Unit 3: Teacher Guide, Answers, and Monitoring
Scope and Placement | Student Lessons | Practice | Teacher Guide | Prior Unit
Teach explicit phoneme-grapheme mapping, decoding, encoding, sentence reading, and comprehension. Do not use these locally created checks as a standardized diagnosis or to certify state-level reading proficiency.
Administration and scoring
- Use the teacher example for modeling, but do not rehearse the Day 5 exact assessment list immediately before independent testing.
- Read word lists without pictures or hints. Award one independent accuracy point per word; record subsequent self-correction separately.
- Dictate without presenting the spelling. Record fully accurate word spellings and pattern-level errors separately. For compounds, both parts must be spelled correctly.
- Use the passage for oral reading after connector words are pre-taught. Ask comprehension questions without suggesting answers. Accept supported paraphrases.
- Provide explicit corrective feedback after, not during, independent checks. For repeated errors, provide a fresh word set, sound mapping, and additional guided practice.
- Oral language or reading differences related to dialect or disability should receive appropriate supports; do not mark accent alone as an error.
Day 1: Answer key
Target: The letters ar often represent the r-controlled vowel sound in car, star, and farm. The vowel does not have the same short sound as a in cat.
Word-reading key: car, star, far, farm, park, dark, hard, cart
Dictation: car; farm; park; star
Comprehension: 1) A star; 2) Mark; 3) Park the cart
Notes: Preteach the connector words a, is, has, the, can. Mark is a name containing ar.
Day 2: Answer key
Target: The letters or commonly represent an r-controlled sound in corn, fork, and short. Pronunciation varies by dialect; model standard words without forcing a child’s accent.
Word-reading key: corn, fork, horn, born, short, storm, cord, porch
Dictation: corn; fork; short; storm
Comprehension: 1) A storm; 2) The corn; 3) A fork
Notes: Review farm and Mark from Day 1. Teach on and other connectors before independent reading.
Day 3: Answer key
Target: The vowel patterns er, ir, and ur frequently represent an r-controlled /er/ sound, as in her, bird, and turn. These spellings cannot reliably be chosen by sound alone, so spelling requires learned word knowledge and guided practice.
Word-reading key: her, fern, term, bird, girl, first, turn, burn
Dictation: her; fern; bird; turn
Comprehension: 1) The girl; 2) In the fern; 3) Chirp
Notes: Chirp introduces ir and ch from previous instruction. Preteach the, can, is, in.
Day 4: Answer key
Target: Longer words can have more than one spoken syllable. A compound word joins two complete words, such as sun + set = sunset. Find meaningful word parts, read each accurately, and then blend the whole word.
Word-reading key: sunset, raincoat, farmyard, popcorn, mailbox, playground, bedroom, daylight
Dictation: sunset; popcorn; mailbox; farmyard
Comprehension: 1) In the bedroom; 2) Popcorn; 3) At sunset
Notes: Preteach connector words and ensure both component words have been taught or modeled. The farmyard sentence is an original fictional passage.
Day 5: Answer key
Target: Read and spell unfamiliar combinations using all three r-controlled groups and previously taught vowel teams, blends, digraphs, and simple compound words. Explain how each word was decoded and repair errors by checking the letters.
Word-reading key: barn, park, fork, storm, fern, shirt, turn, curl, rain, play, seed, sunset
Dictation: barn; fork; shirt; turn; rain; seed; sunset; farmyard
Comprehension: 1) To the barn; 2) On the roof; 3) The bird
Notes: Preteach connector words and new passage words walk, roof, they, see. Keep sight-word support distinct from independent phonics assessment.
Exit and instructional decision
On Day 5, record reading out of 12, spelling out of 8, and comprehension out of 3 separately. Do not collapse them to one proficiency score. If the child makes repeated errors on one spelling pattern, reteach with new examples before moving forward. These are instructional indicators, not validated cut scores.
Next scope priorities
Future work should address syllable types beyond transparent compounds, multiple pronunciations of vowel teams, inflectional endings, morphology, longer controlled passages, authentic connected reading, oral language, and substantial writing. Comprehensive Alabama standards verification remains pending.