This document discusses the importance of early reading interventions and phonemic awareness. It outlines the progression of reading skills from understanding concepts of words to fluency and comprehension. Phonemic awareness is identified as an important early reading skill involving understanding that speech is composed of individual sounds. The document describes different levels of phonemic awareness and why directly teaching these skills is important for reading success. Methods for assessing and explicitly teaching phonemic awareness are provided.
2. The Need for Early Reading
Interventions
Poor reading ability correlates with long-
term negative outcomes.
Reading is the cornerstone of academic
success.
Students with poor reading skills in the
beginning are likely to have poor skills
in the future.
3. Learning in Steps
Research has demonstrated a need for
children to learn to recognize words with
speed and accuracy to read with fluency and
comprehension.
Progression of learning:
Understanding the concept of words
Alphabetic Awareness
Phonemic Awareness
Phonics
Word Recognition
Fluency
Comprehension
4. What is Phonemic
Awareness?
Phonemic awareness is an
understanding that speech is composed
of individual sounds.
It is part of the hierarchy of reading
skills developed in early reading.
It is not a unitary skill, but is comprised
of various components.
5. Five
levels of Phonemic Awareness
(Adams,1990).
1 Appreciation of sound in spoken language
(recitation of nursery rhymes).
Ability to compare and contrast sounds in words
by grouping words with similar or dissimilar
sounds (beginning, middle, and end of words).
3 Ability to blend and split syllables.
4 Phonemic segmentation or the ability to isolate
individual sounds in syllables.
5 Ability to manipulate phonemes by omitting and
deleting phonemes to make new words.
6. Why is it important?
Itis necessary in learning to read and
spell the English language because
English is alphabetic.
Sounds correlate with letters to make
words.
Research has demonstrated a strong
link between phonemic awareness and
beginning reading.
7. Why Phonemic Awareness
over Whole-language?
The Whole-language approach
Focuses on teaching reading by immersing
students in literature while providing minimal direct
skill instruction.
Provides students with ample opportunities to read
and write and provides guidance as needed.
Students learn to read through whole-word
recognition which creates a guessing game when
presented with new words.
Students taught with phonics instruction read
54% of new words correctly, students with
whole-language read 3%.
However, balance is necessary.
8. What skills are taught?
Early Reading Skills (Good III, Simmons &
Smith, 1998)
Area 1: Phonological Awareness
Awareness of correlation of sounds to words
Area 2: Alphabetic Understanding
Link between a letter and a sound
Area 3: Phonological Recoding
Use of relationship between phonemes and letters to
recognize printed words, then read and spell them
Area 4: Accuracy and Fluency with Connected
Text
Comprehending what is read
9. How to assess skills
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early
Literacy Skills (DIBELS), University of
Oregon
Dynamic: continuing evaluation of skills
Indicators: representative and correlated
with important skill areas
Predictive: future reading performance
Functional: related to reading aquisition
10. DIBELS Assessments:
Target age range: Preschool – Second grade
Onset Recognition Fluency
Late preschool through winter of kindergarten
Appropriate for monitoring progress of older
children with low phonological awareness
Letter Naming Fluency
Fall of kindergarten through fall of first grade
Appropriate for monitoring progress of older
children with low skills in letter naming
11. DIBELS Assessments cont.:
Phoneme Segmentation Fluency
Winter of kindergarten through fall of first grade
Appropriate for monitoring progress of older
children with low phonological awareness
Nonsense Word Fluency
Fall of first grade through summer of first grade
Appropriate for monitoring progress of older
children with low skills in letter-sound
correspondence
12. How to teach Phonemic
Awareness
5 Features of effective interventions (Good
III et.al., 1998)
1. Provide instruction at the phoneme level.
2. Scaffold tasks and examples.
3. Model skills prior to practice and provide
opportunities for students to produce isolated
sounds orally.
4. Provide systematic and strategic instruction for
identifying sounds in words, blending and
segmenting, and culminate with integration of
phonological awareness and letter-sound
correspondence instruction.
5. Use concrete materials to represent sounds .
13. Modeling activities
Teaching vs. practice
The importance of scope and sequence:
Larger units before smaller units (words before syllables)
Continuous before stop sounds (cont.: f, l, m, n, stop:
b, c, d, g)
Fewer sounds before more sounds (VC or CV before
CVC)
Auditory blending before segmenting (e.g. foooot-baaaall
vs. mmm-aaaaa-t)
Blending and segmenting before manipulation (e.g.
removing sounds to make new words)
Oral before written language
14. Phonemic Teaching Methods
Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A
Classroom
Curriculum.(Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, &
Beeler, 1998)
The use of language games
Play regularly (15-20 min)
Go in order of sequence
Use both segmenting (analysis) and blending (synthesis)
activities
Child should feel as though s/he is playing while learning
Consistently pronounce words slowly and clearly
15. The Language Games:
Listening game: Listening to Sounds
Rhyming: Poetry, Songs, and Jingles
Words and Sentences: Introducing the Idea of
sentences
Awareness of Syllables: Clapping Names
Initial and Final Sounds: Guess Who
Phonemes: Two-Sound Words
Introducing Letters and Spellings: Guess Who:
Introducing Sounds and Letters
16. Reading Intervention Program
Reading Recovery Program
Goal: Help struggling students catch up to
peers
Requires a lot of teacher monitoring (1:1)
Daily sessions last 30-40 minutes per
session and run 10-20 weeks
17. Reading Recovery Program Strategies
Reading left to right
Using a return sweep rather than a slow
return
Monitoring whether story makes sense
Searching for cues from context
Rereading when unclear
Self-correction
18. Important Resources
http://dibels.uoregon.edu/
Provides explanation of DIBELS research
and application
http://reading.uroegon.edu/
Big Ideas in Beginning Reading
http://www.nifl.gov
National Institute for Literacy
National Reading Panel Update
19. Application for CBC
It is important to understand what is needed
to promote early reading skills so that
problems can be identified and treated before
negative trajectory is established.
Assessment techniques allow for problem
areas to be targeted and monitored
throughout interventions.
Teaching techniques can be used across
settings to facilitate partnerships in learning.
Consultants can provide consultees with
further resources to provide guidance
throughout reading development.
20. References
Adams, M.J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Adams, M.J., Foorman, B.R., Lundberg, I, & Beeler, T. (1998). Phonemic
Awareness in Young Children: A classroom curriculum. Baltimore, MD
: Paul H. Brooks Publishing Co.
Good III, R. H. Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
with CBM. Early Childhood Research Institute on Measuring Growth
and Development. Eugene, OR.
Good III, R. H., Simmons, D. C., & Smith, S. B. (1998). Effective academic
intervention in the United States: Evaluating and enhancing the
acquistion of early reading skills. School Psychology Review. Vol
27, No. 1, pp 45-56.
21. References cont.
Grossen, B. & Carnine, D. (1991). Strategies for maximizing
reading success in the regular classroom. In
Stoner, G., Shinn, M. R., & Walker, H. M. (Eds) Interventions for
achievement and behavior problems. Silver Spring, MD: NASP
Pressley, M. (1998). Reading instruction that works: The case for
balanced teaching. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Snider, V. E. (1995). A primer on phonemic awareness: What is
it, why it’s important, and how to teach it. School Psychology
Review, Vol. 24, No. 3, 443-455.
