Literary competence, simply stated, involves the development of deciphering print and comprehending what it means. (Department of Education, Science, and Training, 2005). Reading is described as a complex developmental challenge that is a combination of many elements that include, responsiveness, memory, language skills, and motivation (Reutzel & Cooter, 2012). When considering ‘reading’ from a teaching perspective there must be many factors that be taken into account. For effective reading instruction to occur, it is important to understand not only the processes of how and when a child learns to read and write, but what inspires them to read. There are multiple notions on the right age and readiness for early literacy learning, but there …show more content…
The first commonly agreed upon notion is that effective reading instruction is successful by implementing strategies that include structured literacy elements (Konza, 2006). One critical element is phonological awareness. This relates to the child’s ability to understand the sounds, words, and syllables in spoken language (Hill, 2012, p. 133). These cues also include timing, intonation and stress often heard in early reading story books (Hill, 2012, p. 133). Branching off phonological awareness is phonemic awareness. This requires the reader to recognise the individual small units of sound or ‘phonemes’ that in sequence, create different words (Hill, 2012, p. 134). Phonemes are made up of letters of the alphabet, so to be able to grasp this concept and start learning to read, there has to be, at least a basic prior knowledge and recognition of these letters, also known as, ‘the Alphabetic principle’ (Sedl, 2015). Effective instruction should include strategies to improve phonological awareness. One strategy is modelling and correct pronunciation, which involves …show more content…
(Department of Education, Science, and Training, 2005). Effective reading instruction occurs when a child successfully learns to read fluently, confidently, with full comprehension of meaning and context. A teacher should understand the developmental aspects of how a child learns to read, but also how to engage a modern day child with rich, authentic texts that motivates them and connects to their social backgrounds. An educator should incorporate curriculum and also be open to choose, adapt, and structure approaches using techniques that best fit their teaching styles and situations. Approaching literacy with a balanced approach of both meaning and skill orientated methods, supports a child’s phonological awareness development and comprehension skills, and supports the elements that surround these components. Each area needs to be explicitly and systematically taught for learning to occur, and strategies set in place to work towards developing independent readers who can read text fluently, but also create meaning from it, which is both beneficial and critical in the long-term success in a child’s literacy
Accordingly, phonological awareness can be developed before reading mastery to facilitate the subsequent attainment of reading skills. Effective phonemic awareness instruction educates participants to identify, think about, and manipulate sounds in spoken language. Phoneme segmentation and Phoneme blending are two essential elements of this instruction. Different researchers have conducted numerous studies on the effectiveness of this technique. The studies show that children who utilize this technique are able to hear sounds in words, divide words and show an understanding of letter-sound correspondence. Elkonin Boxes" are easy to create by simply drawing squares on a flat surface or a piece of paper. The use of the templates with manipulative to represent each sound makes the task both multisensory and concrete. Words with consonant-vowel-consonant patterns can be stretched out to make it easier for the beginner. However, the technique equally works well with more advanced readers. This segment discusses three primary types of research conducted to determine the effectiveness of this technique in
Phonemic Awareness and Alphabetic Principle in addition to Phonics and Decoding Skills provide students with early skills of understanding letters and words in order to build their reading and writing skills. Students will need to recognize how letters make a sound in order to form a word. While each word has a different meaning to be to format sentences. While reading strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction, I was able to find three strategies for Phonemic Awareness and three strategies for Alphabetic Principles which will provide advantage for the student in my research and classroom settings.
Six principles for early reading instruction by Bonnie Grossen will be strongly enforced. It includes Phonemic awareness, each letter-Phonemic relationship explicitly, high regular letter-sound relationship systematically, showing exactly how to sound out words, connected decodable text to practice the letter phonemic relationships and using interesting stories to develop language comprehension. Double deficit hypothesis which focuses on phonological awareness and rapid naming speed.
Phonological awareness refers to an individual’s ability to hear and manipulate a variety of sounds in spoken words as well as recognize various parts of speech including syllables, rhymes and letter sounds (Canadian Council on Learning, 2006; Johnson, McDonnell, & Hawken, 2008). A child’s level of phonological awareness is directly related to later reading outcomes. Phonological awareness is enhanced when children are exposed to rhymes, have opportunities to practice letter sounds, and have opportunities to identify initial sounds in words
This detailed text provides an understanding of reading and writing through detailed case studies, reflective questioning and further reading; in addition to links with the Early Years Curriculum (EYFS)(DCSF, 2008) provide informative information accessible to both practitioner and parent. As pointed out by the authors, literacy relates to fifty % of the early learning goals, therefore highlights the importance by the practitioner to make the acquisition of literacy exciting and meaningful through a multitude of role play scenarios, stories, rhymes and oral language, thus providing opportunities for the child to put life experiences of literacy into context, while scaffolding existing knowledge.
The FLaRE (Florida Literacy and Reading Excellence) Center has published a professional paper entitled “Phonemic Awareness” of which I will be presenting a critical review. Phonemic awareness is one of the five essential components of reading identified by the National reading Panel (Learning Point Associates, 2004). Phonemic awareness can be defined as a person’s understanding that each word we speak is comprised of individual sounds called phonemes and that these sounds can be blended to form different words (Learning Point Associates, 2004). The article was intended to give a synopsis of phonemic awareness and the vital role it plays in a literacy program. I found the article to be very clear and concise presenting valuable tactics that can be applied in the classroom.
With such high numbers of adolescents falling below basic in reading, illiteracy is a battle that must be fought head on. The largest dilemma with the struggle is the number of variations that cause adolescents to become reluctant, unmotivated or struggling readers. Fortunately, a large number of strategies exist to encourage and strengthen readers of all ages, proving that adolescence is not a time to give up on faltering students. Rather, it is a time to evaluate and intervene in an effort to turn a reluctant reader into an avid one (or near enough). Ultimately, educators must learn to properly assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses (Curtis, 2009) and pair them with the proper intervention techniques. If one method does not work, countless others exist to take its place.
Phonemic Awareness is very important part of literacy. Phonemic awareness includes sounds of a word, the breakdown of words into sounds. It includes rhyming and alliteration, isolation, counting words in sentences, syllables and phonemes, blending words, segmenting, and manipulating.
While I believe every child is a reader, I do not believe every child will be enthralled with reading all the time. All students have the capability to read and enjoy reading, but just like any other hobby, interest will vary from student to student. The students in my classroom will be encouraged in their reading, be provided with choice, taught how books can take you into another world but, my students will not be forced to read. This paper will illustrate my philosophy of reading through the theories I relate to, the way I want to implement reading and writing curriculum, and the methods I will use motivate my students to read and help them become literate.
Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy: Reading, writing and children’s literature (4th ed.). South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.
Phonological awareness (PA) involves a broad range of skills; This includes being able to identify and manipulate units of language, breaking (separating) words down into syllables and phonemes and being aware of rhymes and onset and rime units. An individual with knowledge of the phonological structure of words is considered phonologically aware. A relationship has been formed between Phonological awareness and literacy which has subsequently resulted in Phonological awareness tasks and interventions.This relationship in particular is seen to develop during early childhood and onwards (Lundberg, Olofsson & Wall 1980). The link between PA and reading is seen to be stronger during these years also (Engen & Holen 2002). As a result Phonological awareness assessments are currently viewed as both a weighted and trusted predictor of a child's reading and spelling and ability.
Every child deserves a positive, safe, nurturing, and stimulating learning environment where they will grow academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. My role as an educator is to provide my students with this type of environment as well as an education that will help them succeed academically and become life long learners. It is the responsibility of a literacy educator to provide students with this type of environment, but also to provide instruction that will help students become successful readers and writers. There are numerous programs and philosophies about literacy and reading. Through years of experience and research, one begins to develop their own creative approach on teaching these skills. After looking at different programs and seeing the positive and negatives of each, an integrated and balanced approach of literacy seems to be the best way to teach the differing needs of each student.
These skills are an important core separating normal and disabled readers. According to Hill (2006, p.134), phonemic awareness is a skill that focus’ on the small units of sound that affect meaning in words. For example, the following phoneme has three syllables, /c/, /a/ and /n/. These letters make three different small units of sound that can impact the meaning of words. Seely Flint, Kitson and Lowe (2014, p. 191), note that even the Australian Curriculum recognises the importance of phonemic awareness in the Foundation year, due to the ‘sound and knowledge’ sub-strand. This sub strand recognises syllables, rhymes and sound (phonemes) in spoken language. Rich discussions about topics of interest to children as well as putting attention to the sounds of language can help encourage phonemic awareness as well as improve students vocabulary and comprehension development. It is important to make awareness of phonemes engaging and interesting in preschool and in the early years so children can learn these skills early and become successful
The analytical approach analyses a single phoneme within a word, and then other words are analysed to determine if it has the same phoneme pattern. Contrasting this is the synthetic approach, in which the individual phoneme of each letter is sounded out to decode the word. To compare the two, the synthetic method utilises blending of learned phonemes for decoding, whereas analytical connects a repeated singular phoneme or letter pattern in similar words allowing children to analyse the word for recognition of meaning. The synthetic method does not work however, when words are broken down out of context. For example, the word ‘wind’ can only be sounded out and read with the correct phoneme for ‘i’ within the context of a sentence. The analytic method also has disadvantages as it encourages a child to make generalisations or guesses on what a word may mean. Regardless of these gaps, research concludes the synthetic method both here and overseas is the most successful approach to the teaching of reading and spelling. It is logical to assume that this may be the most effective method for teaching phonics as one cannot begin to read a word without first understanding the phoneme that each letter represents, however, it does not necessarily mean it is the best method to
In the K class that I will be using Interactive Read Aloud, I will be specifically instructing those children (6 children - 2 boys, 4 girls - ages 5-7) with literacy skills in letter identification, alphabetic principle and sight word recognition and production. Given their needs (as a group), my instructional goals in reading instruction will include identifying letter names, identifying consonant and short vowel sounds, and in...