A group of students have an accuracy rate of 94% on a recent oral reading assessment. Which of the following activities will best help students to develop their reading skills?

• A. Participating in lessons focused on specific problematic phonics patterns
• B. Increasing sight-word memorization
• C. Extensive silent reading
• D. Whole-class reading of challenging texts

Answer: (A)

Focusing on explicit, systematic phonics patterns builds students’ ability to decode unfamiliar words by teaching how letter combinations correspond to sounds. When a group already reads with high accuracy, pinpointing and teaching the specific phonics patterns that tend to cause errors helps them apply decoding rules more consistently, reduce mispronunciations, and increase automaticity. This targeted approach strengthens the foundation of word recognition, which is essential for fluent oral reading and for tackling more complex texts.

Other activities have benefits for reading, but they don’t directly address decoding gaps. Silent reading improves fluency and comprehension over time, but without targeted phonics instruction, decoding weaknesses may persist. Memorizing sight words helps recognition of common words but doesn’t generalize to new or unfamiliar words. Reading challenging texts with the whole class can boost exposure and vocabulary, yet without explicit instruction on the patterns that underlie word reading, decoding skills may not improve as effectively.