Kylie Humphries

RE 5100

Monday 5:00-8:00

November 14, 2009

Final Exam

Emergent Readers

1. (A) A child who is learning the alphabet needs to compare and contrast different letters so that they can identify the distinguishing features of each letter. A child also needs to compare and contrast fonts of the same letter because all text is not written in the same font and children are still expected to identify those letters in text. An example is the letter “G”, this letter can look like “g”, “G”, “g”, or “G”. Children must furthermore compare their own “hypotheses” of what the letter looks like to the correct formation of that letter. In order for human beings to retain and learn anything, we must compare the actual thing to what we think it should be.

(B) I would assess a classroom of beginning kindergarteners’ knowledge of the alphabet and other reading concepts through an Early Reading Screening Inventory (ERSI). This assessment would test their concept of word (Katie book), knowledge of upper-case and lower-case letters by asking the child to name and produce the letters in random order, and their phonemic awareness through a series of spelling words. The alphabet knowledge assessment would not be administered to students who correctly identified 15-20 beginning consonants appropriately on the 20 word-spelling test. I would group students according to no alphabet knowledge, students who are spelling with random letters, students who use but confuse letters in production and/or identification, and students who have beginning consonant knowledge and use their sounds appropriately.

(C) I would begin by teaching the alphabet song. This will get the students used to saying the letters in the correct order. I would give students their own alphabet strip. After they’ve memorized the song, I would model how to track each letter while singing. So now, not only have the memorized the name of each letter, they also know what each letter looks like. To teach students how to recognize letters in isolation I would play the Letter Recognition game. Students would flip their alphabet strips face down. I would write a letter on the board and ask the students to say aloud what they think the letter is. Then they flip their alphabet strips over and track while singing the song to see if they’re right. To teach students to produce letters in isolation I would play the Letter Production game. For example, I would tell every student to write the letter “C”. I would go around and check their hypotheses and treat every guess (right or wrong) the same way. Then I would model how to write the letter “C” on the board and the students will compare their hypotheses to the actual letter. I would make sure that I was showing them to make the letter “C” the same way every day. To teach students how to sort letters I would focus on four letters at a time. For example, I may choose to do “B”, “D”, “C”, and “A”. I would give each child a baggie of 24 letters (6 of each letter), and give them a blank piece of paper with four columns labeled B, D, C, A. Students would be required to pull out a letter from their baggie, name it, and put it under the correct column. Later in the week, once they have mastered the sorting task, I would give them a new baggie with the letters in different fonts and sizes to sort again. To get students to sort letters for speed, I would time individuals for one minute and see how many letters they could sort correctly. This activity would be done over a 2-3 week period. I would make a graph to chart their progress.

2. (A) To conduct a language/experience with students, I would choose an item that all students are familiar with, such as “popcorn” and make it my subject for my writing. I would share a picture of popcorn with my students and eat popcorn that day as a snack. Students would be asked to illustrate themselves eating popcorn. While students are illustrating, I would call students individually to tell me one thing they learned about popcorn. I would start each sentence with the child’s name. For example, “Bob said popcorn is crunchy.” Students will then practice “tracking” their own story, and later teach their classmates how to read their sentence. Each page would have 3 to 6 words on it to help the students track more successfully. I would collect all of the students’ sentences and compose a book about popcorn. The next day, I would model figure pointing while the students echo read the popcorn story they created. The goal of this activity is to get the child to exercise their tracking and help them develop their concept of word.

(b) For a language/experience with a longer personal narrative, I would allow the child to tell me the whole story the first time through; this lets them exercise their book language. Then I would ask them to retell the story word by word so that I can write it down. This activity will be impossible for them since they have not yet acquired a concept of word. While they are retelling, I will be writing down each word, saying/pointing to the words, and emphasizing the spaces between each word. This dictation could be turned into a book with 3 to 6 words per page, and used as a tracking exercise.

(B) When I am writing their dictation the first time through I would encourage them to use what they know about initial consonant by asking them “What does this start with?” I could put more words per page, but no more than 18. Students with initial consonant awareness can use what they know to self-correct themselves while they are tracking.

3. (A) Students who are spelling with random letters point to words when they are reading a memorized text orally because they have seen adults point while they are reading. These students do not have a concept of word, and therefore they are not pointing accurately, they are simply copying what they have seen adults and possibly some of their classmates do.

(b) Students who are spelling with random letters say a stressed word or phrase each time they point to a word because at this point, the text they’ve memorized is most likely a nursery rhyme or something similar, and they are pointing according to the rhythm of the nursery rhyme. For example, if a child had memorized the nursery rhyme “Sam, Sam the baker man” a child would point only four times, when they should point five times because there are five words on the line. The child would point once for “the baker” because “the” is not a stressed syllable in this line.

(B)(a) Students who are spelling with beginning consonants are not able to begin spelling with ending consonants at the same time. Students are naturally drawn to the beginning sound of words first. Their main focus is on the initial consonant sounds because that is how they identify words in text. Once students are able to master beginning consonant sounds, then they can move on to spelling with ending consonants.

(b) Students who are spelling with beginning consonants will naturally say one syllable each time they point to a written word in text. They have watched adults point to text as they read, and they know they are supposed to point each time they say a “word”. However, they do not have a concept of word, so they do not understand that the spaces between letters divide the text into words. Students will continue to say one syllable each time they point until they realize that the beginning consonant’s sound has to match the sound of the word they are saying.

(c) Students who are spelling with beginning consonants can be taught how to self-correct if they get off track while finger pointing. These students can use what they know, their knowledge of beginning consonants sounds, to self-correct themselves while reading a memorized text. For example, if a student who is spelling with beginning consonants reads “Sam, Sam the baker man” and points to the word “baker” and says “bake” and then points to “man” and says “er”, they will realize that “man” has the /m/ sound at the beginning and “er” does not. This realization may be done independently later in this stage, but mostly an adult would have to stop the student and prompt them to see their mistake.

4. (A) Students are ready to learn beginning consonants when they are spelling with random letters. Students who are spelling with random letters have alphabet knowledge, and are ready to begin understanding how letters work in words.

(B) Picture sorts would be the best way to learn beginning consonants. You could choose two consonants with contrasting sounds (you shouldn’t choose a minimal pair such as “b” and “p”). Students will say the name of the picture, and compare the beginning sound of the word on the picture to the two consonants at the top of the pocket chart/board/etc. This should have already been modeled for them once or twice before they attempt the task independently. Students will say the picture name, and then say the sound each consonant sound displayed at the top. For example, say you were asking students to contrast the consonants “B” and “T” and sort the picture cards according to the initial sound. You would begin identifying the letter name sounds of “B” and “T” and asking the children to repeat after you. Then you can choose a picture card that has a ball on it. You would ask students to identify the picture by asking, “What is this a picture of?” and hopefully their response would be “ball” or “a ball”. You would then say repeat the word “ball” and repeat the letter name “B”. You would do the same with the letter “T”. Then you can ask students to place the picture card under the letter (B or T) column that they believe matches the initial sound. Within the columns, the picture cards should include a variety of co-articulations such as “ball”, “bear”, and “bull” so that students can see all the ways the consonant sound can be articulated.

(C) At this stage you would use picture sorts instead of word sorts because students have not acquired a concept of word. Emergent readers may have some idea of what a word is in text, but they are only spelling with beginning and ending consonants. They would be able to identify the beginning consonant of a picture name, for example: if shown a picture of a ball, they would know that “ball” begins with the letter “b” because they are in the letter-name stage of spelling.

Beginning Readers

1. Children can learn to track accurately when they spell with beginning and ending consonants because they can self-correct themselves if they get off track while reading. For example, if the child is finger pointing and reading aloud the poem “Sam, Sam the baker man washed his face in a frying pan.” The child correctly finger points until he/she points at “man” and says “er”. A child who spells with beginning and ending consonants knows that “man” does not begin with “er” and will self-correct himself. The child may also realize that “man” does not end with “er” either, and therefore self-correct, but the child will most likely realize there was a mistake with the beginning consonant first because that is where humans are naturally drawn to. Once a child can accurately track an unfamiliar passage that contains two or three polysyllabic words, they have required concept of word.

2. Complete phonemic awareness is usually achieved after the child can track a memorized text accurately because they have now “cracked the code” of reading (acquired concept of word), and they can finally take their mind off of individual letters and begin to understand what’s going on within words.

3. Once a student can accurately track a text, their sight vocabulary will begin to develop. As the child practices accurately tracking a text, and the parent/teacher is making sure they are saying the correct words while finger-pointing, they will build their sight vocabulary. They will also build their sight vocabulary through the reading and re-reading of a familiar/memorized text. The teacher can put the words from that particular story or nursery rhyme that the student has memorized on index cards, and create a word bank so that the student can practice the words in isolation also.

4. (A) A beginning reader is sometimes referred to as a “support reader” because they cannot read an unfamiliar text on their own, but they can re-read the text with support from both the material and the teacher.

(B) The material gives support to a beginning reader by having repeated phrases, illustrations that help with comprehension, and control of vocabulary – the use of familiar words. If a student is reading their dictation for the first time, the dictation should be written in their own language.

(C) The teacher gives support by reading the text to the student the first time, and then echo reads or choral reads with the student. The teacher also gives picture walks to introduce the child to unfamiliar vocabulary in the text they are about to read. The teacher should only give as much support as the child needs to successfully re-read the text.

5. A beginning reader gains sight vocabulary through the successful reading and re-reading of text. It is helpful to pull words from texts they have memorized to create a word bank because those are the words they know and can automatically recognize. The hope is that the student will soon be able to recognize the words in their word bank in other stories they read. The more stories the student reads and re-reads successfully, the more words can be added to their individual word bank. The words added to their word bank are words that the student can automatically recognize in and/or out of text. A word bank would not be helpful if the words it included were unfamiliar to the student. The purpose of a word bank is to include words that the child can read. The more words a student has in his/her sight vocabulary, the easier it will be for him/her to re-read an unfamiliar text when given the opportunity.

6. If a child’s automatic word recognition in isolation is strong, it is likely that they will have a better understanding of how letters work in words as opposed to a student who has a weak word bank (doesn’t have a lot of words that they automatically recognize) then they will struggle when reading an unfamiliar text. The larger a child’s individual word bank is, the easier it will be for them to extract meaning from text and become a successful decoder. A strong word bank would allow the child’s mind to focus freely on the meaning of the text as opposed to phoneme segmentation because of their high level of automatic word recognition.

7. This is a three-day cycle of guided reading to build sight vocabulary for beginning readers:

DAY 1:

  • Introduce a pattern book. Do a picture walk, clarify the illustrations or take dictations from children.
  • Echo and/or choral read with the group (do not give anymore support than they need to read it successfully)
  • Students read the book quietly one or two times through (Teacher is walking around and listening to the students read; paying attention to how well students can re-read the story)
  • Send the pattern book home (only if the teacher feels the student can read it successfully at home – sure that student will have adult support)

DAY 2:

  • Students re-read the story quietly on their own (Teacher is walking around and listening to students read and also hearing if they are reading it successfully – if they can read it successfully that means the level of the pattern book is not too hard for them.
  • CLOSE THE BOOK
  • Give students word cards that have words from that particular pattern book
  • Each child divides the cards into words they know and words they do not know.
  • Words that the child knows (teacher checks to make sure they actually know the words) go in that child’s word bank.
  • Each child puts the words they do not know into the “Magic Box”
  • Introduce a new pattern book (#2)

DAY 3:

  • Ask the child to say each word in their word bank – put a “check” beside of the words they know.
  • Once they can accurately recall 20-25 words in their word bank, put a rubber band around the word cards and send them home.
  • Students read pattern book #2 independently
  • Students divide the cards into words they know (go in word bank) and words they do not know (go in magic box).
  • Teacher checks to make sure students actually know the words in their word banks.
  • Introduce new pattern book (#3)

8. Word family sort (b) is more challenging because the ending consonants in the first column “t” and in the third column “d” are minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are two letters that have the same mouth formation but one letter is voiced (causes the vocal chords to vibrate) “d”, and one is unvoiced (blowing air) “t”. Minimal pairs are very hard for beginning readers to distinguish between because the mouth formations of both letters are the same, and therefore it is harder for them to decide which column the word should go in.