Unlocking Literacy : Effective Decoding and Spelling Instruction

With this work, educators should help students from pre-kindergarten to middle school and beyond learn to read and spell accurately - and they'll get a refresher course on language skills and structure so they can teach students with confidence. Designed for pre-service and in-service general and special educators, the text offers a range of teaching strategies that integrate two interlocking skills - decoding and spelling. Teachers will: sharpen their knowledge of three basic concepts for decoding words and spelling them - letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns, and morpheme patterns; expand students' literacy skills and knowledge by increasing their awareness and understanding of the origins of English words, affixes, roots and combining forms, multi-syllabic words, and abstract concepts; and begin formal reading and writing instruction by teaching students to identify, understand and use common consonant and vowel patterns, syllables, common spelling rules, prefixes and suffixes, roots, non-phonetic words, and contractions.