Coaching Impact - The Joy of Light Bulb Moments

As a coach who leans in to help teachers improve early literacy instruction, there's nothing more rewarding than seeing the light bulb go off first for teachers and then for their students.

One of the most underutilized -- or sometimes completely unused -- components of some of the best literacy curricula on the market are things called Sound Spelling Cards. These cards organize all the most common graphemes (spelling patterns) around the phonemes (sounds) they represent.

I believe the first major publisher to use Sound Spelling Cards was SRA which was later purchased by and incorporated into the old Open Court Reading program. Those cards were awesome! I loved using them when I was an elementary school teacher.

Many companies have made their own, but I would say most curriculum providers don't know how to teach teachers how to use them well.

I've been supporting some schools in NW New Mexico this year. One thing I've focused on is these cards. The schools have a program that came with the cards, but no one knew how to use them. In fairness, the curriculum was vague, largely because the company behind it has moved to a "digital first" strategy, and I think the publisher's curriculum writers honestly forgot what purpose these serve.

As I supported these schools, we have prioritized getting these cards on the walls and teaching students how to understand the depth of English orthography for both reading and spelling.

For example, in this image, you'll notice I recommended the teachers add little green post it notes to some of the graphemes. That's because students should learn that those graphemes only occur after short vowels, and you can see that the short vowel cards have a little green strip at the bottom.

These cards have so much value!

I'm posting this today in celebration because this picture was in a Special Education teacher's classroom. I've been working with her and one of her colleagues who teaches 2nd grade. They have both run with what I've been teaching them because it helped them make sense of phonics.

This particular Special Education teacher told me today: "I can see my kids learning faster with these cards, especially the students who are also seeing the same cards in their homeroom teacher's class!"

I got to see it in action also. When I observed her teaching today, students that I saw struggling a few months ago are now shining because she and her colleague have done two things: (1) implemented more explicit instructional routines for blending and spelling and (2) integrated a common visual Sound Spelling Card wall across general education and special education environments.

It was truly rewarding to see how she's helping her students with something so simple, and yet so powerful!