Decoding Intervention for a Third Grader With Dyslexia
Elena is an eight-year-old third grader who reads grade-level passages at 42 words correct per minute with 90% accuracy. Her errors cluster on consonant blends, vowel teams such as /ai/ and /ea/, and two-syllable words; she often reads 'gril' for 'girl' and 'beach' for 'bench.' Her comprehension is 40% when she reads silently but 75% when the same passage is read aloud. She knows most common sight words and spells words the way they sound, such as 'becuz' for 'because.' She has received Tier 2 intervention for eight weeks, 20 minutes three times weekly, focused on repeated reading of leveled passages. Progress monitoring shows her fluency increased from 38 to 42 wcpm but her accuracy on multisyllabic words remains at 55%. The IEP team is considering whether her intervention is appropriately matched to her needs.
1. What does the pattern of Elena's errors and comprehension scores suggest about her primary area of need? Explain how you would confirm this pattern.
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Elena's profile points to a word-level reading disability, not a comprehension disability.
- Her errors are phonological and orthographic: blends, vowel teams, and multisyllabic words. 'Gril' for 'girl' and 'beach' for 'bench' show she is using partial cues and not fully sequencing or attending to vowel teams.
- Her comprehension is much higher when listening (75%) than when reading (40%), which suggests that her listening comprehension and language knowledge are strengths and that decoding is bottlenecking comprehension.
- Her phonetic spelling ('becuz') is consistent with a phonological coding weakness, though spelling alone is not diagnostic.
- Her Tier 2 intervention focused on repeated reading of leveled passages, which can improve fluency with known words but does not systematically teach vowel teams and multisyllabic decoding. That mismatch explains why fluency rose from 38 to 42 while multisyllabic accuracy stayed at 55%. To confirm, the team should administer a phonics screener, a nonsense-word decoding probe, and a spelling inventory, and listen to her read both familiar and unfamiliar multisyllabic words. They should also check whether her 90% accuracy on grade passages is inflated by predictable text or teacher support.
2. Design a six-week small-group intervention plan for Elena. Specify the instructional focus, grouping, session structure, and materials, and justify each choice.
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Six-week plan, 30 minutes, four times weekly, group of three students with similar needs:
- Warm-up (5 min): review previously taught vowel teams and blends with flash cards and word chains, for example 'rain, main, mail, nail.'
- Explicit phonics (10 min): teach one vowel team or syllable type per week using a consistent routine: hear it, see it, say it, write it, read it in words, then in sentences.
- Word building and spelling (8 min): use letter tiles or dry-erase segmentation for two-syllable words; immediately correct errors and have Elena explain the pattern.
- Connected text (5 min): read decodable sentences or a short passage that contains the target pattern, then reread for accuracy, not speed.
- Progress check (2 min): one-minute nonsense-word or word-list probe. Materials should be decodable and sequenced, not leveled trade books that introduce too many unknown patterns. The repeated-reading component can remain as a fluency activity once accuracy improves, but it should not be the core. This plan matches the error pattern and the data showing that the previous intervention targeted the wrong skill.
3. What progress-monitoring measures and decision rules should the team use to determine whether the intervention is working?
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Use two levels of monitoring:
- Weekly nonsense-word decoding and a multisyllabic word list of 10-15 words to measure the target skill.
- Biweekly oral reading fluency and accuracy on an unfamiliar grade-level passage to check transfer.
- Spelling inventory at weeks 1, 3, and 6 to see whether vowel-team patterns generalize to writing. Decision rules:
- After 3 weeks, if multisyllabic accuracy has not improved by at least 10 percentage points or the weekly slope is flat, change the instructional routine: more modeling, smaller group, more practice.
- After 6 weeks, if accuracy is improving but fluency is still low, keep decoding and add fluency practice.
- If accuracy improves but comprehension does not, check whether passage level or vocabulary is the barrier. The team should set a goal, for example 80% accuracy on a multisyllabic word list and 60 wcpm with 95% accuracy by week 6, and review the data at a scheduled meeting. The key is to monitor the skill being taught, not only passage fluency.