Interesting Facts:

  • 90% of a child’s brain development happens before the age of 5.
  • Factors that impact brain development are genetics, environmental stimulation, nutrition, steroids (hormones can cause death of neurons), and teratogens (foreign substances such as viruses and drugs).

  • “Phonemic awareness is one of the critical foundational skills for learning to read, but children who are at risk are much less likely to develop phonemic awareness skills naturally.” (Bursuck, Damer, Page 42)

  • “Despite its importance to early reading, student acquisition of phonemic awareness skills alone does not guarantee reading achievement. The effectiveness of phonemic awareness instruction is significantly enhanced if, at some point during the instruction, children are helped to apply their newly acquired phonological awareness skills directly to simple reading and spelling tasks” (Bursuck, Damer, Page 74)

  • Five-Phase Model:
    • Phase 1: Pre-alphabetic phase
    • Phase 2: Partial-alphabetic phase
    • Phase 3: Full-alphabetic phase
    • Phase 4: Consolidated-alphabetic phase
    • Phase 5: Automatic phase
  • Reading Regular Words: A three-part process
    • Part 1: Sounding Out Orally- This should be the first thing that students try when they are stuck on a word and they typically do this out loud so the teacher can make corrections if need be.
    • Part 2: Sounding Out Words Subvocally- This step is after students have become comfortable and more accurate sounding out words out loud. With this step, students are taught to sound words out in their heads.
    • Part 3: Reading Words by Sight- Students at this step should have a better ability to recognize words and say them fluently. Students should be able to say the words without pausing to sound them out.
  • Selecting decodable texts for students means finding a book in which 70% of the text is words that can be sounded out with a small portion of previously taught high-frequency words.
  • Syllable Types
    • Closed Syllable- “Syllables that have one short vowel and end in a consonant. (VC, CVC, CCVC, CVCC).  Ex: sat, past, trunk, happen” (Bursuck, Damer, Page 147) 
    • Open Syllable- “Syllables that have one long vowel sound that is spelled with a single-vowel letter and occur at the end of the syllable. (CV, V, CCV, CCCV) Ex: no, spry, repeat” (Bursuck, Damer, Page 147)
    • Vowel Combination Syllables- “Syllables that have a vowel digraph or diphthong, also known as vowel teams or clusters. These double vowels include vowel teams such as ai, ou, ew, ea. (CVVC, CCVVC, CVVCC) Ex: beater, Monday, looking.” (Bursuck, Damer, Page 147)
    • R-Controlled Syllables- “Syllables that have a vowel combination such as ar, or, er, ir, or ur. The vowel is neither long nor short, but controlled by the r that follows it. Ex: first, burden, garbage” (Bursuck, Damer, Page 147)
    • Vowel-consonant-e Syllables- “Syllables with a vowel followed by a consonant followed by a silent e. (VCe, CVCe, CCVCe). Ex: cope, deplane, graduate” (Bursuck, Damer, Page 147)
    • Consonant-le Syllables- “Syllables containing a consonant, followed by an l, followed by a silent e. Ex: Cradle, muddle, double ‘(Bursuck, Damer, Page 147)
  • Context clues should be taught to students as a strategy to use when working independently. 

  • “Another strategy teaches students to figure out new words using morphemes. Morphemes can be whole words such as spell, or they may be word parts such as the prefix re- or the suffix – less. To demonstrate how morphemes can be used to figure out the meaning of new vocabulary words, let’s look at the word careless, which consists of two morphemes: care and less. If students know that less means without, they know that careless means doing something without care or without being careful.” (Bursuck, Damer, page 259)

 Vocabulary Words:

  • Gist- Preserves a mental summary of the event described in what the individual just read without the exact words
  • Plasticity- The ability to adapt to significant changes in its environment.
  • Semantics- A word meaning
  • Syntax- Grammer and the order of words
  • Phonology- The sounds of language
  • Voiced Sounds-  Sounds that are produced using the vocal cords (you can feel them in your throat with your fingers)
  • Unvoiced Sounds- Sounds that do not require the vocal cords but rather your tongue (you will not feel any vibrations in your throat)
  • Stop Sounds- The air is completely blocked before it is expelled either because the lips come together as with /p/ or because the tongue touches the upper mouth as when saying /d/.
  • Continuous Sounds- The airflow does not stop as the sound is pronounced like with the sound /s/.
  • Segmenting- Ability to break apart spoken words into their individual phonemes
  • Blending- The ability to say a spoken word when its individual phonemes are spoken
  • Alphabetic Principle- “The recognition that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds” (80)
  • Synthetic Phonics- Letter-sound associations
  • Analytic Phonics- Whole word focus
  • Exception Words- Words that can not be conventionally sounded out.
  • Decodable Books- Books in which 70% of the text is composed of words that can be sounded out and a small portion of previously taught high-frequency words
  • Letter Combinations- When two or more adjacent letters make one distinct sound. Ex: The ch in church, the oi on boil, and the ee in meet
  • Digraphs- Two successive letter articulated as a single phoneme. ch in chop, and th in this
  • Diphthongs-  Vowel blends in which the first sound seems to glide into the second sound. Ex: ou in mouse, and oi in boil
  • Reading Fluency- The ability to read accurately, quickly, and with expression.
  • Context Clues- Using prior knowledge of words to decode other words.
  • Matthew Effect- Students who read more develop a wider range of vocab words and background knowledge while students who do not get this struggle with reading and find it frustrating.
  • Expressive Vocabulary vs. Receptive Vocabulary- When a student hears and understands a word that is receptive vocabulary but when that student is able to hear, understand, and then use the word in the correct context, that is expressive vocabulary.
  • Semantic Maps- Bubble maps that help students visually map out vocab words and information pertaining to those words.
  • Keyword Method- Using visuals that represent a vocabulary word to help students better understand what the word means.
  • Evidence-Based Reading means that a particular instruction means that a particular program or collection of instructional practices has a record of success.
    • This evidence should be objective, valid, reliable, systematic, and refereed.

 

ELL Students:

  • Students who can read the alphabet in their native language will be able to decode better when they transfer that knowledge to English reading.
  • “English learners who need additional support learning to read can be identified as early as kindergarten through phonemic awareness, graphophonemic knowledge, and rapid naming screening assessments. ” (p 135)
  • Unfortunately ELL students are mistaken for having a reading delay due to them not knowing English when that may not be the real problem.
  • “Students can easily miss keys to comprehension when listening to a conversation, such as when a sarcastic sentence is interpreted as a statement of fact. Shades of meaning are lost when word emphasis is not interpreted. ” (p 232)

References:

Sousa, David A. HOW THE BRAIN LEARNS TO READ. SAGE Publications Ltd., 2014.

William D. Bursuck, Mary Damer. Teaching Reading to Students Who Are At Risk or Have Disabilities. Pearson, 2015.