Reviewing Concepts for Mastery

Now that you’ve assessed your students, the Three-Part Drill and Vowel Intensive should be administered at least two to three times per week for general education classrooms or daily for intervention and Kindergarten, using the Blue Flip Chart, Phoneme/Grapheme Card Pack, and Phoneme/Grapheme Chart. This review drill is key in helping your students master concepts.

Try to keep the Three-Part Drill to 10-15 minutes.

Handling Miscues

Visual

Immediately address errors by stating the correct letter name and sound. Use the 3x rule to help. Teach models the correct sound. Teacher and student produce the correct sound together. Then the student states the sound on their own. Then put the card back in the pack to practice the grapheme/phoneme link again.  Example: b says /b/. Then have students repeat it with you. Then have students say it independently. Then place the card back in the pile so students have another opportunity to try the missed concept.

Auditory-Kinesthetic

Immediately address errors by stating the correct letter name and sound while modeling how to write the grapheme(s). Example: b says /b/ as teacher is modeling in sand, interactive whiteboard, or other medium. Then have students repeat it with you. Then have students say it independently. Then repeat the sound later in the drill so students have another opportunity to try the missed concept.

Blending

• Immediately address by correctly blending each letter into a word or syllable. Then have students try it with you. Then have students do it independently.
• Remove initial consonant card and blend vowel-consonant combination.
• Start with continuous sounds instead of stopped sounds.
• Try changing just the initial card or just the final card leaving the other graphemes the same.

Remember, consistency in your instructional routines will support students’ development of mastery and automaticity in reading, spelling, and writing.