What exactly does a student experience in an MSL session?
Handwriting Practice: Handwriting Practice allows students to develop their motor memory skills using the core components of MSL. When students practise their handwriting skills to a level of accuracy, fluency and automaticity, they are securing the sound-to-symbol relationship. During Handwriting Practice, the MSL educator will also correct directionality and formation of letters.
Phoneme Encode: Phoneme Encode is a method for mapping sound-to-symbol. Students are given a phoneme (sound) and are asked to encode it (write its corresponding symbol). This supports students with writing fluency – when they sound out letters in a word, they can easily and accurately retrieve the correct symbol.
Sound Pack: Sound Pack is where students learn to decode the sounds of the alphabet using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic components – the core of MSL. This is called the symbol-to-sound relationship. Students must practise Sound Pack in order to strengthen their symbol-to-sound relationship to a level of accuracy, fluency and automaticity
Review: The Review component of an MSL session supports consolidation of spelling patterns and rules already taught. By continually reviewing prior learnings, educators are checking that automaticity is occurring. From here, they can decide to move on from a spelling pattern or rule or spend more time strengthening the link between learning and long-term memory to improve accuracy and fluency.
New Skill: A New Skill is only introduced when prior learnings are consolidated to an acceptable level of accuracy, fluency and automaticity. These skills are explicitly and directly taught and are added to the bank of concepts already taught and learnt. Each New Skill builds upon the one prior – as is the structured and cumulative approach of MSL.
Irregular Words: There are a number of techniques for teaching irregular words. These words, like other MSL skills and concepts, are taught in isolation and taken to mastery. The aim is to ensure these words are committed to a student’s memory (mapped) for both reading and writing with accuracy and fluency. It is important to choose the right technique for teaching irregular words to avoid cognitive overload yet achieve optimal results.
Sentence Dictation: This element of an MSL session supports consolidation of spelling rules, patterns and irregular words in application. The student is offered the opportunity to practise applying the many concepts they have learnt. When appropriate, an MSL educator will also prompt for correct use of capital letters and punctuation like full stops and commas. If needed, they will explicitly and directly teach these concepts.
Oral Reading: During Oral Reading, students practise accuracy and fluency when reading texts that contain skills they have already been taught. An MSL educator will point out spelling rules and patterns in the text that have been introduced prior. Oral Reading can also be led by the educator reading to the student.
