Part 2 - Detailed Assessment
This assessment gives schools and early years settings detailed information about this programme set against each core criterion. For a more general ‘snapshot’ assessment please see part 1.
Please explain how your programme meets the following core criteria:
The programme should:
present high quality systematic phonic work, as defined by the Independent review of teaching of early reading and now encapsulated in the Primary Framework, as the prime approach to decoding print
The Wright Skills systematically and explicitly teaches skills in a sequential and clearly defined order using a research-based scope and sequence of skills. Over the two-day lessons students have numerous opportunities to make and practice sound-symbol connections. Lessons teach students how to blend, segment, and manipulate sounds and letters in words as they practice and develop decoding strategies. |
enable children to start learning phonic knowledge and skills systematically by the age of five with the expectation that they will be fluent readers having secured word recognition skills by the end of key stage one
Phonological and phonemic awareness instruction is an integral part of the lessons. The Wright Skills lessons for Kindergarten (Reception) begin with developing awareness in hearing words, rhymes, compound words, syllables, alliteration, and onsets and rimes. Students then learn how to blend, segment and/or manipulate sounds in words. Lessons at Kindergarten (Reception) also include activities for developing book concepts, such as directionality, one-to-one correspondence, return sweep, and concepts of word-space-sentence. The Wright Skills lessons then move on to instruction in sound-symbol connections using consonants and short vowels. As students move on to Grade 1 (Year 1) the lessons focus on consonant blends and digraphs, long vowels, and vowel patterns, and more complex phonics skills. By the end of first grade (Year 1) the majority of phonics skills will have been taught. |
be designed for the teaching of discrete, daily sessions progressing from simple to more complex phonic knowledge and skills and covering the major grapheme phoneme correspondences
The Wright Skills lessons are six-panel folders that follow a research-based scope and sequence to sequentially and systematically teach skills. These lessons are consistent two-day lessons that use a Demonstrate, Coach, Apply, Reteach, Assess approach. Each lesson folder provides explicit instruction on a specific phonological or phonemic awareness, phonics, and/or word study skill. Lessons provide opportunities for blending, segmenting, and manipulating sounds. The lessons include reading and spelling decodable words and high-frequency words, writing dictated sentences, and using known phonetic elements and high-frequency words to read decodable text. Students begin by learning a few consonants followed by a short vowel and then how to blend and segment one-syllable CVC words. They then progress to more complex phonics skills following the scope and sequence of the program. |
enable children’s progress to be assessed
The Wright Skills provides a variety of assessment in the key areas of phonological and phonemic awareness, concepts of print, letter recognition and formation, phonics, high-frequency words, and word study. The comprehensive periodic assessments are designed to be used for pre-assessment at the beginning of the school year to establish base-line data, for mid-year assessment to monitor students’ progress, and for post-test assessment to show student growth. Any or all of the assessments can also be used more informally on a daily or weekly basis to closely observe and monitor students’ learning. In addition, the daily lessons provide opportunities to pre and post test students on the specific skills being addressed in the lesson. Periodic cumulative review lessons also provide for continuous assessment of students’ progress . |
use a multi-sensory approach so that children learn variously from simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities which are designed to secure essential phonic knowledge and skills
Picture cards, alphabet cards, phonetic element cards, word cards, alphabet frieze cards, and magnetic letters provide an abundance of hands-on practice for students in many of the Interactive Wright Skills lessons. In addition to the cards, a variety of sound and word games are an integral part of many of the lessons. The Wright Skills Technology component provides a safe, fun, and interactive environment for students to practice the skills they are learning. The Wright Skills Program Overview offers a variety of multi-sensory activities that can be adapted and extended to help students explore, practice, and reinforce target skills. |
demonstrate that phonemes should be blended, in order, from left to right, ‘all through the word’ for reading
Each of The Wright Skills phonics lessons provides numerous opportunities for students to blend phonemes in words as they practice decoding strategies. Phonics lessons begin with a phonemic awareness activity to segment and blend sounds, moves to an activity for connecting sounds to symbols, and then to blending sounds to read words. |
demonstrate how words can be segmented into their constituent phonemes for spelling and that this is the reverse of blending phonemes to read words
The Wright Skills lessons provide numerous opportunities for students to segment phonemes in words as they practice decoding strategies. Phonics lessons begin with a phonemic awareness activity to segment and blend sounds, moves to an activity for connecting sounds to symbols, and then to blending sounds to read words. During the spelling practice and the dictation practice sections of the lesson, students practice segmenting sounds as they spell and write decodable words and write decodable sentences. |
ensure children apply phonic knowledge and skills as their first approach to reading and spelling even if a word is not completely phonically regular
The Wright Skills decodable books provide systematic and cumulative practice in decoding previously unseen connected text. All of the phonetic elements and high-frequency words in each decodable book, as well as any content words, are taught in the corresponding lessons. The Wright Skills has both fiction and non-fiction decodable books. The fiction books are 100% decodable and contain only known phonetic elements and high-frequency words that have been previously introduced, taught, and practiced. The non-fiction decodable books are 90% - 100% decodable and also contain phonetic elements and high-frequency words that have been previously taught. The non-fiction books often have content words that are necessary in non-fiction text. These content specific words are introduced prior to having students read the decodable books. |
ensure that children are taught high frequency words that do not conform completely to grapheme/phoneme correspondence rules
The Wright Skills lessons systematically teach high-frequency words as a prerequisite for reading the decodable books in the corresponding lessons. On ce the high-frequency words have been taught, students have many opportunities to practice and review them throughout the lesson. The high-frequency words in each lesson are then used as part of the spelling practice and the dictation practice. All of the high-frequency words are cumulatively reviewed as the lessons progress. |
ensure that, as early as possible, children have opportunities to read texts (and spell words) that are within the reach of their phonic knowledge and skills even though every single word in the text may not be entirely decodable by the children unaided
At the beginning of Kindergarten (Reception) students are working on phonological and phonemic awareness skills, concepts of print, and letter recognition and formation. Beginning with Lesson 14 in Kindergarten (Reception) students are exposed to their first decodable book using three consonants and one short vowel to read decodable CVC words. The systematic and sequential instruction in Wright Skills ensures that students continue to build and strengthen their phonics skills as they learn more complex phonetic elements and read more complex decodable books. |
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