DEBRIEF Clinical Experience

Best Practices in Teaching Phonological Awareness and Phonics

Phonological Awareness and Phonics What is phonological awareness? What is phonemic awareness? What is phonics?

Phonological Awareness What is phonological awareness? “The ability to pay attention to, identify, and reflect on various sound segments of speech..” What is phonemic awareness? “... a subcategory of phonological awareness.. Refers to the ability to identify and reflect on the smallest units of sounds: individual phonemes” What is phonics? A method for teaching reading that takes advantage of the systematic relationship between letters and sounds (alphabetic principle)

Phonological Awareness

They are born with it...

Why do children have difficulty recognizing the individual speech sounds—the phonemes? Phonemes in speech overlap with one another— speech is a continuous stream of sound and the individual sounds are co-articulated Children naturally attend to meaning not sound- “which word is longer caterpillar or snake?”  We are able to process speech sounds without being aware of them. For this reason hearing students acquire spoken language with very little instruction. However, children have difficulty recognizing individual sounds, phonemes, as separate segments.

Given these challenges why do we promote phonemic awareness in early readers? Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of early reading success Ehri & Nunes (2002) National Reading Panel (2000) Differences in phonemic awareness and phonological processing differentiate struggling and competent readers in childhood and into adulthood Liberman & Shankweiler (1979) Snowling (2000) Acquiring phonemic awareness skills through training improves reading Adams (1990) Blackman (2000) Torgesen (2000)

Specific reading disability (dyslexia) International Dyslexia Association definition:  “ Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin”  “It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and fluent word recognition and by poor spelling”  “These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language” (core deficit hypothesis) It is possible for early intervening to make a difference It is possible for intensive, explicit intervention in phonological awareness to re-route neural pathways

Specific reading disability (dyslexia)

Brain activation maps from a child with severe dyslexia before and after an 8 week intense intervention in which word reading skills moved into the average range. The upper panel shows the typical brain activation map from magnetic source imaging studies of dyslexia, with predominant activity in temporal and parietal areas of the right hemisphere, but little activation in homologous areas of the left hemisphere. In the lower panel there is a significant increase in the activation of these left temporoparietal areas associated with the significant improvement in word reading accuracy that parallels the patterns observed in proficient readers (based on Simos et al, 2002). Velluntino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon (2004)

A Seminal Study Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. E. (1983). Categorizing sounds and learning to read – a causal connection. Nature, 30, Note: This article refers to “backwards readers” and students who are “backwards in reading”. This is NOT a reference to any kind of reversals. It is an out-of-date English term for “delayed readers” or readers who are reading below grade level.

Phonological Processing and Phonemic Awareness “Children who are backward in reading are strikingly insensitive to rhyme and alliteration. They are at a disadvantage when categorizing words on the basis of common sounds even in comparison with younger children who read no better than they do. Categorizing words in this way involves attending to their constituent sounds, and so does learning to use the alphabet in reading and spelling.” Bradley and Bryant, 1983

Support for their hypothesis Research combining a large scale longitudinal study with intensive training Longitudinal study  Sample of 403 children who were not reading were tested at ages 4 and 5 on ability to categorize sounds (determine odd word) (e.g., hill, pig, pin; cot, pot, hat; pin, win, sit)  Three years later high correlations between sound categorization scores and reading and spelling Training study to determine if relationship was a causal one

Training Study From those children with the lowest scores on sound categorization 65 participated in one of four treatment conditions:  40 individual training sessions spread over a 2 year period  Group I: sound categorization using pictures  Group II: sound categorization using pictures with plastic letters  Group III: conceptual categorization using pictures  Group IV: no training At the end of the project Group I exceeded Group III on measures of reading and spelling by 3-4 months Group II exceeded Group I Suggests that instruction on sound categorization is more successful when paired with instruction on the alphabet

Explicit and Systematic Phonics Instruction

1. Does systematic phonics instruction help children learn to read more effectively than unsystematic phonics instruction or instruction teaching no phonics? 1. Are some types of phonics instruction more effective than others? Are some specific phonics programs more effective than others? National Reading Panel (2000)

Explicit and Systematic Phonics Instruction Does systematic phonics instruction help children learn to read more effectively than unsystematic phonics instruction or instruction teaching no phonics? Findings provided solid support for the conclusion that systematic phonics instruction makes a more significant contribution to children’s growth in reading than do alternative programs providing unsystematic or not phonics instruction. Are some types of phonics instruction more effective than others? Are some specific phonics programs more effective than others? The conclusion supported by these findings is that various types of systematic phonics approaches are more effective than non-phonics approaches in promoting substantial growth in reading.

CCSS: Print Concepts and Phonological Awareness

CCSS: Phonics and Word Recognition

CCSS: Phonics and Word Recognition (morphemic analysis)

Best Practices in Action Focus on rhymes and sound substitution to develop phonemic awareness Chants, jingles, songs, rhyming books (Dr. Seuss) Focus on blending and segmenting to develop phonemic awareness “Its in the bag” stretching out names of objects rrr-ooo-kkk (pg. 129 Words Their Way) Elkonin boxes – sound counting Encourage writing with invented spelling Make words to include a variety of phonics approaches A sample Making Words lesson Manipulate letters to make words Sort words according to rhyming patterns Transfer to reading and writing

Best Practices in Action Teach children to use words they know to decode and spell other words Word sorts in Words Their Way Hink Pinks (pg. 239 Words Their Way) a party at a convent = nun fun a married rodent = mouse spouse an earthquake on a Sunday morning = church lurch what lawyers feel when they lose = brief grief Making big words A sample Making Big Words lesson Manipulate letters to make “big” words Sort words according to shared roots Identify how new words are related to the words in the lesson Word detectives “Do I know any other words that look and sound like this word?” “Are any of these look-alike/sound-alike words related to one another?” Touch Phonics

Best Practices in Action “The classrooms of the most effective teachers were characterized by high academic engagement, excellent and positive classroom management, explicit teaching of skills, large amounts of reading and writing, and integration across the curriculum.”