Phonological Awareness and Learning to Read Flashcards
Required Systems for Reading (IDA)
Requires knowledge of language structure
● Phonology (the speech system)
● Orthography (the spelling system)
● Morphology (form)
Rules and Patterns
How our brain..
While our brains are wired for spoken language, they are not wired for written code
Spelling Exceptions
Roughly 80% of words in English follow spelling rules
Crucial to teach more than basic phonics
Morpheme instruction is important
Compound words
Affixes (prefixes, suffixes)
Can use “know” to figure out “knowledge” meaning
Morphology instruction can begin in first and second grades
Ehri’s Phases of Reading (Ages 3-8)
Pre-Alphabetic
Students are not using alphabetic symbols and representing them to sounds
Partial Alphabetic
Reading and writing based on initial and final sounds
Full Alphabetic
Understanding that letters represent sounds
Can map all the sounds in words
Consolidated Phase
Reading and writing with multisyllabic words
*Skilled reading happens over years and phases that run parallel with spelling
Curriculum and Instruction Framework
Focus on word origin and word structure
Major structural categories
Letter-sound correspondence
Syllables
Morphemes
*Approach should always incorporate VAK(T) modalities
Decoding
Background
Decoding x language comprehension = Reading comprehension
Processing is also a factor in reading comprehension
Slow processing of sound-letter correspondence leads to dysfluency
Strategies (phonemic, graphophonemic, syllabic and morphemic components)
Sound-symbol correspondence
Structural analysis
Instant word recognition (sight words)
Contextual clues
Oral language is the foundation of comprehension
Influences decoding abilities through PA
Decoding (cont’d)
New readers
Beginning reader associates new word with visually distinguishing characteristics (dog has a circle in the middle and a “tail” at the end)
Builds towards recognizing first and last letter sounds and eventually each letter sound in a word
New reader uses sound-symbol association with contextual clues
Orthographic memory of how words look in print builds into a lexicon (word knowledge)
Repeated encounters lead to overlearning and automaticity
Automaticity predicts future reading success
Context Clues and Fixation
Context clues combined with sound-symbol correspondence knowledge helps the reader identify the word
Context clues are used to help predict unfamiliar words during decoding (only works with approximately 1/4 of words)
Eye movement research shows:
Eyes fixate on most words in a text and do not skip over long words to rely on context
Only short, predictable words are skipped
Teaching Decoding Through Literacy
25% of students require explicit, systematic teaching to learn alphabetic principle
Decoding instruction should include:
Phonological awareness training
Instant letter recognition training
Introduction of sound-symbol correspondences
Introduction of the six orthographic types of syllables
Introduction of morphemes
Introduction of common syllable-division patterns
Training in recognizing and understanding word origins
Instruction in the orthographic patterns for spelling
Practice in fluency and accuracy
*Start with most basic concepts and progress in complexity
Decoding for Dyslexic Students
Dyslexia stems from a core deficit in phonological, not visual processing
Children will not “catch up” without intervention
Impairs reading and spelling development
Difficulty discovering that spoken words are made up of units of sounds that correspond to letters
Dyslexics struggle to learn alphabetic principle and how to decode properly
Often have other cognitive strengths
Early intervention is key!
Teaching Reading: Phonological Awareness
Students should learn the role that sounds play in language in order to read
Rhymes
Stress patterns
Syllables
Phonemes
Practice through
Rhyming
Receptively is implicit (ages 3-4)
Expressively is explicit (ages 4-5)
Segmenting and blending
Phoneme manipulation
Phonological Processing
The ability to perceive, understand, and use the sound structures of words in both oral and written language
Components
1. Phonological Memory
Ability to immediately process and recall sound-based information from short-term memory (numbers, sounds, words)
Includes remembering earlier parts of a word when segmenting and blending
Phonological Processing Components (cont’d)
- Phonological Naming
Ability to efficiently retrieve words stored in long-term memory using phonological information
Required for oral language and reading
Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) assesses phonological naming
Students quickly name colors, shapes, objects, etc.
Predicts reading development - Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
The ability to consciously manipulate rhymes (produce), syllables (separate), and phonemes (identify)
Phonological Awareness Linguistic Hierarchy
Children progress on a linguistic hierarchy
Word boundaries
We – go – to – the – store
Syllables
Ju-ly, coo-kie, bath-room
Onset-Rime (blend included in the onset)
B – all, sh-irt, c-an, st-op
Phonemes
/k/ /a/ /t/
Phoneme Manipulation Skills
Less complex: segmenting and blending (segmenting is more sophisticated skill of the two)
Complex:
Adding (add a phoneme or syllable)
Deletion (take away phoneme or syllable)
Substitution (comprises both adding and deletion skills)
Say “disappear”; now change dis- to re-
Say “go”; change the /g/ to a /b/
Reversing
Switching sounds within a word
Top becomes pot or past becomes pats
*Acquisition of these skills can begin in kindergarten, but they continue to develop through third or fourth grade
Epilinguistic and Metalinguistic Awareness
Epilinguistic awareness is implicit and includes:
Segmenting and blending syllables
Rhyme detection (ages 3-4)
Metalinguistic awareness is a conscious attention to language and includes:
Segmenting and blending onsets and individual phonemes
Rhyme production (ages 4-5)
Adding, deleting, substituting and reversing word segments
State Standards for Early Developing Skills
Younger Children:
Phonological awareness standards: hear, identify, make oral rhymes and manipulate syllables in spoken words
Phonemic awareness standards: discriminate and identify phonemes in spoken words
Preschool, kindergarten, first grade:
Isolating initial sounds of words in pre-kindergarten
Isolating sounds in CVC words by the end of kindergarten
Isolating sounds in CCVC words by the end of first grade
*Phonological and phonemic awareness skills are an indicator of future literacy development
Phonemic Awareness Assessment
Screening
Identifies students who have developed skills to an established benchmark and those who have not
All children should undergo Tier 1 screening
Progress Monitoring Assessment
Vital to track progress through intervention
May result in affirmation or changing the course of therapy
RTI – Tiers of PA Instruction
Tier 1 (whole class)
Prevention strategies for all students
Tier 2 (group intervention)
May be used for students who are having struggles learning to read
Tier 3 (smaller groups or individual)
Intensive intervention for students who are having significant difficulty or who have been diagnosed with a disability
Children with core phonological deficits (unlikely to develop skills on own)
Students with working memory or naming deficits may need intense intervention
*It is most efficient and effective to intervene with delayed students in lower grades - remediation takes 4x as long once the child reaches 4th grade
Instructional Considerations / Strategies for Phonological Awareness
Teach isolated consonant sounds with clipping and emphasize the differences
Incorporate a multisensory approach
Auditory
Student segments by saying whole word, separates parts, and says whole word again
Holds the word in phonological memory and taps into phonological representation
Kinesthetic
Taps out syllables on other side of body (first syllable on wrist, then elbow, then shoulder, etc.
Visual
Having pictures for matching or producing rhyming words helps support phonological memory
Picture can help students keep word in mind during segmentation task (keep behind back during blending and present to confirm correct response)
Instructional Considerations / Strategies for Phonological Awareness II
Rhyming
Call student by nickname with rhyming sounds (Stella-bella)
Replace word with rhyming one when giving directions
Tell students to sit down in the “keats”
I Spy game – find word that rhymes with…
Create strings of rhyming words using letter patterns
Instructional Considerations / Strategies for Phonological Awareness III
Segmenting, Blending, Substituting
Use students’ names
I Hear game – I hear with my little ear…
Segment and blend parts of new vocabulary words
Use “robot reporting” to separate syllables (To-day is Thurs-day)
Elkonin boxes (provide the number of spaces that match the number of phonemes or syllables)
Chaining (aka word ladders) – have student change one phoneme in a word, then change phoneme from a different part of the new word, etc. (pat to bat to bad to lad to lap)
Teaching Reading: Phonics and Syllables
Phonics
Link between graphemes and phonemes
We have 44 phonemes in English, but varieties of letters can represent same sounds
Syllable Patterns (often divide within words as VC/CV (trum/pet), V/CV (a/live) and VC/CCV (ex/plode)
Syllables are units of spoken language consisting of a vowel sound or a vowel-consonant combination
Six major syllable types
Closed (most common; 43%): mad
Open (32%): go
VCe: game
Vowel team: boat
Final stable: package, picture, situation / Consonant -le: tumble
R-controlled: barn
Teaching Orthographic Patterns / Letter Introduction
Explicitly teach sound-letter associations, digraphs (may make multiple sounds, such as th), trigraphs (dge), and quadrigraphs (eigh), diphthongs, and patterns (y sound based on positioning within word)
As we saw in reading programs, letter introduction should be:
Kinesthetic (articulators, sky writing)
Associated with sound knowledge (place, manner, mode, etc.)
Linked to key words
Marked up with codes (can underline vowels, etc.)
Guided discovery teaching
Can use to teach about word origins or to introduce clusters
Phonics / Syllable Activities
Blends- multiple consonants melded together
Use manipulatives
Say it slowly
Start with cards apart and move closer to blend
Manipulate onsets and rimes
Play with sounds
Tap out sounds using fingertips or letter cards
Count syllables with hand under chin
One syllable for each time mouth opens
Tap and sweep (sweep fist under letters after tapping to say word)
Mirror Invariance
Mirror invariance must be unlearned to read
Faces and objects are the same when “reversed”
A ball from any angle is still a ball
However, letters are different
Ex: Must teach how b is different than d
Can address through embedded picture mnemonics
Give each letter meaning
Activities to Improve Accuracy
Addressing Misreading
Direct student to name the letters in the word
Use the backing-up procedure
Student identifies syllable type
Determines the vowel sound length (short or long)
Codes vowel with marking - breve (˘) or macron (¯)
Blends the vowel sound with consonant sounds and then with the rest of the word
Teaching Reading: Morpheme Patterns
Morpheme knowledge increases decoding, spelling and vocabulary skills
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit
Includes prefixes, suffixes, roots that help students learn to read because the same language units, with the same meanings, are seen across many words
Free morphemes - stand alone (eat, date, week)
Bound morphemes - cannot stand alone (pre-, dis-, -ful, -ly)
Affixes always bound - inflectional suffixes indicate number, comparison or tense (-s, -ed) while derivational suffixes change part of speech and word meaning (fearless; wonderful)
Bases / Roots – give the word its core meaning
Unpainted – “paint” is the base word (free)
Insisting - “sist” is bound (to stay; it is a root, not a base)
Teaching Irregular Words
Learned through repeated encounters with text
Teach patterns (gh makes f sound in tough, rough)
Multisensory approach
Procedure for Teaching Irregular Words
Learn irregular word recognition chart
Words repeat, students are timed
Rapid word reading
Rapidly read single words using flashcards
Teach word origins
Anglo-Saxon Influence
Letter-Sound Correspondence (foundation of English)
Typically begin by teaching plosives (stop sounds), build towards fricative and affricate sounds before teaching vowels
Teach that each letter stands for a specific sound
Exceptions
C and g have a hard and soft sound - usually hard sound, but become soft before e, i and y
Consonant blends are 2-3 consecutive sounds that retain their individual sounds (bl-, spl-)
Consonant digraphs are consecutive consonant letters that make a single sound (sh, ch, th, wh)
Anglo-Saxon Influence
Vowel graphemes more challenging because a single vowel or vowel team can represent many sounds
“Team,” “steak,” and “heart”
Single vowels long or short; words contain clues to indicate long or short
A vowel with a consonant after it in the same syllable carries the short sound (cat, fun, pet)
A vowel at the end of a syllable becomes long (says its name)
Silent e words indicate for earlier vowel to say its name (gate, pole, bite)
Double consonant indicates that preceding vowel is short (winning, butter)
Vowel digraphs consist of two adjacent vowel letters that represent one sound (oe, oo, oa, ee, ai, ee, ei, ay)
Typically in the middle of words
Diphthongs
Two vowels with a shift in the middle (au/aw, oi/oy, ou, ow)
*Letter-sound correspondence should be mastered by the end of 2nd grade!
Latin Influence
More formal, often academically-based words; knowledge builds vocabulary
Fewer vowel digraphs
The ct pattern comes from Latin (effect, respect, correct)
Suffixes: -able, -ible, -ation, -ment
Syllable patterns
Usually closed, VCe or r-controlled
Important to recognize stressed vs. unstressed (shwa) syllables
Morpheme patterns
More affixing than compounding
Chameleon prefixes change depending on initial letter of root word (in- becomes il in
Greek Influence
Generally compound, not affixed words
Prevalent in science
Letter-Sound Correspondence
Ch (k), ph (f), rh, mn, pt are from Greek influence (chlorophyll)
Syllable patterns
Closed and open most common (CV/VC, V/CV, VC/CV, CVVC)
Morpheme patterns
Key roots: micr, scope, bi, graph, heli, meter, phon, phot, aut, tele
*Understanding of word origins makes rules and exceptions less mysterious for learners!
