A balanced literacy program…

Reading is about balance

Phonological Awareness &

Decoding

Meaning & Thinking

Reading (according to Senior students, September, 2011)

LanguageLanguage

ReadingReading ThinkingThinking

Phonological awareness – no letters attached, just soundsPhonics – hear the sound and map to the letterVocabulary development – we need to teach about words explicitly “What’s another word for big?”Reading fluency – Read accurately, with expression and understandingReading comprehension – our ultimate goal!

Major Components of Reading Instruction

Reading is not a natural process

• Specific areas of the brain are used to process language.

• The brain analyses text at three major levels.

1. The visual features of the words and letters;

2. The phonological representation of those words; and

3. The meanings of the words and sentences.

Reading is not developmental or natural, it is learned.

To read, children must:1. decode text 2. translate it into a speech form,

and3. understand spoken language.

These skills are the foundations for reading comprehension (Wren, 2008).

Part One:

Phonological Awareness

Phonological or Phonemic Awareness?

Both Phonological and Phonemic Awareness focus on the SOUNDelements of spoken words.

Phonological Awareness Phonemic AwarenessIncludes phonemic awareness Narrower – subcategory of

Phonological AwarenessIdentify and manipulate larger parts of spoken language

Identify and manipulate individual sounds of spoken words

Includes alliteration, rhyme, words & syllables

What’s involved in Phonological Awareness?

1. Word Awareness, e.g. spoken language is made up of words; words are representations of objects (cat), emotions (love) and concepts (height); words can rhyme

2. Syllable Awareness, e.g. some words have a single syllable and others have more than one

3. Onset and Rime Awareness, e.g. single syllable words are made up of onsets and rimes

4. Phonemic Awareness, e.g. words are made up of individual sounds or phonemes.

A child with phonological awareness can:

1. Identify and make oral rhymes

2. Hear, identify and play with the sounds in words.

3. Hear the syllables in words

To support children’s development of phonological awareness, we…

we: Use songs, rhyming games, nursery

rhymes, and rhyming poetry

Willoughby Wallaby Woo Play

• Play games with the sounds in words

• Talk with children about words and sounds in everyday situations

• Choose books to read aloud that focus on sounds & repetition

Strategies1. Draw attention to phoneme articulation. Use slow & exaggerated pronunciation.

2. Use larger unit of print (sentences/whole words) as well as individual alphabet sounds.

How do I change with each individual sound?

Opening Letter contains words with focus sound

Puppetry

Opening LettersDear Junior 12, Listen to these words.Can you tell me the rhyming pattern?From Mrs. Cardullo

Dear Junior 12,

Listen to this rhyme. Which words do you think rhyme? Can you point out the word “ran”?

From Mrs. Cardullo

Hickory, Dickory, DockHickory, dickory, dock,The mouse ran up the clock,The clock struck one,The mouse ran down!Hickory, dickory, dock.

3. Use visual pictures instead of words for syllable segmentation and rhyming component. This prevents students from straining to recall the words presented.

Cut and match the rhyming pictures.

red

Cut out and stick the pictures back together. Write the animal in the box and write how many syllables are in the animal’s name.

How many syllables?Animal:How many syllables?Animal:How many syllables?

Syllables

Syllable Snake game and Syllable Sam

Robot Walk

Chin Check“Check it with your chin” by holding your hand under your chin and counting how many times your chin hits your hand when you say a word.

Hands-on Games & use of concrete objects.

Rolling the ball to represent number of phonemes/syllables.

Magnetic letters to represent phonemes or syllables in words.

Using marbles in containers to represent number of phonemes/syllables.

Using music to tap out individual phonemes in words.

Word Makers and Sentence Makers Reading Rods

Rhyme match & Vowel Snap

Manipulable Reading Books & Games

Commercially produced Literacy Games

When to teach…• Research has shown that phonological awareness

skills are best when taught in short bursts.• No longer than 10 minutes at a time.• No more than 3 times a day, so great as time

fillers and can be done anywhere even in the car.

“”Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle.”

Some activities...• Live spelling

Resources

• 1. Yourself• 2. A present for you handout from VSSS• Books• Games, games and more games.• VSSS DVD

Tea Break

Part Two:

Comprehension

‘Turn & Talk’

“Reading furnishes the mind only with material of knowledge. It is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

C.S. Lewis

Our own experiences…

“Once thought of as the natural result of decoding plus oral language, comprehension is now viewed as a much more complex process involving knowledge, experience, thinking and teaching.”(Linda Fielding and P. David Pearson, 1994)

“Once thought of as the natural result of decoding plus oral language, comprehension is now viewed as a much more complex process involving knowledge, experience, thinking and teaching.”(Linda Fielding and P. David Pearson, 1994)

“Woman without her man is nothing.”

“Woman, without her, man is nothing.”

Research – The experts!

Reading is ThinkingReading is Thinking

Sense ItSense It

Making Inferences/ Draw Conclusions

Making Inferences/ Draw Conclusions

Connect To TextConnect To Text

Ask QuestionsAsk Questions

Summarize/ SynthesizeSummarize/ Synthesize

Decide What’s

ImportantDecide What’s

Important

Build FluencyBuild Fluency

Expand VocabularyExpand Vocabulary

Predict and ProvePredict and Prove

Check UnderstandingCheck Understanding

The Teacher ...– Intentional, responsive and adaptive– Explicitly teaches comprehension – Provides powerful modelling through think

aloud – Understands that modelling cannot be

scripted- adjust it and try again– Provides a predictable framework– Is relentless!

Research: Struggling Year 6 Students

Students typically reading at Year 3 level

• Group 1: half the students tutored with Year 6 texts (core reading, social studies texts etc.)

• Group 2: half the students tutored with Year 3 texts– Few gains with first group– Significant gains with the second group

O' Connor, R. E., Bell, K. M., Harty, K. R., Larkin, L. K., Sackor, S. M., & Zigmond, N. (2002). Teaching reading to poor readers in the intermediate grades: A comparison of text difficulty. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(3), 474–485

“High Success Reading”“Any school plan that does not put high-success texts in

struggling readers' hands all day long is not only ignoring the research but also creating and perpetuating large numbers of struggling readers.”

Allington, R. L. (2011). What At-Risk Readers Need. Educational Leadership Vol 68 No 6.

‘Just Right Books’• Read volumes of materials at a ‘good-fit’ or

‘just right’ reading level• Teach students to select appropriate material

Balance

Explicit Instruction

Time for reading, writing and discussing

texts

Read Aloud

A think aloud

Read Aloud & Think Aloud

When reading aloud, you can stop from time to time and orally complete sentences like these:So far, I've learned...This made me think of...That didn't make sense.I think ___ will happen next.I reread that part because...I was confused by...I think the most important part was...That is interesting because...I wonder why...I just thought of...

Keeping Tracks

Over to you…

The best question!!!

Sharing & questions

Resources