Struggling readers have the desire to be able to communicate with their friends on social media. They wish to be able to read and post messages about their interests. The Sounds Of Words is helpful here, since the strategy is universal word, explicit teaching, concrete, multi-sensory, applied phonics. Parent/ teacher can choose any portion of social media text of interest and teach the student to read, discuss, and respond to it.

Teach the student to decode and read any word(s) that the student needs to know in order to read the text. Use the same strategy to teach the student how to spell and write words correctly in order to respond with her/his own idea(s) about the subject. The student is improving comprehension for written text and for writing text while engaging in the social media that he/she enjoys!

Additionally, the student is adding to the words for reading, spelling, and writing stored in the comprehension/memory area of the brain!