Welcome to the Comprehensive Center-Region VI

Audio Web Conference Workshop

Sheryl Beglinger

Training and Outreach Specialist

smbeglinger@wisc.edu

       

Phonological Awareness

The understanding that spoken language is made up of individual

and separate sounds.

A Child Becomes a Reader: Birth to Preschool

                   

Four Levels of Phonological Awareness

(Lane, H. B., Pullen, P. C., Eisele, M. R., & Jordan, L. (2002). Preventing reading failure: Phonological awareness assessment and instruction. Preventing School Failure, 46, 101-111. )

“The most common cause of difficulties acquiring early word reading skills is weakness in the ability to process the phonological features of language. This is perhaps the most important discovery about reading difficulties in the last twenty years.”

(Joseph K. Torgeson. “Catch Them Before They Fall: Identification and Assessment to Prevent Reading Failure in Young Children”. American Educator, Spring/Summer 1998, 32-39.)

How do we teach phonological awareness?

BIG IDEAS in Beginning Reading

Curriculum Map for Phonemic Awareness Instruction

Kindergarten

Grade 1

Instructional Guidelines for Planning Phoneme Awareness Activities

1. Identify the precise phoneme awareness task on which you wish to focus and select developmentally appropriate activities for engaging children in the task. Activities should be fun and exciting-"play" with sounds, don't "drill" them.

2. Be sure to use phoneme sounds (represented by / /) and not letter names when doing the activities. Likewise, remember that one sound may be represented by two or more letters. There are only three sounds in the word cheese: /ch/-/eel-/z/. You may want to target specific sounds/words at first and "practice" beforehand until you are comfortable making them.

3. Continuant sounds (e.g., Em/, Isl. /I/) are easier to manipulate and hear than stop consonants (e.g., It/, /q/, /p/). When introducing continuants, exaggerate by holding on to them: rrrrrring; for stop consonants, use iteration (rapid repetition): /k/-/k/-/k/-/k/-/k/ atie .

4. When identifying sounds in different positions, the initial position is easiest, followed by the final position, with the medial position being most difficult (e.g., top, pot Setter).

5. When identifying or combining sound sequences, a CV pattern should be used before a VC pattern, followed by a CVC pattern (e.g., pie, egg, red).

Note: CV = consonant- vowel; VC = vowel- consonant; CVC = consonant- vowel- consonant

(Edelen-Smith, 1996)

Intervention Tasks arranged from least to most difficult

• Matching tasks – identifying which is correct from a list

• Elimination – identifying which is not correct from a list

• Judgment tasks – require a “yes” or “no”• Isolation tasks – pronounce a certain segment in a

given position of a word

Troia, G.A., Roth, F.P., & Graham, S. (1998). An educator’s guide to phonological awareness. Focus on Exceptional Children, 31, 1-12.

Intervention Tasks arranged from least to most difficult (cont)

• Simple production – “tell me a word that…”• Counting Tasks - syllabication, number of

phonemes• Compound production tasks – execute two

or more steps– Say “play”, now say it without the “p”– Say “man”, change the “m” to a “f”

Troia, G.A., Roth, F.P., & Graham, S. (1998). An educator’s guide to phonological awareness. Focus on Exceptional Children, 31, 1-12.

Concluding Ideas

• Phonological awareness instruction needs to begin as soon as children enter the school system

• However, not all children will be able to learn phonological awareness.

Troia, G.A., Roth, F.P., & Graham, S. (1998). An educator’s guide to phonological awareness. Focus on Exceptional Children, 31, 1-12.

Elkonian Boxes

Let’s Practice!(To the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”)

What's the sound that starts these words?Turtle, time, and teeth.

(Wait for a response from the children.)/t/ is the sound that starts these words:

Turtle, time, and teeth.With a /t/, /t/ here, and a /t/, /t/ there,

Here a /t/, there a /t/, everywhere a /t/, /t/.

/t/ is the sound that starts these words:Turtle, time, and teeth! Yopp, 1992

Now for Older Students

The Name GameJoanie!

Joanie, Joanie bo Boanie

Banana fanna fo Foanie Fee fy mo Moanie, Joanie!

Igpay Atinlay(Pig Latin)

Online Databases

SEDL: Instructional Resources

Database

EarlyReading Database of Resources

PALS: Helpful Websites

Online Articles

FLaRE Document: Phonemic Awareness

Ideas and Activities for Developing Phonological Awareness

Activities

“How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities for Collaborative

Classrooms”

Lessons on the Web

Example of phoneme segmentation

Teach Me Sounds

Wrap-Up

• Questions/comments/concerns?

• Next week, – Importance of assessing students early and

often– Assessing phonological awareness