This module will help you become familiar with the content of Level 4 by demonstrating 2 Activities.

Level 4 activities reinforce the word-attack strategies necessary for automatic recognition of one-, two-, and three-syllable words. Many of the words are from concepts used in Levels 1 to 3. Additionally, Level 4 words contain open and consonant-le syllables, plus hard and soft c and g syllables. Exercises involving single words continue to develop phonological awareness, while activities including sentences and paragraphs provide practice with contextual materials.

The Activities in this Level are Syllable Types, 2 Sounds of c and g, 3 syllable words and Paragraphs II.

Let’s begin with Syllable Types. Students in Level 4 should have already mastered 4 of the 6 syllable types. They should know Closed Syllables, Silent e, Vowel Combination and Vowel - r syllables. This activity reviews these 4 syllable types and presents the last 2: Open Syllables and Consonant -le syllables.

There are a lot of Units in the Syllable Types Activity - 22 to be exact. It’s especially important that struggling readers learn to master these syllable types. There are 2 different types of tasks. Let’s look at a sorting task in which the program dictates a syllable and the student selects the correct syllable and sorts it to the appropriate file card.

In the other tasks, the student is asked to construct a 2-syllable word by selecting a blue box, revealing the first syllable. The student then matches it to the appropriate second syllable. The word displays in a column and the student copies the word by typing it.

Why does c says cost which sounds like a /K/ and c also can say cent which sounds like an /S?/ That’s because there’s a rule that governs C and G and there’s an activity in Level 4 that teaches that rule. There are 4 tasks in the Activity, 2 Sounds C & G, but we we’ll just look at 1 of the 4 tasks and you can explore the other tasks on your own.

Let’s look at the first unit. Just like with Syllable Types, you can hear the rule by clicking on the boxes.

The 2 sounds for G - hard and soft G - are also important to know and are explicitly taught in the Activity. If students know this rule, they’ll have a much easier time reading and writing this sentence.

Take a few moments on your own and log into Strategies using your school email and Lexia password so that you can access the Demo Mode. Explore some of the other Activities in Level 4 - looking at both early units and later units.