road less traveled, The

Kappa Delta Pi Record, Summer 2001 by Pauwels, Pamela, Hess, Carol

Using the whole-part-whole method of instruction, I began with the whole by reading the big book. The students began by looking at the book cover and making predictions. I would then read the book aloud, pointing to each word as I read with a pointer. We then discussed the predictions the girls had made. On the second day, we reread the big book, discussing the pictures on each page. After this second reading, I introduced the "part" by teaching isolated skills, starting with beginning consonant sounds (Strickland 1998). I had added diphthongs and digraphs to the word wall during the first four weeks of school because, if these appeared in the big book we were reading, the children were seeing them in the text on a daily basis. I placed the sound blends /sh/ under the letter S, /chi under the letter C, /whl under the letter W, and so on. On the third day, we returned to the "whole" by rereading the big book.

Once introduced to this new method, the students sat in front of the word wall as we began our next book. As we read Mrs. Wishy- Washy (Cowley 1990a), this is how the conversation went:

"What letter does mud begin with?" I asked, accentuating the /ml sound. "M!" said Courtney with excitement. She got up and with the pointer found the letter M on the word wall. She put the word under the letter M, and then the group clapped for Courtney's accomplishment! "What other word is under the letter /Mm/?" I asked. "Me! From Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? [Martin 1970], -'I see a brown bear looking at me,"' said Dakota, loudly and confidently.

I was surprised at how quickly the girls learned the meaning of beginning sounds. Instead of practicing this skill on worksheets that are often difficult for children with special needs, they practiced the skill with words that they saw in large print in the big books. The words had meaning to them because they saw them in the big books. I placed picture icons of the books that the words came from next to the corresponding words on the word wall. This practice created the essential connection Caine and Caine (1994) described. By November, the students all had mastered the concept of beginning sounds.

The first-grade curriculum in the local school district required students to read the pre-primer Dolch words, the most frequently found "sight" words in children's books, such as "the," "and," "you," and "L" This expectation was supported by the belief that, if children can recognize sight words immediately, they will more easily read text that also has unknown words they must decode (Gillet and Temple 1994). All four of the girls had the pre-primer Dolch words on their Individual Education Plans. I had always taught sight words in isolation by using flash cards and precision teaching. This method is designed to give students continuous practice on a list of sight words that are reviewed repeatedly to help them remember the words (Mercer and Mercer 1989). With the new word wall, I decided to put the preprimer sight words on the word wall when they appeared in our big book readings.