Setting up profiles for success

The short version

• Start by adding the student. Open Students, select Add Student, and give them a curriculum and a starting lesson.
• The starting lesson fills the grid for you. You then adjust it, because no two readers at the same lesson know exactly the same things.
• Known means the student can use the pattern. Green. Cody may include it in new material.
• Target means the student is practicing it now. Blue. Words using it become blue Focus words in a story.
• Unknown means not ready yet. Red. Cody avoids it when possible and marks words using it red if they appear.
• Select a pattern to change its state. Use Set all to change every pattern in one lesson.
• Check the grid after changing Current Lesson. Cody re-syncs pattern states when the lesson changes.

Add the student

1. Open Students from the left menu.
2. Select Add Student in the top right.
3. Enter the student’s name.
4. Choose a Curriculum. If your organization offers only one, it is chosen already.
5. Choose the Starting Lesson — the lesson this student is working at now, not the one the class is on.
6. Select Create Student.

The starting lesson is the one field worth slowing down for. Cody fills the whole pattern grid from it: everything before that lesson becomes Known, the lesson itself becomes Target, and everything after stays Unknown. Set it too high and the first story will use patterns the student cannot read.

The curricula Cody supports explains the choices in the curriculum menu.

In short: the profile takes under a minute, and the starting lesson does most of the work.

Then adjust the grid

The filled-in grid is a starting point, not an assessment. Two students at the same lesson rarely know the same patterns, and this is where you say so.

1. Open Students from the left menu.
2. Select a student.
3. Stay on Profile.
4. Scroll to Phonetic Patterns.

In this example, earlier patterns are green, the current target is blue, and later patterns are red. Select the image to see it larger.

For a numbered curriculum, lessons are grouped into bands such as Lessons 1–10 and 11–20. Select a band to see its lessons and patterns. Use the search box if you already know which pattern you need.

What each state means

State	Use it when	What Cody does
Known	The student can use the pattern with confidence	May use the pattern in student-based material
Target	The student is practicing the pattern now	Tries to include practice words; shows them in blue in stories
Unknown	The pattern is not taught or not ready	Avoids the pattern when possible; shows matching story words in red if they appear

The tally above a lesson shows the number in each state, for example:

2 known • 1 target • 3 unknown

Known is not the same as taught once. Use it when the student can apply the pattern at the level needed for the material you are creating.

In short: Known is available, Target receives practice, and Unknown is avoided.

Changing a state

Selecting a pattern chip moves it one step around this loop:

Unknown (red) → Known (green) → Target (blue) → Unknown (red)

So from a red Unknown chip, one click makes it Known and two clicks make it Target. From a green Known chip, one click makes it Target and two bring it back to Unknown. The loop only runs one way, so if you overshoot, keep clicking and it comes round again.

To change a full lesson, find Set all on that lesson’s row and select the icon for the state you want. This is faster than changing every chip one at a time.

Changes save automatically.

How the grid affects new material

When you create from Student on Home, Cody uses this grid:

• More Known patterns give Cody more words it can use.
• Target patterns guide the practice words.
• Unknown patterns limit which words Cody should use.

If a story feels too difficult, check the red words and then return to the grid. A pattern may be marked Known before the student is ready to use it. If a story feels too limited, check whether secure patterns are still marked Unknown.

In short: the closer the grid is to the student’s current skills, the better Cody can match the material.

After changing Current Lesson

Changing Current Lesson re-syncs the curriculum patterns. Earlier lesson patterns become Known, patterns in the selected lesson become Target, and later patterns remain Unknown.

This can replace states you changed by hand. After moving the lesson, review the grid and make any student-specific adjustments again.

Students using Custom Pattern Selection

For a student using Custom Pattern Selection, the student list shows Manage patterns instead of the normal lesson selector.

Select Manage patterns to open the profile, then set Known, Target, and Unknown directly. The same three states and generation rules still apply.

Related

• The curricula Cody supports
• The four kinds of word in a story
• How decodability scoring works
• Scope and sequence: how phonics is ordered