• Decoding A teaches sound-spelling relationships explicitly and sytematically and shows students how to sound out words. Students are first taught the connection between sound-spelling relationships through regularly spelling words. Then irregular words are introduced. Later, sentence- and story-reading activities are used to teach students to apply their newly learned strategies in real contexts. 

    Decoding B1 and B2 is when word-attack skills are refined and applied to more sound-spelling patterns and difficult words. These skills are applied in stories designed to correct mistakes the poor reader typically makes. Students are introduced to new words and word types, phonemic relationships, long and short vowel sounds, new sound combinations, and new word endings. They apply their discrimination skills by reading stories of increasing length and with more complex syntax and then answering comprehension questions both orally and in writing.