Learning to Read with Fluency and Comprehension using the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach. Speed Reading from the Early Stages. www.wiringbrainscom

1. Daily Practice. Skills Acquisition.
Visual Prompts for Phonemic
Awareness
Rapid code recognition
Use of code in words (blending)
Use of coded words in real
sentences.
Use of coded sentences in books.
Children understand text (reading)

2. SSP Student
Poster Used
Daily
Skills Acquisition Poster

4. Example
Green Level

5. Children associate this with the word ‘sip’
They use Duck Hands to split the speech sounds, from left to right, and blend
into the word.
They draw a line and say the sounds as they do so, and then the same as
they number
the lines.
_ _ _
1 2 3
Visual Prompts.

6. Focus sound pic for code recognition.
Visual prompt shows which speech
sound it is a picture of ie not
‘sh’ here. Children understand that
sound pics need to be seen in real
words to truly know what they
represent.
s

7. Sound Pic used in a word, to develop rapid
blending.
No unfamiliar sound pics in the word.
We use the ‘Follow the Sounds, Say the Word’
technique to reinforce this for the brain.

8. sit and sip
Sound pic used in real sentence,
of words at their code level.
Encouraged to Scan it and Say it in a Reading
Voice (no robots)
So they are ‘following the sounds to say the word’
rapidly to themselves before reading aloud.

9. Sit and sip.
Punctuation added, or the children add it. The Pesky Speech Sound Frog
is constantly eating capital letters, commas and full stops from our writing
so we have to double check!

11. Children use their skills in real reading activities, at their code level.

15. This happens within four SSP levels.
By the end of SSP Blue they can
code anything. Comprehension
dependent on content.
All reading chapter books for
pleasure. Generally in around 4
terms, at age 4 or 5.
Older students not yet fluent need to go back and go through the
process to finally read independently.
They cannot comprehend what they cannot code.

22. WiringBrains.com – Teacher Area.

23. In the Primary National Strategy (2006a), the three cueing model (known in
England as the Searchlight model) is finally and explicitly discredited.
Instead, the Strategy has acknowledged the value of addressing decoding
and comprehension separately in the initial stage of reading instruction.
“ … attention should be focused on decoding words rather than the use of
unreliable strategies such as looking at the illustrations, rereading the sentence,
saying the first sound or guessing what might ‘fit’. Although these strategies might
result in intelligent guesses, none of them is sufficiently reliable and they can hinder
the acquisition and application of phonic knowledge and skills, prolonging the word
recognition process and lessening children’s overall understanding. Children who
routinely adopt alternative cues for reading unknown words, instead of learning to
decode them, later find themselves stranded when texts become more demanding
and meanings less predictable. The best route for children to become fluent and
independent readers lies in securing phonics as the prime approach to decoding
unfamiliar words (Primary National Strategy, 2006b, p.9).”
PM Readers and other ‘Levelled Readers’ are based on the Searchlight Model.