Teacher's Question

I received this question recently from a teacher on Facebook: Has anyone had experience with a student mastering a level and then when you do the review sections that mixes that level with other levels, the child struggles? I am now using mastered word lists and mixing them for additional practice, but I am wondering if anyone has additional advice or suggestions?

Dear teacher, If your student is having a difficult time with mixed practice it can mean many things, one he didn’t really have enough practice when he learned the individual skills initially, two he needs more frequent review of individual skills and then grouping 2 or 3 skills together or working memory is an issue and he needs a tool bar. This issue can come up often and knowing that reading and spelling takes many steps. First I have to hear the word correctly, so sometimes I ask my students to repeat the word a couple of time and then I compare the word to my hand and say I need to separate each sound, like my fingers opening space to figure out how many sounds are in the word. If they are the same or different sounds what letters pair up with each of those sounds, keep the sounds in the correct order and either say the word, read the word or spell it. Phonemic awareness daily exercises teach me each of those steps so we have to practice every day to learn how to do all the steps efficiently.