Phonemic awareness-identifying and manipulating speech sounds. • Phonemes-
... Phoneme isolation -recognizing individual sounds in words: tell me the first.
Alphabetics What is Alphabetics? alphabetics is made up of two parts: phonemic awareness and word analysis.
What is Phonemic Awareness? Phonemic awareness-identifying and manipulating speech sounds Phonemes- the smallest units of sound in spoken language Must be learned through reading and writing-not just acquired naturally
Why is Phonemic Awareness Important? Phonemic awareness is required for developing decoding skills It’s necessary for successful phonics instruction and for learners to be able to
use phonics to identify words as they read and to spell words as they write
Who can benefit from phonemic awareness training?
Adult nonreaders Adult beginning readers Some adult intermediate ABE readers with poor decoding skills Usually not ESOL adults who can’t read English
Phonemic Awareness Development Tips Focus on one or two types of PA tasks at a time; segmenting and blending may
be most useful. Use letters as well as sounds in teaching PA. Be sure students understand the connection between PA activities and their long-term reading goals. Integrate short phonemic awareness activities within the reading lesson. In each lesson, try to address all needed components of reading instruction-phonemic awareness and phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension-as well as opportunities to experience and learn from adult-relevant materials.
Phonemic Awareness Assessment and Instruction The National Reading Panel identified 6 tasks for assessment and instruction: Phoneme isolation -recognizing individual sounds in words: tell me the first sound in “paste” Phoneme identity - recognizing the common sound in different words: Tell me the sound that is the same in bike, boy and bell
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Phoneme categorization - recognizing the word with the odd sound in a
sequence of three or four different words: “Which word does not belong? bus, bun, rug” Phoneme blending - listening to a sequence of separately spoken sounds and combining them to form a recognizable word: What word is /d/ /o/ /g/?” Phoneme segmentation - breaking a word into its sounds by tapping out or counting the sounds or by pronouncing and positioning a marker for each sound: How many sounds are there in ship Phoneme deletion - recognizing what word remains when a specified phoneme is removed: What is smile without the /s/?”
What is Decoding or Phonics? A word identification skill involving letter-sound correspondence to recognize
words in print Used by beginning learners to identify words when reading and to approximate the spelling of words when writing
Findings: Decoding/Phonics Instruction Assess phonics skills of adult beginning and (some) intermediate-level readers. Provide explicit, systematic phonics instruction that is matched to the assessed
needs of learners. Follow a defined scope and sequence of skills or adopt a structured phonicsbased program. Provide practice of the phonics elements you have taught, including (perhaps) use of controlled-vocabulary texts. Do not make decoding skills the entire focus of the reading lesson. In each lesson, address the other needed component skills as well, and provide opportunities for learners to gain access to adult-interest reading materials. Adult beginning readers are not as good at manipulating phonemes or at applying letter-sound correspondences (decoding) while reading as children at comparable levels. On the other hand, adult beginning readers are better at sight word recognition than children at comparable levels of development in reading
Why is Decoding Important? Readers must be able to identify words independently and rapidly in order to
read fluently enough to read with understanding. Many native-English speaking adult readers already know the meaning of many words in the texts they’re reading. Once they can efficiently recognize printed words they can understand what they read.
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Who can benefit from decoding/phonics training? Adult nonreaders Adult beginning readers Adult intermediate readers whose decoding skills are less than automatic
Decoding Skills Assessments Orally, individually administered Students at different reading levels and with different decoding skills require
different assessments Assessment results inform instructional strategies
Decoding/Phonics Instruction Research indicates that explicit, systematic phonics instruction is most effective
for beginners. In explicit, systematic phonics instruction, a body of phonics content (lettersound correspondences and common word patterns) is identified, logically sequenced and directly taught. Provide explicit, systematic phonics instruction that is matched to the assessed needs of learners.
Synthetic Phonics: Learners are taught the letter sound correspondences and then are taught to
blend the sounds to identify words “What word does /d/ /o/ /g/ make?” dog
Analytic Phonics: Learners do not pronounce the sounds in isolation. They analyze the sounds in
a word that is already identified “What sounds do you hear in the word dog?” /d/ /o/ /g/
Blending Patterns: Learners use parts of words they already know to identify unfamiliar words Onset/Rime: Body/Coda: _ack sa_ back sat sack sad tack sap
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A Sampling of Phonics Rules (that usually work) Words and syllables with double e usually have the long-e sound (seem, feel, nee-dle). The consonant digraph ch usually represents the sound in chicken, not /sh/. The letter r following a vowel creates a blended sound, and the vowel is neither long nor short (fir, car, horn, burly, carry, hurdle, bargain). When c is followed by e or i, it usually sounds like s. When followed by o or u, it most often sounds like k. If a syllable or word ends in a vowel, it usually has the long sound (he, my so, lo-co-mo-tive). A single vowel in the middle of a one syllable word most often represents the short-vowel sound (dress, splash, fox). Try the short sound first. If that doesn’t result in a meaningful word, try the long sound (mind, toll, gold). In a word with two vowels, one of which is a final e, the e is usually silent and the first vowel is long (like, tune, fate, nose). Try the long sound first. To divide a multi-syllabic word into syllables for decoding, use these suggestions and then sound out each syllable as if it were a word. Remove verb endings, prefixes and suffixes, and decode the root word. Divide two consonants, unless they form a digraph: (hap-pen, fan-tas-tic, but gath-er and fash-ion). Divide after the vowel if there’s only one consonant. Since this creates a syllable ending in a vowel, try the long sound first (ba-con, to-ken, pho-to, le-gal). If this doesn’t work, divide after the consonant and try the short sound (pan-el, leg-end, pet-al, lib-er-ty
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Fluency What is Fluency? Speed Accuracy in word identification Phrasing and expression (prosody)
Why is Fluency Important? Fluency is required for comprehension. Accurate and efficient word identification allows the reader to pay attention to meaning. Fluent reading is comprehensible because it sounds like speech.
Who Needs Fluency? Most adult beginning readers and many others
Fluency Development: Research-based Tips Use a fluency measure with (at least) beginning- and intermediate-level readers. Use guided repeated oral reading techniques to build reading fluency.
Fluency Assessment Mastery vs Automaticity Mastery: the ability to perform a skill reliably without obvious deliberate effort but with some obvious conscious application of underlying skills needed to accomplish a task Automaticity: the ability to perform a skill with ease, accuracy and speed and without the conscious application of underlying skills needed to accomplish a task
Oral Reading Rate (speed) Why do we need to measure oral reading rate? It is a measure of word recognition automaticity. It is the first step in an informal assessment of fluency. How do we measure reading rate? Words per minute = (number of words in passage ÷ reading time (in seconds)) x 60
Oral Reading Accuracy (decoding)
Are words read correctly? Does the reader pay attention to the punctuation?
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Real Errors
Mispronunciations—count only first time the error is made Substitutions Insertions Omissions Supplied words
Not Real Errors
Self-corrections Repetitions Errors in word endings: –ing, –ed, –s Pronunciation errors in proper nouns
Oral Reading Prosody (phrasing, rhythm and expression) Does the reader chunk words into phrases bringing a rhythm to the text and some evidence of comprehension? Prosody Pausing Scale
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Smooth reading, with pauses occurring at appropriate points and few (if any) repetitions
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Fairly steady reading, but with pauses occurring sometimes within phrases and/or some repetitions
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Uneven/choppy reading, with frequent repetitions and/or lapses in phrasing and/or sounding out of words
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Labored, word-by-word reading, with continual repetitions, frequent stopping, and/or sounding out of words
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Findings: Fluency Instruction
Fluency can be taught to adults.
Teaching fluency increases reading achievement.
Strategies for fluency instruction include repeated oral readings of text to improve accuracy, rate, and rhythm. Practice: Teach fluency using repeated readings. Effective K–12 strategy: guided repeated oral reading Also useful for those with reading problems Motivational (leads to quick success)
Fluency Instruction: Guided, Repeated Oral Reading Techniques
Reading to the teacher or tutor Echo reading Dyad and choral reading Paired or partner reading Tape-assisted reading Performance reading Cross-generational reading
Fluency Instruction: Another Approach If word identification is part of the fluency problem, phonics instruction and sight-word practice may make a difference.
Other Issues in Fluency Development Appropriate difficulty level of materials Easier text for speed and phrasing More difficult text for accuracy (decoding practice) Relatively easy materials are best for increasing speed and expression, while more difficult text is required to improve accurate word identification in context. (There must be some words the reader will have to decode). Audiotapes or CDs Taped readings of texts (audiotapes or CDs) may allow students to practice with guidance while working independently. If recordings of appropriate level texts can be found or created, they may make it easier to manage guided repeated oral reading in the classroom setting.
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Teacher guidance Limit interruptions On page 55 of Applying Research in Reading Instruction for Adults, there is a discussion of teacher guidance—how much, when, and what kind—explaining there may be no simple answers. As we saw in the fluency demonstration of the reader reading “Jazz” it’s important in guided repeated oral reading practice to give readers a chance to figure out the text for themselves and to self-correct and correct only the errors that affect the meaning of the text.
Silent reading (before oral) Having a student read a text silently before reading it orally is a good idea because it familiarizes the reader with the text and any potential trouble spots before the oral reading activity.
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Readability Statistics Website – Okapi http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/tools/okapi/okapi.php
Reading Levels of Texts Independent level: Learner reads correctly at least 95% of the words in a passage. Some authorities favor a lower limit of only 2 errors in 100, or 98% accuracy. Instructional level: Learner reads correctly at least 85% of the words in a passage. Frustration level: Learner cannot read passage at the instructional level.
An Online Fluency Resource
www.marshalladulteducation.org/reading_skills_home.htm
An online collection of stories and articles for reading practice across a wide range of readability levels Oral readings users may access for each selection (readings at three different speeds) A timer that users may download to time their own readings A downloadable chart students may use to record their timed readings
Available on the “Reading Skills for Today’s Adults” on the Marshall, Minnesota website: http://www.marshalladulteducation.org
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Oral Reading Rate
Why do we need to measure oral reading rate? It is a measure of word recognition automaticity. It is the first step in an informal assessment of fluency.
How do we measure reading rate? words per minute = (number of words in passage ÷ reading time (in seconds) x 60
Assessing Oral Reading Rate Activity Rapid Automatized Naming a d o s a
d a s p d
p p a o p
a d s d a
o o d s p
s a p a o
p p o s a
d s d o p
s o a p s
Reference: Felton, R.H., Naylor, Cecile E., & Wood, F. B. 1990. Neuropsychological profile of adult dyslexics. Brain and Language, 39, 485–497.
Directions: Assemble in pairs. Then, time each other reading the Rapid Automatized Naming sequence shown in the handout. Rapid Automatized Naming Timed Results =/
