Phonemic Awareness

Summary: While some may disagree, most statistics show the key to becoming a successful reader is based on one's phonemic awareness. The building block for for learning to read, spell, connect speech sounds to letters (phonics), and potentially writing all goes back to phonemic awareness.  This article demonstrates and provides several options for activities for phonemic awareness. It also compares and contrasts phonological awareness (rhyming, alliteration, syllable segmenting and blending, and sentence segmenting) with phonemic awareness (sound matching, counting phonemes, blending phonemes, isolating beginning or ending phonemes, substituting phonemes, etc.).

This article did a great job comparing and contrasting phonological awareness with phonemic awareness. Before, I was slightly confused with all the variations of ways to teach something, they all started running together. This article not only explained what the differences were, but gave reasons as to why they were important, and then demonstrated how a teacher could use them in her own classroom.

Another concept that I grasped was the importance of allow students the opportunity to explore all areas of phonological awareness. By blending, integrating, and connecting all the concepts into reading, writing, spelling, etc. students are going to learn quicker through reinforcement. "Providing children with rich language experiences that encourage active exploration..." (91) will allow them to learn the bigger picture faster, which in turn will lead to better, faster, and more efficient readers early on.

While I might have been skeptical about how much teaching phonemic awareness can make or break what kind of a reader a child will be, I no longer am. This article did a fantastic job of providing evidence to back up its points.

Diller, D. (2007). Making the most of small groups, differentiation for all. Stenhouse Pub.

Phonics #7

This section of phonics was dealing with vowels affected by consonants that follow. For example, 'r-controlled' vowels and vowels followed by l or w. This section was fairly easy and common sense. The only difficult part to remember is when the grapheme /a/ appears, to know which phoneme it sounds like. Or, also when a schwa appears - because it can appear in the grapheme /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, or /u/. 

A vowel in an unaccented syllable that represents a soft 'uh' sound is considered a schwa

family, comma, chicken, melon, circus, lion, pencil

However, it may also represent a soft i sound as well

manage, village

/a/ can sound like father, ball, care (all different phonemes represented by same grapheme)

r controlled vowels: appear right before r and cannot be separated from r sound

care, first, arm, more

Fox, B. (2010). Phonics and structural analysis for the teacher of reading. (10 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Ozark West Guest Speaker

Here are the notes I took from the Guest Speaker:

Ozark West – 520 students K-4 (Brand new school 5 years ago)

Demographics – 28% Free and Reduced to start with, now up to 45% Free and Reduced

Philosophy of Leadership and Vision: student centered and family friendly environment; for students to feel valued! Learning is still #1 priority, but that does not

·      looks for faith – he prays over students and school; leads weekly Bible study

Student centered environment –

·      1. call them by name, have several teachers talk to them with a smile (they are an individual not a number)

·      2. Safe environment in academics – feel free to share and willing to take a risk; you need to get out of the comfort zone in order to learn (teach other students to respect and allow others to share without making them feel stupid)

Teacher Collaboration

·      *assessment driven

·      *problem solving

·      sharing from each other and learning from each other

·      extremely important part of success – they meet weekly

·      meet as a whole and with grade/subject area

·      talking about specifics (students, needs)

·      talking about data

·      fill out a weekly report – anything that they need from the principle

Interventionist – work 1 on 1 and have great insight that classroom teachers don’t have

·      speech

·      reading recovery teachers

STAT Team (Student teacher assistant)

·      if a student is struggling, the teacher brings name to

o   literacy coach (academics)

o   counselor (behavior)

§  from there look at data with principle, literacy coach, interventionists, teacher

RTI Approach

·      Benchmark assessment

·      Reading records

·      Note Taking about specifics

·      Track Process on a huge board (each student has a card and moves along between areas of below, average, above, etc.) (strenght and weakness)

o   Free and Reduced

o   Reading recovery

o   different types of interventions

Focus on inquiry

·      students asking questions

·      Teachers (instead of just post objectives) post essential questions every day on the board

·      *essential questions – think about these before literacy night

NCLB

·      positives – accountability makes us better

o   raised accountability

§  students

§  parents

§  teachers

§  principals/schools

Putting guard down – everyone will fail – both students and teachers

·      Looking at teacher stats

o   we are not judging at one snapshot of data –

§  the idea is to improve!

·      Collaborative approach

Literacy Night

·      Show Christ’s love that night – we are there to support the students

o   collaborative with the family and students

o   it is a partnership

ADVICE

·      be a child advocate – are you willing to go that extra mile for all kids

·      be a learner – continuous learning to be better teacher

My thoughts:

It would be awesome to work for such a godly leader. However, in Nebraska - which is completely different from Ozark - I will most likely not be working under these conditions. So, I need to apply what he said about making students the first priority, making each student feel like they are they only one that matters, showing and demonstrating the love of Christ, because we might be the only time they see this. Really establishing relationship with each student and getting to know them on a personal level will make the world of difference. I appreciated that even though he may not have agreed with NCLB or parts of it, he made an effort to see the good in it, deal with the fact that it is in place and use it to benefit students in whatever way possible.

Phonics #6

As I study phonics more and more, it is hard to remember specific rules. There are so many that it is very difficult to keep straight the actual rule and be able to state it without looking at my notes. However, the easiest way to do this is to do the reviews and try to fill them out without looking back on my notes. The basic concepts in this chapter were as follows:

-The 'y' can represent a long i if in the CV pattern, a long e if at the end of a two syllable word such as candy
-w always follows other vowels (few, low, thaw)
-Short vowel sound patters: CVC (jump, hot, pin, back) or VC or VCCe (apple, ox, edge, end)
-Closed Syllables (CVC and VC pattern) ends with consonant phoneme
Exception (these rep long vowels): words in which i is followed by gh (sight, high); o or i is followed by ld (sold, child)

-if e, i, y follows consonant, usually soft consonant

-The long vowel is represented by the symbol with a macron above it
-Long vowel patter: VCe syllable (dine, huge, time, face)
-Open syllable ends with vowel phoneme; CV pattern: fever, solo, me, paper


Sometimes, I feel like learning phonics is a lot of work and I will never use it...just to be honest. BUT, I will try really hard to want to learn it and see how it can be beneficial because as I have learned, it is much easier to remember sometime if you can see the importance behind it. This has been really good for me to see because many times students do not think they will ever use math, therefore it is really hard to want to learn it, making it really hard to remember it. So - even if I never use phonics again, it has been good for me to do this so I can relate to my future students.

Fox, B. (2010). Phonics and structural analysis for the teacher of reading. (10 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

NCLB

Summary: NCLB is all about accountability to increase math and reading proficiency scores.  Both the goals as well as outcomes of NCLB were clearly stated in this article. The results in math were much higher than the almost nonexistent consequences in reading.  Math scores jumped in 4th graders, as well as improved in 8th graders; the results were even greater for Hispanic students, students qualifying for substidized lunch, and black students going to with a large amount of other black students.  However, as previously stated, the results for reading proficiency improvements were slim to none.

Before reading this article I assumed I knew was NCLB was about. But if you were to ask me what the main goal was, I would have to admit I was fairly ignorant about the actual issues.  I knew that NCLB had a lot of impact on teachers and school accountability because my mom was a teacher and complained about it a lot, but I really had no idea what outcomes they were hoping for.  I was impressed by the extensive research done and all the possibilities explored that might have had an effect on the research.  Since I am a math teacher, I am thrilled to hear that almost with-out-fail, math scores were raised. However, if reading saw no significant impact at all, NCLB failed. One of my personal convictions that I will continuoulsy argue is that who is the legistlation to say what teachers need to do to increase scores. Why not bring in the professionals who have given part of their life to see student improvement. Aren't they the ones who should be deciding? Not government officials who have spent little to no time studying pedagogy in terms of reading and math.

As I was reading through the article I found myself thinking about how I get annoyed with statistics. Strange as that may sound, I have a hard time relying on information that could be biased, skewed, inaccurate, misinterpreted, etc. When the article states, "...it is difficult to draw strong conclusions about the policy's impact from simple comparisons of achievement trends before and after...For example, the nation was suffering from a recession around the time NCLB was implimented" (57).  When factors like this are not accounted for in stats, but could have hugely impacted the data, how do we ever know if what we are measuring is really accurate? I am not suggesting we ignore research or that all research is not valid by any means. However, I am suggesting that we assess in a variety of ways, and not make standardized tests and numbers our focus. Or instead of a one time assessment, like the RTI Model - have the assessments be tracked over a period of time so you can see the growth as well of a more realistic idea of what's going on.

Dee, T., & Jacob, B. (2010). Evaluating nclb. Education Next, (Summer 2010), 54-61.

Phonics #5

Summary: All of the information we are learning is building upon previous content. The author does a great job incorporating the old information in with the new, allowing the student to internalize the content through repetition.  We were introduced to concept of consonant digraphs towards the beginning of the book, but it wasn't until Assignment #5 that we got into a lot of detail.  Before doing that, the author first let us build on the basics and become familiar with the terms. While the concept of consonant digraphs is not extremely difficult, there are random exceptions to the rule that might be hard to remember off the top of my head (for example when an s sounds like /zh/ in treasure). 


The hardest concept for me to distinguish in this section is the difference between voiced and voiceless phonemes.  I understand that a voiced phoneme, like the or that, causes your vocal chords to vibrate. However, it throws me off that the voiced phoneme /th/ is the represented by a th. And sometimes, when really focusing on if the th sounds like the (voiced) or thumb (voiceless), it is hard to distinguish.  For example, to me - the words feather and author sound like they would both have the same phoneme. But if you listen closely to the way they are pronounced, the word author has a softer /th/. So, my question to you is, do you have any clues/suggestions/tips on how to really tell them apart? Usually I can notice the difference by comparing it to thumb and this.

Other than struggling through my Math proofs courses, it is rare that I cannot just study something more to get it.  Usually, I just study more and it comes to me. However, some of the phonics concepts are just really hard for me to grasp since they are so inconsistent.  I suppose it is good for me to be put in this spot every once in awhile to be able to relate to my students. There are going to be times when students that try really hard, just don't get it. And that is when I, the supposed expert mathematician, will have to break it down for them in a new light until they understand it. 

Fox, B. (2010). Phonics and structural analysis for the teacher of reading. (10 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Phonics #4

Summary: While the last phonics assignment was based on consonants that were fairly consistent, this section had to do with inconsistent consonants - c, g, w, and y.  It is in assignments like this that you wonder how anyone might ever have the perseverance to learn English as a second language. After completing this assignment I realized I need a lot of practice with learning and memorizing the rules. It is easy to understand as you're going along with the guide, especially when example words are provided. But at the end, like the reviews provided, it is much more difficult to generalize when w sounds like /w/ and why.

To summarize this, I again made a chart because I am a structural learning and it helps me to organize when each letter is silent or represents another letter, or sounds like ___. But for the sake of retyping some of it and internalizing it more, here are some general statement:
-The hard sound of g (goat) and c (cat) are made when followed by vowel a, o, u, OR when followed by any other letters, or when at the end of a word
-Y and W both represent consonants and vowels; they sound like consonants w (wagon) and y (yo-yo) when they are before a vowel in the syllable
-X could be removed from alphabet and in words replaced by: /ks/ box, /gz/ exact, /z/ xylophone
-While there is no rule to when an s makes a certain sound, it is likely that if it is at the end of a word (and not plural) it will either make an /s/ (miss) or /z/ (whose) sound 
-Sometimes an s represents the /zh/ or /sh/ sound
-When the letter t falls in the middle of a word it can represent: /ch/ (righteous), /t/ mountain, /sh/ action
-The t can be silent at the end of French words or when it follows f and s or when it is a tch combo.

One of the things that has been the most frustrating for me is that I do not agree with some of the points made in this book. Possibly it is because I say or pronounce things differently but it is hard for me to internalize the concept when I completely disagree with the point the author is making.
For example:
-The word hose: I pronounce the s as a /z/ sound like zipper and the book states it should sound like the /s/ in sun
-They use the word often as an example for when a t is silent after f, and I pronounce the t in often
-To demonstrate that t can sound like /ch/, they used natural, and I definitely pronounce it with a /t/

I guess one of my questions is - what happens if one of these questions comes up on the test and I miss it because I pronounce something differently? The English language is difficult to study and frustrating at times because of all the exceptions, but it is good for me to do activities like this to better empathize with my Thai students. It is always very beneficial as a teacher of anything to come across with an understanding spirit, rather than the kind of teacher who makes students feel dumb for asking questions, not getting it, or being annoyed when the information is just not sticking with the student.

Fox, B. (2010). Phonics and structural analysis for the teacher of reading. (10 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Mokhtari Assessment Article

Summary: Has the purpose of testing and assessment in the classroom become solely to give students a letter grade? One of the key intentions of an assessment, on the teacher's end, is it allows them to make more accurate and effective curriculum and instructional decisions. However, for many teachers this not only takes up a great deal of time but it is also overwhelming when they have no training on how to use the data for instructional planning. This article models a step-by-step process on how to organize and use data consistently and efficiently.

In my last practicum at Parkview HS, I was able to observe this process amongst the all the Math teachers.  I decided to still go on a day when the students did not have class and sit in and the teacher-planning day.  Mid-morning, all the teachers of each content got together and assessed the progress they were making, how each teacher’s students were doing, how all of the Geometry students were doing, what progress they were making toward MAP Test questions, etc. They all used the same tests and were therefore able to compare data.  For example, Mr. Cherry’s students were all doing really well on a question that Mrs. Smith’s were not; so Mr. Cherry demonstrated his teaching method on that particular topic, so Mrs. Smith retaught it this way the next time and her students understood it much better. Reading this article just reconfirmed everything that I had observed.  It was really helpful for me to see that demonstrated first – while reading the article, I was able to picture what this would look like in a real life setting. 

This article reminded me though, of how easy it would be just to test students and not do anything with the data. Teachers already spend enough time working on things after hours as it is, I can't imagine wanting to take the test scores, try to analyze them on my own, and then what do I do with that information? The Data Analysis Framework for Instructional Decision Making was very easy to understand! My favorite part about it was that it forced teachers to get together and analyze their data together. This aspect is a very hot topic right now (from what I have observed and heard from current teachers) and I think it is such a great idea. Connecting how your students are doing on a test with instructional decisions can only benefit the students, teachers, and school system as a whole.

Mokhtari, K., Rosemary, C., & Edwards, P. (2008). Making instructional decisions based on data: What, how, and why. The Reading Teacher, 61(4), 354-359.

Phonics #3

Summary: Assignment 2 of the phonics book was loaded with information that the average person knows, but would not be able to explain why. First it reviewed terms such as grapheme, phoneme, and digraph to ensure the reader had a good understanding of the concepts before diving into the lesson. There exits a word associated with each consonant phoneme that they use as a base to refer since there can be more than one phoneme associated with each consonant. Then for certain consonants phonemes that are typically reliable in sound, they listed when they fail the rule of thumb and stated the pattern if one existed. By the end of this section, it was obvious there are a lot of rules that I need to become familiar with the WHY and WHEN.

In order to help myself remember all these, I have created a chart:

Consonant	Key Word	[Sometimes] Silent When It…	Other
Bb	boat	follows m (bomb) or precedes t (doubt) in same syllable
Hh	hat	follows g (ghost), k (kahki), r (rhino); at the beginning of the word (hour); follows a vowel in word or syllable (hurrah)	digraphs: ch, sh, ph, wh, th, gh
Kk	kite	beginning of word or syllable when followed by n (knee)
Ll	lion	is followed, in same syllable, by m (calm), k (chalk), or d (should)
Mm	moon		dependable
Pp	pig	followed by s (psychology), t (pterodactyl), n (pneumonia) at beginning of word	ph sounds like f
Qu		u may be silent	qu may sound like kw (quick)
Rr	ring		dependable
Vv	van		dependable; sometimes f sounds like v (of)
Dd	dog	dd appear together (ladder)	may sound like j (soldier)
Ff	fish		sounds like v (of); gh and ph sound like f
Jj	jelly		sound like y (hallelujah); dj sound like j (judge)
Nn	nut	preceded by m (autumn)	n may sound like ng (thank)
Zz	zipper		/z/ sounds like /s/ (waltz); /zh/ in azure
dg	/j/ jeep		budget
gh		followed by t in syllable (night); at ending (through); h is silent when gh is at the  beginning of a word (ghost)	sounds like /f/ (cough) when follows vowel in syllable;
ph			ph digraph sounds like /f/ (photo) or (laugh)
-ed (suffix)			sounds like: /d/ played 1 syll /t/ missed 1 syll /ed/ seated 2 syll

 
While I continue to wonder why the heck I have to learn this to be a secondary Math teacher, I know that I hate it when students ask "why do we need to know this?" or "when will we ever use this?".  Therefore, I am continuing to study phonics diligently, because someday - whether it be as a mother, missionary, or teacher - I will need this and it will come in handy. I am enjoying learning about the patterns of this language, but more so the than not, the times when the pattern or rule is broken.

Fox, B. (2010). Phonics and structural analysis for the teacher of reading. (10 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Phonics #2

Summary: It began with an introduction of the history of the English language and lead into the importance of understanding basic concepts in order to understand the language. This section introduced a lot of new, yet basic terminology that will lay the foundation for phonics.  There was a big emphasis comparing and contrasting: phonics and phonemic awareness, phoneme and grapheme, and other terms that might be similar. After giving several examples of terms and how they are used, it ended with a review to test if we remembered any of it.

Phonemic awareness vs. phonics - PA has to do with understanding the language through sound and phonics uses visuals and print to understand sounds

phoneme and graphemes can consist of more than one letter but represent just one unit of sound; even though keep, come and quit all have different letters, they have the same phoneme

Cues:
-graphophonic cues refer to letter and sound relatinship (ex. graphophonic cues indicate that the o in rod represents the same sound as the o in cot.)
-syntactic cues are used to determine the order of words (ex. In the English language we use the formula: Subject/Noun  Verb  Prep Phrase  of sentence structure to help us determine how to say something)
-semantic cues give us insight on the meaning of a passage (ex. knowing certain verbs go with certain subjects - background knowledge)

I had a question on #41A. It asks us to say flat without the /f/ and it says the new word is at. Where did the /l/ sound go?

While some of these activities seemed very trivial, they were great examples of what an early childhood teacher could use when helping students understand English.


My favorite part of learning phonics has been how I can relate it back to my passion for teaching English in Thailand. As I begin to understand the English language better, I know that I will be able to teach it much better! There are a lot of things I have already learned I wished I would have known a year ago.

Fox, B. (2010). Phonics and structural analysis for the teacher of reading. (10 ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

LEA for Cross-Cultural Reading and Writing

Summary: The purpose of teaching reading and writing via language experience approach (LEA) is to remover barriers between students in a multi-language/multi-level setting.  In classrooms that are composed of students with different value systems, beliefs, ways of living, routines, language, habits of time and space, etc., this approach allows students to seek understanding of these differences while learning to express themselves in reading and writing.  The reading materials used for instructional purposes are created from students retelling their owns stories of home and community events.  It integrates the use of pictures, all types of communication skills, a range of levels, and a learner-based resources.

This article was very interesting to me because I had never heard of this kind of approach. I am slightly exactly where it is used though. Would a normal classroom teacher use this kind of approach? Personally, I do not see how this approach would work compared to the other models used today. However, under certain circumstances, such as the the Nigerian example used in the article I could see how this would be a possibility. For many students, true learning and understanding will not take place when barriers are up that high. While this article wasn't extremely practical for me in the area of math, I could relate to it teaching English in Thailand.

As soon as I viewed it through that lens, the article became much more applicable.  Some of the things I could take from this article were: news on the board. When teaching English to students who that is not their first language, it is much easier and more enjoyable to learn when done on a topic that is of interest to them. And rather than assuming you know what they like, giving them the opportunity to share such as with news on the board gives you insight into what they like, but also allows the teacher to share their expertise on that subject in English. Because not only are languages different, but cultural differences will play a huge role into barriers coming down.

Another great thing I will take away from this article is the idea of students sharing stories about events in their home and community, and then turning those into teaching resources. Not only is their very economical, but again it lets students express themselves and feel like they are part of the process. Sometimes the lessons that you have prepared don't go as you thought they were going to. So this would be a great example of something that you could do that wouldn't take a lot of prep work on the teachers end and would allow students to feel like their stories and input are highly valuable.

Great article and it is always good to see what other people are doing around the world.

Landis, D., Umolu, J., & Mancha, S. (2010). The power of language experience for cross-cultural reading and writing. The Reading Teacher, 63(7), 580-589.