Decoding the Code CLO 1 · Activity 1 Lesson + Escape Room · 10–12 min
10:00

Six locks. Six components. Open them all to escape the lab.

Agent Freeman, your field lead
Mission Brief

Escape the 6: Six Components of Structured Literacy

You're locked in the Literacy Lab. The door has six locks — one for each component of structured literacy. First, a short lesson: Agent Freeman walks you through all six and the tell that gives each one away. Then the lab: every lock holds a piece of student evidence. Name what's breaking down, and it opens.

M
Marcus reads aloud and the sounds come out scrambled.
R
Rosa freezes on long words and gives up before she starts.
D
David reads every word perfectly and understands none of it.

Their work is the evidence in this lab. You don't have to fix them yet — you have to name what you're seeing. That's the lock.

Mastery, not score

A wrong answer won't end the run. You get a hint and try again — the lock only opens on the right call.

The clock is soft

It counts down, but it never locks you out. Pressure, not punishment.

Lesson first

A short briefing teaches the six components and the tell for each one. Then the locks test whether you can spot them.

A note before you start. This lab records which components you pick, how long each lock takes, and whether you asked for a hint — anonymously, with no name and no free text. It stays in your browser. I use it to find out which of the six components I taught thinly, so I can fix the teaching instead of guessing. You can view or delete everything from the Designer view at the end.

Lesson · Before you go in

Lesson

Lock 1 of 6

Which component is failing?

Evidence
Choose the component that's breaking down.
🔓 You're out.

Six locks. Six components. You can name them now.

—
Escape Time
—
Opened First Try
6 / 6
Locks Cleared

The takeaway

Naming comes before fixing. Once you can tell whether a student is stuck in phonology, sound–symbol, syllables, morphology, syntax, or semantics, you stop guessing at interventions and start matching them. Marcus, Rosa, and David hit the same wall — but not the same crack. That's the door into the rest of Decoding the Code.

How this was built — Rapid Instructional Design

  1. Analyze the gap: content-area teachers can see the struggle but can't name it.
  2. Sketch the flow: brief → six evidence locks → escape debrief.
  3. Build the smallest version that teaches: a lesson before the assessment, mastery gates, hints instead of scores, and a soft clock (UDL 7.3 — minimize threats).
  4. Separate learning from performance: the score is silent during instruction (Cognitive Load Theory — no extraneous load while the six components are still new), and only starts once you enter the lab.
  5. Test & refine: tighten the evidence wording, then ship.

Escape the 6: Six Components of Structured Literacy · An original micro-lesson from Decoding the Code
Designed and built by Tenneh C. Freeman — Sankofa Learning Design · Back to portfolio

Mastery-Gate Data

Design instrument for Decoding the Code · SAM Beta → Gold. Every wrong lock, hint, and abandoned run reports where the instruction is thin — without waiting for anyone to finish the course.