As with reading instruction, we also provided Anna with numerous opportunities to apply her encoding skills in the context of meaningful writing activities such as writing stories.
In this video, you will see Anna using letter cards to write a story about her family and her new dog, Toby. First she looks at the photo and then she decides on her sentence (i.e., “Dad hugs Toby”). She segments out each of the sounds for the words “dad” and “hug” and selects the letters to represent these sounds in sequence. Initially, she forgets the final “s” on hugs so the instructor helps her sound this out. This is not surprising since she is still learning some of the details of word endings and other aspects of grammar. Anna then tries to sound out the word “Toby” which she has not seen previously. The instructor provides her with scaffolding support to help her to segment out the sounds and find the correct letter.
Up to this point, Anna has known the letter y as a consonant as in “yell” or “yes”. So the instructor capitalizes on this teaching moment to explain that the letter y can also make an “ee” sound when it is at the end of a word.