Here are some decodable lines that I use in homework material.

The student reads the passage (sometimes just one sentence) and
then draws an illustration of that text. This allows easy evaluation
of comprehension. In class, I have them read the passage out loud,
while covering their drawing, and then reveal the sketch and ask if
the sketch matches the text. Often, reading the passage out loud
aids in comprehension (now they're thinking in English I suppose)
and helps them recognize an error.

***********************

Example Stage One:

Ten dots on a bag.

A dog in a net.

A man under a jet.

Six tags on a big bus.

Seven eggs in a desk.

A sad duck on a bed.

Ten bags under a cross.

***********************

Example Stage Two:

A fast rocket under a truck.

Six little hotdogs in a box.

A happy fox on a big rag.


An angry rabbit.

A bad chicken.

A very big trumpet.

Lots of men in a long tunnel.

Ten helicopters.

Six happy frogs in a big puddle.

An ugly octopus under a ship.

Three glasses on seven dishes.

***********************
Example Stage Three:

Many hot pies on a short table.

Six long flutes in back of a chest.

Eleven wet ties under a big box.

Five fine rats in a big maze.

Lots of sick ants under an old clock.

Seven cute fish on a little stamp.

A hamster in front of a basket.


Jill is happy. She has many gifts.

Bob is fast. his brother is slow.

Dave is strong. He can lift his desk.

Lots of glue on an album.


***********************

Example Stage Four:

It's a Spring morning. Ann and Dave are going to the
zoo by foot. Ann's little sister is playing in the park on
the swing, with her dog Taro.

This evening, Jane and sue are going shopping. Jane's
brother is at home, fixing his toy plane. Her father is
reading on the couch.

It's a hot Summer day. Bob is fishing with his father
in a new boat on a lake. Bob has a frog in his pocket.
Bob's dad is hungry.

Tom is ten years old. This afternoon he is playing tennis
with his big brother Jim. His mother is going shopping
by car.

**********************

My apologies if this seems too infantile or basic.

Best regards, Peter Warner.

Thanks Peter. They look really good :D

There is a typo in stage 2:

Six little hotdogs on a in a box.

Thanks for posting this, Peter. I've rarely used this kind of activity in class or in my worksheets. I have preferred to use new vocabulary with a picture so that the children trace, read and look at the picture in order to understand better what they have just read. I suppose I have up to 1000 decodable sentences I work with, within my worksheets. This kind of worksheet can be used with native speakers, but more care would have to be taken with the selection of target words because they, hopefully, already have a rich and varied vocabulary.

There are a few reasons why I don't usually use drawing to evaluate students comprehension. One is the fact that even kindergarten pupils can usually draw better than myself. Another is the amount of time taken for such an activity. Some children take forever, erasing and redrawing again and again. How do you speed things up in class? And the final reason is that because I'm in an EFL situation, then my students have very little English so there's not much to evaluate, therefore I prefer they use their reading skills to learn new vocabulary and structures.

That being said, I am still very interested in what you are doing and I think that I will try and design some new materials with a mixture of learning and evaluation.

Regards,
David

Thank you, Susan. That's my fault for posting too close to class
time! And after agonizing over it, I worked up the courage
to try the 'edit' feature on this list. Successfully, as it turns out.

The typo is now corrected.

Best regards, Peter Warner.

Thank you, David. It is interesting to me how our different approaches are reflected in the material that we develop.


What I try to do is establish the vocabulary as a familiar spoken word through verbal class activities, and later have them encounter that item in text form. I'm intentionally trying to duplicate the experience a native speaker would have, where they decode by phonics training, and identify the word by recognizing its sound. There are also times when they decode but do not recognize, but I want that to be less frequent.

Me too. They always laugh at my stick figures (but I don't mind any more), and I hope that actually encourages the other weak artists.



1) The worksheets are intended for homework.
2) I limit the correction time in class to fifteen minutes (as they arrive).
3) With some children, I don't give them an eraser.
4) With some children, I have to skip the drawing pages.

I can understand this approach, and it has merit. This may explain the slower pace of my materials- I also have them writing the spoken vocabulary in every class, and it just takes time to keep a speaking vocabulary ahead of the reading vocabulary, and then writing it all.



That's the nicest thing you could have said. Bless the RRF.

One thing that often impresses me is how comprehension improves when the student reads the passage out loud. I'm guessing that when they read silently at home, often they are still working in mother language mode, so 'a dog on a bed' gets perceived as (in Japanese) 'inu ... no... ue ni... betto ' and they draw a dog, with a bed on top of it. It's amazing- I cover their sketch, ask them to read it, and instantly they recognize their mistake (of course I also ask about ones they've done correctly as well, to avoid have them playing off me instead of actually trying to comprehend the text they are reading).

You've written about process (decoding) and comprehension. I strongly agree with that analysis, and The Reading Triangle further develops that description (from donpotter.com and his education page, thanks to Geraldine Rodgers).

http://www.donpotter.net/ed.htm


I'm really attached to a 'Language is (articulated) sound that conveys meaning' approach, and Linguistic Phonics fits it perfectly. I'm committed to working from the sounds to the text, and by focusing on the more active skills of speaking and writing, I hope that listening and reading skills are more efficiently developed. That being said, I'm still very interested in what you are doing as well, and will try and design some materials that develop 'reading to learn'.

Best regards, Peter Warner.