What if a student knows the patterns or rules you've taught, but still stumbles during reading or when trying to use the words in context?

Would you slow down and work toward automaticity with those earlier concepts, or keep moving through your scope and sequence while working on fluency along the way?

I think there's room for both. I'd probably slow down a little, but I wouldn't necessarily stop moving forward.

First, I'd want to know: Does the student really know the rule and apply it to words?

Can they recognize words following the pattern in print and spell them from dictation?

Can they hear the pattern as well as see it?

For example:

Take the -ck pattern (the K-Rule). A student may know when we use ck at the end of a word. That's good, but I'm also looking for back, neck, sick, rock, and duck to become familiar territory, both when I dictate the words and when the student sees them in print.

Then when stack or trick shows up, there's something familiar to connect it to.

In OG, we're not just teaching a rule. We're building a bank of familiar words while giving students a pattern they can apply to words they haven't seen before.

There's reading science behind this, too. Orthographic mapping helps explain how successfully decoded words become stored in memory and eventually recognized automatically.

So before deciding how far to back up, I'd try a little experiment.

Can the student read familiar words with the pattern fairly easily? Can they spell them from dictation?

Now mix those words among other patterns. What happens?

Put them into sentences or connected text. What happens there?

Where does the skill break down?

If we're still laboring over individual words, I'd spend more time building automaticity with those patterns and word groups. I'd also make sure the student can work with the pattern in both directions by hearing a word and spelling it, and seeing a word and reading it.

If the words are coming fairly easily but reading falls apart in connected text, I'd be more inclined to keep moving while adding repeated reading, phrasing, and more practice in connected text.

I wouldn't wait for perfection before introducing something new. I'd keep the pattern in review while moving forward.

I also wouldn't consider something mastered simply because we've taught it and the student can tell me the rule.

Maybe I wouldn't ask, “Does the student know it?”

I would ask, “Can the student use it in spelling, dictation, reading, and connected text?”

The answer would help me decide whether to slow down or keep moving.

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Simple rules. Serious results. That’s OG.