Big Ideas in Reading: Phonemic Awareness Presented by April Kelley October 14th, 2009

Phonemic Awareness Pre-test

Learning Targets: What You Should Know Definition of phonological awareness & phonemic awareness (PA) Relation of phonological awareness to early reading skills Developmental continuum of phonological awareness skills Which phonological awareness skills are more important and when they should be taught

Learning Targets What You Should Be Able to Do Assess phonological awareness and diagnose difficulties Use a developmental continuum to select/design Phonological Awareness instruction Use the NE Language Arts Standards to assess your core reading program and determine appropriate supplemental activities

My challenge to you… As we work through today, always think: What does this mean for me in my classroom? How might I adapt this for my grade level?

Phonological Awareness Involves understanding how the sounds of spoken language can be segmented, combined and manipulated. Is an auditory skill that NEED NOT involve print. Is one strong predictor of children’s later reading success.

Phonological Awareness Skills Easiest Hardest Take PA puzzle pcs. Out of envelope and place them on table in front of them left to right, easiest to hardest. Leave out for next activity.

Phonological Awareness Continuum Phoneme Blending, Segmenting, & Manipulation Onset-Rime Blending & Segmenting Phonemic Awareness Syllable Blending & Segmenting Sentence Segmenting Alliteration Rhyming

Levels of Phonological Awareness Phonemic Awareness Phoneme Segmenting, Blending, and Manipulation Onset-Rime Blending And Segmentation Syllable Blending and Segmenting Sentence Segmenting Alliteration Rhyming Blending phonemes into words, segmenting words into individual phonemes, and manipulating phonemes in spoken words Blending/segmenting the initial consonant or Consonant cluster (onset) with or from the vowel and consonant sounds spoken after it (rime) Blending syllables to say words or segmenting spoken words into syllables Segmenting sentences into spoken words Recognizing or saying words with common initial sounds Matching the ending sounds of words

Phonological Awareness Cards Sorting Activity Have them take out PA Awareness cards from envelope. Sort the activity cards by placing them under the appropriate PA category.

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in spoken words Phonemic Awareness Focus on the individual sounds (or phonemes) in spoken words Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in spoken words /d/ /o/ /g/ 1st phoneme 2nd phoneme 3rd phoneme /sh/ /i/ /p/

Phonemic Awareness is… The ability to segment words into sound, blend them back together, and manipulate the sounds to make new words. The understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds.

Phonemic Awareness PA requires the ability to attend to one sound in the context of other sounds in the word. Makes it difficult because sounds overlap and merge in speech. Not necessary to speak and understand speech, but children need to be aware of those small parts to read and spell in an alphabetic language.

Pronunciation of Sounds

What is a continuous sound? A sound that can be prolonged (stretched out) without distortion Words that begin with continuous sounds are easier to blend n r l sh m v f z (voiced) s(voiceless) all vowels

g d ch b c j h k p x(voiced) t(voiceless) What is a stop sound? A sound that you can not say continuously. g d ch b c j h k p x(voiced) t(voiceless)

PA Research (that’s valuable to classroom teachers) PA can be taught and learned. PA instruction helps children learn to read. PA instruction helps children learn to spell. PA instruction is most effective when children are taught to manipulate phonemes by using the letters of the alphabet. PA instruction is most effective when it focuses on only one or two types of phoneme manipulation, rather than several types.

PA Research (that’s valuable to classroom teachers) Children who begin school with little PA will have trouble acquiring the alphabetic principle which will, in turn, limit their ability to decode words. (Blachman, 1991) PA is teachable and promoted by attention to instructional variables. (Smith, 1995)

The best predictor of reading difficulty in kindergarten or first grade is the inability to segment words and syllables into constituent sounds units (phonemic awareness). -Lyon, 1995

Good News Evidence indicates that most (80-85%) of children acquire PA by the middle first grade. Research also indicates that 2 of these 3 or 4 students in each classroom who don’t develop PA initially can develop it within a few weeks.

Phoneme Analysis Segmenting tasks Students must say individual phonemes in a word or delete an initial or final sound So, how do we do this? Well, there are 2 types of instruction that they found to be the most critical. One is…

Phoneme Synthesis Blending tasks Student must pronounce a word after hearing the segments (either individually phonemes or onsets and rimes) The second most critical PA skill is…

Performance on both segmenting and blending is highly correlated to the acquisition of early reading skills, although segmenting appears to be a more complex linguistic activity. -Perfetti, Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987

Phonemic Awareness Fun How many speech sounds are in played? How many speech sounds are in street? How many speech sounds are in though? What is the 3rd sound in fixed? 4th? Take /m/ away from time. What word do you have left? Take /p/ away from splat. What word?

Phonemic Awareness Fun What is driver without the /v/? Say ice backwards. Say teach backwards. Say enough backwards. Write the letter groups that stand for each sound in church. Write the letter groups that stand for each sound in shrink.

NE L.A. Standards & Reading Programs Take the NE Language Arts Standards Or Early Learning Guidelines (Pre-K) Look through your program (using either a scope and sequence or actual lessons) and place a tally mark next to each standard every time it’s taught in the program Complete Activity: PA Reading Program Evaluation

Curriculum Maps Use as a reference to help determine a scope and sequence of PA skills. If we had more time, we’d really dive into these but for times sake, I wanted you to become more familiar with our NE standards for PA and how (if at all) they’re addressed in your rdg. Program.

Assessing PA Program Assessments CORE Phonemic Awareness Survey DIBELS Initial Sound Fluency Phoneme Segmentation Fluency

Template for Onset-Rime Blending Instruction Card #4

Template for Phoneme Segmentation Instruction Card #5

Template for Phoneme Segmentation Instruction Card #6

Website to Find Templates http://csi.boisestate.edu/readingfirst/RF_ResourcesForCoaches%28InstructionalRoutineTemplates%29.htm

Phonological Awareness Packets

Find Phonological Awareness Activities to Supplement Your Core Program Use flags to mark your favorites!!!

Effective Classroom Instruction includes: Playful and game-like activities, much like children manipulate the language of songs, chants and rhymes on their own. Rhyming, alliteration, word games, songs and poetry. Activities that promote word play are part of a classroom culture - “roaming around in phonological space.” Just some last minute tips I want you to be aware of when picking PA activities and planning for instruction in your classrooms:

Critical Feature of Instruction #1 Phonemic Awareness is a critical component of reading instruction but not an entire reading program. It needs to be taught explicitly, but should only be 10-15 minutes per day of your reading instruction block.

Critical Feature of Instruction #2 Instruction must focus on… a few types of phonemic awareness for the highest payoff. the 2 critical skills of blending segmentation

Critical Feature of Instruction #3 Research has found that you get better results when teaching phonemic awareness to small groups of children rather than an entire class.

Critical Feature of Instruction #4 Phonemic awareness needs to be taught explicitly. The instructional program must show children what they are expected to do. Teachers must model skills they want children to perform before the children are asked to demonstrate the skill.

Critical Feature of Instruction #5 Teachers increase effectiveness when the manipulation of letters is added to phonemic awareness tasks. Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill, but once children start to become familiar with the concept, teachers can introduce letter tiles or squares and manipulate them to form sounds and words.

Phonemic Awareness Pre-test

Additional Resources

Questions??? THANK YOU!!!