Encoding and Decoding with Word Pyramids in Secondary Intervention

This is the sixth piece in our series "What does the science of reading look like in high/middle school?"

During a recent meeting with our Goyen Literacy Fellowship cohort, I watched 2nd grade teacher Tara Hess present on using word pyramids to support her students in decoding multisyllabic words.

As a high school English teacher turned 6–12 Literacy Specialist, I had never seen this approach before. Still, I could immediately see its impact and began wondering how I might adapt it for some of my highest-need adolescent readers.

Around the same time, I attended a Teachers Teach Teachers webinar led by former Goyen Literacy Fellow Virginia Quinn-Mooney, focused on using small groups to target encoding skill gaps in first grade. Watching her students engage in a structured routine—tap it, map it, write it—inspired me to create a similar system for my Literacy Lab students, many of whom lag significantly behind their peers in spelling.

Why Encoding Matters (Especially for Older Students)

The research on the reciprocal relationship between encoding and decoding is clear:

• Early spelling (encoding) predicts later decoding.
  A best-evidence synthesis found that structured encoding instruction positively influenced spelling, decoding, phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension—including for students with learning disabilities (Weiser & Mathes, 2011).

• Encoding and decoding are not isolated skills.
  They operate in a bidirectional relationship in which growth in one supports growth in the other (Florida Department of Education).

• Integrated instruction works best.
  Teaching encoding and decoding together produces stronger literacy outcomes than focusing on either skill in isolation.

One Student, One Year, and a Turning Point

For the past 14 months, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work one-on-one with a high school student in a Tier 3 literacy intervention. Along with being dyslexic, she never mastered basic phonics concepts in elementary school—leaving her unable to spell even simple CVC words.

When we began working together, I administered the PAST diagnostic and found significant gaps in phonological awareness. She struggled to isolate and hear individual sounds in words. After substantial growth in phonological awareness, we shifted our focus to fluency.

At that time, she was reading fewer than 50 words correct per minute at 68% accuracy. In practice, this meant she was limping through grade-level texts—guessing, substituting, and inventing words as she went. She was functionally illiterate.

Watching this compensatory strategy was heartbreaking. It was clear this approach wasn’t laziness; it was survival. Likely developed years earlier, it allowed her to move through school without drawing attention to herself or being ridiculed. Unfortunately, there are many more adolescents walking through middle and high school hallways in the same predicament.

Over the past year, through targeted work on oral reading fluency and decoding multisyllabic words, she has grown to reading 86 WCPM at 95% accuracy on eighth-grade DIBELS passages.

And yet—her spelling lagged behind.

Enter: Word Pyramids

I knew I needed a more intentional way to support both encoding and decoding of multisyllabic words, but I struggled to find a program that felt appropriate for an adolescent learner.

That’s when I returned to word pyramids.

I decided to implement a daily encoding and decoding routine, previewing Tier 2 and Tier 3 multisyllabic vocabulary from the upcoming chapter of the novel we were reading together.

Before each lesson, I use AI to preselect approximately 10 multisyllabic vocabulary words and format them into a Google Slide with word pyramids and simple animations.

Decoding with Word Pyramids

In the first phase, I flash portions of each word on the screen for the student to decode. I provide corrective feedback and explicitly remind her of relevant phonics rules as needed.

Sometimes I divide the word by syllables; other times I isolate vowel teams or digraphs I anticipate will cause difficulty. We work methodically through the word before finally revealing it in full for blending.

It’s a slow, laborious process—but one that builds accuracy, confidence, and vocabulary while interrupting long-standing habits of guessing. You can watch a video here.

Encoding with Word Pyramids

Next comes encoding.

I dictate the word, and the student uses a mini whiteboard to follow this routine:

• Say it

• Clap it

• Show it

• Write it

First, we ensure accurate pronunciation. Then she claps each syllable and identifies how many syllables the word contains. During Show it, she draws dashed lines—one for each syllable—creating a visual scaffold for spelling.

This step is critical. Many adolescent spellers omit or add syllables when words feel overwhelming. Slowing the process down makes multisyllabic words feel manageable.

Finally, she spells the word syllable by syllable. I allow productive struggle before providing corrective feedback. This process requires explicit instruction and repetition, but the payoff is significant: more confident, independent spellers who no longer need to ask, “How do you spell ___?” every few minutes.

I think the throughline of this work is simple but powerful: if we want stronger gains for our secondary intervention students, we must be willing to borrow, adapt, and rethink practices traditionally reserved for early elementary classrooms.

There is an abundance of resources for beginning readers—and a striking scarcity for adolescents who never received what they needed the first time around. Too often, we assume that because students are older, instruction must look different. In reality, it must look more precise, more intentional, and more humane.

Word pyramids didn’t “fix” everything overnight. But they gave one student a way forward—one careful syllable at a time. And for students who have spent years guessing their way through text, that kind of structure isn’t remedial. It’s liberating.

If we want to disrupt the trajectory for older struggling readers, the time is now. The tools already exist. The work is adapting them—with courage, curiosity, and an unwavering belief that it’s never too late to learn how to read.

Did you enjoy this blog? Check out previous entries from this series “What does the science of reading look like in high/middle school?” :

Novel study, Vocabulary Routine, Retrieval Practice, Novel discussion, FASE Reading