Sub Area II. Reading Instruction and Assessments

Competency 6.0 - Understand Phonological and Phonemic AwarenessPhonological Awareness - ability of the reader to recognize the phonemes (or sounds) of spoken language.  Includes how the sounds are blended together, segmented, and manipulated.  Eventually leads to Phonics - method for decoding language by unlocking letter-sound or grapheme-phoneme relationships.Begins during pre-k years.Teach phonological awareness by pointing out sounds made by letters.Skills include: rhyming and syllabification, blending, identifying beginning or initial phonemes and ending or final phonemes, segmenting, and removing or substituting sounds.Instructional Methods Auditory games, recognize and manipulate words. Snap game, teacher presents two words, child snap fingers if the two words share a sound. Language games, identification of rhyming words. Read books with rhymes Read books that use alliteration Students are at a disadvantage if they are not in an environment that where English phonology operates.  They will be unable to distinguish between two similar sounding words that will lead to confusion when experiencing the same words in print.Oral language development lays the foundation for phonological awareness so it is important to stress this first with ELL learners before heavily teaching them to read.Phonological awareness is auditory, does not involve print.Begins before children learn letter-sound relationships.Basis for successful teaching of phonics and spelling.Must be taught and nurtured.Preceded and is critical to develop before the alphabetic principle.  Phonemic Awareness - specific skill within the broader category of phonological awareness.  Knowledge that words are comprised of individual phonemes that can be blended.Types of tasks: Ability to hear rhymes and alliteration, oddity tasks, orally blend words and split syllables, orally segment words, ponics manipulation tasks.Crucial to emergent literacy.Effective instructional methods: Clapping syllables Distinguishing between a word and a sound Using cues when going from one sound to another Oral segmentation activities Some phonemes in the English language do not exist in other language and some come into conflict.Children who already read well in their native language will have an easier time transferring skills to English.Phonics is with printed words while phonemic awareness is with oral activities.

CuesMany of these skills would be the heavily taught and the focus of a bottom up approach.  While they are an essential component of reading, they are not the be all end all.  Comprehension is still the end goal of reading and is not fully supported if a reading program solely focuses on phonics.It is always important to bring these skills to context.  If you are having student choose words that are in the same word family from a list than follow this up with a word hunt of those same words in a text.  This will be very beneficial to the student developing these individual skills and applying them to authentic reading.  Difference between phonemic and phonological awareness is still confusing to me.  Check out the spiral book that explains it better.ELL students cannot be treated the same.  Just as with English students, their instruction must be tailored to the individual.

Competency 7.0 - Understand the Development of Concepts of PrintUnderstanding that print carries meaning is demonstrated every day.How to hold the book, where to start, direction of left to right.Strategies for Promoting Concepts of Print Write down what children say Label items in the classroom Read together with big print books Practice handling a book Discuss and compare similar words Match oral words to printed words Manipulate letters to change words Create and respond to messages with letter cards Environmental print activities can be helpful in children understanding that print holds meaning.Modeling can be one of the most effective tools in teaching concepts of print, such as reading from left to right and top to bottom.  This is also useful for tracking print, by pointing to each individual word as it is read orally to the children.

CuesFor children in homes that do not expose them to reading, they are at a disadvantage because they do not learn these skills early on.Because children are emergent readers when they learn these concepts, they may not be able to perform all of the tasks on their own.  Therefore they can be engaged by asking them questions on what should be done during the modeling.  Such a point to where I should begin reading.  Or is the first letter in my sentence capitalized?

Competency 6.0

Competency 7.0