1. Specific Prereading Skills
Louisa Moats, Ed.D.
12/3/2018

2. Curricular Essentials Promote Language, Cognition and Literacy
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3. The Foundations for Reading Comprehension
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The Foundations for Reading Comprehension
Knowledge
of the world
Reading
comprehension
Language
comprehension
Strategy use
Vocabulary
(word meanings)
The configuration of this diagram roughly corresponds to the 4-part processor model.
If lower level skills are not well developed, comprehension will be affected. One cannot bypass lower level skill deficits by focusing on comprehension alone. That would be analogous to plunging a child with a fever into a cold bath and expecting the child to recover from an illness. Treating the most obvious symptom is not equivalent to curing the problem.
By the intermediate grades, when children are expected to “read to learn”, vocabulary knowledge accounts for about ½ the variance (.7 squared) in overall reading comprehension. The vocabulary gap of low SES children begins to take an academic toll, even if word recognition skills are strong. Nevertheless, children with strong word recognition skills are likely to use them to learn new words from print, so strong decoding is an essential tool for those students.
Speech sound
awareness
Letter and print
awareness
Fast, accurate
Word recognition
12/3/2018
Louisa Moats, Ed.D., Louisiana Conference

4. Ehri’s Phases of Word Reading
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Ehri’s Phases of Word Reading
reading
fluently
by sound,
syllable,
morpheme,
whole word,
families
and
analogies
early sight
word
learning
letter
knowledge
phoneme-
grapheme
correspondence
incidental
visual cues
partial
phoneme
awareness
complete
phoneme
awareness
The ability to read words is learned in predictable stages or phases. If the basics are not accomplished, word recognition problems will occur.
Logographic Early Alphabetic Mature Alphabetic Orthographic
12/3/2018
Louisa Moats, Ed.D., Louisiana Conference

5. Phoneme Awareness – Different from Phonics!
Phoneme awareness provides the foundation for learning phonics and for differentiating similar words in speech
/b/ /r/ /I/ /t/
b r igh t
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6. Phonological Awareness First
(Listening to sounds!)
Words in Sentences
Syllabication
Rhyming and Alliteration
Blending onset and rhyme
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7. Build a Sound Foundation
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Build a Sound Foundation
Phoneme Identification:
Link the phoneme to a gesture, object, or picture word.
Call attention to articulation.
Identify the sound in spoken words.
Cue the recall of the sound with the gesture, object, or picture.
The purpose of this activity is to “hear” the presence of a phoneme in a word and to pronounce that phoneme in isolation. Why?
Because phonemes are the building blocks that letters represent.
The template or anchor for matching graphemes to phonemes.
Singe phoneme isolation precedes the ability to segment words into sounds (needed for spelling) and to blend sounds into words (needed for reading).
Use a gesture, picture or object
This helps the student identify the phoneme
For example - /m/ - motion of rubbing the tummy for being hungry
Say the sound clearly – in isolation
Describe how the mouth looks and feels
For example - /m/ is made with the lips together and the sound goes through the nose
Ask students to identify and say the sound in a word
Initially use beginning of the word – then ending, then middle
Ask the student “What is the first sound in monster?”
Show the gesture, picture, or object used to cue the sound, and then ask the students to say the sound that it represents
VIDEO – Colleague (lesson 2) and WatchWord (objects from templates)
/a/
No print
A B C d e
12/3/2018
Louisa Moats, Ed.D., Louisiana Conference

8. Beware of some alphabet books!
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9. Phonology Affects Vocabulary
flush, flesh, flash
cloud, clown
assist, consist
flag, flack
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10. Alphabet Names and Forms
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Alphabet Names and Forms
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Reinforce the letter names and forms so the student can associate sounds with letters.
Research shows that fluency at naming letters along with phonemic awareness are the 2 strongest predictors of early reading achievement.
Linnea Ehri has written that letter-name knowledge may well be inseparable from letter-sound knowledge
Fluency is Key
It’s not just whether a child knows the alphabet, but rather how automatically he can name letters that counts
Lower-level processes must be automatic to free up attention for higher-level processing
At this point in our lesson we are NOT directly working on fluency of letter naming – that is assumed to be present before teaching phonics
For more information on techniques for teaching letter names, see chapter 4 in Judith Birsh’s book, Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills
Chapter was written by Kay Allen and Marilyn Beckwith
Kay is Executive Director of the Neuhaus Education Center in Houston
Chapter gives activities using the Alphabet Arc for developing a child’s letter recognition, naming and sequencing skills
When we teach a lesson to introduce a new phoneme, we will connect the phoneme to the letter.
12/3/2018
Louisa Moats, Ed.D., Louisiana Conference

11. Student Writing Sample A
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12. The Alphabetic Principle?
Phonemes (sounds)
Letters
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13. The Alphabetic Principle?
How many speech sounds?
/k/ /w/ /e/ /n/
How many graphemes? q u ee n
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14. Student Writing Sample B
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15. An Achievable Goal
Almost every child with language and reading problems can gain yearly in relative standing, as a consequence of early, expert, intensive, collaborative intervention with best practices supported by research.
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