Phonological Awareness, Reading and Spelling

1. Phonological Awareness, Reading and Spelling Sharon Walpole University of Delaware

2. General Questions • Do you have adequate understanding of the role of phonological awareness in word recognition and spelling? • Does your reading program include adequate attention to instruction in phonological awareness? • Does your reading program include a sensible plan for phonological awareness assessment? • Does your reading program include adequate attention to intervention in phonological awareness?

3. General Plan • Definitions • Theoretical importance • Predictive importance • Illustrative research • Background knowledge • Classroom implications

7. Levels of Phonological Awareness Categorizing, matching, isolating, blending, segmenting individual speech sounds Recognizing, generating rhymes, blending onsets-rimes Segmenting, completing, identifying, deleting syllables

8. As you think about instruction you are seeing in your schools, what strengths and weaknesses can you see? To what extent is instruction honoring the developmental levels?

9. General Plan • Definitions • Theoretical importance • Predictive importance • Illustrative research • Background knowledge • Classroom implications

10. Theoretical Importance

11. How is it that skilled readers recognize words? How is it that novice readers acquire word recognition skills?

12. Dual-Route Theory (Coltheart) WORD WORD Process graphemes Process phonemes Process orthography Access sound and meaning Access meaning

13. For beginning readers, what real-life reading and spelling behaviors would the dual-route theory explain? How does the dual route theory (implicitly) influence word recognition and spelling instruction? What is the importance of phonological awareness in this theory?

14. Connectionist Theories (Sadoski and Paivio) Word Sound Spelling Meaning Strengthen “successful” connections; Weaken “unsuccessful” connections

15. For beginning readers, what real-life reading and spelling behaviors would connectionist theories explain? How do connectionist theories (implicitly) influence word recognition and spelling instruction? What is the importance of phonological awareness in this theory?

16. Stage Theories (Ehri)

17. For beginning readers, what real-life reading and spelling behaviors would stage theories explain? How do stage theories (implicitly) influence word recognition and spelling instruction? What is the importance of phonological awareness to stage theories?

18. Self-Teaching Hypothesis (Share) Individual Word Decoding Process Establishment of orthographic representation

19. For beginning readers, what real-life reading and spelling behaviors would the self- teaching hypothesis explain? How does the self-teaching hypothesis (implicitly) influence word recognition and spelling instruction? What is the importance of phonological awareness to the self-teaching hypothesis?

20. Skillful Reading: Q and A (Adams)

21. The Reading System (Adams) Reading Writing Speech Context Processor Meaning Processor Orthographic Processor Phonological Processor

22. phocks

23. phocks This false spelling illustrates a case in which the orthographic processor cannot help the reader locate a meaningful match in memory. The phonological processor, however, can make the match.

24. Phonological Awareness: Foundational to all of these theories Gillon (2004) • Phonological route in dual-route theory • Sound and spelling representations in connectionist theories • Essential knowledge in stage theories • Essential to decoding for the self-teaching hypothesis • Essential in skilled reading

25. General Plan • Definitions • Theoretical importance • Predictive importance • Illustrative research • Background knowledge • Classroom implications

26. Juel, 1988 Theoretical orientation Simple View of Reading Reading = Decoding X Listening Comprehension (a poor reader is either a poor decoder, a weak comprehender, or both)

27. Subjects54 children (of 129) who remained in a school from first through fourth grade Low-SES school (but free/reduced-priced lunch numbers not reported) 31% African American 43% Hispanic 26% White

28. Measures (generally Oct/April each year) Phonemic awareness Pseudoword decoding Word reading from basal series Word reading from standardized tests Listening comprehension from standardized test Reading comprehension from standardized test Spelling from standardized test IQ in second grade Writing samples Oral story samples

29. Do the same children remain poor readers year after year? Yes. If a child was a poor reader at the end of first grade (ITBS < 1.2 GE) probability .88 that he/she would be below grade level at the end of fourth grade

30. What skills do poor readers lack? They began first grade with weak phonemic awareness. They ended first grade with improved (but still weak) phonemic awareness. They had weak pseudoword decoding ability at the end of first grade, and it continued through the fourth grade.

31. What about the Simple View? There were 30 poor readers at the end of fourth grade. 28 were poor decoders 25 of these ALSO had poor listening comprehension 2 were good decoders with poor listening comprehension

32. What factors seemed to keep poor readers from improving? Poor decoding skills! (and then less access) In first grade, good readers had seen over 18,000 words in their basals; poor readers had seen fewer than 10,000. In second grade, few children reported reading at home, but in third and fourth grades, average and good readers read much more.

33. Juel’s Conclusions • Phonemic awareness is critical to learning to decode. • Success in learning to decode during first grade is critical. • Struggling readers need to be motivated to read and need attention to development of listening comprehension.

34. Other Evidence (lots of it)Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte (1994) Phonological processing skills before reading instruction begins predict later reading achievement Training in phonological awareness and letter-sounds enhances growth in word reading Older good and poor readers have different phonological processing skills When we measure different phonological skills, we find them correlated Phonological awareness in kindergarten is causally related to decoding in first grade

35. What implications do these ideas have for your reading program?

36. General Plan • Definitions • Theoretical importance • Predictive importance • Intervention research • Background knowledge • Classroom implications

38. Bradley and Bryant (1983) Testing of over 400 4- and 5-year-olds, none of whom could read Initial sound categorization (odd man out) related to reading and spelling 3 years later Training study

40. Sorting plus letters group outperformed both controls in reading and spelling Sorting plus letters group outperformed sorting only in spelling (but not in reading)

41. Blachman et al., 1999 Sample 159 kindergarten children (84 treatment) Low-average PPVT (mean SS = 91) 85% free/reduced-price lunch Average letter sounds = 2 (Jan., K) Treatment 41 15-20 minute lessons Heterogeneous groups (4-5) working with teacher and/or paraprofessional

42. Kindergarten Lessons • Phoneme segmentation activitySay it and move it (children hear word, isolate individual sounds while moving disks, then blend sounds to make word again) • Segmentation-related activity (initial consonant picture sorts) • Letter name and sound practice for a,m,t,I,s,r,f,b

43. Kindergarten Results Significant differences between treatment and control for Phoneme segmentation Letter names Letter sounds Word reading Nonword reading Spelling

44. First Grade Lessons Not all children made the same amount of progress in the program; continue to intervene during first grade Homogeneous reading groups (6 to 9 children) used in the classroom for 30 minutes in place of basal reading group

45. First Grade Lessons Review of letter sounds, with cards Phoneme blending/analysis for regular words using pocket charts and letter cards Automaticity with phonetically regular and high frequency words 10-15 minutes of reading from phonetically controlled texts Dictation of words and sentences

46. First Grade Results Treatment children outperformed control children in phoneme segmentation, in letter name knowledge, in letter sound knowledge, and in reading

47. Second Grade Instruction was continued for children who remained in second grade; again they outperformed the control group in measures of reading, but not spelling

48. Here are two pictures that contribute to scientifically-based reading research. How do the instructional approaches here compare to the programs implemented in your schools?

49. General Plan • Definitions • Theoretical importance • Predictive importance • Illustrative research • Background knowledge • Classroom implications

50. Phonemes: 25 consonant (Gillon)