1. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Literacy Development in the Early Elementary Grades Sherry Comerchero. M.S.Ed. CCC-SLP ASHA Certified Speech-Language Pathologist Haverhill Public School Inservice Day- November 2, 2010

2. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom “An individual’s ability to read, write, and speak...and compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job and in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential” (National Literacy Act of l99l (Public Law 102-73) WHAT IS LITERACY?

3. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom LITERACY FACTS 1 in 4 Americans are “functionally illiterate” – reading at or below a fifth grade level More than 75% of America’s welfare recipients are illiterate Almost 70% illiteracy exists in our prisons 40% of America’s third graders are reading below grade level; 90% in some inner cities

4. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom LITERACY “ASSUMPTIONS” LITERACY “ASSUMPTIONS” (Torgensen, l998) Adequate reading comprehension is the most important ultimate outcome of effective instruction in reading Comprehension of written material requires: General language comprehension ability Ability to accurately and fluently identify the words in print (Gough, 1996) Most children who become poor readers experience early and continuing difficulties in learning how to accurately identify printed words The most common cause of difficulties acquiring early word reading skills is weakness in the ability to process the phonological features of language

5. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Difficulties applying the alphabetic principle in deciphering unfamiliar words Trouble sounding out unknown words Slower than normal sight vocabulary affecting reading fluency Rapid word recognition difficulties ultimate influence reading comprehension (Adams, l990) Characteristics of older children with reading difficulties

6. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom WHAT IS THE ALPHABETIC PRINCIPLE? Words represented in print roughly at level of phonemes Challenges to learning alphabetic principle  Individual phonemes not readily apparent as individual segments in connected speech  Not always one-to-one relationship between graphemes and phonemes Children who understand alphabetic principle invariably become better readers

7. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom WHAT IS PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS? Ability to attend to sound structure independent of meaning Helps children …  Understand alphabetic principle  Notice regular ways letters represent sounds  Generate possibilities for words in context that are only partially sounded out. Nonetheless, phonological awareness is a necessary, but not sufficient

8. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS RESEARCH…. Phonological Awareness skills highly correlated with reading success Phonological Awareness skills can be enhanced by direct instruction Best predictors (at kindergarten entry) of how well children will learn to read: - Phoneme Awareness - Print Awareness (Hodson, 2003)

9. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Levels of Phonemic Awareness Awareness of rhyming words (age 3-4) Awareness of syllables (age 4-5) Awareness of onsets and rimes-sound substitution (age 6) Sound Isolation-Awareness of beginning, middle, and ending sounds (age 6) Phonemic Blending (age 6) Phoneme segmentation (age 6-7) Phoneme manipulation (age 7+)

10. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Phonological Awareness Development Rhyming proficiency Tapping out words in a sentence Long vs. short word recognition Segment words of song Clap syllables Rapid progress in Alliteration and Blending First Grade Separate words into sounds and syllables Delete, substitute, reverse sounds in words Entering Kindergarten

11. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Maximize Literacy Skills… Utilize a systematic phonics approach to help “crack the code” Boost phonemic awareness, including integration with letter-sound and word learning Use whole language to stimulate vocabulary development, comprehension, creativity and writing skills

12. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Children need to understand: Speech can be segmented into small sounds (phonemes) Segmented units represented by printed forms (phonics) Written spellings represent phonemes (alphabetic principle) And children need to develop:  Proficiency decoding  Fluency & automaticity  Comprehension abilities How Do Children Learn to Read?

13. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Speech-to-print match Words are “things” that always remain the same Some words can look and sound alike (rhyming words) Words may have more than one part or syllable There are rules governing what you can read or write when you see or hear a certain symbol or sound. PRELITERACY CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

14. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Developmental Influences Letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity are much stronger influences on reading achievement in Grades 1 & 2 Conceptual and vocabulary skills become important in later elementary grades once children have cracked the alphabetic code Comments by Grover Whitehurst, Asst. Secy. Of Education, at White House Summit on Early Childhood and Cognitive Develoment, July 26, 2001

15. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Chall’s (1983) Literacy Stages Learning to read 0 *Preliterate (birth to 6 years) 1 Decoding (grades 1 – 2.5) 2 Fluency (grades 2-3) Reading to Learn 3 Comprehension (grades 4-8) 4 Multiple Viewpoints (High School) 5 Construction & Reconstruction – World View (College) *Emergent Literacy Stage – current

16. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Letter-Sound Knowledge Acquisition (Dodd & Carr, 2003) Hierarchy of development in ages 4.11 - 6.4 year old children after one year of formal literacy instruction Letter-sound recognition (earliest) Letter-sound recall Letter reproduction (latest)

17. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom  Scribbling within paper boundary  Turning the pages and “reading the words”  Reading “right side up”  Nursery rhymes  Finger plays  Repetitive story line  Talking about pictures and naming Emergent Literacy Skills

18. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Whole words and beginning phonemic identity Read own names Know some alphabet names and sounds Auditory-Visual Matching Icons and symbols Personal space labels Separate identify of a word from its meaning Awareness of patterns in words Use “language of literacy” Pretend reading of pattern books Segmenting to blending Syllable segmenting Rhyming – detection and production Early Development of Phonological Awareness

19. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Prominent feature of speech, found in songs, poetry, children’s books and games Helps children categorize groups of words based on their common sound pattern Rhyming words categorized often have similar spelling, helping in writing and reading Areas of rhyme involve detection (“Do these words rhyme?”) and production: (“Make a word that rhymes with ___”) RHYME

20. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Literacy Risk Factors Nature of language impairment  Diffuse language problems  Vocabulary and Grammar  Severe phonological impairment History of language impairment  Unresolved entering kindergarten Presence of associated risk factors  Child based Attentional deficits Behavioral/Conduct problems Cognitive Impairment  Family Based Socioeconomic status (maternal education/household income) Family history of reading difficulties

21. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Other Literacy Acquisition Obstacles Curriculum Practices need to balance Pendulum Swings “Reading Wars” Extreme Phonics Extreme Whole Language

22. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Primary predictors of literacy achievement Written language awareness Phonological awareness Letter name knowledge Grapheme-phoneme correspondence Literacy motivation Home literacy (Justice et al.: Early Literacy Screening)

23. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom COMMONLY USED DIAGNOSTIC MEASURES OF WORD READING ABILITY Sight word reading ability Phonetic reading ability Word reading fluency (Torgeson, 1998)

24. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom More than twenty different phonemic awareness tasks can be grouped into three broad categories: Sound comparison tasks Phonemic segmentation tasks Phoneme blending skill ASSESSING PHONEMIC AWARENESS

25. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom LINDAMOOD PHONEME SEQUENCING PROGRAM FOR READING, SPELLING, AND SPEECH (LIPS)

26. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom LINDAMOOD PHONEME SEQUENCING PROGRAM FOR READING SPELLING, AND SPEECH (LIPS): A program to teach phonic awareness SELECTIVE LISTENING SETTING THE CLIMATE IDENTIFYING AND CLASSIFYING SPEECH SOUNDS BY MANNER, VOICING AND PLACE OF ARTICULATION TRACKING, SPELLING, AND READING

27. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Help the students understand What they are about to do: learn to see, hear, and feel sounds Why: to make reading and spelling easier by enabling them to figure out words and check themselves How teacher and students will word: teacher will ask questions, students will figure out and answer, not guess or memorize Engage the students by asking questions instead of telling everything Be concise SETTING THE CLIMATE

28. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Draw as you talk, whether you draw realistically, a stick figure, or a cartoon; do not prepare or copy a picture ahead of time that you point to as you “lecture.” Make your language appropriate for you student’s level Do additional sensory-awareness activities if appropriate, or go directly into introducing consonants in this same session. Begin addressing emotional and behavioral issues now or if/when they appear SETTING THE CLIMATE (Cont’d)

29. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom INTRODUCING CONSONANT PAIRS (BROTHERS) Explore what it’s like to feel sounds, and to feel and label the quiet-noisy difference Explore pair concept (shoes or brothers). Parallel with pairs of sounds: sameness = mouth action; difference = quiet vs. noisy; each pair has a label. Say a sound; student repeats. Question so student describes critical features of the sound. Teacher gives label Student selects mouth picture Choose letter symbol (optional) Help student discover noisy brother sound Choose letter symbol for brother sound (optional)

30. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Now or later if needed for spelling Verify each borrower with a few real words C: Help students discover that ‘c’ can borrow the quiet Tongue Scraper or the quiet Skinny Air. X: Help students discover that ‘x’ borrows the quiet Tongue Scraper and the quiet Skinny Air right together /ks/. Qu: Help students discover that ‘qu’ borrows the quiet Tongue Scraper and the first Wind Sound right together: /kw/. Y: Help students discover that ‘y’ borrows the name of the letter ‘i’ at the end of little words and the name of the letter ‘e’ at the end of bigger words. (For most students, leave ‘y’ in initial and medial positions for later.) INTRODUCING BORROWERS

31. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Do Your Students Need this Step? Only if significan phonological awareness limitations are present Introducing left-to-right progression of Tracking First With Pictures, then with colored blocks Watch for their strategies – repeating to self correctly? TRACKING SEQUENCES OF CONSONANTS (preschool – first grade)

32. Language Enhancement and Phonological Strategies in the Classroom Arrange Mouth Pictures in Rows that are easy to find V to VC Step process Say old and new word Touch and say old and new word Make the change, labeling anything that moves Pacing Five kinds of Change (adding, omitting, substituting, shifting and repeating Optional: label three kinds of syllables tracking (CV, VC, CVC) Tracking Sounds within Simple Syllables