Ms. Docherty
Mara Docherty
Educational Portfolio
Winona State University
Elementary Education
Phonemic Awareness: The awareness that the speech stream consists of a sequence of sounds. Phonological awareness is close in comparison to phonemic awareness. Phonological awareness is known more for being a broad skill that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral skills like onsets and rimes. While phonemic awareness is the specific ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds like phonemes (sounds).
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic Awareness Definition
The ability to detect and manipulate the smallest units of spoken language
Phoneme
Individual sounds in spoken words. (the smallest unit of a sound in a language)
Grapheme
written representation (a letter or cluster of letters) of one sound
Morpheme
Units of meaning within words;
the way words are formed
Segment
add or remove syllables
Substitue
adding or deleting phonemes
Onset
Initial phoneme of a word
Vocabulary
Examples of Phonemes:
Bee- /b/ /ē/
Bird- /b/ /û/ /d/
Shark- /sh/ /a/ /r/ /k/
Spider- /s/ /p/ /î/ /d/ /e/ /r/
Uniform- /y//ü//n//i//f//o//r//m/
Lev Vygotsky:
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Vygotsky is a social interactionist
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He believes that cognitive development and social interaction help students develop oral language.
Jean Piaget:
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Piaget is a constructivist.
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He believes students develop in stages.
Norm Chomsky:
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Chomsky is an innatist.
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He believes that language is naturally learned and not taught.
B.F.Skinner:
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B.F. Skinner is a Behaviorist.
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He believes that the environment has an impact on the development of oral language.
Oral Language Theories and Theorists
Lap Reading
Lap Reading has many benefits that include:
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Increases child's knowledge of the world, of narrative structure, and of literary conventions
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Teaches a child how to respond as a member of a reading community: listening/attending behaviors, how to respond to prediction questions, how to retell a story, and Concepts about Print (CAP)
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Bonding Time
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Start in infancy
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Connection to a voice and intonation
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Builds a love of reading
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Builds a positive attitude towards books
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A higher level of questions asked
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Children chose to read more often during free time activity
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Help with concepts, how a book is held, left to right, pictures can tell stories, etc.
Isolation: Recognizing individual sounds in a word, what is the first sound in tiger? > /t/
Onset Rime: Recognizing the same sounds in different words. What sound is the same in can car and cap? > the first sound is /c/ is the same.
Blending: Listening to a sequence of separately spoken phonemes and combining the phonemes to form a word, what is the word /m/ /i/ /l/? > mile
Deletion: Recognizing the word that remains when a phoneme is removed from another word, what is bunk without the /k/?> Bunk without the /k/ is bun
Segmentation: Breaking a word into its separate sounds and saying each sound as it is tapped out, counted or signaled and try using physical things and not just claps, How many sounds are in park? > /p/ /ar/ /k/ three sounds
Addition: Making a new word by adding a phoneme to an existing word, What word would you have if you add /p/ to the end of ram? > Ramp
Substitution: Substituting one phoneme for another to make a new word, the word is "sit" change /s/ to /f/? > fit
Levels of Development
Oral Language Development
Parents baby talk:
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One way of getting attention, parents use a form of baby talk
First 12 months:
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Time for hope baby starts with sounds and cries (sounds, cry, approximations)
From 1 to 2:
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By leaps and bounds, baby says first words in this stage (2 words)
From 2 to 3:
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Toddler wonders what it means when he/she says no. Now has full, simple sentences. (full, simple sentences)
From 3 to 4:
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Very curious at this stage, called the why years (1000-1500 new words)
From 4 to 6:
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Years of growth and refinement (2500-6000 new words)
S. Paker: 17 stages introduces all letters and phonemes. The first 6 steps of his stages teach simple letters and sounds.
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a, e, i, o, m, n, s: teach as one phoneme per letter at first
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d,g,p,t
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b,f,c/k
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l
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r
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h, j, qu, v, w, x, y, z
Concepts of Print also known as Print Awareness is the understanding that print carries meaning, that books contain letters and words. Print Awareness helps students understand what books are used for and how a book "works" (how to turn pages, reading left to right, top and bottom of page, and how to identify the title. This is a child's earliest introduction to literacy. (Reading Rockets, 2020)
Print Awareness. (2020, January 3). Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/printawarenes
Small-group Instruction
Lowering the ratio of students being taught instruction. By lowering the ratio, this gives the students the chance to fully comprehend the material by asking questions directly to the teacher. With small group instruction, the teacher is able to personalize instruction and provide feedback to the students on a skill. The students are also able to gain confidence through collaboration. This provides a comfortable environment with fewer students. Will help students who might not otherwise participate.
Explicit Instruction
Involve showing students what to do and how to do it. The teacher provides an explanation in a small group. Usually provided step-by-step. Intended to meet the specific needs of the small group. Most commonly used to help struggling readers. Small-group instruction and explicit are hand in hand instructions.
Concepts of print
Instructional Approaches
Order of Introduction of letters
Assessment
Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Awareness (Yopp 1995)
Assesses children's full phonemic awareness ability by asking children to segment a word into individual phonemes. Students are given a twenty-two-item test and feedback as they progress through each word. If student answers correctly, assessor will respond with feedback such as "correct" or "that's right". If answered incorrectly the student will be corrected. Partial credit is not given during this assessment. This test is strictly oral, the student should not see the words on the list. Keep the assessment playful and game-like. While administrating tests, read directions word for word with what is provided. To the right is an example of how students should answer and what the directions look like.
PBS Kids is a website that has been around for awhile assisting children in educational games. Something that stood out was the Super Why characters, which each have a different super talent that helps children in reading development. Students can pick from a variety of games from this site. Wonder Red's Rhyme Racer is a game that asks for substitutes for beginning sounds or ending sounds. Students can work on developing their oral language development with spelling, rhymes, and some comprehension of stories. https://pbskids.org/superwhy/
Sight words is a website designed to help improve phonemic awareness by using miniature lessons in the form of a game to help children become more aware of phoneme while playing. Students will most likely know they are being taught during this kind of game. This website is designed to make learning fun. Sight words have over 110 games, which students will have to go through in order to get to the next game. Student needs to do the previous game before they can advance to the next lesson/ activity. Students can use this website to consistently be working on their own level of development. They are able to work at own pace when they want.
What's Changed? Skill Builder app is specifically designed to target and develop students' phonemic awareness. It uses vowel sounds and consonant blends through exercises that require students to listen to two non-words and identify what changed between the two words. It also helps to develop segmentation and blending skills.
Montessori Crosswords for Kids is an app to help students with their reading, writing, and spelling skills. Students are able to practice segmenting and blending letter tiles into sounds of words. The picture and audio on the app help support students as they are working through the app. Adjustable settings to help challenge levels are available.
Rhyming words by Teach Speech Apps is great for practicing early and basic phonemic awareness skills. This helps individuals identify different phonemes that makeup words in a fun way. The four activities on this app include:
– Do these two rhyme?
– Find the picture that rhymes with the word
– Word families – drag and drop
– Identifying the rhyming pair from 6 pictures
Working on rhymes can be fun. Have students have an Alphabet Costume Parade but with rhyming words. Prepare by having a paper cut out with different rhyming words. For example, cat and bat, dog and hog, might and sight. Use these to tape on students' shirts. Students will love to see what everyone else has on their shirts. Teachers can then prompt students to find someone with a word that rhymes with the one on their shirt. This can be a good strategy for finding partners before an activity, while still working on phonemic awareness. This strategy is originally used as learning letters of the alphabet, students come dressed with a letter on them before school. Students then parade around the classroom in order of alphabet.
Five Strategies/Activities
Examples of singing: Sound blending using songs activities. This activity is to the tune of "If youre happy and you know it, clap your hands." Teacher will think of a word before singing that will challenge the class. The song goes: If you think you know this word, shout it out!
If you think you know this word, shout it out!
If you think you know this word,
Then tell me what you've heard,
If you think you know this word, shout it out! After the song is over, the teacher will proceed to say the segmented word /k/ /a/ /t/. Students can follow directions from the song and shout it out when they know it. Below is an example of a cheer you can use in a classroom to help with phonemic awarness and also capture students attention.
Listen to my cheer.
Then shout the sounds you hear.
Sun! Sun! Sun!
Let's take apart the word sun.
Give me the beginning sound. (Children respond with /s/.)
Give me the middle sound. (Children respond with /u/.)
Give me the ending sound. (Children respond with /n/.)
That's right!
/s/ /u/ /n/-Sun! Sun! Sun!
Alphabet Costume Parade
Students can play a game called Build-a-Word. Using paper cubes or purchased manipulative cubes with word families on them, students will roll the cube. After rolling, the student generates a list of as many words as they can think of that contain the word ending rolled. Students can record words on paper or white-boards. This game can be played with beginning, middle, or ending sounds.
Build-a-Word Cubes
Venn Diagram
Venn Diagrams are used for many subjects. Venn diagrams with phonemic awareness can help the student decide if words have the same patterns. Students can draw Venn diagrams when given two ending sounds. For example, students are given -at for one circle and -an for the other. Students will list words for each. Between the two circles in a Venn diagram are what they have in common. Students will determine if they have anything in common, like middle sounds. This helps students with visualizing words while sounding out words.
Independent Sorts
There are different ways you can have sorts, on paper, magnetics, cards, etc. Students will sort the same words or word endings sorted during small-group instruction. Students can choose to sort through words with a partner or independently. Students will discover different ways to sort the words given. They can sort them out, sort and glue, or write down their sorts.
Chanting and Singing
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
References
Anderson, M. (n.d.). Powerpoints, podcasts. Retrieved January 30, 2020, from https://winona.learn.minnstate.edu/d2l/le/content/4760249/Home
Blamey, K. L., & Beauchat, K. A. (2016). Starting strong: evidence-based early literacy practices. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse Publishers.
Debbie, & Anne. (2019, December 9). Elkonin Boxes: Classroom Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/elkonin_boxes
Hannah, S., & Hilda. (2019, September 19). Rhyming Games: Classroom Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/rhyming_games
Phonics and Decoding. (2020, January 3). Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonics
Print Awareness. (2020, January 3). Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/printawareness
Small-Group Instruction: How to Make it Effective - Teacher Professional Learning: Literacy, Math: MTSS. (2019, May 14). Retrieved from https://www.corelearn.com/small-group-instruction-blog/
Umamaheswari, Linda, Estey, A., Alice, Elizabeth, & Bierman, C. (2019, December 26). Blending and Segmenting Games: Classroom Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/blending_games