Case Study: Mastering the First 100 High-Frequency Words through Precision Teaching

The Starting Line: Reading Woes in a Year 1 Classroom

As a Year 1 teacher in a three form entry Manchester primary school, I grappled with a common yet disheartening issue: the wide range of reading abilities among the children in my class. While some were doing well and able to read CCVC words as well as fluently reading many common exception words by sight, there were about 5 children who were struggling to master Phase 1 phonics. With such a range, I wanted to find not just the right targets for each of them, but also the right methods. What was clear was that the 5 children who were struggling had already had some exceptional teaching (their Reception teacher is phenomenal), so it wasn’t the delivery that needed changing for these children, but the method.

Setting the Sight on Sight Words

I think Precision Teaching had been around in the corridors of school for some time, but was something I wasn’t too familiar with. Fortunately, shortly into the Autumn term, our school bought into a license for Precision Teaching Plus. This inspired me to reprioritise a focus from ‘more phonics’ for the struggling readers, to integrating a Precision Teaching approach whereby we’d work to develop their sight reading abilities of the High Frequency Words. Fortunately, I had the most wonderful and motivated TA working with me, and felt hopeful (as well as a little apprehensive about diverging) about the impact this could have.

The focus on the High Frequency Words came because I love the fact that the first 30 High Frequency Words makes up about 30% of all written material (and a lot more of their age-appropriate reading material). It makes sense when we think and look at text, but I also really enjoy sharing this with parents: “do you think we could get them to read 30 words by the end of the year? Less than one a week?”. And I wanted to show each of these children that they could read.

Taking the Precision Teaching Plunge: Identifying The Targets

We started by assessing each of the 5 children’s capability to read the first 30 high frequency words correctly. Using a simple word list, each child went through and read as many words as they could. It was a super quick way to measure where they were at.

Tailoring The Instruction

We then set targets for between 3-4 words for each child a week. We also thought that we’d go back and include some previously learnt words after the first week to further help them retain these.

The Preparation

The class TA then created flashcards of the top 30 high frequency words, duplicated 4 times so we had a good amount of material to hand. Fortunately we could use the templates within Precision Teaching Plus to quickly create these resources, and simply printed off the tracking charts too (while there is an automated electronic version, I wanted the children to mark on how well they did each day so they could see their own progress).

All Ready and Set… Go!

The TA had 30 minutes scheduled three times a day (i.e. 3 x 5 minute sessions with each child) to set up and implement Precision Teaching. Since there was minimal disruption (only a few minutes for each child), we decided to fit this within the middle of lessons. The children each read as many words as they could for 3 minutes. If they got it right, they held onto that flashcard (like a mini reward in itself), and if they didn’t get it then we told them the answer and asked them to repeat it back.

2 Month Success… Almost

Seeing the graphs was not just informative but highly motivating for the children. While everything seemed to be working amazingly well for the first month, when we reviewed the data within the second month, there was one child who was starting to plateau.

Navigating Challenges: Individual Hurdles

Upon reviewing the data for this child, we noticed that they were retaining the words across a week, but that they were gradually forgetting these over time. We switched things around so that every other week was a full ‘mixed week’ of all the words they had previously learnt and seemed to master. I also thought about other ways we could reinforce this learning for all the children, and set up some other independent tasks for them like tracing activities they could do in the day, and sent home the ‘success’ words they had achieved to share with their parents.

The Finale: Measurable Success and Beyond

After the first full term, these five children had each made incredibly pleasing progress. One had mastered all 30 high frequency words, and was moving onto the next target of mastering the first 50; and all four other children were reading around 20 (between 16-24) fluently. What I had expected, but not quite to the extent that I saw it, was the huge boost in their confidence and interest in reading. Four of the five children were actively keen to read (perhaps due to their new found belief that they could and wanted to show this!), and the other child who wasn’t as keen was still a lot more confident than before. If this was a reading confidence intervention, then that alone would be worth it.

... And Beyond For The Whole Class

What I saw from these five children inspired a different take on how I taught some key parts of the curriculum. It sent me down a rabbit hole of learning retention and how children are able to both remember and recall their learning, and I found ‘The Forgetting Curve’ and ‘Spaced Repetition’ learning approaches especially exciting to integrate within my planning.

I decided that any ‘fact’ learning, including common exception words and number bonds, would try and follow a similar approach to Precision Teaching; i.e. 3 minutes, 3 times a day approach. Although it took a bit of setting up and habit forming on my part (the first few weeks I’d often forget some), the outcome was well worth it. What I’ve especially found valuable from the Precision Teaching Plus training and resources is that, while there’s so much psychology and neuroscience behind all of these approaches, how you can maximise this within the classroom is simple and more about habit formation. And this is a habit I want to stick with.

Reflective Questions: Could This Be Your Classroom?

• Can you identify a subset of the first 100 high-frequency words that your class finds difficult?
• How would integrating Precision Teaching into your literacy block change the reading outcomes?

Over To You

By sharing my experiences last year, I hope to share the practical benefits of using Precision Teaching with my Year 1 class. It’s a versatile tool that allows us to meet children where they are, giving them the targeted support they need to flourish. From my experience, Precision Teaching is not a quick fix, but a systematic approach that helps children master essential literacy skills, one high-frequency word at a time.

Precision Teaching Plus Online CPD

Precision Teaching Plus is a complete, straightforward and rapid online intervention program to boost children's learning. PT+ has 5 chapters of flexible online training, and dozens of resources to support you to accelerate children's learning rate.

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