Phonological Awareness

Reading Comprehension Reading 44 Oral Language Development Our Turn to Talk Phonological Awareness Firm Foundations Writing Development Writing 44 Explicit Instruction of Literacy Skills

Awareness of the sound structure of words. An important and reliable predictor of later reading ability A broad skill that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral language – parts such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes. Children who have phonological awareness are able to identify and make oral rhymes, can clap out the number of syllables in a word, and can recognize words with the same initial sounds like 'money' and 'mother.' Phonological Awareness

The Importance of Phonological Awareness The most common barrier to learning early word reading skills is the inability to process language phonologically (Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989). Moreover, developments in research and understanding have revealed that this weakness in phonological processing most often hinders early reading development for both students with and without disabilities (Fletcher et al., 1994).

The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds--phonemes--in spoken words. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a given language A part of phonological awareness Phonemic Awareness Cheetah = 7 letters, 2 syllables, 4 phonemes

Important Points about Phonemic Awareness: Phonemic awareness can be taught and learned. Phonemic awareness can help students learn to read and spell. Learning to read and spell words by working with letter-sound relationships also improves children’s phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness instruction can help preschoolers, kindergartners, first graders, and older, less able readers. Generous opportunities to engage in spoken language are needed before attempting written language.

Some Cautions About Phonemic Awareness Instruction Phonemic awareness instruction is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It should be oriented toward helping children gain insight about the relationship between spoken sounds and letters. Phonemic awareness should not be the entire reading program!

rhythm and rhyme hear the parts of words sequence of sounds separation of sounds manipulation of sounds Phonemic Awareness is Sequential

On-going Assessment and Intervention 1.Early screening and intervention 2.Intervention and specific support for students with learning challenges 3.Differentiated Instruction (ESL, Special Needs)

Some Clues that a Child May Have Difficulty with Phonological or Phonemic Awareness Difficulty thinking of rhyming words for a simple word like cat (such as rat or bat). Doesn't show interest in language play, word games, or rhyming. Doesn't correctly complete blending activities; for example, put together sounds /k/ /i/ /ck/ to make the word kick. Doesn't correctly complete phoneme substitution activities; for example, change the /m/ in mate to /cr/ in order to make crate. He has a hard time telling how many syllables there are in the word paper. He has difficulty with rhyming, syllabication, or spelling a new word by its sound. From Reading Rockets: nemic nemic

Launch into Reading Success Sounds Abounds Commercially prepared material – be discriminating Phonemic Resources

Firm Foundations An Early Literacy Framework

 A classroom framework for play-based skills acquisition and performance assessments  In partnership with Our Turn To Talk, is based on the understanding that learning about reading and language is the foundation of the kindergarten curriculum Firm Foundations: What is it?

Teaching and Intervention  Systemic use of Firm Foundations  TOPA… Test of Phonological Awareness – January  Intervention  June re-assessment  Tracking…School resource teams maintain continuity  Grade One Intervention

Firm Foundations Hierarchy and Timeline for Skills Acquisition

CONCEPTS OF PRINT

Guiding Principles  Early literacy skills must be taught while maintaining the integrity of a play-based, learning environment.  Children must be able to hear and manipulate oral sound patterns before they can identify these patterns in print.  Teachers need knowledge about, and access to, meaningful and interactive materials and activities.  Phonological awareness skills are essential for learning to read.

Longitudinal Research Study Expertise, inspiration, energy for a District-wide focus on reading Active participation of the School District in a study directed by Dr. Linda Siegel of UBC Nine year study ( ) on the effects of Early Identification and Intervention for the prevention of learning disabilities All children; 30 schools; 20% ELL; varying SES levels

L1 EnglishELL Kindergarten Results

Dyslexic Normal Dyslexic Normal Grade 6 L1 EnglishELL

Results/Benefits of the Study Positive impact of early intervention of potential ‘at risk’ learners Use of a variety of intervention strategies Assessment of effectiveness of interventions Improved diagnostic and teaching skills Reductions in the number of ‘at risk’ readers

A Walk Through Firm Foundations  Rhymes  Segmenting and Blending  Compound words  Syllables  Phonemes  Letter Sound Mastery  Concepts of Print

Teaching rhymes is an important skill for second language learners. Teaching lists of rhyming words may be quick, but students will not retain as much. Stories with rhymes help ESL students practice reading rhyming words in context. Reading the words in context helps build comprehension and fluency. The best way is to create a cloze and have students fill in the blank with the correct rhyming word. Rereading familiar rhyming picture books will help students develop fluency while gaining valuable comprehension skills. Rhyming and ESL Learners

Willoughby wallaby wee An elephant sat on me Willoughby wallaby woo An elephant sat on you Willoughby wallaby Wustin, An elephant sat on Justin Willoughby wallaby Wania An elephant sat on Tania Nonsense Rhymes

Willoughby wallaby woo. I don’t know what to do. Willoughby, wallaby, wee. An elephant sat on me. Willoughby, wallaby, wash I’m feeling kind of squash Willoughby, wallaby, woo. And I don’t know what to do. Nonsense Rhymes

Rhyming Read-Alouds

Did you ever see a rat, a rat, a rat, Did you ever see a rat sit on a cat? R-at, c-at, r-at, c-at, Did you ever see a rat sit on a cat? "Did You Ever See…" Did you ever see a cat, a cat, a cat, Did you ever see a cat wearing a hat? C-at, h-at, c-at, h-at, Did you ever see a cat wearing a hat?

Identifying Rhyme

Cake and snake are rhyming words, Rhyming words, rhyming words. House and mouse are rhyming words We can hear them rhyme Putting it to Music…

Favourite Stories for Generating Rhyme

Monster Mouth Word Muncher I’m a monster mouth and I love to munch, On rhyming words for my letter lunch. Open up my mouth and drop them in, Then close it again to see me grin!

Centre-Time Rhyme…

Silly Songs, Rhymes and Finger Plays

Five Little Frogs Five little speckled frogs Sat on a hollow log Eating some most delicious bugs Yum Yum! One jumped into the pool Where it was nice and cool Now there are four speckled frogs Glub, glub

Five Little Frogs Five little speckled _______ Sat on a hollow _______ Eating some most delicious bugs Yum Yum! One jumped into the _______ Where it was nice and _____ Now there are four speckled frogs Glub, glub

Baby Bumble Bee Song I'm bringing home my baby bumblebee Won't my mommy be so proud of me I'm bringing home my baby bumble bee Ouch! It stung me! (squash up imaginary bee with hands) I'm squashing up my baby bumblebee Won't my mommy be so proud of me I'm squashing up my baby bumblebee EEEW! Yuck! (wash off imaginary bee with hands) I'm washing off my baby bumblebee Won't my mommy be so proud of me I'm washing off my baby bumblebee Look! All gone!

It’s Raining It's raining, it's pouring, The old man is snoring. He fell out of bed and bumped his head And couldn't get up in the morning.

Rhyming Assessments

BLENDING AND SEGMENTING The most important forms of phonemic awareness to teach are blending and segmentation, because they are the processes that are centrally involved in reading and spelling words.

Two Important Phonemic Awareness Activities Phoneme blending. Children listen to a sequence of separately spoken phonemes and then combine the phonemes to form a word. /d/ /o/ /g/ is dog. (This is the process used in decoding words.) Phoneme segmentation. Children break a spoken word into its separate phonemes. There are four sounds in truck: /t/ /r/ /u/ /k/. (This is the process used in spelling words phonetically: “invented spelling.)

Begin with one syllable words: e.g. “Come here.” “Sit down.” “The cat is wet” Segmenting and Blending Individual Words in a Sentence Thecatwetis Thecatwetis

Play Pocket Chart Compound Word Blending. Manipulate pictures in the chart to make a word. Show how two words can sometimes join together to form a completely different word Segmenting and Blending Compound Words

Phonological insight transfers across languages and can provide a foundation for bilinguals to learn to read in their second language This conclusion applies to bilinguals who know two related languages, such as Cantonese and Mandarin (Chen, Anderson, Li, Hao, Wu, & Shu, 2004), but may not fully apply to children who know one of the Chinese languages and are trying to learn English The syllable is the most important phonological unit for learning to read Chinese because Chinese characters are associated with syllables, whereas the segmental phoneme is the most important unit in learning to read English and other alphabetical languages Jie Zhang and Richard C. Anderson (2008) Segmenting and Blending Syllables and Phonemes

Differentiating Compound Word Play

LETTER-SOUND MASTERY

A E M F S T W Z Letter Naming

A E MF S T W Z Alphabet Songs Traditional ABC Song

Increasing children’s experience with books leads to accelerated growth in reading comprehension and other aspects of language and literacy (Anderson, 1996; Stanovich, 1993). The Power of a Good Story

“ Curiosity and prediction go hand in hand. They are the mainstays of pre- reading instruction. The more students predict as they read, the more they will read with certainty and confidence; the greater their curiosity, the greater their motivation. …Richard T. Vacca

Reciting the Alphabet… “What is the name of this letter?” “How many letters are there in the English alphabet?

Picture Walk Predict what will happen…

During Reading Strategies: Sing Along! watch?v=4QdN- HYp46c&feature=relate d

During Reading Strategies

Post Reading Strategies Magnet board for retelling Sing the song Sing other ABC songs Practise making the letters

Let students manipulate letters and discover what smaller words can be formed from the word 'coconut.' (on, no, to, not, cot, cut, nut, out, count, and coconut!) Post Reading Strategies

B is for…

Letter-Sound Mastery visually discriminate letters discriminate letter sounds identify letters match sound to letter

Letter-Sound Mastery

The Alphabet Chant

Concepts of Print

A Balanced Literacy Approach Students with significant disabilities often experience literacy instruction as isolated skills in a hierarchical approach (e.g. drills on letter identification and letter-sound associations). “Such instruction has met with minimal success and does not follow recommended practices...”

“Instead of teaching word study skills in isolation, this teaching can occur within the larger and more meaningful context of reading and writing.” Highlight phonological skills in context: Name on the board/textbook/locker Initial letters and sounds of names in magazines, birthday cards Menus, recipes Cards in a card game A Balanced Literacy Approach

 My friend…  Look it’s…  I see… Present language frames to introduce the community of learners Pocket Chart Play

I see I see my friend At school I see my friend Segmenting and Blending Words in a Sentence

Performance Assessments Informal assessments for each of the phonological skills are provided The sequential progression of the assessments provides valuable information about skills acquisition Further intervention strategies, if needed, should be considered by the School Based Resource Team and the Learning Assistance Teacher

Firm Foundations Games In your package you will find games for  Rhymes  Segmenting and Blending  Compound words  Syllables  Phonemes  Letter Sound Mastery Which games will you create for your class?