What is Phonological Awareness?

 Hi Everyone!

Seeing as my blog is predominantly written about how to get the best from students using a synthetic phonics approach, I thought it would be most prudent to write a piece explaining the ins and outs of phonological awareness. 

What is it? 

Why should every teacher be equipped with this knowledge?

I will provide the answer to both of these questions in today's post. 

Perhaps we had better wind all the way back to the start and wrap our heads around the what of phonological awareness. 

Phonological awareness refers to your ability to understand and recognize the sound structure of the spoken language. Or put more simply, an awareness that speech is made up of different segments, which are represented by an alphabetic code. It includes a variety of skills including rhyme awareness and production, word awareness, detection of syllables and manipulation of onset and rime. 

Under the 'umbrella' of phonological awareness sits a crucial, distinctly separate skills which consists of sub-skills. This is called phonemic awareness - the ability to recognize and manipulate the smallest units of sound in spoken communication. Let me preface the following: phonemes refer to individual units of sound in speech (i.e., 'cat' is comprised of three phonemes: c-a-t). Phonemic awareness consists of four main sub-skills including phoneme blending, phoneme segmentation, phoneme deletion, and phoneme substitution. 

Here is a handy little graphic I made to help understand how the skills fit in with one-another

You can think of the ability to read as a rope - a single skill that is made of many tiny strands, all equally as important as each other to ensure strength and integrity of the rope. 

We can also consider phonological awareness as a set of steps. Each skill is more difficult than the last, and requires mastery of the previous skill to continue climbing and improving. Below is another handy-dandy little graphic I have made to show the typical progression of phonological awareness in young students. 

It is important to remember that phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are distinct in what they refer to, and the skills they include.

Why should every teacher be equipped with this knowledge?

It's quite simple really - this approach works. Statistically, around 1 in 10 students is coming to school with some form of dyslexia - diagnosed or not. Teaching a synthetic phonics curriculum ensures that every. single. child. will have their learning needs met in your classroom - there will be no one left behind. Aside from being structured and systematic in your approach, the synthetic phonics method of teaching is one that captures the needs of your advanced learners, your middle of the road learners, and your learners who reading does not come naturally to. 

Multiple scientific studies support synthetic phonics as a teaching method that captures all abilities. In 1999, Schneider & colleagues found that explicitly and systematically teaching phonics and phonological awareness skills actually reduced the prevalence of dyslexia among at-risk children. 

I have been told by many reading experts that if students are still behind in reading at Grade 2 level, their chances of catching up are slim to none. It is our job at lower elementary teachers to hit the nail square on the head and to be exceptional, skilled, and knowledgeable in our instruction of literacy. We can achieve this through high quality phonics instruction. 

Comment below if you have been inspired, or are going to try something new in your classroom tomorrow!

References

Schneider, W., Ennemoser, M., Roth, E., & Küspert, P. (1999). Kindergarten prevention of dyslexia: Does training in phonological awareness work for everybody?. Journal of learning disabilities, 32(5), 429-436.

Why Your Students Deserve Independent Reading Time

 Hello All!

I am writing today to advocate for protected, routine, silent independent reading time in classrooms. If you already do this - amazing work, you can read below all the fantastic benefits your students are reaping from these sessions!

If you are not yet on board with independent reading time - you're about to be!

I have more than once had to defend this time against the opinions of others as 'wasted' instructional time.

I could not agree less.

Every single day, my students come into the classroom and immediately settle down with a book of their choosing for 15 minutes. I'm a little old-school... I won't let them read on their iPads during this time. This is only a personal preference as I think nothing beats the feeling of a book in your hands, with fine motor benefits in holding and turning the pages of books. It also helps to foster responsibility and respect for classroom belongings. We also have a few times a week a DROP EVERYTHING AND READ  session (D.E.A.R) where students literally drop everything and choose whatever they want to read. I'm often met with a loud cheer when I tell them to drop everything and read!

Independent reading time has a host of benefits I am about to share with you:

1. It prepares them for the demands of high school and university by creating skillful, habitual readers

Being able to read for a sustained amount of time is an important skill the prepares students for high school, college and many other careers. Students who engage regularly in sustained silent reading have been shown in a multitude of research to boost overall reading achievement. 

2. It improves comprehension abilities

Independent reading provides students with an abundance of opportunities to extract meaning from texts without teacher support, which consequentially results in improvements in reading stamina. Giving students a chance to rehearse this skill with reading materials of their own choosing boosts motivation to engage in reading for extended periods of time. 

3. Independent reading boosts vocabulary

The more children read, the greater their vocabulary, which transfers to both their speech and writing. Students who read more express themselves with a wider variety of language than those who read less. It also offers students opportunities to use contextual clues to determine word meanings and definitions, or to investigate unknown vocabulary with tools such as dictionaries. 

4. Engagement is increased

When students are allowed to self-select tests that pertain directly to their interests, true engagement is achieved. Students who are interested in what they are reading, and are given empowerment and choice over their learning in the classroom will naturally enjoy the act of reading more. There is voluminous research spanning 40 years to support the conclusion that reading for simple enjoyment is a major aspect of successful reading development. 

5. It improves reading ability!

The more one reads, the better one reads! Independent reading has been shown to improve fluency, automaticity, comprehension, writing style, vocabulary, grammar and spelling, reading volume, concentration, and effort in reading. 

Many students will not have access to texts or facilities with texts outside of school hours so we owe it to our students to give them protected independent reading time. If we want students to develop a love of reading and learning we must foster that within the classroom. 

The key is providing a wide variety of materials that appeals to a wide range of tastes and abilities to develop skillful and critical readers. I have linked down below some scientific literature for reference and further reading if you are interested. 

Let me know in the comments below if you are going to try integrating silent sustained reading in your classroom!

References & Further Reading

Anderson, R. C., L. G. Fielding, and P. T. Wilson. 1988. Growth in reading and how children spend their time outside of school. Reading Research Quarterly 23: 285–304

Clark, M. M. 1984. Literacy at home and at school: Insights from a study of young fluent readers. In Awakening to literacy. Edited by H. Goelman, A. Oberg, and F. Smith. Exeter, N.H.: Heinemann Educational Pub

Krashen, S. D. 1989. We acquire vocabulary and spelling by reading: Additional evidence for the Input Hypothesis. Modern Language Journal 73: 440–64.

Taylor, B., P. Frye, and G. Maruyama. 1990. Time spent reading and reading growth. American Educational Research Journal 27: 442–51.

Watkins, M., and V. Edwards. 1992. Extracurricular reading and reading achievement: The rich stay rich and the poor don’t read. Reading Improvement. (Winter): 236–42.

How to Teach New Sounds

 Hi friends!

I have always had the fortune of working with some incredibly talented and knowledgeable colleagues who have taught me much in terms of best practice. Through observations, my own professional development and reading, I have development a specific and effective way of structuring my phonics instruction. 

I have had great success with this method and have honed it over a few years of practice. I have often started the school year with 30% of my class reading below standard, and finished the school year with less than 5% still below level. It works. 

My phonics instruction block is a quick 20-25 minute session that keeps students engaged and learning a bunch. In this post I am going to outline minute-by-minute my method of phonics instruction.

0-3 minutes

Review Phase

Using flashcards, go over previous sounds learned. This is also a great way to watch students individually to see if they are confidently answering or 'going along' with what other students are saying. Frequent and spaced retrieval of information is absolute key to retention. 

3-5 minutes

Introduction Phase

Introduce the sound you are going to teach by writing it on your whiteboard. I like to cover it with my hand and each time I take my hand off, students have to say the sound. We do this around 7-10 times to really make sure students are getting the sound correct. Here is where you give immediate responsive feedback to students about their pronunciation of the sound. I also sometimes like to accompany with cued articulation. I also explicitly tell students the sensations they should feel and where the parts of their mouth should be. For example for 'v', their teeth should touch their bottom lip and they should feel a vibration when they touch their throat. 

5-8 minutes

Multi-Sensory Learning Phase

I distribute whiteboards and a marker among students. There are several ways to do this efficiently such as having 2-3 helpers, having a quick line up system, or having the materials on the floor before starting. Do what suits your classroom best and keeps the pace of the lesson quick. 

Students will write the new phoneme on their whiteboard ten times, saying the matching sound each time. 

This section definitely requires a bit of behavior management. Sometimes the temptation to scribble on the boards can be pretty high! I ask students for 'listening boards', where markers are capped, hands are empty and behind backs, and boards are face down on their laps. 

8-12 minutes

Small Scale Application Phase

Continuing on the work with the whiteboards, I will often use this part of the lesson to do one of two activities - car park sounds, or a spelling PowerPoint. 

Car park sounds - I have a list of words using today's phonics focus that change 1-2 sounds each time. Students write the first word on their whiteboards, I then give them another word but they don't rub out the first word. They must listen to what sound changes and rub out only the changing sounds to replace them

Spelling PowerPoint - I have around 10-15 pictures of words that contain today's phonics focus. Students say the word to match the picture and write it on their whiteboards. 

12-20 minutes

Large Scale Application Phase

I love dictation. There is no better way than dictation for students to practice everything they have just learned in the last 15 or so minutes. Settled at their tables with their notebooks, I have a pre-prepared sentence that includes several instances of our focus phoneme. I say the sentence once to students, then read word by word. Students place their hands on their heads when they have finished writing each word so I don't leave anyone behind. Once we are finished, a volunteer reads the sentence to the class. I tell students how many instances of the phoneme they need in their sentence, and ask them to underline the sound each time individually. Finally, students draw a picture to match their sentence.

While students draw, I visit every student individually and review their work. This is so I can provide responsive, immediate feedback on their work. I will ask them to sound out words they have missed and make corrections where needed. I don't generally focus on any mistakes other than what today's lesson focus was. 

And that's it my friends! I keep this the same every day - I want students to find it predictable and have nothing else to concentrate on except the explicit instruction. I hope you have found this post helpful and have some new ideas to try in your classroom. It only takes 20 minutes a day to really catch and help every single student in your class with their decoding and spelling skills. 

Let me know in the comments below if you have tried this with your class!