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phonics

The Early Reading Process

I’ve recently been spending a lot of time studying and reviewing for my state’s K-12 Reading assessment which I have to pass to obtain my Master’s degree in Reading. This test also certifies you to be a Reading Specialist, if you so choose. As I was talking to my friend from class who already took the test, she said, “I thought it focused a lot on emergent literacy, but you’re more…you know…you’re dealing with that every day.”
As I read through the emergent literacy section of the review book, I realized that there were SO many technical terms that primary teachers use quite often. On the other hand, intermediate elementary teachers may not. 
My friend has been in all of the same courses as me in the last two years, but she didn’t feel as confident with these terms. All of a sudden it made SO much sense to me! I mean, we’re human. If we don’t use complex (Tier 3, if you will) vocabulary often, we forget the true meaning.
I get confused and think too far into all of these Ph words often, so these are the details that have helped me! Let’s take a look at a few of those technical teacher-y terms that we throw around with colleagues. Hopefully, this breakdown will help you all to gain a firm understanding of each concept or just review some that get a bit confusing (phonological, phonemic, phonics….ahhh!). 
Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is recognizing the sound structures of spoken language, or speech sounds. Phonological awareness focuses on large parts of spoken language. It includes syllable awareness, sentence awareness, word awareness (rhyming and alliteration), onset-rime awareness and phoneme awareness. 

Syllable awareness (deletion) example: What is bookshelf without book? Shelf
Sentence awareness example: How many words are in the sentence, “Did you have a fun trip?” 6
Word awareness example: Do these words rhyme: bark and bike? No
Onset-rime example: What word is this: m-ath? math
Phoneme awareness example: What is the beginning sound in path? /p/

Phonological awareness focuses only on sound. It does not address the symbols (letters) for the sounds. Students are not looking at words or any print, they only listen and produce sounds. It is a broad term. Phonological awareness is the umbrella. Phonemic awareness falls below. Many researchers believe that phonological awareness is a key indicator of a child’s future success in reading and spelling.

Be sure to check out Hello Two Peas in a Pod for amazing phonological awareness activities created by Jen Jones from Hello Literacy and Katherine Zotovich from Pure Literacy. They are PERFECT!

Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is a subcategory of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness includes identifying and manipulating individual sounds within spoken words. The smallest units of sounds are called phonemes. Phonemes combine to form words. So, phonemic awareness only deals with the phoneme level of language.

***Rhyming is considered phonological awareness, NOT phonemic awareness, because it does not relate to the individual sounds in words.

When students have phonemic awareness they have knowledge of the smallest units of sounds, or phonemes, in a word. Students should be actively identifying, segmenting, blending, and manipulating the separate sounds in words. Only sounds. This is key! No visual symbols — no letters! If students have phonemic awareness, they can connect sounds together to form words!
Phonics
Phonics is often confused with both phonological awareness and phonemic awareness (above). The main difference is easy to remember. Phonics deals with letters! A professor at a reading conference once said to our group, “The second you give a kid a letter or word to look at, BOOM!, it’s phonics!” And it’s very true. While phonological awareness deals with only sounds, phonics deals with actually seeing and working with the letters that make the sounds.
PSA: When you are googling or Pinterest-ing phonemic awareness activities, PLEASE be careful. I know someone who was doing a doctoral project on this topic. Many times, honestly most of the time, phonics activities (activities including letters) are listed under the label “phonemic awareness”. Just be on the lookout…
Alphabetic Principle
Letters represent speech sounds. Arrangements of letters represent spoken words. Students learn letter names by singing the alphabet song. Then students learn the shape of letters by looking in books, playing with blocks, or playing with plastic/wooden letters. Finally, students relate to the letters they see to the speech sounds they hear and produce. The alphabetic principal is the understanding that there is a relationship between speech sounds and written letters. 
Decoding
Directly teaching phonics patterns will make decoding easier for students. If students recognize relationships within words, they can figure out words they have not seen before. When students can decode quickly, they are able to spend more of their working memory on comprehending the text.
Decoding incorporates the ability to:
-use what one knows about patterns in letters
-understand the correspondence between letters and the sounds they represent
-pronounce printed words correctly
Morphology

The smallest units of meaning are called morphemes. For example, the “s” that is added to the end of the word “dog” to make is plural is a morpheme. A single morpheme can change the meaning of a word. Morphology is the study of the structures of words that are formed with the smallest units of meaning.

Whew, okay. That’s all the teacher jargon I have for today!
Happy Reading!

Skill-based Fluency Instruction

Fluency Overview

In the past, fluency was defined as the ability to read smoothly and effortlessly, at a quick, automatic rate (Harris & Hodges, 1995; Logan, 1997). A student’s reading rate and accuracy are very important because less time spent on decoding leaves more time for the brain to focus on comprehension. However, after recent research, fluency has come to encompass much more. It now includes prosodic elements such as expression, volume, phrasing, pacing, and smoothness. When students read with prosody, they are able to capture the meaning of the story or script. Current research supports phrasing, pacing, and smoothness as elements that help develop fluency in students. (Clark, Morrison, & Wilcox, 2009)

Students who do not read fluently segment the text and read it word by word. However, students who read smoothly with appropriate expression, pacing, and phrasing make reading sound like natural language (Zutell & Rasinski, 1991). Fluent reading develops when students are able to make their reading sound like individuals speaking as they do in daily life.

Although fluency is a large part of reading curricula, it is often neglected in reading instruction (Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1993; Zutell & Rasinski, 1991). Many teachers refer to traditional methods of measuring fluency. This is usually comprised of giving students an unfamiliar passage and timing their reading while keeping track of errors. Research has shown that varying the fluency practice is beneficial in the classroom in order to motivate those students who are not motivated by competition (Tyler & Chard, 2000; Worthy & Prater, 2002). Repeated readings of familiar texts are necessary in order for fluency, and therefore prosody, to increase.

Fluency in My Classroom
            If you teach primary grades, then I’m sure you are used to the Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) Assessments or something of the sort. These are short stories that we ask students to read while we time them and note any mistakes. Last year, I had very high first graders who already read fluently, so our ORFs were easy to administer. I didn’t stress about them. I simply tested my kids, plugged in their scores, and clicked submit.
            Fast forward to this past fall. During the first half of the school year, I taught in a private school. One of the small groups that I worked with consisted of first graders who were struggling readers. Fluency was….not quite their strong point.
            Fast forward to January. I transferred back to the public school I was at previously. I now work with third graders, many of whom are at a lower level than the first graders I had last year. So I began to ask myself….What are they missing?
            After attending a training in Orton-Gillingham, {LOVE! If you ever have the chance to go, GO! Run! I recommend it over any conference I have ever been to!} I was convinced that students (or at least the ones I have worked with) were lacking basic instruction in phonics skills. If I could teach them the skills that they were lacking, would they then be fluent? Could they then comprehend?
 
Skill-Based Fluency
            I love the idea of fluency practice every day, especially in the primary grades. I have seen the benefits of repeated readings, and the smiles and giggles from successful readers. BUT I have always thought that fluency passages were sort of…random. I’m not saying that they are ineffective. I am not telling you not to use them as part of your curriculum. In fact, many curriculums require them.
Let me just explain my reasoning…
If I am teaching silent E, wouldn’t it be great to immerse the kids in silent E? Letting them SEE silent E everywhere they look or read will help them to identify silent E in the future. Right? So, why not include that skill in your fluency instruction?
I began doing this with two different groups of struggling readers, and have seen the positive effects already! We use LOTS of hands-on activities to drive this concept home. The following pictures are from two groups of students – first graders and second graders.
One activity that my students love is this silent E set from the talented Lavinia Pop.
Use sound chips when saying each sound.
Add the silent E with a dry erase marker and use the sound chips to read the word again, changing the vowel sound.
I then ask students to change the onset of the word while keeping the rime the same. Once they have written the word, they cover the onset so that they see the pattern in the rime. They come up with as many words as possible.
            Another day during the same week, we read these Rhyming Poems which are WONDERFUL because they have Elkonin boxes for the rhyme sounds. We use sound chips again here. The students would put a sound chip in the box each time they heard a long vowel and saw a silent E. Then, they would underline the silent E words. In pairs, they would face each other and take turns reading the poem as I listened in and gave advice on pausing and pronunciation of words.
            During the same week, I introduce fluency sentences. Jen Jones {my literacy hero} created these amazing fluency sentences that are organized by skill. AHHHHH! Can you hear the hallelujah chorus?! Perfect for RtI and intervention groups!
Students read each sentence and underline and silent E words that they read. I then have them check with their partner to see if any have been missed. Then, they add any underlines that they missed.
I have the kids whisper read to themselves as I listen in to them one at a time. Then, we read together. Finally, they read to a buddy.
You will see here that this sweetie underlined “the” in the second sentence above. This was a GREAT teachable moment to discuss the fact that “Not every E at the end of a word is a silent E.” Use these mistakes to help students understand the reasoning behind the skill.
This student needed more chunking. The text was too overwhelming. I drew lines between sentences and had him only focus on three sentences at a time. He then wrote down all of the silent E words and read them from his white board before continuing to the next few sentences.
            At this time, I am currently working with struggling second graders for my final practicum project. These short vowel fluency passages from Miss DeCarbo are a savior! The kids seriously love spinners, so that’s a plus! This set requires students to hunt for words and participate in repeated readings of the text. And guess what!?! They are ALL based on a phonics skill!
This page focused on “ack”. The kids were SO excited that the word backpack had TWO “ack” sounds in it!
After completing all of the steps and reading the passage together as a group a few times, students buddy read. They listen for changes in their partner’s voice each time there is punctuation.

Focusing on a skill while practicing fluency has been SUCH a blessing for my second graders. They are not at grade level and cannot handle second grade fluency passages. Using these passages with the same phonics skill repeated over and over again helps the students to read a full paragraph without stopping to “sound out” any words. They know the phonics skill and are able to apply it throughout the passage. After one day, I had these kiddos giggling and reading with expression in their voices. Why? Because the text was predictable and they had confidence in their skill.

As you go off into your classroom this week, think about including your skills into your fluency practice. There are oh so many ways that you can do this. Just keep practicing in a variety of ways, and make fluency fun! As they say, “Practice Makes Permanent!”