It also helped if I asked "Have we read other words like this one?" When difficulty arose with words that didn't have the "itch" sound I guided her through by asking her "What makes sense?" Also, I asked her to look at the picture as a means of finding the correct word. Kara successfully gave meaning to envelope, giggling, and picture by using the illustration as a guide. .
Exhausted was not figured out by asking probing questions such as "What works in the sentence?" She knew tired was not correct because it did not begin with a "t". I praised her for her effort and told her that the word exhausted is a really tough word to sound out because the sounds don't exactly match how the word is spelled. Finally, when I said exhaust she quickly added on "ed" to complete the word. Words that gave her similar trouble also included; guaranteed, guffawed, bungled, schemer and cautiously.
In my opinion, Kara has demonstrated consistent trouble with decoding. With some of her trouble coming from similar sounding words it would be a good idea, if this was a primary concern, to focus on rhyming words and books. .
On just two occasions Kara substituted words. However, these words still made sense in the context of the story, making these errors semantically acceptable. If her substitution did not make sense or changed the meaning of what she read, the errors would be semantically unacceptable. Once Kara omitted the "n" in the word an. I don't see this as a problem for two reasons; it only occurred once, and it did not change the meaning of the sentence.
I decided to use a chapter book, at the appropriate reading level for Kara, as an aid in gaining comprehension and schemata. I chose this because of her need to overcome her lack of experience with less common words. A chapter book, of interest to the reader, is quite useful for a few reasons; when the reading material is consistent time is not wasted on trying to find suitable books.