This page gives you detailed directions for each of the 6 Steps in the image. But it’s not intended to be read all at once. It’s here to serve as a reference. 

It not only describes what to do, but explains why, along with tips for making the entire process most effective.

You’ll also find link in the next paragraph to a set of printable Brief Directions. These are to remind anyone writing Key Words how to work with a child at each Step.

Printable Brief Directions

To augment this page, you also have this link to a set of 3 pages of Brief Directions.  They’re to print out and keep with you the first few times you’re working with a child. Or if you have others working with you to write children’s Key Words, use these directions to communicate with them. *

You’ll see I’ve placed 2 Steps on each page. This is so you’ll have something with you as you’re working with a child.

Also, if you’re in the classroom, you can print several copies on sturdy card stock, cut them in half and place the appropriate Step on each child’s Word Ring.

This makes it easy to remind aides or other helpers what to do at each Step. If there’s something special you want them to know about that child, you can also write those notes on it.

What follows now are the detailed directions for each Step:

Step 1: Learning the Routines 

The child spends only a few days at Step 1, to get used to the routines you demonstrated during the introduction. (See directions for Introducing Key Words.)

So, to focus on routines, you keep things very simple at Step 1, as follows:

1) The child “reads” all the words on their Word Ring. (They got their name and one Key Word during the introduction.)

Take off any word they don’t immediately recognize. Do not give hints or help them “sound it out.” (Sounding out words comes later.)

Collecting words with such strong meaning they immediately recognize them the following days has two benefits:

• • It gives the child confidence with print, and
  • It gives them repeated opportunities to unconsciously absorb the sound/letter relationships. And it’s taking advantage of A Natural Approach that partly explains what makes this approach so powerful. (For more about why, see What Makes Key Words and The Steps So Powerful?)

Keeping unfamiliar words on their ring has the opposite effect:

• • They will lose confidence, and
  • They’ll have fewer chances to naturally absorb phonetic connections.

So if not recognizing words on their Word Ring becomes a recurring problem, see what to do here. 

2) Once they’ve “read” the words on their Word Ring, help them decide what new word they want. Ask such questions as, What’s your best toy/pet/food/thing to do? What’s something really scary? Wait for something heartfelt to emerge.

3) Key Words are captions for mind-pictures, so prompt the child to talk in detail about what they’ve chosen. Ask them what it looks like, why it’s important, what their experiences with it have been etc.

The child in this example has seen the book, Bedtime for Batman. They’ve told you who read it to them and what Batman did. They’ve also said how much they like being read to at bedtime.

Take as much time as you can with this discussion. This is your chance to improve the child’s vocabulary, sentence structure, and listening/comprehension skills — all important later, for reading.

4) Help the child decide the word that best describe their thinking. They’ve talked about both Batman and bedtime. But don’t ask, Do you want Batman or bedtime? This can cause trouble the next day, when they can’t remember which word you said that they chose.  Instead ask, What word should I write? 

5) This child asked for Batman. So be sure they watch as you write it on heavy card stock. (See Materials Needed for Key Words)

6) Casually say the NAME and/or SOUND of each letter as you write. If they get distracted, stop writing until they’re watching again.

7) Once you’ve written the entire word, trace over the first couple of letters with your index finger and ask them to do that, too. If they understand what you’re asking, but go a different direction than your letter formation program requires, gently stop them and demonstrate with your finger again. (Do NOT try to guide their hand.)

If the child is very young, they may not understand what you want and/or not be physically able to trace correctly. So, they may just glide their finger over the entire sentence. Let that go unremarked and demonstrate tracing again the next day.

Then if it happens again, drop it for a while. For it’s extremely important they feel confident they can work with print. If you say anything at all, you might try, “You’ll be able to do it when you’re older.” Children seem happy to accept that.

8) Make a duplicate of the word on newsprint or typing paper.

9) Watch as they punch a hole in their word card, with the extra punch you keep at your table. Then ask them to tell you what they’re supposed to do when they leave you, which is —

• • glue their duplicate on a blank page in their writing book,
  • draw a picture about Batman, and
  • bring their finished work back for you to see.

Then send them off, to work on their own. (For a child who can’t yet draw, see what else they might do, in Key Words With Preschoolers.)

Once the children are familiar with the routine, and they know to ask for a true Key Word, they’re ready to go on to Step 2. (On the page of Charts, you’ll find a set of Indicators of Readiness to Move to the Next Step telling you what to look for when deciding whether to move them forward.)

Step 2: Add a Sentence, Emphasize Spelling For One Sound, and Begin Capitalization and Punctuation 

​1) Have the child read all the words on their ring. As always, take off any they don’t immediately recognize. Do not give hints. Don’t help them “sound it out.”

Note that at the first few Steps, they won’t yet recognize their Key Words elsewhere — only on their Word Card. For they’re not reading it, in the traditional sense. It’s more like remembering it from the entire experience of talking about and drawing a picture of it.

2) By now, most children will already know what word they want. So, you encourage them to describe their thinking about it.

This child may have said, for example, I want “robbers” today, ’cause Daddy showed me a special comic book he had when he was a little boy, and it had robbers. Superman was in it, too, and I really liked him. Daddy said there really are real robbers in the world….

3) While writing the word robbers, be alert for which one new sound you can emphasize. (More than one sound a day can be confusing. Also, the progression for emphasizing sounds is to begin with consonants, then vowels, then the sounds spelled with more than one letter last.)

Follow this procedure to show the child how to spell that one sound that day. 

In this example, the child didn’t know what letter commonly makes the rrrr sound. You can either tell them it begins with an “r” and make the sound as you write it. Or you can use sound/story cartoons — as described below.

This decision depends on how thorough you decide to be with phonics/spelling. Either way, the child will learn to spell, as they write. To help with decision, see two types of phonics materials on the second page in Phonics.

(A member of my Facebook Group brought to my attention the inexpensive set shown in examples.)

Following is how to use any version of sound/story cartoons:

• • Remind the child of the cartoon or picture for rrrr in your set of phonics materials. In this set, it’s the dog growling, rrrr.
  • Before you send them to look for the letter that’s on that cartoon, tell them that when they return, they’ll need to show you the letter they found by making it with their finger onto the table. Have the child say the rrrr sound again before they leave you to find the letter on the dog cartoon.
  • When they return, have them form the letter on the table, with the index finger of their writing hand.
  • If they have forgotten it while walking back from the chart, don’t tell them — send them to look again. (Having to keep the sound and letter in mind, while going back and forth — then also forming it on the table — they will probably remember it from then on.)
  • Once they have formed the letter on the table, write it for them on their word card.

4) The child traces over all the letters on the word card, with their index finger. (They will not trace the sentence.)

5) Add a sentence. Help the child trim down what they’ve said — so you have one sentence that’s easy enough to remember, so they can ”read” it back from memory. This might be, Superman can catch the robbers.

The child watches as you write their sentence on the back of their Word Card. As you write, stop about half way through and read what you’ve written so far again — asking them what more you should write — as if you’ve forgotten what they said. (This is to get them into the habit of re-reading as they write.)

After writing the entire sentence, track it with your finger as you both read the entire sentence together again a couple of times.

(The following day, while saying the words on their Word Ring, they only need to remember the word to keep it on the Word Ring. Do not ask them to revisit the sentence at all. It’s too soon for that.)

Now that they’re dictating a full sentence, see how to use your own sounds as you Demonstrate Punctuation & Capitalization. 

5) You finish the session by making a duplicate. The child leaves you to glue the duplicate into their book, draw a picture, and show it to you when finished.

Step 3: Cut Up and Reassemble the Sentence

Follow the same procedure as in Step 2. Again, the child helps supply the letters they already know and refers to the phonics materials you’re using to discover and trace on the table the letter for only ONE new sound per day.

This time, you write the duplicate on a narrow strip of paper. The child cuts it up, then reassembles it a couple of times.

Keep a child at Step 3 a little longer than necessary — as long as they are not bored with it or impatient to move on. For reassembling the sentence further develops reading skills and increases the number of words they immediately recognize.

(For an older child who’s been struggling with reading, start them at Step 3. If they hesitate to tell you a Key Word, use the title of their favorite song and one line of lyrics for their sentence. Also make their writing book smaller, to look more “grown up.”)

Step 4: Copy the Word and Sentence

​Same procedure as before, except that the child practices letter formation in 2 stages: 

• Beginning Stage: You write the usual duplicate with a pen, and they trace over with a pencil.
• Advanced Stage: Once the child can easily trace over what you’ve written on their duplicate, stop making a duplicate. Instead, have them copy the word and sentence directly from their word card into their writing book — on lined or unlined paper.

Step 5: Build the Sentence Independently

​Here the adult writes only the Key Word and shows the child how to “build” a sentence.

By now, they can spell many Key Words, service words and other types of words from memory. Or they may search for them in the sentences on their Word Ring.

In addition, you show them how to search for words, using a variety of supporting materials. This includes the following:

• Copies of songs or poems they know and can recite from memory.
• A chart of alphabetized, 2nd Grade Dolch High Frequency Words,
• And at school, they can also have a class Wall Strip Dictionary, or at home, an individual dictionary. (See Sound/Story System For Spelling.)

Step 6: No Key Word — Write Longer Stories and Begin Simple Projects 

​The child no longer gets a Key Word. Instead, they write longer, more complex stories and begin to carry out Simple Projects. At first, these include learning to design, carry out, and report on such things as opinion surveys about simple topics they’re interested in. These then become a little more complex, as shown in the image. There, they conducted a survey to find out how many letters in the names of each of their classmates. Then they analyzed findings and created a bar graph showing the results. Finally, they presented it to the class, accompanied by a written report.

Eventually these will become more sophisticated and include research, analysis, and reporting, with much of that done using the internet. For a full discussion of how to guide a child through creating projects within units of study based on their interests, see Real Life Projects for Higher-Level Thinking Skills.

Hold Separate Sessions For Phonemic Awareness

While a strong phonics component is actually integrated into the Key Words process, it’s also important they have experience with phonemic awareness. This is done in sessions apart from Key Words. There, they learn to distinguish the separate sounds in the words they speak. Being able to do this helps with both spelling and sounding out words.

So, if not before you begin with Key Words, then shortly afterward — read Phonics and begin holding separate phonemic awareness sessions as described there.

Deciding How to Begin and Preparing To Introduce Key Words  

Deciding How to Begin. If you’re a classroom teacher wanting to move in this direction, you’ll first need to decide how you want to begin: Will you do this with an entire class — or — will you use it with just a few students? For a discussion of this, you’ll find examples on the page, Gradually Adopting The Steps. under menu item, “In Classrooms,” the page, Getting Started in the Classroom. (If you’re at home, you’ll also see some ideas on that page that you can use as you begin establishing work routines at home. See the bottom of that page, Demonstrating the Use of Pens.)

On the First Day: Beginning to Establish Work Routines. For classroom or home, see how to begin establishing a sense of order by using a Silent Demonstration for the use of pens.  This prepares the child for the introduction to Key Words.

Introducing Key Words. Once you’ve decided how you’ll begin in your classroom– or if you’re at home and already planning to use Key Words — you’ll find help on the next page for Introducing Key Words. For how you introduce all this to the child(ren) affects how well a child will operate independently — from then on. And if you’ve taken the time to do it carefully, I predict you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how well children can work on their own.

For using the Silent Demonstrations and the other techniques outlined there, children will take their work very seriously and carry it out with a sense of responsibility, satisfaction, and purpose. 

NEXT —> GETTING STARTED IN THE CLASSROOM — OR — GO DIRECTLY TO —> INTRODUCING KEY WORDS

 

* If you’re in the classroom, you can also use those Brief Directions to communicate with your aides and volunteers. Just print them out on card stock, cut them into the separate Steps, and put the appropriate one on each child’s Word Ring.