Re 5100 Reflective Paper

Annie Croon

1. The language experience approach is an age appropriate and effective way of practicing reading with kindergarten students. This one hundred year old method involves having children dictate their shared experiences to the teacher, as she writes in their own language. Initially, the story should be kept to two or three lines, so that children can memorize the text and practice reading it successfully. The lesson might take this format: The teacher initiates a discussion based around a shared experience, such as a fun classroom activity, a special guest, or some other experience the children have had together. The simple story is written on chart paper; it is read and reread. The teacher models the reading, fingerpointing to each word as she reads. The children will join in and choral read several times. The next day, the story is choral read again several times. She may also echo read, having the class repeat the story after her. The teacher is always fingerpointing to beginning consonants, and sliding along under the words as she reads. She continues the lesson with questions crucial to developing her students’ print related awareness. Children come up to the chart and demonstrate where to begin, that we read left to right, how to return sweep, and what punctuation directs the reader to do. The children learn that a story has a title, and that there are spaces between words. Children may begin to identify beginning consonants and develop some sight word vocabulary. On the following day, the children have a mini-version of the charted story. They try to follow along on their copies as the teacher reads and rereads the story. She has the class illustrate the story. While they are doing this, she circulates, and informally assesses who can accurately finger point read the story. She may go further, asking students to identify random words in the writing.

This is an effective method for the teacher to discover the level of her students’ concept of word, or the child’s ability to match spoken words to written words while reading. This skill plays a pivotal role in early reading development; children are matching speech to an alphabetic writing system. When successful, they fingerpoint to words while attending to beginning consonant sounds. The language experience offers multiple opportunities for a teacher to demonstrate this phonemic awareness skill. She may model sounding the initial consonant, so that her students begin to match letter sound to the grapheme she is pointing to. This initial stage of phonemic awareness, letter / sound recognition, is only the first step toward full segmentation ability. When a child becomes aware that “bat” cannot say “tree” because he hears a /b/ and not a /t/, he has reached an important developmental stage in the reading process. Later, the teacher may cover a word, and the students discover what the missing word is. They learn to use beginning sound and sentence context to figure out the word.

This dictated story method is also a great way to differentiate instruction. While some students are building their PA skills, others are building an early sight word vocabulary. Students are developing their concept of word, or simply listening to the familiar stories. Reading and rereading their own stories is motivating and enjoyable, for it is written in their own spoken and natural language. When they begin to write, they will start to hear initial (and perhaps final) sounds representative of each word, as they invent spellings for their own stories. As the children progress in ability, the dictated stories may become longer. Old stories should be brought out and reread, or perhaps explored for a newly learned letter-sound or word, or simply to revive a memorable shared experience.

2. a) During the kindergarten year, children must learn several key concepts if they are to become successful readers. The first is a solid foundation of print related tasks, including concept of word, alphabet naming, and alphabet knowledge. Without these skills, she will certainly have trouble moving forward with the development of phonemic awareness and the reading process. Secondly, the child needs to begin to build a background of knowledge on which to draw when she reads about and discovers the world around her. With this, she needs to start to add new words to a meaningful and useful vocabulary. This second skill becomes more important in the later grades, where prior knowledge enters into critical thinking and higher order reasoning.

b) Alphabet knowledge includes naming and writing the lower case alphabet letters in random order. Letter sound knowledge is knowledge of the letter/sound pairings in the English language. Phonemic awareness is the ability to attend to individual sounds in a spoken word.

3. The three students listed are clearly in different developmental stages in their spelling abilities. Sue is in the semi-phonetic stage. Children in this stage may typically represent only beginning consonants in one syllable words, as Sue has done in P – pick, P – peeked, and C – side (she hears /s/ and chooses the letter C because of how this letter’s name is articulated), or they may represent the consonant boundaries. Sue has spelled back as BK, feet as FT, and step as CP (once again, she has chosen C to represent /s/), and JS – dress. Children in this spelling stage are often unable to attend to the full sequence of sounds in words; phonemic awareness is not fully developed. This speller heard “j” in the “dr” blend in dress, a phonologically appropriate and interpretable substitution. As her teacher, I question whether Sue has a solid foundation of letter sound correspondence; her choice of “c” for /s/ tells me she needs explicit instruction in this area. A thorough review of her letter inventory is warranted. As the child’s name begins with “s”, this shouldn’t be too difficult a lesson for her to learn. I would verify Sue’s understanding of beginning consonant sounds with letter-sound sorts. Next short vowel rhyming word sorts will help her solidify beginning consonant sounds as well as give her practice in decoding rhyme families. As she practices, Sue will add many of these words to her sight vocabulary, and become competent in spelling them. These types of words are regular and usually high frequency, appropriate instruction for this emergent reader. These drills help build her phonemic awareness skills as well as her sight vocabulary.

John is a speller in the letter-name stage. He has begun to consistently represent vowels, making appropriate substitutions when he does choose the incorrect one, as in SAP – step, and DAS -dress. These short vowel errors are phonetically justifiable, as they are similarly formed in the vocal tract. Early in this stage, some children will only represent the first part of the initial blend (as in step and dress) as they are sounding their way through the word. John has represented long vowels with the corresponding long vowel name, as in FET – feet, SID – side, and PEK – peeked, but they are not marked. John does not understand the “ck” pairing in closed one syllable words, and is not spelling “by meaning” yet ( PEKN – picking and PEK – peeked). His spellings are more sophisticated than Sue’s, but I would be certain John’s knowledge of short vowel patterns is rock solid. CVC, CCVC, and CVCC patterns are the foundation for all future word study. Short vowel work with “a” families, although probably too easy for John, will expose him to the concept of categorizing words by pattern. When the teacher is certain of his proficiency, increasing the number of columns, introducing blends, digraphs, and clusters, and the other vowels families will serve to increase the difficulty. The lessons should proceed to comparisons after some high frequency long vowel patterns (especially CVCe) have been introduced. Spell checking along the way will ensure he is internalizing these patterns.

Hannah’s spelling may be categorized as the Within-Word stage. She has represented short vowels conventionally (BACK, PIKING, and DRES), and has long vowel markers in place, although they are misplaced or misused (FETE and SIED). She hears all the phonemes in peeked (PEAKT), and shows some knowledge of the spelling system with “ck” in BACK and “ing” in PIKING. She is ahead developmentally speaking, of the other two spellers described earlier. Hannah is searching for the conventional spellings as she writes. Her instruction in phonics should start with a brief review (as the second grade curriculum does) and move on to high frequency one syllable vowel pattern words. Hannah will be sorting “a” words across three patterns. When proficient, she will also move through

the vowels “i”, “o”, “u”, and “e”, and ultimately receive instruction in syllabification. She will also be increasing her sight vocabulary and practice writing these new patterns. The rate at which this student masters each additional vowel pattern will determine how quickly she moves forward.

The spelling test administered to these three students would be a good predictor of reading ability at the end of first grade because current research has conclusively shown spelling ability and word reading ability are highly correlated in the early primary grades

( K-2). The underlying word knowledge a child possesses is revealed in how she spells words as well as in her ability to read words. When comparing John and Hannah’s spelling abilities, clearly Hannah’s sense of phonemic awareness is more sophisticated. Her orthographic awareness of the English language is more developed, as demonstrated by her spellings. Because of her ability, she will begin word study at a higher level than John, and probably end the year further along the sequence of instruction.

4. The debate over phonics instruction has been a hot topic in reading education for quite some time. The research has somewhat settled the argument for us. All children can benefit from a systematic, explicit curriculum of phonics instruction. Good phonics instruction helps students develop good phonemic awareness (PA), and PA in turn is a highly reliable predictor of reading success. The Whole Language movement, which advocated isolated and incidental phonics instruction, has served to demonstrate that a haphazard approach to phonics instruction is ineffective. Therefore, to be effective in the classroom, teachers must embrace a systematic and logical sequence of phonics instruction. Teachers must understand the developmental process of phonics acquisition, and must themselves possess an organized knowledge and order of what they will teach. Additionally, the teacher must determine where her students are on the developmental continuum. Each student has an instructional level where he / she should be taught phonics to achieve optimum growth. Students should be taught in small groups according to ability level.

In first grade, this curriculum should begin with instruction of beginning consonant / letter sound correspondence. This rudimentary form of phonemic awareness helps students’ developing concept of word knowledge. Emergent readers must be able to pick up beginning consonant cues in contextual reading and writing. Beginning consonant sorts and then beginning sound to letter sorts are an efficient way to build this PA. Children who have mastered these skills will be ready for word work with short vowel families. Word family sorts offer opportunities to practice, practice, and practice reading short vowel words, and are the easiest entry into word study. CVC patterns display a 1:1 letter sound correspondence, are regular, and highly frequent for the first grader to read, decode, and build sight vocabulary. Start with short a families, and proceed to i, o, e, and u one at a time. Students will be learning initial and final blends, as well as consonant clusters and digraphs. Of course, the student need not know the technical jargon for what they are learning; this is knowledge for the teacher. Students need experience with words; they need to internalize the letter sound relationships and spelling patterns in our written language. Proficiency with the short vowel rhyming families leads to work with vowel patterns sorts.

Students will begin to sort one syllable short vowel words that do not rhyme using all five vowels in CVC patterns. Mastery of CVC patterns is crucial if the child is to be successful in studying the long vowel patterns, as the short vowel patterns are the anchor for all future study. The teacher must be absolutely certain the student has mastered these short vowel patterns before continuing to instruction of the long vowels. Overlearning to the point of rock solid accuracy is imperative to ensure future success for the student. Any doubt or concern as to whether the student has mastered the short vowels to random automaticity warrants further review until the teacher is 100% certain the child has internalized the basic vowel patterns. Automatic knowledge of these patterns is essential if the student is to become a fluent reader.

When the student has mastered the short vowel patterns, the teacher should begin instruction in the high frequency long vowel patterns, CVCe, r- controlled, and CVVC patterns, again starting with a words. Continued word sort work with comparisons to short vowels are brought into the instruction. The use of analytic phonics, where the student induces pattern similarities is useful to help learners internalize these spelling patterns. Once again, not until the student has mastered and is consistently accurate and automatic in reading and spelling each of these patterns, should the teacher move forward. Mastery at each step along the way is necessary for future growth. Spell checking along the way is an important diagnostic tool; students must be able to read and write these words.

The sequence of instruction outlined above is logical; each step is built upon the one before it in that each step prepares the student for spelling patterns they might come upon in their contextual reading in first grade. This logical sequence of instruction brings important spelling patterns into focus as they are relevant to the student’s reading and writing growth.

Word games such as Memory (Concentration), Bingo, and Pitty Pat are important elements for the teacher’s inclusion in the lesson plan in that they overcome the boredom factor students might encounter during word study. These activities are well structured, and include practice with phonics patterns in isolation. As students play these high interest games, they are having fun and building self-esteem without ever realizing that they are still practicing and learning vowel patterns. A skilled teacher will play, forfeit, and lose to the student in order to facilitate learning while motivating the student to mastery.

5. It is extremely important for kindergarten and first grade teachers to have a well-thought out strategy for teaching meaning vocabulary. This is so because a child’s level of oral language affects his comprehension, and comprehension affects academic success. The relationship between early growth in vocabulary and later reading ability is a strong one. Children enter kindergarten with varying levels of vocabulary due to experience, their home environment, age, and their ability to acquire oral language. Although the major focus of instruction for young children is learning the alphabet and letter sounds, educators know their students’ oral language skills are generally in advance of their reading and writing abilities. A skilled teacher can expand students’ vocabularies with interesting and inventive words that are suggested by simpler ideas represented in young children’s books. Reading aloud to young children precedes a glorious opportunity to discuss concepts and introduce new words that enhance comprehension and vocabulary. Trade books, big books, and other forms of rich, quality literature such as poetry are excellent resources for teaching children new vocabulary. These types of content broaden oral language with new concepts, vocabulary contexts, and language structures. This growth cannot happen as a result of the content children are able to read in grades 1 – 3. Controlled vocabulary in basals and other grade level texts do little to expand vocabulary. In fact, for grade level comprehension, children must possess an above grade vocabulary, existing not from memorization, but from understanding the words. The sheer numbers of words a child must possess in usable form dictates that teachers do all they can, and do it early to expand vocabulary. Even children who are good readers, who read widely and extensively, will acquire relatively few words from context. Children who are poor readers, or who come from a less advantaged background are at even greater risk of failure due to oral language deficits. A direct and explicit plan for constant addition of new words is crucial to academic success.