Teachers are invigorated when they see their students learn and develop decoding strategies, but are equally baffled when a student is unable to transfer that decoding skill into fluent reading.Why do some students who are able to decode single words still have trouble reading?Students with processing issues handle the page the same way they handle words, as an overall picture. It is not clear to them that the “whole” is made up of parts—words and sentences. Because they do not know how to handle the page, they revert to compensation strategies of whole-word recognition and guessing.How do we help these students?There are four steps that can help students transfer their decoding strategies into fluent reading. The instruction of these steps needs to be explicit and visual.Step #1: Students should use a finger to track while they are reading.Step #2: Have students sound out each word, tracking left to right, without stopping or guessing.Step #3: Teach the students explicitly how to apply decoding strategies to unfamiliar or difficult words.Step #4: Once students have applied decoding strategies and have figured out the sounds of the word, they should sound it out again, from left to right. Result:Teaching students these four simple steps, empowers them with the tools they need to become independent readers. As these skills become more automatic, then we are able to teach students comprehension strategies that will help them understand and apply what they have read. Applying decoding strategies while reading is crucial to reading success.