The goal of the SIPPS program is to develop fluent and independent readers who read with accuracy and automaticity, thus freeing up cognitive resources to focus on making meaning from text. In the early lessons of the program, student engage in choral sounding out of decodable words to solidify mastery of spelling-sounds and to build phonic blending skills. As students master these skills and become more independent in their word reading skills, they shift to “sounding out” decodable words in their heads in the Phonics and Reading a Story routines.
Beginning Level
The Instructional Self-Check following Lesson 35 provides the first prompt to drop the choral sounding out and shift to “in the head” blending for the Reading a Story routine. Teachers should consider student mastery of spelling sounds and accuracy with blending and, if students’ blending skills are strong, transition to in the head blending no earlier than this point in the Beginning Level scope and sequence. Another prompt to consider whether students are ready to shift from choral sounding out to in the head blending occurs within the “Silent Blending” section of the Reading a Story routine in Lesson 41.
If your students are ready to blend decodable words silently during the reading of a story in Beginning, use the following routine: Tell the students that you want them to sound out the word silently, “in their heads,” rather than out loud. Then they will read it together out loud. To help them to sound out the word silently, point to the letters in sequence. The basic cues are: Point to the left of the word, pause, say “Sound in your head,” point to each spelling as the students sound out the word silently, point back to the left of the word, say “Read,” and then sweep under the word as the students read the word chorally. Be sure to provide sufficient wait time for students to engage in the work of in the head blending before prompting them to “read.”
Extension Level and Plus
In Extension and Plus, the way students read the stories changes as their proficiency increases.
For Extension Review Lessons 1–15 and Plus Lessons 1–15, use choral reading. Tell the students that before each sentence you will pause. They will read the sentence silently and sound out the words they don’t know. After the pause, cue the students by saying “Read,” and have them read the sentence out loud together. Since many students still need time to sound out unfamiliar words, be sure to pause for several seconds before each sentence is read. Without this extra time, strong readers will lead the reading while nonfluent readers will follow along without examining the text carefully and without a sense of becoming increasingly independent. Some students may need to be reminded to use the pause to sound out unfamiliar words. Before pausing, you may want to point out challenging words. For example, tell the students the meaning of a contraction or a possessive noun, or have them chorally sound out harder words with spelling patterns that were just introduced. Consider asking students to track their reading with their fingers as they read silently and then place their fingers back at the start of the sentence when they are ready to read chorally.
For Extension Lessons 1–15 and Plus Lessons 16–30, use choral reading for the first half of the story, followed by individual quiet reading aloud for the rest of it. During the choral reading, pause before each sentence to let the students sound out the hard words. Then have them read the rest of the story quietly aloud to themselves at their own pace. Remind them that the important goal is reading correctly, not quickly. While the students read, circulate and listen to individuals. If your students need additional support, have them read the entire story chorally, as in the review lessons.
For Extension Lessons 16–23 and Plus Lessons 31–55, have the students read the story quietly aloud to themselves. If they need additional support, have them read the first half of the story chorally aloud. Starting in Extension Lesson 24, students apply their growing knowledge of decoding strategies to reading trade books. While they are reading individually, circulate and listen to them.
For more information, see Appendix B, “Fluency Practice/Individualized Daily Reading.”