Download (SIPPS®) as a Multisensory Program

Systematic Instruction in Phoneme Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words
(SIPPS®) as a Multisensory Program
The SIPPS (Systematic Instruction in Phoneme Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words) program is a three-level decoding
curriculum that systematically develops the word-recognition strategies and skills students need to become independent
readers and writers. Instruction is explicit and teacher-directed, with group responses and extensive student involvement.
All three levels provide for flexible groups and pacing to meet students’ needs. The SIPPS program starts with short
vowels and simple consonant sounds. It progresses to complex vowels and irregular words—and continues through the
polysyllabic strategies that are critical for content-area reading. Students are placed according to their skill level. Mastery
of each element is required before moving on, with the goal that every student become a fluent reader. SIPPS uses 4
levels:
BeginningExtensionPlusChallenge-
Alphabetic Principal
Spelling Patterns
Alphabetic Principal and Spelling Patterns for older readers
Polysyllabic Strategies
Phonology and Phonological Awareness
SIPPS teaches phoneme awareness, an awareness that sounds make up words, as the foundation for the skills
necessary for reading and spelling. SIPPS focuses on blending words, segmenting words, and manipulating words by
dropping certain sounds. Phonology and phonological awareness are taught through activities in a sequence of increasing
difficulty: oral blending, phoneme recognition, identifying phoneme position, segmentation, rhyming, and manipulation.
How is Phonology taught?
Teachers represent units of sound by drawing on the board—horizontal lines for phonemes and boxes for words,
syllables, and rhymes. For example, to practice oral segmentation with a word such as ran teachers draw three lines on
the board and point to them in succession as students say the phoneme that corresponds to each /rr/ for the first blank,
/aa/ for the second, and /nn/ for the third. In each lesson, two-word lists are provided so that groups needing to repeat the
lesson will have new practice words the second time, should they need it. Guided spelling and segmentation constitute
another lesson component that asks students to listen for the sounds in words and, with teacher guidance, record the
letters that match the sounds in those words.
Sound–Symbol Association
Once students have had practice with phonology and phonological awareness, the SIPPS program uses explicit and
systematic instruction through which students learn spelling-sound relationships and apply their growing knowledge to
reading decodable words.
How is Sound–Symbol Association taught?
Using handheld cards and wall cards, teachers introduce new spelling–sound relationships and review those already
taught. Then students practice blending and reading decodable words that have been written on the board. Students
begin blending and reading words as soon as they have learned a few consonants and one vowel. As they learn more
consonants and short vowels, the number of decodable patterns grows dramatically. The program emphasizes
“continuous blending”—saying the sounds in a word slowly without pausing between sounds. There are two lists so that a
lesson may be repeated with new practice words.
Additional reinforcement for learning sound–symbol relationships again occurs during Guided Spelling and Segmentation.
Here, students listen for each sound in a word and then write corresponding letters with teacher guidance.
Syllable Instruction
SIPPS uses three different routines to address syllable instruction. The rationale for the first routine, “Syllablic
Transformations,” is that skilled readers read by syllables; fluent readers must be able to read unfamiliar syllables with
ease. The key to this skill is the knowledge of how the sound of a vowel is influenced by its position in the syllable. The
rationale for the second routine, “Sight Syllables,” is that sight knowledge of common roots and affixes improves a
reader’s chances of identifying the many Latin-based words in which these units appear. The rationale for the third
routine, “Reading by Syllables,” is that reading by syllables demystifies polysyllabic words by showing how they are made
up of the syllables studied in other strands. With abundant guided practice, students develop polysyllabic decoding
strategies without learning the formal rules, which have limited utility. Specifically, students, with the aid of teacher
“framing,” see which letter sequences have probable syllables in the context of surrounding syllables. Students practice
making a match between the words as read by syllables and as actually pronounced, and deal repeatedly with schwas,
irregular spellings, and various exceptions that are frequent in polysyllabic words.
How is Syllable Instruction taught?
In “Syllabic Transformations,” students first learn two key generalizations:
1) One vowel at the end of a word in a syllable is long, e.g. go, hi, and me.
2) One vowel not at the end of a word is short, e.g. ill, mud, and left.
Then students practice reading these open and closed syllables. First, teachers write a syllable on the board and students
read it. The teacher then adds or removes a letter and students read each syllable as it is written or changed. This is a
fast-paced exercise in which students gain accuracy and speed in open- and closed-syllable recognition—the basic
building blocks of polysyllabic decoding.
In “Sight Syllables,” students learn to recognize by sight about 90 common syllables. Teacher-held cards are used to
teach and review the syllables. Definitions, which aid in both decoding and comprehension, are provided for some
syllables. Syllables are introduced in Lessons 4 through 33 and are reviewed thereafter. Some sight syllables are labeled
irregular and are underlined on the Sight-Syllable cards and in the Teacher’s Manual. These syllables:
1) Do not conform to the open- and closed-syllable generalizations (e.g., -tion, and –ble).
2) Contain complex phonics patterns (e.g., er and por).
3) Have a sound with two or more spellings (e.g., graph and sys)
The program leaves to teachers the decision of how to pronounce the irregular sight syllables containing schwas (e.g., ible, -able, -ence, and –ance). The schwa pronunciation (unaccented short u sound) contributes to accuracy of reading,
while the more familiar letter sound contributes to spelling knowledge.
In the “Reading by Syllables” routine teachers write words on the board, syllable by syllable, as the students chorally read
each syllable. Students then read the entire words as commonly pronounced (not as a string of individual syllables).
Reading by Syllables starts in Lesson 5. The basic concepts and teaching procedures are explained over three lessons,
after which there are ten words introduced per lesson.
Morphology
The rationale for SIPPS instruction in morphology is that a significant proportion of syllables in polysyllabic words are
prefixes, suffixes, and inflectional endings (e.g., -ed, -ing, and -es). Fluent readers perceive these kinds of syllables and
understand how they affect the pronunciation and use of base words.
How is Morphology taught?
Students read words as affixes are added. Teachers start with the base word (e.g., produce) on the board, and students
read as teachers transform the base (e.g., producing, product, production). Students practice spellings and syllables they
have learned in Single-Syllable Phonics and Sight Syllables. There are two base words per lesson in Morphemic
Transformations beginning in Lesson 21. Teachers may also want to include additional vocabulary in other languagedevelopment activities.
Syntax
SIPPS does not explicitly teach syntax.
How is Syntax practiced?
Students have many opportunities to read connected text as they apply the phonics skills they’re learning. Initially,
students read Story Charts comprised of sight words and predictable words with illustrations chorally. As students learn to
decode words, practice texts are written with both sight words and decodable text. Students continue to read both chorally
and independently until they are ready to read easy trade books on their own. The teacher provides continual modeling
and support throughout this process, as students become familiar with the grammar and sentence structure of English.
Semantics
The practice of reading stories chorally, blending decodable words with teacher guidance, helps students move beyond
context to using spelling–sound relationships as their primary reading strategy. As students progress through SIPPS,
students need extensive practice applying polysyllabic decoding strategies in their individual reading to make meaning of
text.
How is Semantics taught?
In the Beginning Level and the first eighteen lessons of Extension Level, as well as the first forty lessons in Plus, the
students’ practice reading is of program-specific material. Little books are used in Beginning, a story book in Extension,
and a mix of fiction and nonfiction in Plus, to practice because the text matches the instruction. Questions are included at
the end of the story to discuss comprehension of text read. In later lessons in Extension, Plus, and all of Challenge,
students read for 30 minutes a day from a trade book selected by teachers. Teachers meet frequently with each student
to check that the student’s reading accuracy is 90-95 percent and monitor comprehension by asking students to retell
what they have read, and to provide support.
How is SIPPS Taught?
Simultaneous, Multisensory (VAKT)
The basic teaching sequence consists of: teacher modeling and guided practice with immediate corrective feedback.
Much of the instruction consists of routines that facilitate whole-group or whole-class response. Some routines are oral
while others make use of words or syllables written on the board or cards, either handheld or on the wall. SIPPS
instruction is embedded with daily review and student practice. Teachers do have students tap letters associated with the
“Sight Word Routine.”
Systematic and Cumulative
SIPPS is guided by a scope and sequence of phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words, and structural analysis. Critical
content is introduced, reviewed, practiced with guidance, and applied to reading and writing. Teacher-directed instruction
efficiently and effectively communicates the abstract content of word-recognition strategies. The SIPPS program
corresponds to three developmental levels of progression in decoding: simple alphabetic, with emphasis on blending and
segmenting (Beginning Level), spelling pattern, with emphasis on segmentation and manipulation (Extension Level), and
polysyllabic/morphemic (Challenge Level). Instruction at the Beginning and Extension Levels includes concepts of print,
phoneme awareness, phonics, and high-frequency sight words. Instruction at the Challenge Level focuses on syllabic
patterns and morphological units.
Direct Instruction
SIPPS is taught through direct instruction. Teachers deliver the lessons to small groups of students who interact with the
teacher throughout the lessons. Teacher-directed instruction efficiently and effectively communicates the abstract content
of word-recognition strategies.
Diagnostic Teaching
A key feature of SIPPS is flexible grouping of students according to their word-recognition abilities. Assessment plays a
central role in the initial placement decisions. Before students are placed into SIPPS, they are assessed. On-going
assessment ensures student mastery and allows groups of students to move through the lessons at different paces
according to their individual needs. Beginning and Extension level Teacher Guides contain instructions, student forms,
and teacher recording forms for two assessments: a test of basic phonics and an irregular words assessment. All
assessments are individually administered and use placement charts, which allow placement within each of the levels.
Challenge Level assessment uses a reading-accuracy check and a program-specific Assessment of Decoding Skills.
Teachers of students in grades K-2 will have small groups of no more than eight who move through the Beginning and
Extension lessons at different paces. Teachers of students in grades 3+ will use the assessment and placement charts in
Challenge Level for initial placement.
Synthetic and Analytic Instruction
SIPPS focuses on synthetic instruction as the program takes students from work at the auditory level beginning with
phonemic awareness routines, then proceeding to the visual level through instruction in phonics and sight word
instruction, to the written level in guided spelling, and ending with daily application in reading either decodable text or
trade books.
SIPPS focuses on analytic instruction by working with entire words and breaking them down into onset and rhyme, and
syllables. They learn sight syllable meanings and learn to read bigger words by analyzing syllables, looking for inflected
endings and other patterns, and deciding which generalizations to apply. Students in SIPPS also get practice in reading
entire words as they learn and apply various ways that words can be broken down