Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson Template w/Guidance

Subunit: Date: Letter/sound Focus:

Lesson Part Activity* Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It ISA guidance p.378 ** “Bring closure to the Use this column to justify
(Model & Practice) exercise with direct and your plan. Initially justification
10m clear language” (LLFW, will come from the case
p.49) You will make summary and instructional
Letter & Word LLFW guidance p.62 HF words to support these statements in the plan. Subsequent
Review (Practice) & specifics (Ch 4-6) Dolch progress and initial lessons and justifications will include
5m pre-reading work*** should gradually adjustments grounded in
release this to your student performance (i.e.,
Hear-It (Analyze) LLFW guidance p.62 Informed by Scope & tutee. In the beginning it response to the intervention).
5m & specifics (Ch 4-6) Sequence and specific may be, “We just (state Include specific data when
focus (LLFW Ch 4-6) activity) to help us/learn appropriate. For example,
Decode-It LLFW guidance p.63 This allows you to prep (link to goal and instead of saying, “We will
(Analyze) 10m & specifics (Ch 4-6) several lessons at a instructional target(s).” work on the digraphs she
time (choose books, Invite students to shape struggled with,” be more
Spell-It LLFW guidance p.63 identify word lists, craft the language, such as specific with a statement like,
(Synthesize @ & specifics (Ch 4-6) dictated sentences, instead of saying, “We “We will work on contrasting
word level) 5m etc.). reread familiar books to /sh/ch/ because in the last
develop fluency,” use lesson she was comfortable
Write-It (Apply @ ISA guidance p.394 Sentence for dictation kid-friendly language with /th/ but had persistent
sentence level) 5m and/or other prompt.**** like, “We read favorite confusions with /sh/ch/.” Cite
books to practice our references to evidence
Read-It LLFW guidance p.64 **I will look for effective movie voices.” :-) Some -based principles, such as,
(Apply) 5m & specifics (Ch 4-6) implementation with general statements will “Explicit instruction of blends,
And ISA targets p.380 “informative and repeat but may get practice word building, and
Before -Note any vocab words narrative texts” in both more specific, such as, application in writing a
with their kid-friendly definitions Read-It sections. “We read favorite books dictated sentence and
and/or text features to front load (ILA 2.2) to pay attention to reading a decodable book to
During -Targets (ISAp.393) punctuation to help our foster orthographic mapping
After -Comprehension wrap-up movie voices.” (Kilpatrick, 2015).” (ILA 2.1)
Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
*In the Activity column cite references to evidence-based principles, such as, “Word Building (Mesmer, 2019)” or “Word Sorting (Bear
et. al., 2019)”. (ILA 2.1)

***Add 3-5 words each lesson until you have 15-20 words to review. Then continue to add as words are mastered and removed.

NEW: ****For sentence dictation: 1) Say the sentence out loud. 2) Have the student repeat it. 3) Student writes it. 4) YOU write it too!
5) Student looks at your sentence to self-correct their own. :-)

Overall in your lesson plan I will look for:

● “Ample opportunities to read, write, listen, speak, view, or visually represent.” (ILA 2.2)

In lesson videos I will look for: (1st lesson PA focus, 2nd lesson Phonics & Writing focus, 3rd lesson Comp, Vocab, Fluency focus)
● Delivery is explicit, systematic, and adequately scaffolded (ILA 2.3)
● Digital technologies are integrated in appropriate, safe, and effective ways, including assisting colleagues (ILA 5.3)
● Across 10 or more sessions, strengths and needs are assessed, instructional plans are designed and delivered in a
supportive environment, and impact on learning is assessed (ILA 7.1)

Partner Debrief -After each lesson take a few minutes with your partner to:
● Complete progress monitoring notes (comments about student performance) in Purple on the lesson plan
● At least start justification notes in the next lesson plan while the current lesson is fresh in your minds. :-)

Peer- & Self-Reflection Prompts:

● Is there a balance of repetition to achieve overlearning and novelty to maintain attention?
● Who’s “holding the pen?” Who’s doing most of the talking?
● Did the lesson create inductive tension?
● Was feedback precise about what was right or what/how to correct?
● Was verbal clutter avoided?
● Did the tutor follow Word Prompting (LLFW p.65)?
● See more valuable reflections in ISA p.395-8.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #1- Molly Recording

Subunit: Word Families Date: 3/14/22 Letter/sound Focus: -it, -ill

Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Comp Assessment Fiction 2nd Grade “Sometimes we read We are using a 2nd
Practice) Today: passage aloud with the teacher grade level text to
10m RAZ passage to see what we know assess listening
Read Aloud- Connection to recent without letting the comprehension at his
“Home for Lunch” and word family patterns puzzling words get in current grade level. This
comprehension taught in Hear-It and our way” decision was made
questions. Decode it. based on feedback on
(Scanlon) our Case Summary
Assignment.

Letter & Word Review QRI word list N/A “We just practiced We used the QRI lists
(Practice) Assessment reading words so we today to get an
5m can grow our word assessment of sight
knowledge and become words after receiving
stronger readers” feedback on our Case
Summary Assignment.
We did this in lieu of
traditional Letter and
Word Review work to
have more accurate
data for future lessons.

Hear-It (Analyze) Which One? LLFW Lesson 6 “We just played with Samuel is working on
5m Using the Which One -it and -ill word families rhyming words to help building confidence. I
game (Mesmer, 2019) us practice word will model the first word
TSW First I will model with families” for our game so he
my word. knows how to play.
“My word is MIT. Can Then he will think of
you think of a word that rhyming words and

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 rhymes with ____?” nonsense words that
bit, fit, sit, kit, student rhyme.
selected
“My word is BILL. Can
you think of a word that
rhymes with ____?”
mill, will, pill, student
selected

Decode-It (Analyze) Cutting Up Words LLFW Lesson 6 “We just built words to Samuel tends to work
10m (Mesmer, 2019) -it and -ill word families help us learn word slowly, and needs wait
Using my digital version families” time. He also struggles
of this activity. Linked with short vowel
Linked sounds. We have
finished lessons 2-5 in
previous lessons and
are now on lesson 6.
Lesson 6 not only
introduces new word
families it also begins
comparing previously
learned with current
word families. The
lesson suggested four
new word families all
with the medial sound
“I”. Samuel tends to
use “i” when he is
unsure of the vowel
sound, so to give him
ample time to fully
grasp the /i/, we chose
to break this lesson into
two parts.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Spell-It (Synthesize) Dictation (Mesmer,
5m 2019)
fit, hit, lit, hill, pill, mill
fit, hit, lit, hill, pill, mill “We just practiced
writing words so our
brains have another
way of remembering
word families”

Write-It (Apply) Dictated sentence “The big cat will sit on We practiced our writing I choose this dictated
5m “The big cat will sit on his hill to see the birds.” today to work on sentence because it
his hill to see the birds.” spelling our new word reviews one -at family
(Scanlon) family words” word from a previous
lesson, will give us a
clue about one -ig word
for the next lesson, and
‘see’ and ‘birds’ will be
challenge words we can
use to test r-controlled
vowel knowledge and
long e knowledge.

Read-It (Apply) Big and Little RAZ “Today we worked on We choose fluency as
5m passage reading a sentence just his during reading goal
like we would say it in a because Samuel
Before: slide vocab conversation” sometimes reads word
review (sl blend) by word. This was
During: Phrasing evident on his DRA and
After: Comprehension in previous read-it
wrap up portions of our lessons.

Samuel did a wonderful job today. We started with some listening comprehension of a DRA 14 passage. He had a lot of background
knowledge about the text and was able to make strong connections. Something we took away from this assessment is that he is able
to make connections to vocabulary in context. He uses clues from the sentences to understand unfamiliar words. One thing we want
to focus on for future lessons is using questioning as a strategy during reading. Samuel is quick to say that he doesn't know
something versus question and ponder. After completing a quick QRI assessment at Dr. B’s suggestion we practiced a new PA game
and he caught on right away. He did much better on this activity than I anticipated because when we assessed him using Heggerty

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
he has trouble segmenting sounds. The cutting up words activity was successful as well. He was able to complete it quickly and
accurately. The write-it portion of the lesson was where we saw the most room for improvement. We will revisit the goals we have
created and determine what actions will most benefit his PA which needs improvement for his reading level to meet our goal of
reading on Primer at the end of tutoring.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #2- Jeannie Recording

Subunit: Word Families Letter Sound Pattern Week 6 (part 2) Date: 3/15/22 Letter/sound Focus: Short i -id, -ig
Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Blue Whale - Raz Kids When we listen to I am using this second
Practice) Chapter 1 Mammal, inhale, books we can learn a grade level (DRA 20)
exhale, surface, lot from non-fiction non-fiction book
“Read Aloud - General graceful books! because Samuel loves
understanding non-fiction and animals.
(Scanlon, 2017) Stop and ask questions We are reading one
after each paragraph to chapter a session for
ensure comprehension the sake of time and to
or clear up any help build
confusions. comprehension
strategies.

Letter & Word Review Flip Book (Mesmer, Cat, any, could, fat, two, Reviewing words we We have worked with
(Practice) 2019) have, man,into, rap, just learned helps us to Samuel several times
saw, jam, mad, was, store those words into using Letter Lessons
from, her, may, come, our schema or memory! Scope and Sequence
fan, pad, ham while getting to know
him. According to
These are words with Mesmer, Review It is a
word families we have time to practice recently
learned together as well learned words. This
as some high frequency Review It will review the
words on the word families we have
kindergarten list that already done as well as
Samuel struggled with. some high frequency
words that he does not
Word Families Review: consistently recognize.
-at, -ap, -ad, -an, -am Being that we are
virtual, and a tangible

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)

Hear-It (Analyze Hear-It Later (Segment Segment each word
Fully) Elkonin Boxes then blend it back to
(Mesmer, 2019) say the word:
-at, hat, ap, map, an,
ran, am, ram
-ig, fig, rig
id, mid, hid, rid
Samuel will segment
each word using
Elkonin boxes. Once
he segments the word
he will blend it to say
the word. I will say the
word and he will say
each sound and slide a
disk into each box for
each sound. He will
then blend the words
together to make the
whole word.
Decode-It (Analyze) LLFW Lesson 6 -
“Word Wheels” Short i
(Mesmer, 2019)
Building words with
“Picture/Word Sort” word families -ig, -id
(Mesmer, 2019) Pig, jig, wig, dig, fig, rig
Lid, hid, bid, kid, rid, did
Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
Flip Book isn’t possible I
made a google slides
presentation that flips.
When we listen to each Samuel is working the
sound in a word, it late, segment fully
helps us remember how stage of Hear-It -
to read it and spell it! according to Mesmer
(2019), it is best to
begin with two syllable
words and then move to
three syllable words
with continuous
consonant sounds.
Since we have not used
Elkonin boxes before, I
am beginning with word
families previously
learned so Samuel has
time to understand the
exercise before working
with new sounds. I will
then move to the
upcoming word families
for today’s lesson.
When we learn new Samuel tends to work
word patterns, it helps slowly, and needs “think
to hear the sounds, see time”. He also
the sounds and sort the struggles with short
sounds to help our brain vowel sounds (he
remember the words. confuses i and e). We
have finished LLFW
lessons 2-5 in previous
sessions and are now
 on lesson 6. Lesson 6
not only introduces new
word families it also
begins comparing
previously learned with
current word families.
The lesson suggested
four new word families
all with the medial
sound “I”. Samuel
tends to use “i” when he
is unsure of the vowel
sound, so to give him
ample time to fully
grasp the /i/, we chose
to break this lesson into
two parts. -it and -ill
with comparison to -at
words and -ig, and -id
words.

Spell-It (Synthesize) Dictation/Dry Erase big, bid, bill When we write words I chose these words
Board (Mesmer, 2019) and say them out loud because they are the
Dig, did, dill we put them in our current word family we
schema/memory to are working on and a
keep forever! review of -ill words
which Samuel had
difficulty remembering
both l’s in last lesson. I
also chose bid and did
to work on his letter
reversals b and d.

Write-It (Apply) Scanlon (2017), We want the most dip When we practice I chose these high
Dictation of high for our chip. writing our high frequency words (want,

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 frequency words to frequency words in most, our) because
promote print concepts Word Targets - want, sentences it helps us to Samuel has difficulty
and conventional most, our recognize how to spell recognizing them. I
spelling of high them easily and quickly. used words from a
frequency words. Words known - we, the, previous word family -ip
dip, can and a digraph -ch to
confirm his knowledge
Possible challenge - of this digraph which he
chip has used and confused
in multiple situations.

Read-It (Apply Did It Fit? Raz-Kids Before: Do you notice We choose fluency as
Decodable Book any words with word his “during reading”
(Mesmer, 2019) families we have just goal because Samuel
learned on the cover of sometimes reads word
Before: Recognize the book? What do you by word. This was
known word families, think it means “Did it evident on his DRA and
predict, front load fit?” What sound does in previous read-it
During: Fluency, it make? What sound portions of our lessons.
scooping up bigger does p make? What
phrases, noticing would they sound like
punctuation. together?
After: What word
families did you notice
as you were reading? Review word families -it,
Was your prediction -id, ig, at and -an
about what they meant
“Did it fit?” correct? High frequency words -

“Scooping up” relates to

saying several words in
one breath, rather than
each individual word

Remember to partner debrief at the end of each lesson!

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
Today, Samuel was very silly. This was atypical for him. However, he does have ADHD so perhaps he was just done focusing for the
day! He was a bit distracted by his peanuts!
During our Read-It section Samuel was having a hard time comprehending the text. During the Introduction, he was full of
information and was able to answer comprehension questions with ease. We will lower the text from a DRA 20 to a DRA 14 (same
non-fiction text) to see if that helps him. He did want to finish the book! During Review It he had a difficult time with some of the high
frequency words - from, may, could, and any as well as the -am word family words, so they will remain on the list for next session.
During Hear-It I noticed he kept forgetting to say the sounds out loud for me and he had some difficulty separating the /a/ from the /n/
sound in /an/ words. With the word “hid”, he pushed the /i/ sound into the first box, which we discussed should be for the middle
sound of the word. For the Decode It section I initially started with the word sort (my error) but I quickly realized my mistake and then
started with the Word Wheel. He seemed to enjoy that. It would be nice if I could find a virtual word wheel that he could use and I
could still see his work.

Unfortunately, the Review It took longer than expected because Samuel was struggling more than anticipated with some of the
words, so I needed to “teach” these words again. Then he became focused on his peanuts (his snack has never been a distraction
to him in the past) which caused him to not respond quickly to activities. His difficulty with the Elkonin Boxes also slowed our lesson,
so we were not able to finish our lesson fully. Next week, I will not use as many examples for Hear-It as I did this week, to help move
the lesson along. I did not anticipate it taking him as long as it did. I love how he was able to recognize the two blends I put in as a
challenge in the Decode It section. I also was glad he was able to recognize on his own his mistake of putting “twig” in the -id sort.
In conclusion, being cognizant of time, without rushing and allowing enough “wait time” and inductive tension is definitely a balancing
act.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #3- Molly

Subunit: Week 7 Date: March 21st Letter/sound Focus: -op, -ot

Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Blue Whales Raz-Kids Page 7: What does this “Sometimes we read Continuation of reading
Practice) Pages 7-12 map tell us about where aloud with the teacher from previous lessons.
whales live? to see what we know
(Scanlon) without letting the Continuing predictions
Page 10: Why do you puzzling words get in using text feature:
think baleen is bold? our way” Table of Contents

Page 11: Where does Connecting background

this say the water knowledge
goes? Last week we
thought the water left
through the blow hole-
were we correct?

What else could be

coming out of a blue
whales blow hole?

Letter & Word Review QRI untimed N/A N/A A more complete case
(Practice) assessment- as summary as suggested
suggested by Dr. by Dr. Blanchette.
Blanchette
VERY interesting
because he did better
on the untimed.

Hear-It (Analyze) Which One? Cop When we listen to each Using a similar strategy
Video Time Stamp: 16:05
Using the Which One Hop sound in the -ot and -op to what we used before
game (Mesmer, 2019) Mop word families our brains to practice new word

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 TSW Pop become stronger at families. Hoping a
Top reading and spelling familiar game will help
short o words. with a new vowel sound
Dot ‘o’.
Got
Hot
Lot
Not
Pot
Rot

New word family words

Decode-It (Analyze) “Word Wheels” ID the word family When we learn new Using a similar strategy
(Mesmer, 2019) sound before beginning word patterns, it helps to what we used before
to hear the sounds, see to practice new word
Dot the sounds and sort the families. Hoping a
Bot sounds to strengthen familiar game will help
Got our brains when we with a new vowel sound
Jot read and spell them ‘o’.
Pot later.
Lot Do I need a sort here
also?
Cop
Hop
Mop
Pop
Bop
Top

Spell-It (Synthesize) White Board Pop Spelling the words we I selected words that
Top are learning in our -op match our word family
Back-Up Plan: Cop and -ot word families work from today.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Jam Board Mop help strengthen our
Rot brain to read and write
Not the words later when
Tot we hear the short o
sound.

Write-It (Apply) Whale sentence- Topic Writing By writing a sentence Versus a dictated
connection to read it using the word family sentence I wanted
Topic: Blue Whale word patterns we Samuel to come up with
Use 1 -ot word and 1 Must include - op and practiced today we his own idea. Idea
-op word. -ot word. strengthen our brain to generation was one of
Expand thinking and identify the word family his goals on our Case
idea generation “Blue whale go to the and spell it correctly Summary sheet.
top uf the oshin” later.

“Blue wale eat a lot of

fod in oun da”

Read-It (Apply) I Can Hop “Wait! Some of these Today we read a book Decodable reader with
words are the same that included our word the word families we
words we practiced family words and you practiced today.
Before: today!” I almost cried. were able to read them
During: Fluency, Amazing connection. after we had practiced
scooping up bigger them today!
phrases, noticing
punctuation.
After: Can you tell me
some of the -ot word
family words you saw?

Can you tell me some

of the -op word family
words you saw?
(Scanlon)

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
Remember to partner debrief at the end of each lesson!
One of the first things I noticed about Samuel’s Hear-It section is that he never makes errors. I’m not sure if this strategy will be the
best one to challenge him in future lessons. One data point we paid special attention to is that his segmenting was worse than his
blending. I am wondering if this is a place to practice segmenting and sound isolation versus blending. He also does a very good job
with this strategy and not as well with Elkonin boxes… correlation to anything there? Watching the video back I realized I did NOT do
some of my closure statements! During the lesson I realized this and went off script to have closure for both the Decode-It and
Spell-It. This is the hardest part for me. After recording Dr. Blanchette also gave me feedback about having Samuel repeat and
explain the closure statement. After recording this lesson Jeannie did that in her lesson and it was amazing! He had a lot of
connections to his work time, which makes sense because he makes so many connections. Today his Spell-It work was very
insightful. He realized that he could change the onset of the word because the rhyme stays the same. He was able to identify which
letters he needed to change and why. He was also able to explain when going from -op to -ot that the o in the middle is the same
sound and so it would be the same letter. This was SO impressive to me considering his PA data showed trouble identifying medial
sounds. We were also SUPER proud of his writing. He came up with two beautiful sentences on his own and followed the criteria we
gave him. I anticipated him struggling to come up with his own ideas so I was ready to talk out what he could write about before he
started but he immediately had ideas. He was also able to identify the word family words he included in his sentence. For his reading
time at the end he made a GREAT connection to a book he read with Jeannie a few lessons ago “Fran Can Flip”. I just love this kid.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #4 - Jeannie

Subunit: Week 8 Short o Date: March 23rd Letter/sound Focus: -ob and -og word family contrast -ot vs -it
Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Blue Whales - Raz-Kids Introduce the word calf, We just read the last Samuel loves animals
Practice) pages 13-15 two chapters of the Blue and non-fiction but is
Activate prior Whales non-fiction unable to read grade
“Read Aloud - General knowledge - What do book. We learned level material at this
understanding you think we might about baby whales and time. We made the
(Scanlon, 2017) learn in this chapter? how Blue Whales are decision to read aloud
the largest animals on non-fiction to Samuel
earth. By reading on or slightly below
carefully, and paying grade level to help with
attention to the images his oral comprehension.
and captions we learn a We started with a higher
lot of information! level version of this
book, and the first
chapter was difficult for
him to comprehend.
We found that same
book at a level H DRA
14 which we will try and
read to see if he is
better able to
comprehend this
version.

Letter & Word Review Bingo Please, may, We just played Bingo to The bolded words are
(Practice) (Mesmer, 2019) ask,every, could, fly, practice words we have high frequency words
give, ram, any, lip, already learned to help that Samuel has not yet
Samuel’s Word Jar Segment each word, again, want, will, after, us recognize them mastered. He has
Samuel will blend and rip, fin, big, jam, bit, her, quickly! difficulty recognizing
find the word. came, round, from, did these words with
automaticity. The

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 unbolded words are
words from previous
lessons word families
we worked with. As he
masters these words
with automaticity we will
retire them.

Hear-It (Analyze) Hear-It Later (Segment Segment and Blend We just broke apart or I like the Elkonin boxes
Fully) Elkonin Boxes each sound and word segmented words and because Samuel has
(Mesmer, 2019) put together or blended difficulty segmenting the
-ob, cob, job sounds to help our medial sound in words.
-og, hog, jog brains get ready for By having him use the
learning a new word Elkonin boxes he can
family. physically do something
with each sound.

Decode-It (Analyze) “Flipbook” (Mesmer, Create words using We just used a flipbook I chose to use a
2019) flipbook - cob, job, mob, to create new words. flipbook to give Samuel
rob, sob, slob We used the same word something new to work
“Word Sort” (Mesmer, Hog, jog, log, fog, dog, family rime or ending with to make letters.
2019) clog sound and added new The words I chose are
beginning sounds or directly from LLFW. I
Then sort same words onsets. Understanding added to words with
into word families word families help us blends because that
decode unfamiliar was an area of
words. weakness for Samuel
on the phonics
assessment and I want
to expose him to
blends.

Spell-It (Synthesize) Dry Erase Board Cob, slob, fog, dog, pit, When we learn new The whiteboard is the
(Mesmer, 2019) kit, dot, got, hot word families it is best way I know for
important to write them Samuel to write words

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 to help our brains read that I can see clearly. I
and spell them. It also chose these words to
gives us time to practice provide Samuel ample
our letter formation. opportunity to practice
writing letters in the
right direction (d, g, p, k,
and j are easily
reversed). Spell-it will
also allow the
opportunity to work on
letter formation, which
is a goal for Samuel.

Write-It (Apply) Composition One -ob and one -og You just wrote your own According to Scanlon,
(Scanlon, 2017) words. sentences about et al., there is little time
information you learned to provide opportunities
Write two sentences from listening to Blue for true composition
about what we read Use 1 -ob word and 1 Whales. This helps you work during intervention
about the Blue Whale -og word. create your own ideas lessons; it is an area of
sentence- connection to Expand thinking and and word choices! weakness for Samuel.
read it idea generation We had great success
with Samuel generating
Change of plans - Cob, fog, dot, pit, kit, his own sentence about
dictation on the and hot, got the Blue Whale. Having
jamboard him generate his own
I chose these particular sentence increases
words for the practice of motivation, word choice
letter reversals in the and sentence fluency.
g’s, d’s and b’s.
This part of the lesson
did not happen and I
had to pivot. He did not
have any paper or a dry
erase board, so I had
him spell words on a

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 jamboard. I used cob,
fog, dot,, pit, kit and hot.
Jamboard writing is not
ideal because the stylus
is hard to use, but I was
able to see Samuel
work through spelling
each word and
recognizing his
mistakes with the
direction of the letters.

Read-It (Apply) Before: Book Preview - On a Log We just read a I love this book. It has
discuss predictions decodable book with so many word families
about what is Words families - -og, word families that you that Samuel has been
happening in the book- -at, -ip, -ot have been practicing to working with over the
During: fluency and help you read with a past for weeks. I
phrasing smooth voice! believe this will help him
After: Was your with his fluency, one of
prediction correct? his goals.

Decodable Books
(Scanlon, 2017)

Remember to partner debrief at the end of each lesson!

Samuel was late to this session and had some technical difficulties. However, we did get through all the pieces of the lesson! He is
mastering the use of the Elkonin Boxes. I particularly enjoy using these boxes because I can see the work he is doing by watching
his mouth and eyes as he focuses on each sound. Recognizing short vowel sounds is one of Samuel's goals, so this is a great
activity to help him isolate those sounds. It can be difficult for him to separate the rime of the words. I will continue to use the boxes
in every lesson. They are very telling. He did an excellent job reading and sorting the new word families and recognized they all had
the letter “o” in common. Samuel had fun reading the story On a Log and made predictions as he read on his own. He noticed that
each animal was smaller than the one before and made the prediction the next animal would be a frog, because it was smaller than a
Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
cat. When he said “frog” I got very excited because I was thinking he said frog because of our word family. Then he explained it was
because of the size of the animal that he came up with that. However, even though he didn’t recognize that he chose frog because
of the word family association, I believe that subconsciously he did chose frog over say a mouse which was also smaller because he
was focused on the word family he was working with. He tends to get excited and read too quickly, therefore making small mistakes
(mistakes that would impact a PALS or DRA score). I need to be more intentional with guiding him to read carefully and thoughtfully
without interrupting his fluency!

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #5 - Jeannie (The recording didn’t work - only got 4 minutes)

Subunit: Short u Date: 3/28/22 Letter/sound Focus: -ug, -un

Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Deep in the Ocean Shallow, twilight We just read the first Samuel loves
Practice) chapter of our non-fiction and animals.
Chapter 1 - Deep non-fiction book Deep We are continuing to
Underwater in the Ocean. We use books at second
noticed words in bold as grade level to
“Read Aloud - General key words and used encourage engagement
understanding images and captions to and grade level
(Scanlon, 2017) gain more knowledge. comprehension.

We were unable to do
this because Samuel’s
laptop was not charged
so I made the decision
to skip it.

Letter & Word Review Bingo Introduce high We just played Bingo to According to Mesmer,
(Practice) (Mesmer, 2019) frequency words: father help us recognize Review It is a time to
and from words we have already practice recently
Introduce high learned. This will help learned words. This
frequency words: father, Find a word that rhymes our brains learn to read Review It will review the
and from with - rip, run, gave, bit, and spell them. word families we have
fast, zip, pug, sun, already done as well as
Samuel will read each some high frequency
word - I will segment Call out - , cold, always, words that he does not
words and have Samuel could consistently recognize.
find the words and I chose the Bingo game
cover them with a bingo because he enjoyed
chip. playing Bingo during
our last session.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Hear-It (Analyze Hear-It Later (Segment -ug, -mug, rug We just broke apart I like the Elkonin boxes
Fully) Elkonin Boxes -un, - fun, sun words into their because Samuel has
(Mesmer, 2019) individual sounds and difficulty segmenting the
then blended the medial sound in words.
sounds back together to By having him use the
help our brain get ready Elkonin boxes he can
to learn -ug and -un physically do something
word families. with each sound.

Decode-It (Analyze) Word Wheel (Mesmer, Bug, hug, jug, mug, We just created words We have decided to
2019) pug, rug, tug, slug, run, using the word families continue using familiar
fun, sun, bun, spun -un and -ug. When we activities with Samuel to
Word Sort (Mesmer, see these word families help him keep track of
2019) in unfamiliar words, we each activity. He asks
can use what we after each activity, how
learned to read and much more we need to
spell them. do. By doing similar
activities at each
session, we are hoping
it will help Samuel feel
more in control and
understand the flow of
the session. I added
blends to this word
family because it is an
area of weakness for
him and I want to
expose him to blends to
increase his word
knowledge.

Spell-It (Synthesize) Magnetic Letters Bug, sun, slug, spun First we listened to the This was originally
(Mesmer, 2019) sounds in our new word going to be the
family, then we created whiteboard so I could
them with letters, and watch Samuel write,

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 now you spelled them. however, he forgot his
All of this together helps pen. So I changedit to
our brains learn the the Pull down letters
word families and store using the magnetic
them so we can use letters. It worked well. I
them when we are also decided not to
writing and reading! have him spell the
blends and instead
used hug and fun. I
made this decision
because he struggled
more than I expected
with reading the blends
and since they are not
part of his plan and I am
only using them to
expose him to more on
grade level work, I
didn’t want to frustrate
him. Samuel needs to
feel successful.

Write-It (Apply) Compose Write one sentence When we write We had great success
about what you learned sentences using words with Samuel generating
Dictation from reading Deep in we have already his own sentence about
the Ocean. Try to use a learned it helps us build the Blue Whale. Having
word in the -ug and -un writing fluency! him generate his own
family. sentence increases
motivation, word choice
A bug sat in the sun to and sentence fluency.
get hot!
This was my original
justification but we had
a quick change of
plans. He was late

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 joining the session and
his laptop was at 28%.
I wanted to make sure
there was enough
battery power for the i
“meat and potatoes” of
the lesson with Hear-It,
Decode-It, and Spell-It
so I did not read to him.
Therefore, he was not
able to write about what
we read. So I quickly
created a sentence with
word families we have
done.

Read-It (Apply My Pug Has Fun -ug and -un word When we read books This book was perfect.
Before: Book Walk - families and -at word with words we know It had a great mix of -ug
During: Practice families and a few we don’t, our and -un words and
Fluency brains grow and we several words from our
After: Recognize word become stronger word families previously
families we have readers. learned. It also had two
learned. sentences per page and
was not predictable.

Remember to partner debrief at the end of each lesson!

We had a few glitches this session. Samuel was late to tutoring and since he is at daycare, we don’t have the flexibility to go late.
His computer was not charged so we knew we had a limited time. I did not do our read aloud with him because of time, so therefore
we were not able to do the write-it I had planned. I did do review it but not to the extent I had planned. Samuel did an excellent job
today and was focused and worked hard. During Hear-It Samuel struggled with “fun”. He kept putting the /un/ together. I had him
tap his fingers instead of using the Elkonin boxes and Molly said that was great thinking. I think our theory that Monday’s are the
best day for him is correct. He was at daycare and I was lead, yet he focused and worked hard. Many adjustments had to be made
as I went along (I had to create a dictation sentence quickly and on the spot) and Samuel never missed a beat. He recognized his
Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
new word family and some from the past in his Read-It - My Pug Has Fun. It was a great session, of which I had recorded, or so I
thought, but I apparently never pressed record or I accidentally deleted it because all I have now is the last 4 minutes of the lesson. I
will be recording again on Wednesday.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #6 - Jeannie Recording Session #2

Subunit: Week 10 Date: 3/30 Letter/sound Focus: Short u (-ub, -ut, -um)
Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Deep in the Ocean Shallow, twilight - ask We just read the first Samuel loves
Practice) Samuel what he knows chapter of our non-fiction and animals.
Chapter 1 - Deep about these words, non-fiction book Deep in We are continuing to
Underwater show him the words so the Ocean. We noticed use books at second
he can recognize them words in bold as key grade level to
“Read Aloud - General when I read them. words and used images encourage engagement
understanding and captions to gain and grade level
(Scanlon, 2017) more knowledge. comprehension.

Letter & Word Review Bingo Introduce high We just played Bingo to According to Mesmer,
(Practice) (Mesmer, 2019) frequency words: father help us recognize words Review It is a time to
and from - have Samuel we have already practice recently
Introduce high notice the letters that learned. This will help learned words. This
frequency words: make the expected our brains learn to read Review It will review the
father, and from sounds and then and spell them. word families we have
discuss the letters that already done as well as
Samuel will read each don’t make the some high frequency
word - I will segment expected sounds. Have words that he does not
words and have Samuel spell the word consistently recognize.
Samuel find the words looking at the word and I chose the Bingo game
and cover them with a read it. because he enjoyed
bingo chip. playing Bingo during our
Find a word that rhymes last session.
with - sun, run, gave,
bit, fast, zip, pug, sun, Samuel continues to
struggle with words he
Call out - cold, always, recognized in the past
could sessions. Review
becomes “teaching

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 time”. I think next
session I am only using
10 words I know he has
consistently read across
all sessions and
continue to review
could, father, and from.
(My wondering outloud -
he often says cold for
could but cold for cold
as well, he does the
same with from and
farm - perhaps if i have
him compare each set
of words and look at
them together it will help
him differentiate
between the two).

Hear-It (Analyze Hear-It Later (Segment I will say - We just broke apart I like the Elkonin boxes
Fully) Elkonin Boxes -ub, cub words into their because Samuel has
(Mesmer, 2019) -ut, but individual sounds and difficulty segmenting the
-um, gum then blended the medial sound in words.
sounds back together to By having him use the
Samuel will then help our brain get ready Elkonin boxes he can
segment each word and to learn ub, ut, and um physically do something
push a blue dot into the word families. with each sound. I only
Elkonin boxes and then used two sounds per
blend the sounds word family due to the
together. fact we are learning
three word families this
session.

Decode-It (Analyze) Word Wheel (Mesmer, Samuel will create the We just created words We have decided to
2019) words below using the using the word families continue using familiar

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 word wheel and then -ub, -um, - ut. When we activities with Samuel to
Word Sort (Mesmer, sort the words using a see these word families help him keep track of
2019) jamboard! in unfamiliar words, we each activity. I did not
can use what we add blends to this
cub, nub, rub, sub, tub, learned to read and lesson because it is the
cut, gut, hut, nut, gum, spell them. first time Samuel will
hum, sum work with three word
families at one time and
I wanted him to
concentrate on just the
word families without
adding frustration.
Today I didn’t read
every closure verbatim
as I had prepared. I
tried to be more natural
about my closures and
even tried to have
Samuel say why he was
doing each activity.

Spell-It (Synthesize) Magnetic Letters Samuel will create First we listened to the Samuel forgets his
(Mesmer, 2019) words using the sounds in our new word whiteboard often, so I
magnetic letters. family, then we created am prepared to use the
Paper and Pencil them with letters, and magnetic letter
Rub, sub, hut, cut, hum, now you spelled them. jamboard. If he has his
sum All of this together helps whiteboard I will have
our brains learn the him write the words
word families and store instead.
them so we can use
them when we are Samuel had paper and
writing and reading! pencil today and he
wanted to write and I
wanted him to write!
According to research,

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 handwriting is an
important element for
alphabetic learners.

Write-It (Apply) Composition (Scanlon, Write one sentence When we write about We set a goal for
2017) about what you learned things we have read or Samuel to begin to
from reading Deep in things we know it helps compose his own
the Ocean. Try to use a us to build writing sentences and develop
word in the -ub, -um, or fluency and develop our his word choices.
- ut family. writing voice.
According to Scanlon, et
al., there is little time to
provide opportunities for
true composition work
during intervention
lessons; however it is
an area of weakness for
Samuel.
We had great success
with Samuel generating
his own sentence about
the Blue Whale. Having
him generate his own
sentence increases
motivation, word choice
and sentence fluency.

Read-It (Apply Bub and the Nut The words in this book We just read a book The decodeable books
Before: Book Walk - will reinforce the -ub with our new word have helped Samuel
Prediction and -ut word families. families! This will help with his fluency. I love
During: Practice our brain to recognize using ones with our
Fluency these words and put newly learned word
After: Recognize word them into our sight word families to anchor the
family words - confirm vocabulary! words for him!
prediction According to Mesmer,

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 the best time to use a
decodable is right after
a targeted word family
lesson.

Remember to partner debrief at the end of each lesson!

Molly and I recognized that Samuel was less focused today so we are concluding that he is tired by Wednesday. I tutored on
Monday as well (see note about recording issues) and Samuel was on target the whole time. So I no longer worry it is me who gets
him ralled up! I am becoming concerned that Samuel tends to forget high frequency words that he knew in another session. I intend
to send his teacher an email and ask if this is something she notices in class or if it is this Monday, Wednesday difference we have
noticed. During review-it he had difficulty with several words. I do stop him and review the word with him (these are words he has
read easily in past sessions) when he made the mistake because I do not want him moving on without reading the word correctly and
he was not self correcting. He continues to struggle with the word could and cold (uses cold for both words so I am not convinced he
knows cold). Any suggestions on helping with this word would be appreciated. Molly is thinking of making a word ladder with him
and showing should and would with it. Hopefully that will help. I was also thinking of working with both could and cold together to
have him analyze their similarities and differences to see if that helped. I am also wondering if he would read these words correctly if
they were in context, so I will try that as well. I am noticing the same confusion with from and farm (both words are farm for Samuel).
I am also going to lessen the amount of words I use and try the flip book activity next time. My original plan was to use the
whiteboard or magnetic letters but he did not have the whiteboard and instead had paper pencil and both of us (Samuel and I)
agreed we would rather use the paper and pencil. I know handwriting is very important and I want him to write as much as possible.
I loved his sentence about the non-fiction book we read, though, he was getting very tired by then and did not use a capital letter or
spell “there” correctly but he did spell pig correctly and we have worked on the -ig word family so that was awesome! I tried to make
my conclusions more natural today. I wanted them to feel conversation like for Samuel and encourage him to participate. He made
good connections for reasons why he was doing each activity. He uses the word remember a lot - I was having a hard time with that
as well. I am trying to use the word recognize instead - is that more appropriate?

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #7 Molly Recording

Subunit: Date: Letter/sound Focus:

Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Deep in the Ocean Reviewed key details We noticed words in Continuation of
Practice) and activation of bold as key words and previous new book.
Chapter 2 background knowledge. used images to gain More use of bold words
Oceanographers more knowledge. and chart text feature
Discussed -sub prefix knowledge.
“Read Aloud - General since he was familiar
understanding with submarines during
(Scanlon, 2017) Chapter 1.

Letter & Word Review Bingo Focusing on: could,
(Practice) (Mesmer, 2019) cold, been
I will read words and Instead of having him
have Samuel find the read all of the words
word and then read the first, I want to give him
word back to me. one word and see if he
can find it without a
preview since we have
used them before.
We just played Bingo to We hope that today he
help us recognize will be able to identify
words we have already cold and could with
learned. This will help some help. Knowing the
our brains learn to read general routine of this
and spell them. game has been helpful
so we are sticking with
it. He is getting irritated
with coming to our
sessions so we hope
that keeping the same
activities will help his
motivation.

Hear-It (Analyze Hear-It Later (Segment I will say -et, get, let, set
Fully) Elkonin Boxes -eg, beg, leg, peg
(Mesmer, 2019)
Samuel will then
segment each word and
push a blue dot into the
We just broke apart Elkonin Boxes are
words into their familiar and routine.
individual sounds and This is our newest word
then blended the family.
sounds back together to
help our brain get ready
to learn ed, en, ell word

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Elkonin boxes and then
blend the sounds
together.
Decode-It (Analyze) Flipbook Create words using
flipbook -et, get, let, set,
wet, jet, -eg, beg, leg,
peg,
Then sort same words
into word families
Spell-It (Synthesize) Jamboard magnet Samuel will create
letters words using the
magnetic letters.
Get, jet, beg, peg
Write-It (Apply) Samuel will create his Write one sentence
own sentence about what you learned
from reading Deep in
the Ocean.
Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
families.
We used the same word Practice with Flipbook
family rime or ending to read words in new
sound and added new word family.
beginning sounds or
onsets. Understanding
word families help us
read and write
unfamiliar words.
First we listened to the Spell new word family
sounds in our new word with jamboard magnet
family, then we created tiles. Not confident he
them with letters, and will have his whiteboard
now you spelled them. and marker.
All of this together helps
our brains learn the
word families and store
them so we can use
them when we are
writing and reading!
When we write about Samuel has loved
things we have read or creating sentences
things we know it helps versus using dictated
us to build writing sentences. Keeping
fluency and develop our engagement up by
writing voice. allowing that to
continue. If he does not
have his whiteboard I
will write down his
spelling as he types so I
 can record his errors.

Read-It (Apply Get the Pets - et word family We just read a book Practice reading in
Before: Book Walk - with our new word context with new word
Prediction families! This will help family.
During: Practice our brain to recognize
Fluency these words and put
After: Recognize word them into our sight word
family words - confirm vocabulary!
prediction

For this lesson, Review-It became a much bigger use of our time than I had planned for. I will say that I think this is the area where
Jeannie and I get the most “bang for our buck” in our work with Samuel. He shows most of his thinking here (as well as Read-It) and
I get a very clear picture of his thinking while working on word study with him during this portion of our plan. Because of these
observations, I personally have a very difficult time giving him succinct answers or guidance to his questions and our time runs way
over the planned time. I want to work on recognizing where I can be more direct when he comes to words he does not know in our
BINGO game so that we are able to get to the other parts of the lesson. Since that did not happen today I spent 20-25 minutes in
Review-It. Once we realized that I moved to his Write-It work and Jeannie and I decided she would introduce his new word family in
her lesson. I wanted him to be able to apply some of the words we had just worked on in Review-It in his writing. After this lesson we
discussed how proud we were of Samuel for coming and working hard even though he is on Spring Break. He stayed focused today.

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Alphabetic/Beginner Lesson #8 - Jeannie - Recording #3

Subunit: Week 11 Date: April 7, 2022 Letter/sound Focus: Short e (-et, -eg)
Lesson Part Activity Words/Notes Closure Statement Justification

Read-It (Model & Deep in the Ocean Tag, satellites We just read the first Samuel loves
Practice) chapter of our non-fiction and animals.
Chapter 3 & 4- What do you think an non-fiction book Deep We are continuing to
Oceanographers oceanographer might in the Ocean. We use books at second
be? What is a noticed words in bold as grade level to
“Read Aloud - General scientist? What kind of key words and used encourage engagement
understanding ship do you think they images to gain more and grade level
(Scanlon, 2017) live on? knowledge. comprehension.

Letter & Word Review Bingo Reinforce high We just played Bingo to According to Mesmer,
(Practice) (Mesmer, 2019) frequency words: could, help us recognize Review It is a time to
cold and been - have words we have already practice recently
Introduce high Samuel notice the learned. This will help learned words. This
frequency words: could, letters that make the our brains learn to read Review It will review the
cold, been expected sounds and and spell them. word families we have
then discuss the letters already done as well as
I will read words and that don’t make the some high frequency
have Samuel find the expected sounds. Have words that he does not
word and then read the Samuel spell the word consistently recognize.
word back to me. looking at the word and I chose the Bingo game
read it. (I forgot to do because Samuel enjoys
this!) playing Bingo and it
Samuel’s Word Jar allows him the
Find: bit, ham, opportunity to read
Hopefully we will be many words to find the
adding bit, ham, and or Call out - cold, always, one that is called.
into Samuels jar. could, been, or, pretty

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 Samuel continues to
He thought “bat” was struggle with words he
“bit” so we were not recognized in the past
able to add it to his jar! sessions. Review
becomes “teaching
time”. I intend to call
out the words I want
him to recognize and
then have him read
them back to me. I am
hoping this will help him
practice as well as
move the lesson along
(Review-It has been
taking too much time)
I intended to have
Samuel find words that
rhyme but he was not
enthusiastic today and
he and I were both
having internet delays,
so I chose to read the
words I wanted him to
find on the board. This
seemed to work out well
and even provided a
teachable moment
when he said “bat” for
“bit”.

Hear-It (Analyze Hear-It Later (Segment I will say -et, get, let, set We just broke apart I like the Elkonin boxes
Fully) Elkonin Boxes -eg, beg, leg, peg words into their because Samuel has
(Mesmer, 2019) individual sounds and difficulty segmenting the
then blended the medial sound in words.
Samuel will then sounds back together to By having him use the

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 segment each word and
push a blue dot into the
Elkonin boxes and then
blend the sounds
together.
Decode-It (Analyze) “Flipbook” (Mesmer, Create words using
2019) flipbook -et, get, let, set,
wet, jet, -eg, beg, leg,
“Word Sort” (Mesmer, peg,
2019)
Then sort same words
into word families
Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
help our brain get ready Elkonin boxes he can
to learn ed, en, ell word physically do something
families. with each sound.
We were unable to get
to the Decode-It part of
the lesson on Monday.
I am repeating the
Hear-it to give Samuel
support for the
Decode-It that we
missed so I will be
doing it for the first time.
I did not add blends
with this word family
pattern because there
were not many blends
that made words
Samuel would have
recognized or
understood their
meaning..
We just used a flipbook I chose to use a
to create new words. flipbook to give Samuel
We used the same word something different from
family rime or ending the word wheels. The
sound and added new words I chose are
beginning sounds or directly from LLFW.
onsets. Understanding
word families help us We did not get to finish
read and write our lesson on Monday
 unfamiliar words. due to the length of our
Review-It section so
this lesson is a repeat

Spell-It (Synthesize) Whiteboard (Mesmer, Samuel will create First we listened to the Samuel forgets his
2019) words using the sounds in our new word whiteboard often, so I
magnetic letters. family, then we created am prepared to use the
Magnetic Letters them with letters, and magnetic letter
(Mesmer, 2019) Get, jet, beg, peg now you spelled them. jamboard. If he has his
All of this together helps whiteboard or paper
our brains learn the and a pencil I will have
word families and store him write the words
them so we can use instead. Handwriting is
them when we are important to help him
writing and reading! map these words. I am
choosing get, jet, beg,
and peg because these
all contain letters
Samuel tends to
reverse and it’s an
opportunity to practice.

Write-It (Apply) Composition (Scanlon, Write one sentence When we write about We set a goal for
2017) about what you learned things we have read or Samuel to begin to
from reading Deep in things we know it helps compose his own
the Ocean. Try to use a us to build writing sentences and develop
word in the -eg and -et fluency and develop our his word choices.
word families. writing voice.
According to Scanlon,
et al., there is little time
to provide opportunities
for true composition
work during intervention
lessons; however it is

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
 an area of weakness for
Samuel.
We had great success
with Samuel generating
his own sentence about
the Blue Whale. Having
him generate his own
sentence increases
motivation, word choice
and sentence fluency.

Read-It (Apply Get the Pets The words in this book We just read a book The decodeable books
Before: Book Walk - will reinforce the -et with our new word have helped Samuel
Prediction word family. families! This will help with his fluency. I love
During: Practice our brain to recognize using ones with our
Fluency these words and put newly learned word
After: Recognize word them into our sight word families to anchor the
family words - confirm vocabulary! words for him! This
prediction particular book also has
a few previously
learned families, -am,
-ap and -an as well as a
pattern we will learn
next, -en (preloading).
According to Mesmer,
the best time to use a
decodable is right after
a targeted word family
lesson.

Remember to partner debrief at the end of each lesson!

My main focus this lesson was the Review-It section. It has been the most challenging section for all of us. Samuel has difficulty
recognizing words he has learned from one lesson to the next so Review-It has taken us as long as 25 minutes to do. I made the
decision to focus on three high frequency words he consistently confuses: could, cold, and been. I had both could and cold on one
slide so he could see them at the same time, each in their own color. Samuel tends to say cold for both of these words, which led me
Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)
to think he did not have cold firmly in his lexicon. I started with the word cold and after a few tries he read “cold”. So then I began to
have him notice the similarities in the two words. Before I could finish, he read “could”! I could not have been more excited! We read
the words each two more times and then moved on to “been”. I do not like that I referred to “could” and “been” as a tricky words.
After reading the ISA book after this lesson, I would change how I said that. It is going to be tough for me to get that out of my
vocabulary, but I need to do it. I want children to realize there is a code that they can unlock to discover a word, I don’t want them to
feel words are out to get them! Now that I look back I wish I would have had him write them or at least spell the words which was in
my lesson plan! Samuel was saying bean for been which is completely understandable. He knows the “rule” when two vowels go
walking, the first one does the talking. I don’t typically tell my students this mantra - but I know many teachers do, so I was glad he
understood the typical pattern a vowel team has. I was able to explain that some vowel teams do make unexpected sounds and this
was one of them and told him the two “ee’s” made a short e vowel sound and he was quickly able to say been (ben). When playing
Bingo I was careful to say each of our just practiced words first to map those words right into his brain! He recognized all of them
right away. He has consistently recognized “ham” and “or” every time we have played Bingo with no hesitation, so I put them in his
Word Jar! He was not enthusiastic about it which was disappointing. He is on spring break and has not been as engaged as he
typically is. I think reading the words I wanted to focus on helped move our lesson along, especially since he was not an eager
learner today, however, we still need to be able to review the word families from previous lessons without Review-It taking over the
whole lesson. I am concerned that he is having difficulty retaining words he has learned in previous lessons. I would like to meet with
his teacher and discuss what she observes in the classroom. I would love to know it is just the distraction of being out of the learning
environment and around friends and toys that keeps him from reading learned words correctly.

Molly and I love the knowledge Samuel has about vocabulary words and the way he explains things he knows when we read
non-fiction. I am pleased Molly and I decided to make our Read-It section non-fiction. Samuel is beginning to take ownership of the
closings, though he typically says “to help me read better” for all closings, he is understanding there is a purpose for each activity!

Adapted from Letter Lessons & First Words by Heidi Anne Mesmer (2019) and Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Approach
by Scanlon, Anderson & Sweeney (2017)