Chapter 4: Phonemic awareness As I read this chapter I remembered how “uneducated” I felt when Dr. Walizer was teaching us the phonemes. I really wanted to be able to teach my students in a way that did not overwhelm them. As I went through the chapter I highlighted some activities that I thought would be fun. I really liked the idea of songs! I think this would be a great way for my students to practice! I also know they would love doing “tongue twisters!” I also found the checklist on page 92 to be very helpful! I think this would be great to use for assessment! This chapter was full of ideas and strategies for teaching our students! I will look back at this chapter a lot! Question: I will be working with students that will be fourth graders next year. If they do not have any background of phonemes, is that too much to try and teach them in 5 weeks? I think it is important and would be very beneficial, but I do not want to give them more than they can handle. This reading allowed me to look at phonemic awareness with a lot more confidence. I used to think of this and literally get scared! But as I read and relate back to what I have learned, I realized that I am ready and what I am learning is sticking and allowing me to become a better teacher! This chapter truly reminded me of being a confused student that did not have a clue what I was being taught. I don’t want my students to feel like this and therefore when approaching phonemic awareness with my students I want to do it in way that is fun and is not overwhelming! Chapter 5: Phonics Chapter five had a lot of great information also! I liked the phonics glossary at a glance! That was a nice review for me! I also found the articulation of vowel sounds interesting! I can officially say that I learned something new today! Also I took the liberty of copying the information in figure 5.2 for a chart for my students! What a great way to lay it all out for them to see! I also found the principles to be very helpful. Overall I am very impressed with this book so far and how the information is laid out! And of course once again; great activities! Question: At what age or grade level do students begin learning to recognize the long vowel sounds with different spellings? I would love to use this activity but am not sure if this is too much for a third grader. This reading overall gave me a great review! It is amazing how much you learn and yet how much there is to remember. This chapter was a really good refresher read for me! I really struggled with vowel sounds spelled different ways when I was in school. I really relate to the struggle that I am sure many students are having. I want to use this information to ensure that the students do not struggle as much as I did with this concept.
Every time I read about phonics and phonemic awareness I am overwhelmed by how complicated our language is. As an adult I never think about the rules that I know that allow me to read different and new words but watching children learn to read really opens my eyes to what they are trying to tackle every time they read. It is amazing to me how quickly they seem to catch on and adapt to the rules. It seems to me every class I take is really emphasizing the differences between Spanish and English and how we need to be ready to accommodate these students accordingly. It is very interesting to read that English has 44 phonemes and Spanish has only 24 sounds. I also had no idea that the different languages also have different phoneme placement. This just shows me that I need to be patient and really look for ways to help these students get lots of practice to succeed. I liked that the text about knowing the mouth positions for sounds. As I have worked with my own children and others I have noticed this. My son’s name is Kaiser and going into preschool he called himself, Taiser. Just showing him how my mouth made the sounds enabled him to switch almost immediately. It was amazing. Being observant will be extremely necessary to pick up on learning difficulties and helping the children adapt and succeed. After reading chapter 5 I can see now more than ever why rhyming is so helpful and important. There was so much information in these chapters I can see that I will be referring back to them as I go. The activities at the end of the chapters are awesome and the printables in the appendix are worth a lot. I can’t wait to use some of them this Summer.
Lanewberry, I am also overwhelmed with how much information there is in these chapters. Like you I can see that these will be helpful in the future. I am curious to see what the children that I am going to tutor will know and where I will need to start. I too am very impressed with the text and look forward to using some of the activities given, this will not be one of those that I will sell back. I like what you said about using songs, I learn better that way and it makes learning fun.
Jenni P: I am also at fault for not making myself aware of the rules of our language as an adult! Our language is very complex. In college I had a foreign exchange student from Japan come home with me for Christmas, and she is fluent in six languages. She told me that English was the most difficult language for her to learn and took her a lot longer to learn. And I won't be selling this book back either! :)
Phonemic awareness is spoken words, syllables and sounds. Substitute teaching has given me the opportunity to learn a number of different songs that teachers sing to their students. It is so cute when kindergarten students remember the months of the year by singing and doing the actions to the Macarena. I love books that rhyme and always pick these types of books for my read aloud. Assessing phonemic awareness seems like an easy task with the given checklist on page 92. I also like all the strategies and activities that were listed at the end of the chapter. This will be nice to have when tutoring our students. I did not realize the five vowel letters represented 19 different phonemes. This would be something I would not want to tell a student that is learning the vowel sounds. It might scare them. In Kindergarten my son would always get a sheet home with a certain number of letters on it and if he did not know a letter and needed to work on it, then it would be circled. The flip book seems easy to make and very helpful for students learning words in the “at” word family or any word family for that matter.
Aspen Rank – Chapters 4 & 5 Blog I found both of these chapters be extremely useful in my planning lessons for the upcoming tutoring sessions, especially since my kiddos are at the kindergarten level when it comes to phonemic awareness and phonics. As I first began the chapter, I read through the “seven dimensions of phonemic awareness” and was already able to mentally check off where my tutoring students might be on this list of dimensions, just from what I have determined from the parents. It appeared to me that the kids I will have might be around the fourth dimension and on. The fourth dimension states that students have the ability to distinguish oddity (which word in a list begins with an initial sound that is different from other words in the list) and moves on to the next three dimensions that address the students’ abilities to blend sounds, segment words orally and manipulate sounds orally to create new words. I feel that the tips that were given with each of these dimensions will be extremely useful to my tutoring sessions this summer. Moving through chapter four I found another section that will be super useful in my sessions. On page 86, the author addresses six ways students can benefit from explicit instruction on phonemic awareness and it seemed to me that the last three of these benefits apply tremendously to our sessions. The fourth on the list said that “instruction in phonemic awareness is more effective when taught with letter names,” the fifth “instruction in phonemic awareness is more effective when only one or two skills are taught in a session, instead of multiple skills,” and finally, the sixth states that “instruction in phonemic awareness is more effective when conducted in small groups, rather than individually or in classroom settings.” I thought that already we, the tutors, are ahead if we go by these three benefits! At the end of this chapter there were several different activities that I found that I may use in a few of my sessions, such as the “How Many Syllables in the Zoo?” activity on page 95 and the “Initial Sound Bingo” on page 97.
Just like chapter four, chapter five was also chalked full of information and usefully tips and ideas for teaching phonics to students in need of more instruction. Right off the bat, I was excited to see the “Phonics Glossary at a Glance” on page 109. I am going to copy this page and make sure to have it with me at all the tutoring sessions as a helpful resource and cheat sheet for myself. Each separate section of this chapter provided useful tips and information, ranging from the section on decoding to teacher modeling and so much more. I also felt it was helpful to see the five key principles that underlie phonics instruction, most specifically the third principle to provide explicit and extensive instruction. I know, for myself, the part of that section that addressed the phonics concepts involving one-syllable words was extremely informative. The word patterns in one-syllable words: CVC, CVCe, CVVC, and CVV were not something I knew about, so I was very happy to see these defined in this chapter. This chapter also had several activities I believe I may modify a bit to fit the abilities of my students this summer.
I was so glad they split the topics of phonemic awareness and phonics into two separate chapters. I know in our reading methods course we were taught the difference between the two topics, however I was really happy to see that these chapters took the time to define the two in greater depth to helps more understand the difference between the two, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I understand them better now! I also didn’t know that there were 19 different phonemes that come from the five vowel letters. It is amazing how our language has developed all these years. I know that I was not aware of the many vowel combinations until our readings methods course and this one! And yes, the flip book activity is defiantly an activity I will be suing with my kids this summer, as I know they will benefit greatly from this type of activity!
I found chapter 4 to be very interesting. I have been a substitute teacher for a few years and am very familiar with phonics concepts so chapter 5 was a review. Chapter 4 however, was very interesting to read. I never really thought about other languages not having the same phonemes as the English language. It makes sense now that I have read the chapter. I was very intrigued to read that Asian speakers do not use their tongue or lips to produce phonemes. It makes sense when you hear them talk. The Spanish language does not use as many phonemes as the English language uses. I was reading this information to my husband because he hires workers who speak Spanish and a little English. That language barrier is very difficult to get across. He understands the phoneme concept a little better than I because he has experience talking with Spanish speakers. I have recently started helping him out more with our business, roofing, since the hailstorm we had a week and a half ago. I have been on the phone with some of his employees and I just say “yes”, and “I’ll have Jesse call you,” because I cannot understand their English. He has been around them a lot more than I have and he has become used to their English speaking ability. It is very hard to understand them for me. After reading this chapter I understand why. How interesting. Chapter 5 was a review because I have been in classrooms where I have taught Saxon phonics. I think the phonics is great for the students and they pick it up well. It was like learning things all over again for me because you do have to learn how to code and the phonics terms when you teach. I am glad I have a little of the experience now. We did cvc patterns and syllables and coding everyday in my internship. Those students knew more than I did with coding. It is surely a learning process. I am unsure if I think that students need phonemic awareness to learn to read successfully. I have not done any research on this topic but from witnessing classroom instruction I would feel more comfortable going with phonemic awareness as being very important to learning to read.
Jenni P~ I agree, out language is complicated. I heard one time that it was the most difficult language to learn. I don't know if that is true but I would believe it. It is crazy how we have more phonemes than other languages. I don't remember learning to read but I know it was nothing like what is being taught today. I see students doing fine with the process though. I also appreciated the games at the end of each chapter. It is very helpful.
What can I say about these two chapters? I find myself amazed with this reading just like I did in Reading and Language Arts. Each time we are assigned to read something I actually find myself learning. What I mean is when I was growing up I moved around a lot so I met many different types of people and different accents. Many people have told me when I get excited or if I talk fast you can hear my Texas accent. So I will be the first to say that everything that we have learned or will be learning in this class is greatly appreciated. Being an adult I have found that there are some words that I have had a hard time saying. So in chapter 4 I like how it discusses introducing children to the wonderful sounds of our language. I will be working with students in the fifth grade. I know that many of them really enjoy listening to music so I plan on using songs. I also enjoy reading and writing poems so I am hoping that the students will enjoy it as well. Chapter four was just so full of great activities to do with the students that I am now wondering if I will have time to try them all. One of the things that jumped of the page in chapter five was on page 111 under consonants. It says that “Many struggling readers and English Learners have a difficult time distinguishing consonant sounds because they do not know the proper mouth position when they say the sound”. Having a child that had a problem pronouncing words, I now understand a bit more the frustration that he has gone through.
These two chapters cleared up a lot of fog in my head. As a para, I often hear teachers discuss phoneme segmentation, or diphthong, or diagraphs. Now, I feel educated! Actually, when I was reading through these chapters, I kept telling myself, "Oh, I could do that with Jamie (my soon to be kindergartener)!"
The English language is comprised of 44 phonemes! In chapter 4, it was interesting to read of the varying opinions of phoneme instruction. In the few years that I have been in education, I formed the opinion that phoneme instruction is crucial to fluent readers who comprehend well. Going back to my son Jamie, everyday, we practice phonemes. We will be in the car going to t-ball or eating supper and we will be practicing our sounds.
After reading these chapters, I can appreciate the author's intervention strategies. I have dog-eared several pages in hopes to use those strategies during my tutor time.
However, I still have this knot in my tummy that has formed because of nervousness. Really, look at all the information provided, not just in this book, but altogether, about reading. Sometimes, it is difficult to dig through all the good information and present only the best researched-based information to my students. I guess that is why we have assessments and rubrics and checklists!
Lacey Keller I know how you feel when you said you were nervous. I agree about all the different information and I just hope I don’t mess something up by forgetting something important this summer. The other thing that is making me feel so nervous is what should I use or should I start this way or that way? Hopefully we can hang in there and our nerves will ease.
Chapters four and five covered phonemic awareness and phonics. When I took Reading and Language Arts methods, I was unaware of how many phonograms sound the same but are spelled different. On the first day when we took the phonogram test, I was a bit shocked, to say the least. I always have to take a minute to remember the difference between phonics and phonemic awareness--phonics is written awareness and phonemic awareness is where the actual sound comes into play. I thought the same thing as Mrs. Stoppel when I first saw rime. I thought the book had made a mistake and spelled it wrong but after reading, I understood what they were explaining. Being a para-educator for over two years, and taking education classes, this is the first time I was introduced to the difference between rhyme and rime. I thought chapter four did a great job in explaining how difficult it is for ESOL students to "pick up" on our language. There are quite a few phonemes that are not even found in Spanish. Our language would not only be hard for Spanish speakers but Chinese, French, Greek, Italian and Japanese speakers as well. There are over ten English phonemes not part of the cultures listed above. A teacher should start out teaching an ESOL students phonemes that his or her language have in common with our language so they are not overwhelmed by what they are about to learn. Children love to sing, especially young children. Teaching them songs about rhyming is teaching them something while they are having fun! I am working with Kindergarten this summer so I was happy to see so many activities at the end of chapter four. I have seen some of them played in elementary school but many of them were new to me. In Chapter five, many new words were introduced to me. I have heard them before but never understood their meaning. A phoneme is the smallest unit of speech sound. A grapheme is the written representation of the phoneme. The Phonic sequence section in chapter five was very beneficial for me to read. It started at kindergarten and and listed the letters recommended in order. It also listed things up to third grade. There were also good activities at the end of chapter five. One of my favorite growing up was "Secret words."
Laceydk--I am also a para and have heard teachers talking about phonemes and segmentation. I now know what they were talking about. I usually asked right away if I did not understand something he or she was talking about. I agree with you about all the different opinions. Some people feel phonemic awareness if important while others feel it should be left out. I think it should be taught because in order to sound out a word, students must be able to recognize phonemes to pronounce the word correctly. You are not the only one nervous! I am lucky to be tutoring two close friends daughters. I worked in their classroom as a para and am around them quite often. Maybe it will help or maybe it will make it difficult. I guess I will find out. Good Luck!
I have been working as a Para in a kindergarten and 1st grade school for the past 2 ½ years. If I wouldn’t have been a Para chapter 4 would have been a complete shock for me. It’s amazing the things that I learned in that time from kindergarten and 1st grade phonics. There is so much information that those students must take in just to be able to read English. It is truly amazing the number of rules that students must know just in order to read a simple passage. It is also amazing to look at the number of phonemes that there are in English that aren’t included in Spanish. It is so interesting to look at the differences there are in the different languages. One thing that I found very interesting about Chapter 5 was when they talked about where the articulation of vowel sounds comes from. It’s very important that as a teacher you know these things so that you are able to tell your students how to make sounds. You can kind of show students how to make sounds, but they can’t really see the inside of your mouth and how you are making that sound. I also find it interesting to see how many different spellings there are for vowels and diphthongs. It really is no wonder some students have a hard time reading because there are so many rules and so many different spellings that they have to remember.
Lacey~ I'm also a little nervous about tutoring. We have so much information and it's hard to decide what to start with and what to try first. I also find it a little scary because you don't know what will work and I don't want to waste the students or parents time.
Jessica C. - I so agree with you. I have been substitute teaching for awhile now and glad that I have been exposed to some of this before now. Also Dr. Walizer helped us out too. I wish reading came easy to all students. I hate seeing students struggle with reading and I am glad that there are different ways to teach students how to read.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I love, love, love the information in the appendices. I found quite a few activities that I like in Appendix D while I was reading chapter 4 and then I realized that Appendix A is full of books and they are listed in a practical and helpful way. As much as I love Children’s literature, this is truly inspirational to me. I looked at the assessments in Appendix C also. A prominent thought in my head is: How did I buy this book used? Who would get rid of this book? Right away in the beginning of chapter 4 the introduction spoke to me where it said “It is the teacher’s responsibility to provide opportunities for children to experience joy in using the English language.” This is a charge I see with a sense of responsibility but also with a sense of purpose and excitement. Of course the phonemes in figure 4.1 made me think of the phonogram learning we did with Dr. Walizer in Reading and Language Arts (I was so happy to find those flashcards from Dr. Walizer in Blackboard). Chapter 4 is full of information that will be very beneficial in teaching reading. I really appreciated where it pointed out that many consonant blends are not Spanish phonemes, and then provided the charts in figures 4.2 and 4.3 to give the English phonemes that are not found in Spanish and the phonemes common to English and Spanish. I also liked how the text presented different information from different resources and different research. Page 86 discusses some of my favorite things about teaching and reading. It addresses that children need to be engaged in literacy activities to become aware of the sounds within words. It points out activities such as awareness games, nursery rhymes, poems, rhythmic activities and stories that use rhyme and onomatopoeia. This paragraph touches on something that felt very important to me when it said that phonemic awareness develops over time and it is important to give children many opportunities to develop it every day. Embedded in the chapter are more books and resources for teachers, which I loved. I have a lot of book titles highlighted. Again the book talked about the teacher’s responsibility when it said “It is a teacher’s responsibility to read with expression and to play with word sounds.” Chapter 4 also gave a list of resources of commercial phonemic awareness assessments. I found a lot of the activities to be helpful and relevant to the tutoring I will be doing. One activity I didn’t like was an activity on p. 104 that is called “Moving the Tiles.” I cannot wrap my head around how some of the words can have the first letter changed and should like a different word, but are not spelled the same. The words bait, Paul, heart, and height are corrected in parentheses. Chapter 5 pointed that Spanish, like English, has three deviations. The parts of chapter 5 that I liked the best were the Phonics at a Glance and the paragraph that talks about how articulation of vowels includes describing the shape of the mouth, the openness of the jaw and the position of the tongue. I like the accompanying picture that shows the different places in the mouth that the consonant sounds depending on the vowel (figure 5.3). There was other good information in chapter 5, but it didn’t excite me as much as chapter 4. The activity I liked the best in this Chapter was the flip books. Somewhere in one the chapters mentioned the book Is Your Mama a Llama? which is one of my all time favorite children’s books.
Phonemic Awareness is part of the foundation for reading. Chapter 4 spoke about when children are actively engaged and involved while participating in literacy activities, they become aware of the sounds within words just by listening. They can learn through games and activities that were mentioned in the book, as well as involving them in fun activities in the classroom when teaching reading. When I went to school, it was very strict. All the desks were in straight rows. The teacher would get up and lecture on a subject and we were expected to listen and not get distracted. However, when it was time to have a fun classroom activity, everyone became involved and had a good time learning. Listening is a good trait to learn but it is just as important to learn to have fun while reading and even learning to read. I really like this book. It takes us through step-by-step process of how to teach. The five principals of phonics instruction is something that I will definitely follow. Probably, one of the most important sentence I read in chapter’s 4 and 5 was “effective teachers asses what students already know and build on that knowledge.” It is important that we must not get caught up in the schedules we make of what we need to accomplish throughout this summer in tutoring or even when we have our classrooms. We need to focus on teaching the children as if stacking building blocks on top of each other. We do need to follow a schedule and get through everything so that at the end of the year we are not cramming information into their heads. However, in tutoring we can take extra time to teach on a particular area and that is what can be a lot of fun.
It is amazing to me how kids can soak up so much information yet have so much energy. It is almost as if the more information they learn, the more energy they have. There is a lot of information that is taught to children in learning how to read and it is amazing how fast they pick up on all the rules of phonics. But it is also important that we remember to not go to fast when teaching reading that it takes students to frustration levels.
These two chapters have been very helpful on teaching phonemic awareness and phonics to students through fun activities. A few activities were mentioned in the Shanker book as well, but academic activities are always great to look over and be refreshed on. I believe that since there are many rules with the English language, academic games, stories, songs, and chants are always useful for students to have fun while learning.
On page 118, I thought the word sort with picture cads would be an excellent way to see if the students know the letter-sound relationship. First, I thought this task may be hard for the students, but then again, this activity would be a great enrichment for them. With that in mind, now I want to use it within my lesson as a fun enrichment activity.
Overall, like the book and many instructors have mentioned, as teachers, our lessons need to engage in more meaningful literacy tasks. I definitely know how important this is because I tend to drift off when a lesson is being taught to me and it is not meaningful. However, now I feel more equip to teach students with more meaningful literacy tasks due to these past four chapters since they have enlightened me on other ways to introduce letters, sounds, and words to students. Furthermore, I am excited to teach students through meaningful literacy tasks, so that they will not feel like their time is being wasted.
Responds to Lacey Keller and George P.:
I am very nervous too about teaching students the correct information, on when and what I should teach them. Already I feel like I wasted part of their time due to doing the assessments with them. I know that I need to do these tests with them, but two of the students work faster than the other students and to me, I’ll admit, I’m struggling with keeping them all on the same lesson. However, today, the two fast paced students were absence; therefore, I was able to advance my slower paced student! I also learned that my slower paced student reads better on a computer than on paper. Now I’m not for sure on if I should give him more computer time to improve his reading speed or if I should continue working with him by reading from regular books. I suppose this is all part of reflecting as a teacher and what would be best for each student. Good luck and great posts!
Joel, Great similie comparing learning to building blocks! How true it is that teachers often times cram knowledge into our little ones' heads. When I was developing my lessons one and two, I was reading it to my hubby. He replied, "Gee, you think you are going to get all that done in one hour?" Well, I am going to try my darndest! However, with kindergarten, it is important to have plenty of activities planned and keep them moving. And, if I don't get them all done in an hour, there is always tomorrow!
As I approached reading chapters 4 and 5, continued understanding of Phonemic Awareness (PA) and Phonics validated my current understanding, just as we had learned in our ROE and SHANKER texts in RLA…….Having a CORE understanding of what Phonemic Awareness & Phonics actually is; is extremely important to the successes of our teaching and our student’s intake and learning. The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds, essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word; essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system.
We MUST always remember that an important distinction * Phonemic awareness is not phonics. * Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve words in print.
One of the most important foundations of reading success is phonemic awareness. Phonemes are the basic speech sounds that are represented by the letters of the alphabet, and phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are sequences of phonemes. Phonemic awareness is demonstrated by the ability to identify and manipulate sounds within spoken words. Students can learn to assemble phonemes into words as well as break words into their phonemes even before they are writing letters or words. Giving our students experience with rhyming words in the preschool years is an effective first step toward building phonemic awareness. Hearing rhymes, and then producing rhymes for given words, requires children to focus on the sounds inside words. Rhyming activities initiate phonemic awareness. The reading and re-reading of books with clear, simple rhymes offer abundant and fun opportunities for direct instruction in rhyming and the beginnings of phonemic awareness.
Phonemic awareness is an insight about oral language. There is evidence to suggest that the relation between phonemic awareness and learning to read is reciprocal: phonemic awareness supports reading acquisition, and reading instruction and experiences with print facilitate phonemic awareness development. Our students’ awareness of onsets (the initial consonant of a word or syllable) and rimes (everything after the initial consonant in a one-syllable word or in syllables, traditionally referred to as phonograms or word families) is related to success in beginning reading. Therefore children should be taught to identify and manipulate these sound units. Students in kindergarten should be introduced to common phonograms. In addition to building phonemic awareness, providing instruction with phonograms also prepares children for reading words by analogy. Teaching recognition of particular phonemes in word contexts may help beginners gain insight into the alphabetic principle and apply their insights in early word identification. Implicit teaching of phoneme awareness involves word play through rhyme and alliteration, and games that involve manipulation of sounds in names, songs, poetry and drama. Students who are not progressing with implicit teaching will benefit from structured teaching. Phonics instruction (and following the 5 principles)reading is an important part of helping students learn to read. Most phonics programs teach children the relationship between each letter and its sound. Learning phonics is an excellent foundation for students learning to read and spell. When learning to read, a student can become easily frustrated, which can lead to a future hostility towards reading that can last for years. Parents and teachers want to help their children to learn and love to read; one successful way to do this is by teaching phonics and learning phonics.
Reply to Cody: Cody, I too; am STILL amazed about all the information we learn about Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction techniques. I know that our instructors cannot stress enough, the complete understanding of using the proper tools to achieve results that our students NEED to become successful in reaching their literacy goals now and into the future. Happy Tutoring!! Nöelle
Chapter four was about phonemic awareness. I remember going over this in the reading internship and class, but I do not recall going over the dimensions of phonemic awareness. This helped me realize some differences between ‘phonics’ and ‘phonemic awareness’. Phonemic awareness is all about sound, manipulating sounds, hearing rimes and rhythm, and distinguishing between sounds. Phonics is about the relationship between the sounds and the letters (covered more in chapter five). It is interesting the controversy that was discussed over whether teachers should even teach phonemic awareness. I remember being taught phonics as a child, but do not clearly remember being taught all of the aspects of phonemic awareness. Because I was a student then and merely a child, I am sure everything was taught to me. I just can’t remember those specifics steps taken in learning how to read. I continue to be amazed at how much actually goes into learning to read and comprehending what is read. This being said, I am extremely nervous about tutoring! In my opinion (which has little research to back as of yet), I feel that phonemic awareness is important. Once children understand the dimensions of phonemic awareness, I feel the reading experience in general will be better and thus more enjoyable for the students. I am excited to tackle some tongue twisters with my students! I did them often as I was in choir and would love to see what my students can do with them. Overall, intimidated by trying to assess their phonemic awareness, but feel the Cooter, Flint, and Cooter book is a great tool to help me in this area. The thing that stood out the most to me in chapter five was the section that talked about English language learns and trying to master the sounds of the English language. I live in Texas and thus completely understand and hear this difficulty everyday. With English being my native (and basically only) language, it is often times extremely difficult to understand some people of different backgrounds! Working in retail, this can be frustrating, particularly for the person trying to communicate with me. I can’t even tell you how many times I have been embarrassed by hearing something other than what the person said. I am hoping the time I have had in such diverse classrooms here will help to prepare me for that situation. I loved the activity on page 125 where you select two words, a beginning and end word with the same amount of letters. Then, have the students change one letter at a time to get to the end word. You could make it more difficult by limiting the number of times they can change the word to get to the end result.
Reply to Noelle: Thanks for all of the information you loaded into your post! I took a different approach this time and talked mostly about the thoughts that came into my mind as I was reading the chapters. Students can become easily frustrated and with the dimensions of phonemic awareness, I think we can help greatly as teachers. It is important also to find things they will enjoy to read as well to ease their frustrations! I am curious to hear other arguments about whether or not to teach phonemic awareness in class! Thanks for sharing!!
I am glad to have some clarification between phonemic awareness and phonics. While student teaching in the Spring I had heard the two terms used but no one seemed to quit know the difference in the two…I do find it confusing. The text broke it down in ways I could understand it. In the questions posed starting on page 84: Can and should phonemic awareness be taught? I tend to agree with the notion that it should be taught but should come after children know letter names and some sounds. I think we tend to throw to much to them at once and it can be difficult for them. The next question regards phonemic awareness as being necessary to become proficient readers-I think it is necessary for students to be aware that words are made up of different sounds. The next-do student’s benefit from intense, explicit instruction-I agree different students need different amounts and forms of instruction. This is something that should be decided on an individual basis-we have to keep in the mind each student has their own learning style. I especially loved that both chapters had lots of activities and strategies that can be used in the classroom. I find it beneficial to have examples of what the text is trying to explain. Being a first year teacher this text supplies us with a nice basis for our classrooms. Reading these chapters reminds me how hard the English language actually can be to learn. We never really think about how we speak. There is really so much to it that I think we take for granted. I have a new appreciation for those trying to learn our language.
Noelle-I so agree with you on having a CORE understanding of what Phonemic Awareness and Phoncs actually mean. I find it very confusing when depicting between the two but I am sure that will get better with actually working with each. I find I can’t get enough information on either right now to make it all make sense to me. I am going to copy and paste your bulleted distinctions between the two and put it someplace so that I am always aware of the distinction.
Thresa Lass- I am wondering how you have done student teaching already if you haven't completed this class? It was just a question that popped into my head while reading your blog.
Both of these chapters helped me significantly. It was nice to read about activities involving phonemic awareness that are fun for students. I feel a lot better about phonemic awareness and phonics now for my tutoring.
When Dr. Walizer taught phonemic awareness in my reading internship, I completely forgot how far back you have to start with children and how much detail there is in reading. As we get older, everything just becomes so natural to us and we tend to forget about phonograms and beginning sounds. Phonemic awareness and phonics are very overwhelming to me when I am working on lesson plans or just thinking about them. I learn more and more everyday about phonics and phonemic awareness and how important they both are in the process of teaching reading. I enjoyed reading five principles for phonic instruction. Students need to be taught the relationships between letters and their sounds. During my reading internship last spring semester, I worked with a few students who had a difficult time reading. I worked with them one on one out in the hall some days and just by telling them phonograms that I was learning from Dr. Walizer at the time seemed to help them. It is sad that some of our students miss out on these important beginning steps. Both of these chapters really helped me feel more comfortable with phonemic awareness and teaching phonics for tutoring!
Response to George P. I agree with the statement in chapter five that you mentioned in your blog, it caught my eye as well. When I worked with DIBELS during summer school a few years ago, they trained me using a mirror to help the children watch their mouth movements. I would ask the student to make the /l/ sound and he/she would watch the movements my mouth and tongue made when making the /l/ sound. Then, he/she would look in the mirror and do the same.
I had so many flashbacks to Dr. Walizer's class reading this chapter. Its so embarrassing to admit, but I had a very poor background in phonemic awareness before her class last semester. I still think I could grow in the area of phonemic awareness and if I had to pick my weakest area, it would be this one. I think because I know it is my weakness, I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I felt I really got a lot out of it. First thing I enjoyed was reading more in depth the areas of phonemic awareness. I also really loved reading the strategies for teaching phonemic awareness. My fiancee was looking at me funny as I was trying to do the hand motions that went along with "Hickory Dickory Dock". I also sat here and tried out the jump roping jingles. To sum up what I'm trying to say, I really think this area of reading is super important and this chapter did a great job for giving us a strong background and the tools we need to teach it.
Chapter 5
Wow! Was anyone else overwhelmed a little when they read over the "Phonics Glossary at a glance"? They are terms we have already learned, but to have it laid out in front of you like that and to see how many parts to phonics there really are is intense! When I got to the part of the chapter that has the intervention strategies, one thing I liked was how all the ideas (for the most part) span several grade levels. I like when a strategy can be used in different grade levels because I'm not sure what grade I'm going to be teaching yet and I like to feel like I am ready for whatever I'm given!
Re: Thresa Lass
I was in the same boat as you! I had no idea what the difference was between phonemic awareness and phonics. However, I do feel like I could easily make distinctions between the two. Also, I think you answered that question well about if the two should be taught! I think these two chapters really seemed to clear up some confusion for me, and I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one :)
While reading chapter four I remembered a question I had for Mrs. Stoppel. When I was doing phoneme segmentation with my Kindergarten group last semester I would have them segment the word but still spell it correctly. I asked the Title teacher if this was the correct way of doing it and she said that's how she would do it so the students wouldn't get confused about how to properly spell the word. I will give you an example so you know what I am talking about. If the word was "five" I would have them segment it as /f/ /i/ /ve/. This way they knew that the "e" was silent but since you can't hear it, it's attached to the "v". I just want to make sure I am doing it correctly! I know the students loved doing phoneme segmentation. Each student would have their own white board and we would see who could finish with the correct answer first.
A word that I hadn't heard before that I read is "onomatopoeia". I am wondering if I am the only person who hasn't heard this word and perhaps might not even say it correctly. Oh wait! I just figured out how to pronounce it and I have heard it obviously! Wow...blonde moment! :)
I really liked the "Hush Little Baby" activity where the child could add lines to it. I think this a great thing for mother's as well! I read about Mother Goose and it reminded me of when I was little. I can't even tell you how many times my poor parents had to listen to them! I would watch them over and over and over. Loved them! I asked my mom the other day if she still had them so my daughter could watch them.
I found it very interesting to see which phonemes were only found in the English language. No wonder it's so hard for ESOL students to speak English. Page 104 listed three websites that I plan to bookmark to build phonemic awareness. I can also use them with my daughter which is great. I have used pbskids.org before but not the other two.
Chapter five gave a phonics glossary that I find very helpful. It's always nice to have one location to go to that lists everything you need to know about a subject. While reading through it I came across nasal consonants. I have never heard this term before but when I pronounced the letters listed I understood why they were given that name. I love learning something every day! Last semester I focused on word families so I am familiar with the term "rime" but when I first came across it I thought the book misspelled it as well like Mrs. Stoppel thought. Now I know differently though and I don't understand why they just don't leave it "word family".
While reading the paragraph about consonants on page 111 I thought about my niece who cannot pronounce the hard "c" sound. I noticed that I had a very hard time understanding her and couldn't figure out why. I started to ask her to say words so I could figure out what sound she was struggling with. When I asked her to say "cookie" she said "tootie". Anyways I have probably wrote enough! Both chapters were very informative and it was nice to distinguish between phoneme segmentation and phonics.
.Chapter 4 I will be able to recall on this chapter this fall when I do my student teaching. in a Kindergartner classroom. One are that I really enjoyed reading and on of the areas that I learned the most from this chapter is the dimensions of phonemic awareness. I don't recall learning the 7 dimensions is the past, but it was great to see how it all come together. One of the biggest parts of this chapter that I found helpful, in the future classroom are figures 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4. All three of those charts will help with working with and understand ELL/ESL students. Starting on page 86 through page 91 are great tools for teachers to use. I really enjoy how with the nursery rhymes it gives motions to do with it. At the end of the chapter there is a list of activities that can be used to help assess a students Phonemic Awareness level. I believe that unless a student has a strong back ground in Phonemic Awareness that they will not be able to read or even spell with success. Chapter 5: Phonics Phonics is just as important as Phonemic Awareness and with out it a student will not be able to read nor spell with much success. In this chapter the author identifies five principles of phonic instruction, all five are of equal importance and a good teacher will use all five concepts in their teaching and lessons. One thing that I enjoyed in this chapter is the examples for assessments at the end of the chapter. I have seen my daughter’s teacher use those and I can remember teachers from when I was in elementary school doing similarly things.
Alexandra Westfall- I agree I completely had flashback to Dr. W's class. I had forgotten that we read this book in her class. I this time am reading it in more detail. The 2nd time is always better right?!
Susanna: I hear what you are saying about being nervous. It seems like a lot of work and responsibility! I am very nervous! I thought the controversy about teaching phonemic awareness and how to teach phonics were interesting. I was glad that the book presented the different opinions and research and information.
I was glad that the book discussed the problems that ESOL students have. I really appreciated that the book gave the common phonemes for English and Spanish and pointed out the phonemes in English that are not present in Spanish.
Like you, I remember doing phonics but I can't remember all the steps in learning how to read. I'm not sure many people can remember because you are so young. My daughter is six and just starting to read. I'm sure when she gets older she won't remember how she learned she will just know that she can read! To me that is one of the most enjoyable aspects of teaching children and being a parent, is watching children go from learning words to putting words together and reading. I think most people probably take reading for granted and assume everybody can read but that is not the case. I am also extremely nervous about tutoring! I want to start so the nervousness will subside. My biggest fear is the students won't be interested and will hate coming. I want to make it fun for them so they can enjoy reading. One of the boys I'm tutoring told me today that he hates reading. I hope to change his mind by the end of the summer! Good luck to you. I'm sure you will do fine!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think it's great that you have been a para in the younger grades for a few years and I bet you have been learning a lot while you have been there. I liked that you mentioned the point that the authors discussed in chapter four about phonetic awareness among ESL students. I think that the area of reaching out to these students represents a large opportunity for teachers to help build fluency in schools. Keep up the good work!
In response to Jessica C.- When you were talking about being a para in a first grade school and how you learned so much from just being there, it made me think of a time when I was substituting for first grade. I hadn't taken any internships yet and was called to sub for a first grade class. In the lesson plan I was supposed to teach a new phonogram. When I looked through the book I was so confused! I was like...how in the world am I going to do this. I wasn't familiar with teaching phonograms and really had no idea that this was a step in learning to read. The para that was in the room offered to do it for me because she had been there every day and knew all the little sayings for each phonogram. I just stood back and watched in amazement and was thinking she should be the sub! Anyways, during Dr. Walizer's class I had that "aha" moment when I saw her teaching the phonograms. I was like oh my goodness! That's what they were doing in that first grade class! I am glad to be more educated now because I am subbing again next semester and don't feel that in the dark again! You said you taught in a Kindergarten and first grade school. You must live in a very big area because where I live it's K-12 all in ONE building!
Chapters four and five were full of useful information about phonetic awareness and phonics instruction. These two areas of teaching contain many similarities, as discussed in these two chapters, and it is so important that teachers take time to work with students in developing strengths in these areas.
As I was reading, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my fall 2010 internship in a first grade classroom. This internship was for the Reading and Language Arts methods course and my mentor teacher was also a certified reading specialist. She spent extensive amounts of time in her classroom building literacy by continuously practicing phonograms, and vowel/consonant sounds with the students. She made the practice activities fun and gave the children extra opportunities to be silly and laugh while they were practicing the sounds. It didn’t make much sense to me at the time, and I often thought that it was an excuse for the children to slack off. However, much of chapters four and five changed my thinking.
These chapters taught me the value of making the learning fun, especially in phonics and phonemic awareness. Teaching children songs, poems and tongue-twisters all help the students learn in different ways. I am looking forward to using some of these fun ideas during my tutoring sessions.
Including all the great information I love how the text uses ideas on how to implement the techniques (especially the Intervention activities at the end). I am the type of learner who does best with examples. When the book was talking about rimes I did not understand until an example was given. It amazes me how relearning all these simple things becomes so complex.
I found it really interesting when the text talked about the phonemes for other languages. It was an eye opening experience to understand that some languages hove so many more than English while some (like Spanish) have less.
The text also helped me understand why silly songs, nursery rhymes and poems are so important for children. "It is a teacher's responsibility to read with expression and to play with word sounds. Drawing attention to the sounds wihin words while taking pleasure in reading poems, riddles, stories and other texts is the best means to develop children's phonemic awareness."
In the phonics section the biggest takeaway I got was in how students learn phonics. I'm sure that I was taught before, but I never realized the pattern that letters make to create words. CVC (hat)The pattern is then used by our brain to decode words. The whole process really is fascinating!
Again the Intervention activities are great! I cannot wait to use some of the ideas for my lesson plans.
In response to Desiree I also loved the "Hush Little Baby" activity. It is amazing to me how the old stuff is still so effective. I look forward to implementing the old stuff but in a new way. I'm not sure how, but I'm guessing technology will have something to do with it.
Chapter 4: Phonemic awareness
ReplyDeleteAs I read this chapter I remembered how “uneducated” I felt when Dr. Walizer was teaching us the phonemes. I really wanted to be able to teach my students in a way that did not overwhelm them. As I went through the chapter I highlighted some activities that I thought would be fun. I really liked the idea of songs! I think this would be a great way for my students to practice! I also know they would love doing “tongue twisters!” I also found the checklist on page 92 to be very helpful! I think this would be great to use for assessment! This chapter was full of ideas and strategies for teaching our students! I will look back at this chapter a lot!
Question: I will be working with students that will be fourth graders next year. If they do not have any background of phonemes, is that too much to try and teach them in 5 weeks? I think it is important and would be very beneficial, but I do not want to give them more than they can handle.
This reading allowed me to look at phonemic awareness with a lot more confidence. I used to think of this and literally get scared! But as I read and relate back to what I have learned, I realized that I am ready and what I am learning is sticking and allowing me to become a better teacher!
This chapter truly reminded me of being a confused student that did not have a clue what I was being taught. I don’t want my students to feel like this and therefore when approaching phonemic awareness with my students I want to do it in way that is fun and is not overwhelming!
Chapter 5: Phonics
Chapter five had a lot of great information also! I liked the phonics glossary at a glance! That was a nice review for me! I also found the articulation of vowel sounds interesting! I can officially say that I learned something new today! Also I took the liberty of copying the information in figure 5.2 for a chart for my students! What a great way to lay it all out for them to see! I also found the principles to be very helpful. Overall I am very impressed with this book so far and how the information is laid out! And of course once again; great activities!
Question: At what age or grade level do students begin learning to recognize the long vowel sounds with different spellings? I would love to use this activity but am not sure if this is too much for a third grader.
This reading overall gave me a great review! It is amazing how much you learn and yet how much there is to remember. This chapter was a really good refresher read for me!
I really struggled with vowel sounds spelled different ways when I was in school. I really relate to the struggle that I am sure many students are having. I want to use this information to ensure that the students do not struggle as much as I did with this concept.
Every time I read about phonics and phonemic awareness I am overwhelmed by how complicated our language is. As an adult I never think about the rules that I know that allow me to read different and new words but watching children learn to read really opens my eyes to what they are trying to tackle every time they read. It is amazing to me how quickly they seem to catch on and adapt to the rules. It seems to me every class I take is really emphasizing the differences between Spanish and English and how we need to be ready to accommodate these students accordingly. It is very interesting to read that English has 44 phonemes and Spanish has only 24 sounds. I also had no idea that the different languages also have different phoneme placement. This just shows me that I need to be patient and really look for ways to help these students get lots of practice to succeed. I liked that the text about knowing the mouth positions for sounds. As I have worked with my own children and others I have noticed this. My son’s name is Kaiser and going into preschool he called himself, Taiser. Just showing him how my mouth made the sounds enabled him to switch almost immediately. It was amazing. Being observant will be extremely necessary to pick up on learning difficulties and helping the children adapt and succeed. After reading chapter 5 I can see now more than ever why rhyming is so helpful and important. There was so much information in these chapters I can see that I will be referring back to them as I go. The activities at the end of the chapters are awesome and the printables in the appendix are worth a lot. I can’t wait to use some of them this Summer.
ReplyDeleteLanewberry, I am also overwhelmed with how much information there is in these chapters. Like you I can see that these will be helpful in the future. I am curious to see what the children that I am going to tutor will know and where I will need to start. I too am very impressed with the text and look forward to using some of the activities given, this will not be one of those that I will sell back. I like what you said about using songs, I learn better that way and it makes learning fun.
ReplyDeleteJenni P: I am also at fault for not making myself aware of the rules of our language as an adult! Our language is very complex. In college I had a foreign exchange student from Japan come home with me for Christmas, and she is fluent in six languages. She told me that English was the most difficult language for her to learn and took her a lot longer to learn. And I won't be selling this book back either! :)
ReplyDeletePhonemic awareness is spoken words, syllables and sounds. Substitute teaching has given me the opportunity to learn a number of different songs that teachers sing to their students. It is so cute when kindergarten students remember the months of the year by singing and doing the actions to the Macarena. I love books that rhyme and always pick these types of books for my read aloud. Assessing phonemic awareness seems like an easy task with the given checklist on page 92. I also like all the strategies and activities that were listed at the end of the chapter. This will be nice to have when tutoring our students.
ReplyDeleteI did not realize the five vowel letters represented 19 different phonemes. This would be something I would not want to tell a student that is learning the vowel sounds. It might scare them. In Kindergarten my son would always get a sheet home with a certain number of letters on it and if he did not know a letter and needed to work on it, then it would be circled. The flip book seems easy to make and very helpful for students learning words in the “at” word family or any word family for that matter.
Aspen Rank – Chapters 4 & 5 Blog
ReplyDeleteI found both of these chapters be extremely useful in my planning lessons for the upcoming tutoring sessions, especially since my kiddos are at the kindergarten level when it comes to phonemic awareness and phonics. As I first began the chapter, I read through the “seven dimensions of phonemic awareness” and was already able to mentally check off where my tutoring students might be on this list of dimensions, just from what I have determined from the parents. It appeared to me that the kids I will have might be around the fourth dimension and on. The fourth dimension states that students have the ability to distinguish oddity (which word in a list begins with an initial sound that is different from other words in the list) and moves on to the next three dimensions that address the students’ abilities to blend sounds, segment words orally and manipulate sounds orally to create new words. I feel that the tips that were given with each of these dimensions will be extremely useful to my tutoring sessions this summer. Moving through chapter four I found another section that will be super useful in my sessions. On page 86, the author addresses six ways students can benefit from explicit instruction on phonemic awareness and it seemed to me that the last three of these benefits apply tremendously to our sessions. The fourth on the list said that “instruction in phonemic awareness is more effective when taught with letter names,” the fifth “instruction in phonemic awareness is more effective when only one or two skills are taught in a session, instead of multiple skills,” and finally, the sixth states that “instruction in phonemic awareness is more effective when conducted in small groups, rather than individually or in classroom settings.” I thought that already we, the tutors, are ahead if we go by these three benefits! At the end of this chapter there were several different activities that I found that I may use in a few of my sessions, such as the “How Many Syllables in the Zoo?” activity on page 95 and the “Initial Sound Bingo” on page 97.
Just like chapter four, chapter five was also chalked full of information and usefully tips and ideas for teaching phonics to students in need of more instruction. Right off the bat, I was excited to see the “Phonics Glossary at a Glance” on page 109. I am going to copy this page and make sure to have it with me at all the tutoring sessions as a helpful resource and cheat sheet for myself. Each separate section of this chapter provided useful tips and information, ranging from the section on decoding to teacher modeling and so much more. I also felt it was helpful to see the five key principles that underlie phonics instruction, most specifically the third principle to provide explicit and extensive instruction. I know, for myself, the part of that section that addressed the phonics concepts involving one-syllable words was extremely informative. The word patterns in one-syllable words: CVC, CVCe, CVVC, and CVV were not something I knew about, so I was very happy to see these defined in this chapter. This chapter also had several activities I believe I may modify a bit to fit the abilities of my students this summer.
RE: Melissa G –
ReplyDeleteI was so glad they split the topics of phonemic awareness and phonics into two separate chapters. I know in our reading methods course we were taught the difference between the two topics, however I was really happy to see that these chapters took the time to define the two in greater depth to helps more understand the difference between the two, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I understand them better now! I also didn’t know that there were 19 different phonemes that come from the five vowel letters. It is amazing how our language has developed all these years. I know that I was not aware of the many vowel combinations until our readings methods course and this one! And yes, the flip book activity is defiantly an activity I will be suing with my kids this summer, as I know they will benefit greatly from this type of activity!
I found chapter 4 to be very interesting. I have been a substitute teacher for a few years and am very familiar with phonics concepts so chapter 5 was a review. Chapter 4 however, was very interesting to read. I never really thought about other languages not having the same phonemes as the English language. It makes sense now that I have read the chapter. I was very intrigued to read that Asian speakers do not use their tongue or lips to produce phonemes. It makes sense when you hear them talk. The Spanish language does not use as many phonemes as the English language uses. I was reading this information to my husband because he hires workers who speak Spanish and a little English. That language barrier is very difficult to get across. He understands the phoneme concept a little better than I because he has experience talking with Spanish speakers. I have recently started helping him out more with our business, roofing, since the hailstorm we had a week and a half ago. I have been on the phone with some of his employees and I just say “yes”, and “I’ll have Jesse call you,” because I cannot understand their English. He has been around them a lot more than I have and he has become used to their English speaking ability. It is very hard to understand them for me. After reading this chapter I understand why. How interesting.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 was a review because I have been in classrooms where I have taught Saxon phonics. I think the phonics is great for the students and they pick it up well. It was like learning things all over again for me because you do have to learn how to code and the phonics terms when you teach. I am glad I have a little of the experience now. We did cvc patterns and syllables and coding everyday in my internship. Those students knew more than I did with coding. It is surely a learning process.
I am unsure if I think that students need phonemic awareness to learn to read successfully. I have not done any research on this topic but from witnessing classroom instruction I would feel more comfortable going with phonemic awareness as being very important to learning to read.
Jenni P~ I agree, out language is complicated. I heard one time that it was the most difficult language to learn. I don't know if that is true but I would believe it. It is crazy how we have more phonemes than other languages. I don't remember learning to read but I know it was nothing like what is being taught today. I see students doing fine with the process though. I also appreciated the games at the end of each chapter. It is very helpful.
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say about these two chapters? I find myself amazed with this reading just like I did in Reading and Language Arts. Each time we are assigned to read something I actually find myself learning. What I mean is when I was growing up I moved around a lot so I met many different types of people and different accents. Many people have told me when I get excited or if I talk fast you can hear my Texas accent. So I will be the first to say that everything that we have learned or will be learning in this class is greatly appreciated. Being an adult I have found that there are some words that I have had a hard time saying.
ReplyDeleteSo in chapter 4 I like how it discusses introducing children to the wonderful sounds of our language. I will be working with students in the fifth grade. I know that many of them really enjoy listening to music so I plan on using songs. I also enjoy reading and writing poems so I am hoping that the students will enjoy it as well. Chapter four was just so full of great activities to do with the students that I am now wondering if I will have time to try them all.
One of the things that jumped of the page in chapter five was on page 111 under consonants. It says that “Many struggling readers and English Learners have a difficult time distinguishing consonant sounds because they do not know the proper mouth position when they say the sound”. Having a child that had a problem pronouncing words, I now understand a bit more the frustration that he has gone through.
Lacey Keller
ReplyDeleteChapter 4 and 5
These two chapters cleared up a lot of fog in my head. As a para, I often hear teachers discuss phoneme segmentation, or diphthong, or diagraphs. Now, I feel educated! Actually, when I was reading through these chapters, I kept telling myself, "Oh, I could do that with Jamie (my soon to be kindergartener)!"
The English language is comprised of 44 phonemes! In chapter 4, it was interesting to read of the varying opinions of phoneme instruction. In the few years that I have been in education, I formed the opinion that phoneme instruction is crucial to fluent readers who comprehend well. Going back to my son Jamie, everyday, we practice phonemes. We will be in the car going to t-ball or eating supper and we will be practicing our sounds.
After reading these chapters, I can appreciate the author's intervention strategies. I have dog-eared several pages in hopes to use those strategies during my tutor time.
However, I still have this knot in my tummy that has formed because of nervousness. Really, look at all the information provided, not just in this book, but altogether, about reading. Sometimes, it is difficult to dig through all the good information and present only the best researched-based information to my students. I guess that is why we have assessments and rubrics and checklists!
Lacey Keller
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel when you said you were nervous. I agree about all the different information and I just hope I don’t mess something up by forgetting something important this summer. The other thing that is making me feel so nervous is what should I use or should I start this way or that way? Hopefully we can hang in there and our nerves will ease.
Chapters four and five covered phonemic awareness and phonics. When I took Reading and Language Arts methods, I was unaware of how many phonograms sound the same but are spelled different. On the first day when we took the phonogram test, I was a bit shocked, to say the least. I always have to take a minute to remember the difference between phonics and phonemic awareness--phonics is written awareness and phonemic awareness is where the actual sound comes into play. I thought the same thing as Mrs. Stoppel when I first saw rime. I thought the book had made a mistake and spelled it wrong but after reading, I understood what they were explaining. Being a para-educator for over two years, and taking education classes, this is the first time I was introduced to the difference between rhyme and rime. I thought chapter four did a great job in explaining how difficult it is for ESOL students to "pick up" on our language. There are quite a few phonemes that are not even found in Spanish. Our language would not only be hard for Spanish speakers but Chinese, French, Greek, Italian and Japanese speakers as well. There are over ten English phonemes not part of the cultures listed above. A teacher should start out teaching an ESOL students phonemes that his or her language have in common with our language so they are not overwhelmed by what they are about to learn.
ReplyDeleteChildren love to sing, especially young children. Teaching them songs about rhyming is teaching them something while they are having fun!
I am working with Kindergarten this summer so I was happy to see so many activities at the end of chapter four. I have seen some of them played in elementary school but many of them were new to me.
In Chapter five, many new words were introduced to me. I have heard them before but never understood their meaning. A phoneme is the smallest unit of speech sound. A grapheme is the written representation of the phoneme.
The Phonic sequence section in chapter five was very beneficial for me to read. It started at kindergarten and and listed the letters recommended in order. It also listed things up to third grade. There were also good activities at the end of chapter five. One of my favorite growing up was "Secret words."
Laceydk--I am also a para and have heard teachers talking about phonemes and segmentation. I now know what they were talking about. I usually asked right away if I did not understand something he or she was talking about. I agree with you about all the different opinions. Some people feel phonemic awareness if important while others feel it should be left out. I think it should be taught because in order to sound out a word, students must be able to recognize phonemes to pronounce the word correctly.
ReplyDeleteYou are not the only one nervous! I am lucky to be tutoring two close friends daughters. I worked in their classroom as a para and am around them quite often. Maybe it will help or maybe it will make it difficult. I guess I will find out. Good Luck!
I have been working as a Para in a kindergarten and 1st grade school for the past 2 ½ years. If I wouldn’t have been a Para chapter 4 would have been a complete shock for me. It’s amazing the things that I learned in that time from kindergarten and 1st grade phonics. There is so much information that those students must take in just to be able to read English. It is truly amazing the number of rules that students must know just in order to read a simple passage. It is also amazing to look at the number of phonemes that there are in English that aren’t included in Spanish. It is so interesting to look at the differences there are in the different languages.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I found very interesting about Chapter 5 was when they talked about where the articulation of vowel sounds comes from. It’s very important that as a teacher you know these things so that you are able to tell your students how to make sounds. You can kind of show students how to make sounds, but they can’t really see the inside of your mouth and how you are making that sound. I also find it interesting to see how many different spellings there are for vowels and diphthongs. It really is no wonder some students have a hard time reading because there are so many rules and so many different spellings that they have to remember.
Lacey~
ReplyDeleteI'm also a little nervous about tutoring. We have so much information and it's hard to decide what to start with and what to try first. I also find it a little scary because you don't know what will work and I don't want to waste the students or parents time.
Jessica C. - I so agree with you. I have been substitute teaching for awhile now and glad that I have been exposed to some of this before now. Also Dr. Walizer helped us out too. I wish reading came easy to all students. I hate seeing students struggle with reading and I am glad that there are different ways to teach students how to read.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know about anyone else, but I love, love, love the information in the appendices. I found quite a few activities that I like in Appendix D while I was reading chapter 4 and then I realized that Appendix A is full of books and they are listed in a practical and helpful way. As much as I love Children’s literature, this is truly inspirational to me. I looked at the assessments in Appendix C also. A prominent thought in my head is: How did I buy this book used? Who would get rid of this book? Right away in the beginning of chapter 4 the introduction spoke to me where it said “It is the teacher’s responsibility to provide opportunities for children to experience joy in using the English language.” This is a charge I see with a sense of responsibility but also with a sense of purpose and excitement. Of course the phonemes in figure 4.1 made me think of the phonogram learning we did with Dr. Walizer in Reading and Language Arts (I was so happy to find those flashcards from Dr. Walizer in Blackboard). Chapter 4 is full of information that will be very beneficial in teaching reading. I really appreciated where it pointed out that many consonant blends are not Spanish phonemes, and then provided the charts in figures 4.2 and 4.3 to give the English phonemes that are not found in Spanish and the phonemes common to English and Spanish. I also liked how the text presented different information from different resources and different research. Page 86 discusses some of my favorite things about teaching and reading. It addresses that children need to be engaged in literacy activities to become aware of the sounds within words. It points out activities such as awareness games, nursery rhymes, poems, rhythmic activities and stories that use rhyme and onomatopoeia. This paragraph touches on something that felt very important to me when it said that phonemic awareness develops over time and it is important to give children many opportunities to develop it every day. Embedded in the chapter are more books and resources for teachers, which I loved. I have a lot of book titles highlighted. Again the book talked about the teacher’s responsibility when it said “It is a teacher’s responsibility to read with expression and to play with word sounds.” Chapter 4 also gave a list of resources of commercial phonemic awareness assessments. I found a lot of the activities to be helpful and relevant to the tutoring I will be doing. One activity I didn’t like was an activity on p. 104 that is called “Moving the Tiles.” I cannot wrap my head around how some of the words can have the first letter changed and should like a different word, but are not spelled the same. The words bait, Paul, heart, and height are corrected in parentheses.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 pointed that Spanish, like English, has three deviations. The parts of chapter 5 that I liked the best were the Phonics at a Glance and the paragraph that talks about how articulation of vowels includes describing the shape of the mouth, the openness of the jaw and the position of the tongue. I like the accompanying picture that shows the different places in the mouth that the consonant sounds depending on the vowel (figure 5.3). There was other good information in chapter 5, but it didn’t excite me as much as chapter 4. The activity I liked the best in this Chapter was the flip books. Somewhere in one the chapters mentioned the book Is Your Mama a Llama? which is one of my all time favorite children’s books.
Phonemic Awareness is part of the foundation for reading. Chapter 4 spoke about when children are actively engaged and involved while participating in literacy activities, they become aware of the sounds within words just by listening. They can learn through games and activities that were mentioned in the book, as well as involving them in fun activities in the classroom when teaching reading. When I went to school, it was very strict. All the desks were in straight rows. The teacher would get up and lecture on a subject and we were expected to listen and not get distracted. However, when it was time to have a fun classroom activity, everyone became involved and had a good time learning. Listening is a good trait to learn but it is just as important to learn to have fun while reading and even learning to read.
ReplyDeleteI really like this book. It takes us through step-by-step process of how to teach. The five principals of phonics instruction is something that I will definitely follow. Probably, one of the most important sentence I read in chapter’s 4 and 5 was “effective teachers asses what students already know and build on that knowledge.” It is important that we must not get caught up in the schedules we make of what we need to accomplish throughout this summer in tutoring or even when we have our classrooms. We need to focus on teaching the children as if stacking building blocks on top of each other. We do need to follow a schedule and get through everything so that at the end of the year we are not cramming information into their heads. However, in tutoring we can take extra time to teach on a particular area and that is what can be a lot of fun.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing to me how kids can soak up so much information yet have so much energy. It is almost as if the more information they learn, the more energy they have. There is a lot of information that is taught to children in learning how to read and it is amazing how fast they pick up on all the rules of phonics. But it is also important that we remember to not go to fast when teaching reading that it takes students to frustration levels.
These two chapters have been very helpful on teaching phonemic awareness and phonics to students through fun activities. A few activities were mentioned in the Shanker book as well, but academic activities are always great to look over and be refreshed on. I believe that since there are many rules with the English language, academic games, stories, songs, and chants are always useful for students to have fun while learning.
ReplyDeleteOn page 118, I thought the word sort with picture cads would be an excellent way to see if the students know the letter-sound relationship. First, I thought this task may be hard for the students, but then again, this activity would be a great enrichment for them. With that in mind, now I want to use it within my lesson as a fun enrichment activity.
Overall, like the book and many instructors have mentioned, as teachers, our lessons need to engage in more meaningful literacy tasks. I definitely know how important this is because I tend to drift off when a lesson is being taught to me and it is not meaningful. However, now I feel more equip to teach students with more meaningful literacy tasks due to these past four chapters since they have enlightened me on other ways to introduce letters, sounds, and words to students. Furthermore, I am excited to teach students through meaningful literacy tasks, so that they will not feel like their time is being wasted.
Responds to Lacey Keller and George P.:
I am very nervous too about teaching students the correct information, on when and what I should teach them. Already I feel like I wasted part of their time due to doing the assessments with them. I know that I need to do these tests with them, but two of the students work faster than the other students and to me, I’ll admit, I’m struggling with keeping them all on the same lesson. However, today, the two fast paced students were absence; therefore, I was able to advance my slower paced student! I also learned that my slower paced student reads better on a computer than on paper. Now I’m not for sure on if I should give him more computer time to improve his reading speed or if I should continue working with him by reading from regular books. I suppose this is all part of reflecting as a teacher and what would be best for each student. Good luck and great posts!
Joel,
ReplyDeleteGreat similie comparing learning to building blocks! How true it is that teachers often times cram knowledge into our little ones' heads. When I was developing my lessons one and two, I was reading it to my hubby. He replied, "Gee, you think you are going to get all that done in one hour?" Well, I am going to try my darndest! However, with kindergarten, it is important to have plenty of activities planned and keep them moving. And, if I don't get them all done in an hour, there is always tomorrow!
N. Pohl
ReplyDeleteChapters 4 & 5 DeVries Text
As I approached reading chapters 4 and 5, continued understanding of Phonemic Awareness (PA) and Phonics validated my current understanding, just as we had learned in our ROE and SHANKER texts in RLA…….Having a CORE understanding of what Phonemic Awareness & Phonics actually is; is extremely important to the successes of our teaching and our student’s intake and learning. The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds, essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent fundamental to mapping speech to print. If a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon" begin with the same sound or cannot blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run", he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word; essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system.
We MUST always remember that an important distinction
* Phonemic awareness is not phonics.
* Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve words in print.
One of the most important foundations of reading success is phonemic awareness. Phonemes are the basic speech sounds that are represented by the letters of the alphabet, and phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are sequences of phonemes. Phonemic awareness is demonstrated by the ability to identify and manipulate sounds within spoken words.
Students can learn to assemble phonemes into words as well as break words into their phonemes even before they are writing letters or words. Giving our students experience with rhyming words in the preschool years is an effective first step toward building phonemic awareness. Hearing rhymes, and then producing rhymes for given words, requires children to focus on the sounds inside words. Rhyming activities initiate phonemic awareness. The reading and re-reading of books with clear, simple rhymes offer abundant and fun opportunities for direct instruction in rhyming and the beginnings of phonemic awareness.
N. Pohl
ReplyDeleteChapters 4 & 5 DeVries Text
(CONTINUED)
Phonemic awareness is an insight about oral language. There is evidence to suggest that the relation between phonemic awareness and learning to read is reciprocal: phonemic awareness supports reading acquisition, and reading instruction and experiences with print facilitate phonemic awareness development. Our students’ awareness of onsets (the initial consonant of a word or syllable) and rimes (everything after the initial consonant in a one-syllable word or in syllables, traditionally referred to as phonograms or word families) is related to success in beginning reading. Therefore children should be taught to identify and manipulate these sound units.
Students in kindergarten should be introduced to common phonograms. In addition to building phonemic awareness, providing instruction with phonograms also prepares children for reading words by analogy. Teaching recognition of particular phonemes in word contexts may help beginners gain insight into the alphabetic principle and apply their insights in early word identification. Implicit teaching of phoneme awareness involves word play through rhyme and alliteration, and games that involve manipulation of sounds in names, songs, poetry and drama. Students who are not progressing with implicit teaching will benefit from structured teaching.
Phonics instruction (and following the 5 principles)reading is an important part of helping students learn to read. Most phonics programs teach children the relationship between each letter and its sound. Learning phonics is an excellent foundation for students learning to read and spell. When learning to read, a student can become easily frustrated, which can lead to a future hostility towards reading that can last for years. Parents and teachers want to help their children to learn and love to read; one successful way to do this is by teaching phonics and learning phonics.
Reply to Cody:
ReplyDeleteCody, I too; am STILL amazed about all the information we learn about Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction techniques. I know that our instructors cannot stress enough, the complete understanding of using the proper tools to achieve results that our students NEED to become successful in reaching their literacy goals now and into the future. Happy Tutoring!!
Nöelle
Susanna Yust
ReplyDeleteTEEL 480 Chapters 4 & 5
Chapter four was about phonemic awareness. I remember going over this in the reading internship and class, but I do not recall going over the dimensions of phonemic awareness. This helped me realize some differences between ‘phonics’ and ‘phonemic awareness’. Phonemic awareness is all about sound, manipulating sounds, hearing rimes and rhythm, and distinguishing between sounds. Phonics is about the relationship between the sounds and the letters (covered more in chapter five). It is interesting the controversy that was discussed over whether teachers should even teach phonemic awareness. I remember being taught phonics as a child, but do not clearly remember being taught all of the aspects of phonemic awareness. Because I was a student then and merely a child, I am sure everything was taught to me. I just can’t remember those specifics steps taken in learning how to read. I continue to be amazed at how much actually goes into learning to read and comprehending what is read. This being said, I am extremely nervous about tutoring! In my opinion (which has little research to back as of yet), I feel that phonemic awareness is important. Once children understand the dimensions of phonemic awareness, I feel the reading experience in general will be better and thus more enjoyable for the students. I am excited to tackle some tongue twisters with my students! I did them often as I was in choir and would love to see what my students can do with them. Overall, intimidated by trying to assess their phonemic awareness, but feel the Cooter, Flint, and Cooter book is a great tool to help me in this area.
The thing that stood out the most to me in chapter five was the section that talked about English language learns and trying to master the sounds of the English language. I live in Texas and thus completely understand and hear this difficulty everyday. With English being my native (and basically only) language, it is often times extremely difficult to understand some people of different backgrounds! Working in retail, this can be frustrating, particularly for the person trying to communicate with me. I can’t even tell you how many times I have been embarrassed by hearing something other than what the person said. I am hoping the time I have had in such diverse classrooms here will help to prepare me for that situation. I loved the activity on page 125 where you select two words, a beginning and end word with the same amount of letters. Then, have the students change one letter at a time to get to the end word. You could make it more difficult by limiting the number of times they can change the word to get to the end result.
Reply to Noelle:
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of the information you loaded into your post! I took a different approach this time and talked mostly about the thoughts that came into my mind as I was reading the chapters. Students can become easily frustrated and with the dimensions of phonemic awareness, I think we can help greatly as teachers. It is important also to find things they will enjoy to read as well to ease their frustrations! I am curious to hear other arguments about whether or not to teach phonemic awareness in class! Thanks for sharing!!
I am glad to have some clarification between phonemic awareness and phonics. While student teaching in the Spring I had heard the two terms used but no one seemed to quit know the difference in the two…I do find it confusing. The text broke it down in ways I could understand it.
ReplyDeleteIn the questions posed starting on page 84: Can and should phonemic awareness be taught? I tend to agree with the notion that it should be taught but should come after children know letter names and some sounds. I think we tend to throw to much to them at once and it can be difficult for them. The next question regards phonemic awareness as being necessary to become proficient readers-I think it is necessary for students to be aware that words are made up of different sounds. The next-do student’s benefit from intense, explicit instruction-I agree different students need different amounts and forms of instruction. This is something that should be decided on an individual basis-we have to keep in the mind each student has their own learning style.
I especially loved that both chapters had lots of activities and strategies that can be used in the classroom. I find it beneficial to have examples of what the text is trying to explain. Being a first year teacher this text supplies us with a nice basis for our classrooms. Reading these chapters reminds me how hard the English language actually can be to learn. We never really think about how we speak. There is really so much to it that I think we take for granted. I have a new appreciation for those trying to learn our language.
Noelle-I so agree with you on having a CORE understanding of what Phonemic Awareness and Phoncs actually mean. I find it very confusing when depicting between the two but I am sure that will get better with actually working with each. I find I can’t get enough information on either right now to make it all make sense to me. I am going to copy and paste your bulleted distinctions between the two and put it someplace so that I am always aware of the distinction.
ReplyDeleteThresa Lass- I am wondering how you have done student teaching already if you haven't completed this class? It was just a question that popped into my head while reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these chapters helped me significantly. It was nice to read about activities involving phonemic awareness that are fun for students. I feel a lot better about phonemic awareness and phonics now for my tutoring.
ReplyDeleteWhen Dr. Walizer taught phonemic awareness in my reading internship, I completely forgot how far back you have to start with children and how much detail there is in reading. As we get older, everything just becomes so natural to us and we tend to forget about phonograms and beginning sounds. Phonemic awareness and phonics are very overwhelming to me when I am working on lesson plans or just thinking about them. I learn more and more everyday about phonics and phonemic awareness and how important they both are in the process of teaching reading. I enjoyed reading five principles for phonic instruction. Students need to be taught the relationships between letters and their sounds. During my reading internship last spring semester, I worked with a few students who had a difficult time reading. I worked with them one on one out in the hall some days and just by telling them phonograms that I was learning from Dr. Walizer at the time seemed to help them. It is sad that some of our students miss out on these important beginning steps. Both of these chapters really helped me feel more comfortable with phonemic awareness and teaching phonics for tutoring!
Response to George P.
I agree with the statement in chapter five that you mentioned in your blog, it caught my eye as well. When I worked with DIBELS during summer school a few years ago, they trained me using a mirror to help the children watch their mouth movements. I would ask the student to make the /l/ sound and he/she would watch the movements my mouth and tongue made when making the /l/ sound. Then, he/she would look in the mirror and do the same.
Alexandra Westfall
ReplyDeleteChapter 4
I had so many flashbacks to Dr. Walizer's class reading this chapter. Its so embarrassing to admit, but I had a very poor background in phonemic awareness before her class last semester. I still think I could grow in the area of phonemic awareness and if I had to pick my weakest area, it would be this one. I think because I know it is my weakness, I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I felt I really got a lot out of it. First thing I enjoyed was reading more in depth the areas of phonemic awareness. I also really loved reading the strategies for teaching phonemic awareness. My fiancee was looking at me funny as I was trying to do the hand motions that went along with "Hickory Dickory Dock". I also sat here and tried out the jump roping jingles. To sum up what I'm trying to say, I really think this area of reading is super important and this chapter did a great job for giving us a strong background and the tools we need to teach it.
Chapter 5
Wow! Was anyone else overwhelmed a little when they read over the "Phonics Glossary at a glance"? They are terms we have already learned, but to have it laid out in front of you like that and to see how many parts to phonics there really are is intense! When I got to the part of the chapter that has the intervention strategies, one thing I liked was how all the ideas (for the most part) span several grade levels. I like when a strategy can be used in different grade levels because I'm not sure what grade I'm going to be teaching yet and I like to feel like I am ready for whatever I'm given!
Re: Thresa Lass
I was in the same boat as you! I had no idea what the difference was between phonemic awareness and phonics. However, I do feel like I could easily make distinctions between the two. Also, I think you answered that question well about if the two should be taught! I think these two chapters really seemed to clear up some confusion for me, and I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one :)
While reading chapter four I remembered a question I had for Mrs. Stoppel. When I was doing phoneme segmentation with my Kindergarten group last semester I would have them segment the word but still spell it correctly. I asked the Title teacher if this was the correct way of doing it and she said that's how she would do it so the students wouldn't get confused about how to properly spell the word. I will give you an example so you know what I am talking about. If the word was "five" I would have them segment it as /f/ /i/ /ve/. This way they knew that the "e" was silent but since you can't hear it, it's attached to the "v". I just want to make sure I am doing it correctly! I know the students loved doing phoneme segmentation. Each student would have their own white board and we would see who could finish with the correct answer first.
ReplyDeleteA word that I hadn't heard before that I read is "onomatopoeia". I am wondering if I am the only person who hasn't heard this word and perhaps might not even say it correctly. Oh wait! I just figured out how to pronounce it and I have heard it obviously! Wow...blonde moment! :)
I really liked the "Hush Little Baby" activity where the child could add lines to it. I think this a great thing for mother's as well! I read about Mother Goose and it reminded me of when I was little. I can't even tell you how many times my poor parents had to listen to them! I would watch them over and over and over. Loved them! I asked my mom the other day if she still had them so my daughter could watch them.
I found it very interesting to see which phonemes were only found in the English language. No wonder it's so hard for ESOL students to speak English. Page 104 listed three websites that I plan to bookmark to build phonemic awareness. I can also use them with my daughter which is great. I have used pbskids.org before but not the other two.
Chapter five gave a phonics glossary that I find very helpful. It's always nice to have one location to go to that lists everything you need to know about a subject. While reading through it I came across nasal consonants. I have never heard this term before but when I pronounced the letters listed I understood why they were given that name. I love learning something every day! Last semester I focused on word families so I am familiar with the term "rime" but when I first came across it I thought the book misspelled it as well like Mrs. Stoppel thought. Now I know differently though and I don't understand why they just don't leave it "word family".
While reading the paragraph about consonants on page 111 I thought about my niece who cannot pronounce the hard "c" sound. I noticed that I had a very hard time understanding her and couldn't figure out why. I started to ask her to say words so I could figure out what sound she was struggling with. When I asked her to say "cookie" she said "tootie". Anyways I have probably wrote enough! Both chapters were very informative and it was nice to distinguish between phoneme segmentation and phonics.
.Chapter 4
ReplyDeleteI will be able to recall on this chapter this fall when I do my student teaching. in a Kindergartner classroom. One are that I really enjoyed reading and on of the areas that I learned the most from this chapter is the dimensions of phonemic awareness. I don't recall learning the 7 dimensions is the past, but it was great to see how it all come together. One of the biggest parts of this chapter that I found helpful, in the future classroom are figures 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4. All three of those charts will help with working with and understand ELL/ESL students. Starting on page 86 through page 91 are great tools for teachers to use. I really enjoy how with the nursery rhymes it gives motions to do with it. At the end of the chapter there is a list of activities that can be used to help assess a students Phonemic Awareness level.
I believe that unless a student has a strong back ground in Phonemic Awareness that they will not be able to read or even spell with success.
Chapter 5: Phonics
Phonics is just as important as Phonemic Awareness and with out it a student will not be able to read nor spell with much success. In this chapter the author identifies five principles of phonic instruction, all five are of equal importance and a good teacher will use all five concepts in their teaching and lessons. One thing that I enjoyed in this chapter is the examples for assessments at the end of the chapter. I have seen my daughter’s teacher use those and I can remember teachers from when I was in elementary school doing similarly things.
Alexandra Westfall- I agree I completely had flashback to Dr. W's class. I had forgotten that we read this book in her class. I this time am reading it in more detail. The 2nd time is always better right?!
ReplyDeleteSusanna: I hear what you are saying about being nervous. It seems like a lot of work and responsibility! I am very nervous! I thought the controversy about teaching phonemic awareness and how to teach phonics were interesting. I was glad that the book presented the different opinions and research and information.
ReplyDeleteI was glad that the book discussed the problems that ESOL students have. I really appreciated that the book gave the common phonemes for English and Spanish and pointed out the phonemes in English that are not present in Spanish.
Response to Susanna Yust:
ReplyDeleteLike you, I remember doing phonics but I can't remember all the steps in learning how to read. I'm not sure many people can remember because you are so young. My daughter is six and just starting to read. I'm sure when she gets older she won't remember how she learned she will just know that she can read! To me that is one of the most enjoyable aspects of teaching children and being a parent, is watching children go from learning words to putting words together and reading. I think most people probably take reading for granted and assume everybody can read but that is not the case. I am also extremely nervous about tutoring! I want to start so the nervousness will subside. My biggest fear is the students won't be interested and will hate coming. I want to make it fun for them so they can enjoy reading. One of the boys I'm tutoring told me today that he hates reading. I hope to change his mind by the end of the summer! Good luck to you. I'm sure you will do fine!
Jessica C,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts. I think it's great that you have been a para in the younger grades for a few years and I bet you have been learning a lot while you have been there. I liked that you mentioned the point that the authors discussed in chapter four about phonetic awareness among ESL students. I think that the area of reaching out to these students represents a large opportunity for teachers to help build fluency in schools. Keep up the good work!
In response to Jessica C.- When you were talking about being a para in a first grade school and how you learned so much from just being there, it made me think of a time when I was substituting for first grade. I hadn't taken any internships yet and was called to sub for a first grade class. In the lesson plan I was supposed to teach a new phonogram. When I looked through the book I was so confused! I was like...how in the world am I going to do this. I wasn't familiar with teaching phonograms and really had no idea that this was a step in learning to read. The para that was in the room offered to do it for me because she had been there every day and knew all the little sayings for each phonogram. I just stood back and watched in amazement and was thinking she should be the sub! Anyways, during Dr. Walizer's class I had that "aha" moment when I saw her teaching the phonograms. I was like oh my goodness! That's what they were doing in that first grade class! I am glad to be more educated now because I am subbing again next semester and don't feel that in the dark again! You said you taught in a Kindergarten and first grade school. You must live in a very big area because where I live it's K-12 all in ONE building!
ReplyDeleteChapters four and five were full of useful information about phonetic awareness and phonics instruction. These two areas of teaching contain many similarities, as discussed in these two chapters, and it is so important that teachers take time to work with students in developing strengths in these areas.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my fall 2010 internship in a first grade classroom. This internship was for the Reading and Language Arts methods course and my mentor teacher was also a certified reading specialist. She spent extensive amounts of time in her classroom building literacy by continuously practicing phonograms, and vowel/consonant sounds with the students. She made the practice activities fun and gave the children extra opportunities to be silly and laugh while they were practicing the sounds. It didn’t make much sense to me at the time, and I often thought that it was an excuse for the children to slack off. However, much of chapters four and five changed my thinking.
These chapters taught me the value of making the learning fun, especially in phonics and phonemic awareness. Teaching children songs, poems and tongue-twisters all help the students learn in different ways. I am looking forward to using some of these fun ideas during my tutoring sessions.
Including all the great information I love how the text uses ideas on how to implement the techniques (especially the Intervention activities at the end). I am the type of learner who does best with examples. When the book was talking about rimes I did not understand until an example was given. It amazes me how relearning all these simple things becomes so complex.
ReplyDeleteI found it really interesting when the text talked about the phonemes for other languages. It was an eye opening experience to understand that some languages hove so many more than English while some (like Spanish) have less.
The text also helped me understand why silly songs, nursery rhymes and poems are so important for children. "It is a teacher's responsibility to read with expression and to play with word sounds. Drawing attention to the sounds wihin words while taking pleasure in reading poems, riddles, stories and other texts is the best means to develop children's phonemic awareness."
In the phonics section the biggest takeaway I got was in how students learn phonics. I'm sure that I was taught before, but I never realized the pattern that letters make to create words. CVC (hat)The pattern is then used by our brain to decode words. The whole process really is fascinating!
Again the Intervention activities are great! I cannot wait to use some of the ideas for my lesson plans.
In response to Desiree
I also loved the "Hush Little Baby" activity. It is amazing to me how the old stuff is still so effective. I look forward to implementing the old stuff but in a new way. I'm not sure how, but I'm guessing technology will have something to do with it.