Phonemic Awareness Activities (Early Reading Skills)

Research has shown that a child's phonemic awareness (ability to hear and manipulate sounds within a word) is a very good indicator of that child's future reading success or struggle.  So, how do we build phonemic awareness in children, including very young children?

• Rhyming--read rhyming poems and stories, emphasizing the rhyming words.  Leave a rhyming word out and have the child fill in a word that works.    
• Blending--putting individual sounds together to make words.  For example, "/b/, /a/, /t/ says what?"  Then change it, "what if we use a /c/ instead of /b/?"  In addition to individual sounds, you can also blend and change groups of sounds; "/h/, /op/ says what? What if you change /op/ to /at/?"
• Segmenting--segmenting is the opposite of blending; the child tells you all of the sounds they hear in a word.  "What sounds do you hear in 'stop'?"
• Isolating sounds--matching words with the same beginning, middle or ending sounds.  Sort pictures; play "Beginning Sound Concentration"--find pictures with matching sounds; play "I Spy"--"I spy something  that starts with /w/."
• Identifying and sequencing sounds--first, identify sounds in isolation.  This part can be done in the classroom or on a "sound walk".  "What was that sound you just heard?"  (crumpling paper, clapping, sliding a chair, etc.)  Once children learn to identify different sounds pretty well, you can start sequencing the sounds and see if the children can tell you what sound they heard first, next and last.  Or, give them three sounds, then do it again, leaving one sound out.  See if the children can identify which sound was left out.
• Deleting sounds--leaving one sound or part of a word out and seeing what word remains.  "Say the word 'toothbrush'.  Now say 'toothbrush' without saying 'tooth'."  The child should respond "brush".  "Say the word 'train'.  Now say 'train' without saying 't'."  The child should respond "rain".

Anything that we can do to help child develop phonemic awareness will help them in their reading, regardless of whether they are currently learning to read or still a few years away.

Misty

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Parents Supporting Children's Literacy

I recently read about a very interesting project in England that empowered parents to help their young children improve their literacy skills.  The REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) Project is interesting in several ways.

• The focus of the project is teaching parents how to teach their own children.  Seems like overall, this would be a pretty cost-effective way of improving early literacy.
• The parents are taught through workshops as well as home visits by the teacher.  A lot of parents and children find this to be highly motivating.
• While, overall, the children showed positive results, the results dissipated over time.  However, in families with a reported lower socio-economic status of the father or lower educational experience of the mother, the results were more positive and longer-lasting.
• Even though this project is intended for early literacy, I think the format could be used with learners of any age or development level.

What I find particularly appealing about this project was that it was very well received by the families.  It's often difficult for schools or other education programs to find ways to connect with parents that are meaningful for both.  This project seems to do just that.  

Additionally, I like the approach that this program takes to teaching literacy.  They use what they term the ORIM (Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction, Model) framework to focus on four specific elements of literacy; environmental print (street signs, product packages, etc.), books, early writing, and oral language.  Opportunities are simply having print and oral language opportunities available for children.  Recognition involves teaching (and modeling for) parents how to recognize literacy milestones in their children.  Interactions are real opportunities for parents to share literacy tasks with their children, such as reading a story together or writing a note to a friend.  Modeling for their children is nothing more than showing their children how they use literacy in their own lives; reading the newspaper, talking with a friend about a book they read, following written instructions to put together a bookshelf, etc.

The goal of the program was to reach 60 families; the program reached 6,000 families.  Apparently they did something right.

For more information, you can find the REAL Project at: http://www.real-online.group.shef.ac.uk/aboutreal-text.html

Misty 

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Natural, Functional Literacy Development

 

What is the first letter of the alphabet that most young children learn? The first letter of their name.  Why?  Because they care; it means something to them.  This concept kind of defines natural, functional literacy.  It's natural because it's part of the child's everyday life and it's functional because it serves a purpose.  The child can say "This is MY name."

Our question as educators and/or parents is how to maximize the opportunities for natural, functional literacy development in our programs.  We have to provide a print-rich environment.  We should set up an attractive  library that is in a quiet part of the room and offers a wide variety of books that cover a wide range of reading abilities.  Ideally, some of these books will stay the same to provide continuity and repetition, but some of the books will rotate, perhaps according to the season or according to concepts being taught.

In addition to reading, children can learn to read by writing as well.  Writing stories may be interesting to some students, but this is certainly not the only way to encourage writing. How about simple recipe cards and blank cards for children to write their own recipes?  Long strips of paper for children to create shopping lists? Maybe a menu from a local restaurant and an order pad for the child to take your order or jot down their own?   You could also include stationery, envelopes, cards and postcards so that children can write letters to parents, grandparents or friends.

If you take a mental break and let the child spend a few minutes building with blocks, you can also provide books about architecture or particular interesting buildings.  Or paper and pens so that children can label their buildings.  How about graph paper so that they can draw "blueprints" of their creations?  Did they build a McDonald's or Home Depot?  Let them make a sign for the building.  Adding cars to the mix?  How about including maps, auto repair manuals, or receipt books for those auto repairs?  

Look around and think of other ways in which you can make language more meaningful for your children.

Misty

Neuroplasticity--Shaping Young Minds

For 400 years, we were wrong.  We believed that our brains were hard-wired.  We believed that brains that were injured remained that way.  We believed that if we just didn't "get" math, or reading, or whatever, that was just the way we were wired and we never would "get it".  We were taught that about our own brains and we based our way of teaching children on that idea.  

Over the past 20 years or so, we have learned that we have been mistaken.  Our brains are, in fact, changeable.  Scientists call this neuroplasticity--neuro, meaning involving the brain, and plasticity, meaning the ability to be shaped or molded.  So our brains can be shaped or molded.  And we're not even just talking about the wiring of the brain; we are talking about the actual structure of the brain that can be changed.

So, what is it that shapes the brain?  It is the experiences we have throughout our lives.  EVERY experience we have helps to shape our brains.  For me, as a teacher, that is an awesome, yet very humbling concept.  Every single thing that I do or say around my students has an impact on them.  I have the opportunity to help shape the very brains of my students; to help them not just compensate for, but actually overcome some learning challenges.  However, a brain that is changeable is also vulnerable.  If I misspeak, am just not "on top of my game" one day, or heaven help me, speak in less than a kind manner to a student, I am also shaping that student's brain, but in a negative way.  As Voltaire said (and Peter Parker's Uncle Ben in Spiderman), "With great power comes great responsibility".  

With the understanding that a person's brain is structured according to that person's experiences, the task of a teacher is much more clear.  Appropriate interventions, especially early interventions, do result in measurable changes in students' brains.  Therefore, we must provide our students with a multitude of rich experiences, particularly if the students come from environments in which those experiences were not provided.  The challenge, and therefore our professional expertise, comes in determining which students need which experiences and planning appropriate activities to provide those experiences.  In doing that well, we can have an impact on our students that previous generations never dreamed was possible.

Misty

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