency has three componentsaccuracy, rate and prosody.
(01:48):
Accuracy is obviously aboutreading words correctly.
We've always measured accuracy.
What we're looking for, though,is 96% accuracy of an unseen
text to say that a student is ontrack.
Rate is the speed at which astudent reads In normed
(02:08):
assessment.
This is measured in words,correct per minute.
This changes each year andvaries over the grades of school
.
Year one is around 60 words perminute, year two 90 words per
minute, and then theexpectations increase and
fluctuate from there dependingon which tool you're using.
The third area is prosody, andthat relates to phrasing and
(02:33):
expression.
When we understand thecomponents of fluency and how to
read our data, we're in a goodposition to understand the needs
of our students and makedecisions for instruction.
Having data and being able toprofile students means that we
can easily choose instructionalactions that respond to their
(02:55):
needs.
This kind of data analysisenables responsive teaching,
which is why it's an importantinclusion in leading learning
success.
Teachers learn to identify oneof four broad categories slow
and accurate, speedy andaccurate, slow and inaccurate,
and fast and inaccurate.
Each of these learning profileshas specific reasons and
(03:20):
responses.
Now let's circle back to thefocus of this episode, which is
repeated reading and when it canand might not be of greatest
use.
Student Profile 1 is thestudents who are already fluent.
These students will show up asbeing green or blue in dibbles
(03:41):
and when you listen to them read, they have lovely phrasing and
expression.
These students are not thetarget focus for repeated
reading.
For students who are alreadyfluent readers, the focus shifts
to wide reading to increase thenumber of texts they're
encountering In your partnerreading time in the literacy
block.
These students may well expressresentment at being asked to
(04:05):
re-read texts that they havealready read well and that they
already understand.
And that's fair enough Ifstudents are speedy and accurate
, but their prosody isn't great.
You can address this throughreading across the curriculum,
by having shared text thatstudents read with you and that
(04:28):
you can highlight sentences andphrases for repeated reading
across the class to point outthe prosody.
The second reading profile isthe student who is accurate but
slow.
This group of students benefitsthe most from repeated reading
of grade-appropriate texts thatare a little trickier than they
(04:49):
could read themselvesconfidently.
And what I'm talking about hereare not students who are still
learning to decode.
We're talking about studentswho've reached the threshold and
they may be accurate, asidentified in your assessment
data, but slow.
We have a research to theclassroom series all about dyad
(05:11):
reading as a form of repeatedreading to support students in
this category, and we'll put alink in the show notes on our
website.
It's also worth noting thatmorphology instruction is
extremely useful for thesestudents because it helps them
to read more accurately andquickly, because they can use
the morphemes to lift words fromthe page rather than the
(05:33):
graphemes, which is a much moreefficient process for long words
.
If your school is usingspelling success in action,
you've got all that you need tomake this happen.
The third student profile arethose who are fast but
inaccurate.
There could be a few reasonsfor this profile, but the first
(05:55):
thing to do is to reinforce withthe student that first comes
accuracy, then comes speed.
Inaccurate, fast readers areprobably rushing, either from
habit or because they have somechallenge with attention and
impulse control.
No-transcript it's good forthem to do partner reading as
(06:30):
well, so we're not saying onlyreading with adults, but they
really do need an adult in thepicture.
It's also important toinvestigate phonics and word
level knowledge for thesestudents, because the reason for
the inaccuracy could be a lackof knowledge at that level.
This needs to go beyond thecorrect letter sounds in Dibbles
(06:51):
, because Dibbles doesn't testfor the full code.
Most of what you need to scorea green or blue result in
correct letter sounds in Dibblesis the basic code with just a
couple of vowel digraphs.
So you can find a free wholeclass spelling test that will
tell you what code knowledgestudents are missing on our
(07:12):
website atjostensemaeducationcom.
Forward slash free dashresources.
We'll put the link in our shownotes.
If a student can recallgraphemes and spell words well,
they will be able to read them.
It would be a case study of onefor this not to be the case.
A spelling test is a reliableand efficient way to check on
(07:36):
student knowledge at this level.
The last profile is profile four, which are students who are
slow and inaccurate.
They are the ones that keep usawake at night.
It's important to remember whenwe're thinking about these
students that accuracy comesfirst and speed comes later.
(07:58):
So the main focus for thestudents in this category is to
address accuracy concerns.
That means the primary focusfor these students is phonics.
It's important that students inthis slow and inaccurate
category have phonics tested forreading as well as spelling.
You don't need a specialintervention-focused test for
(08:22):
this.
The phoneme-graphemecorrespondence assessment
included with your phonicsprogram is just fine.
Resource room members andschools using Reading Success in
Action have access to one ofthese assessments.
The question you are answeringhere is which specific graphemes
is the student missing?
The response is to teach thesegraphemes in a direct, explicit
(08:46):
way.
That includes both reading andwriting of words reading at
sentence and text level andwriting at sentence level.
It is also a good idea toinvestigate phonological and
phonemic awareness difficultiesfor a student who is obviously
having trouble blending.
So if the student can blend butthey don't know the code, then
(09:09):
your focus is on the code.
If the student is strugglingwith the blending and with the
code, then both of those need tobe a focus.
But I do need to say that theanswer to the blending or the
phonemic awareness piece is notoral phonemic awareness.
It is word work with graphemesthat the student has learned.
(09:30):
Doing some diagnosticassessment and acting on what we
find prevents the situationthat many teachers and students
are finding themselves in at themoment.
There's a lot of energy goinginto text-level reading practice
but minimal, if any,improvements in reading fluency.
(09:50):
And I'm going to say this againand invite you to make a big
banner for your classroom andyour staff room First comes
accuracy, then comes speed.
Without accuracy, built on asolid foundation of phonics
knowledge, nothing else we do isgoing to make the difference
we're looking for in fluency.
(10:12):
Once the phonics foundationsare there, that is, the student
can read and write with 60 to 70graphemes we need to deepen
their knowledge of morphology totake them the next step beyond
single-syllable words.
I know it feelscounterintuitive to be
discussing spelling and phonicswhen we're talking about
(10:34):
addressing student fluency.
After all, surely text-levelfluency issues require a
text-level focus, while choosingthe right text for fluency work
is important and you will havestudents reading different texts
in the partner reading time inthe classroom.
Text-level reading alone willnot address fluency issues if
(10:57):
the student cannot reliably andautomatically lift the words
from the page because theirfoundational knowledge is weak.
So there you have it.
When repeated reading doesn'twork, it's likely because we
haven't matched the interventionor approach to the student's
specific needs.
For fluent readers, it's aboutexpanding their reading diet.
(11:20):
For accurate but slow readers,repeated reading with
appropriately challenging textis perfect.
For fast but inaccurate readers, we need to slow things down
and address both accuracy andany underlying phonics gaps, and
for slow and inaccurate readerswe need to go right back to
(11:41):
those foundational phonicsskills.
Remember, assessment informsinstruction.
It is also the way we evaluatethe impact we're making with the
work that we're doing.
For students who are older andsitting in that slow and
inaccurate space, don't expectto see fluency gains overnight,
(12:02):
but we should be seeing themwithin a term or two, but we
really should be noticing themat sentence and phrase-level
first word level accuracy,leading up with practice to the
phrasing and phrase levelaccuracy, then sentences,
(12:25):
because that's what's going toget us and them to that text
level fluency we're looking for.
Also, remember this if thestudent is a naturally slow
processor, that is, everythingthey do is slow and you know
that they need more thinkingtime than all the other students
all of the time.
Don't push for them to befaster.
(12:47):
They cannot read faster thanthey think and speak.
So for those students, whatwe're looking for is accuracy
and reading that is at the rateof the normal speech.
I know that you can feel likethere are a lot of moving parts
in this fluency piece, but usedata as your friend, pinpoint
(13:08):
the reasons for the lack offluency and address them one at
a time.
Thanks so much for joining mefor this episode of the
Structured Literacy Podcast.
I hope this has been useful inhelping you think through your
fluency instruction challengesin a more targeted way.
Until next time, happy teachingeveryone.
Bye.
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