Cross Checking: What it is and why your kids need it

Learning to read can be such a difficult task.  There are so many skills that are necessary, for a child to go from a non-reader to a reader.  Many children are fortunate enough to be read to at a young age.  These children are given the opportunity to experience books and enjoy them as a story.  Through this simple act, children learn that books tell a story and there are beautiful pictures to match.  Eventually, those same children will begin to pick up books on their own.  They will tell their own story according to the pictures that they see.  They are doing exactly what we, as adults, have modeled for them.  But they are still non-readers….

So how does a child go from reading the pictures of a story, to reading the words?  There are so many skills involved in this process that we could discuss it all day long.  Children need letter recognition, letter sounds, decoding, rhyming, phonemic awareness, concept of word, and the list goes on and on.   

Today, though, I am going to discuss one skill that many people often forget about.  It is one of those skills that seems to come naturally for some children and is very difficult for others.  It is one that we, as teachers, often forget to explicitly teach.  It is cross checking.

In my classroom, I use the Beanie Baby Decoding strategies to help many of my students remember these strategies they need for reading.  The first two strategies that I always teach to my non-readers are Lips the Fish and Eagle Eye.  These are the very basic beginnings of reading.  Lips the Fish reminds my students to get our lips ready to say the first sound in the word.  It gives them a starting point when reading the word.  Eagle Eye reminds students to look at the pictures to help them with unknown words.  I teach each of these skills explicitly and separate in my classroom.  Then, I go back and teach them together.  THAT is cross checking.

Cross checking is the ability of a student to use BOTH the picture on the page (or the meaning in the story for higher level readers) and the letters that create the word to determine the unknown word.  This means that child has to use both meaning AND visual cues while reading.  Most students have no problem doing one or the other, but combining them is a difficult task.

To teach this skill, I give my students several prompt cards that I designed specifically for teaching this strategy.  Each set has identical pictures, but with two different words that could describe that picture.  Often times, students will look at the picture and choose an obvious word for it without realizing that it could be something entirely different.

For example, this card has a fairly obvious word in it.  Students will look at this card and know that it is a picture of a horse and they will read “This is a horse.”

However, some stories may not use the word “horse.”  Some may use the word “pony.”  Students without the ability to cross check will look at this second card and read “This is a horse.”  They may not even notice that the word begins with the letter P rather than an H.

You will notice that I added our symbol for Lips the Fish and Eagle Eye to remind students that they need to use both strategies to determine what the sentence says!  

Here is another example:

 There are so many instances in stories in which this is such a necessary skill.  After I have taught this skill using these cards, it is time to try it in a book.  I then purposely choose a story or two in which they will have to use this skill to read the book accurately.  In a book, the picture cues are no longer there, so they may need to be reminded when they come across it the first couple of times.

As students become stronger readers, the pictures in the stories become fewer and fewer.  They also become more vague.  Students will no longer be able to use picture cues as often.  Instead, they will have to cross check by using meaning.  They will have to decide what word would not only match those letters, but would also make sense in the story.

If you would like a copy of the example cards that I have made, click here and check them out!

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Developing a Concept of Word with Emergent Readers

Hello from Comprehension Connection!  Today's post is aimed at the Emergent Reader and will hopefully provide some help and guidance for the Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten teacher.  The specific topic is how to develop a concept of word (COW) in young readers. I chose this topic after requesting input from my Facebook readers on the types of activities that are used in the regular classroom to work on this skill and how much time is devoted to it.  Interestingly, there were misunderstandings on exactly what Concept of Word meant.  Many understood it to be matching speech to print or being able to track.  However, Concept of Word is a bit more than this, and it is *the* sign that an emergent reader has become a beginning reader.  

What is a Concept of Word?

A Concept of Word (COW) is the culmination of a student's automatic knowledge of letter sounds, his/her ability to isolate the beginning consonant sound, match spoken word to the print and realizing that words are separated by space, and remember words in isolation that have been previously taught. A student's COW develops in stages.  

Developing Concept of Word

The student shows following at each stage:
1.  Has left to right directionality, but no word awareness. Writing looks like squiggles across page.
2.  Points along with stressed units (syllables or words, but does not differentiate).  Writing begins to include some letters, but they are random.
3.  Points to words and says syllables. Writing begins to include beginning sounds of words.

Rudimentary Concept of Word Development

The student is approaching the beginning reader stage when he/she:
4.  Points to words and begins to self correct when he/she gets off track. Writing now includes beginning and ending sounds, but may not include vowels.

Firm Development of a Concept of Word

The student has reached the beginning reader stage when he/she
5.  Demonstrates accurate tracking of print.  Writing includes space between words and short vowel words include beginning, middle, and ending sounds. The reader in the video below is not completely  firm, but very close.

How Can Teachers Work to Develop COW With Students?

The first step with Concept of Word Instruction is to teach the poem to the students.  They need to have the poem memorized, so that they can accurately match the memorized words to the print they see. Teachers can use pictures that represent the text or hand motions with common nursery rhymes and finger plays.

What follows is the fun part for me!  The best way to develop COW is by playing with words, sentences, and a large assortment of pointers.  I mean really...don't we all love swinging around a light saber once in a while??  The pointers in the greatest demand in my room are most definitely my light sabers, but magic wands are very popular too. I also recommend flyswatters of various designs. They are perfect for boxing individual letters or for finding sightwords.

When working with my kinders on pointing, I place a touch point under each word.  I discovered this tip when I downloaded freebies from Sparklebox.co.uk .  I downloaded short vowel word cards for a game that included a dot under each sound.  (perfect for blending, but that's for another post).  Anyway, I transferred that technique to developing COW.  As we continue to develop COW, I put my students more and more into leveled books.  I continue to use this strategy with projected books on Reading A to Z and with other powerpoint resources I've made.  If you are a primary teacher, Reading A to Z is a subscription that is well worth the price.   The projectable feature has been very beneficial to my students for modeling and practice, but there are many other resources for beginning readers available on the site.  You can explore that further {here}.


Matching words in isolation to words in context is another activity that fosters an understanding of print. Teachers can use different fonts with the word cards.  Using Dolch words with various games helps students to identify them in context too and helps students recognize when their tracking is off.

Marie Clay refers to Concept of Word as "Reading the White Space", and this activity has helped my students recognize this.  I model how to separate words by cutting between them like pulling apart puzzle pieces.  In fact, we often take the pieces, mix them up, and reorganize them to make the individual words become the line of the poem.

After we have worked a few days with the sentences strips and words in isolation, I transfer my students to the book form.  With the book form of the poems, I spend time on letter identification, sighword identification, using picture clues, and even comprehension.  The children enjoy highlighting, boxing, underlining, and marking with mini stickies features I ask.  In the pictures below, you can see where we highlighted sightwords (I normally call it, "I Spy" which means it's a game).  We also mark by boxing around the letters by name and sound.

Even though comprehension is the focus with instructional readers, emergent and beginning readers need modeling of comprehension skills too.  After all, as students begin to read, they need to understand the meaning in order to cross check their accuracy.  For beginning readers, the picture clues provide a support to this understanding.  Teachers can have students "read" the text and decide what is missing in the picture. Above, you can see the apple before coloring and after.  The apple in the picture needed to be colored in order to accurately match the print.  

For this picture, teachers might ask,
 "How can you tell she loves to eat apples?"

For this picture, the teacher might ask students
 to connect the picture to the words that describe it.

With my students, I typically work with a poem for a 3-5 days depending on the poem's difficulty. The last thing I do with my students is give them the poem on a single sheet.  We practice reading without the aid of touch points, highlights, boxes, etc.  I have them prepare the poetry page for their keepsake book, and as the year goes, the poems we use increase in difficulty.  Our kindergarten teachers use thematic teaching, so the poems I choose to use with my groups typically parallel what is happening in the regular classroom.  I do not use the same poems in my room though because I try to provide them with new experiences to build upon skills that are developing in the classroom.  Plus, new poems keep the learning fresh and fun.

If you'd like to add this poem to your COW collection, feel free to download your own copy using the image below which shows what is included.  I also have a yearly bundle for $20.00 that includes 39 COW sets.

Pin for Later:

Now, readers, it is your turn.  Please share the clever ways you work on these skills or any observations you have made with your students.  Have a great start to the school year, and thanks for visiting today.

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