Decodable Twine Story – Click here to play online
The Twine platform allows users to fully explore the art of hyperlinking. Just as the transition from typewriters to word processors revolutionized how writers could edit text and make changes on the fly, Twine facilitates the development of complex works by leveraging hyperlinks.
For task 5, I aimed to create an interactive Twine activity for my beginning readers. These students are currently focusing on mastering digraphs and heart words. Heart words contain irregular grapheme-phoneme correspondences for some part of the word, and thus, that part needs to be learned “by heart.” Some heart words are temporary until specific spelling patterns are taught; these are indicated with an asterisk (*) on my word list.
To build this Twine, I compiled a list of all the heart words covered in class this year (see photo). I then created word lists for each digraph we have worked on (-ck, -sh, -th, -ch, -wh, -ph, ng and the -nk combination). The words were selected using the UFLI Foundations manual, an explicit and systematic phonics program developed by Holly Lane and Valentina Contesse (2022). My goal for the Twine was to offer students more opportunities to decode words featuring the specific patterns they’ve been taught. By allowing them to interact with the text through decision-making within the story, I hope to give them a purposeful reading experience that will engage even my most reluctant learners.
After explicitly teaching grapheme-phoneme correspondences, I want my students to repeatedly decode words with these patterns to activate orthographic mapping, ultimately supporting automatic word recognition and reading fluency. Ehri (2014) notes, “with repeated readings that activate orthographic mapping, written words are retained in memory to support reading and spelling” (p. 7).
In constructing the Twine activity, I carefully matched my word list to multiple storylines, and highlighted words as I used them (see below). Each story was completed one branch at a time. I found this process more challenging than anticipated, as I needed to ensure that the stories were both accessible for my students and made sense with the available words. I intentionally avoided including any audio-visual elements in the activity. By removing graphics and sound effects, I aim to encourage my students to focus on strengthening their decoding skills while minimizing distractions, eliminating the need for headphones and discouraging less effective ‘reading strategies” such as looking at the picture.
Finally, to assess comprehension and promote accountability, I plan to ask my students to illustrate their path through the story.
References:
Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.819356
Lane, H, & Contesse, V. (2022). UFLI foundations: An explicit and systematic phonics program. Ventral Learning.