Sound-Letter Relationships

1. Sound-Letter Relationships Phonemes and Phonics

2. Phonemic Awareness • As stated in the phonological awareness PowerPoint, phonemes are “the smallest units of sound that change the meaning of the word” (Gleason, 2005 p. 135) • So, phonemic awareness is the awareness of this idea and knowledge of the various phonemes of language. • When dealing with phonemic awareness, the emphasis is on the sounds of spoken words, not on reading or pronouncing letter names (Shedd, 2008) • This is because, as discussed in the P.A. PowerPoint, once the emphasis is on written words, it is known as phonics (Shedd, 2008)

3. Phonemic Awareness Cont’d • Phonemes are written as graphemes, and a single phoneme can be represented by one or two letters (Shedd, 2008). • Example: The word “Phoneme” can be broken up into its graphemes- - /f/ /o/ /n/ /e/ /m/ • In the previous example, the letters ph and me were represented by only one phoneme each. • There are 44 phonemes in the English language • 19 are vowel phonemes (a sound represented by a, e, I, o, u and sometimes y and w) • 25 are consonant phonemes (a sound represented by any letter of the English alphabet other than a, e, I, o, u and sometimes y and w) The bottom half of this slide is from Dow, R.S., & Baer, G.T. (2007). Self-Paced Phonics: A Text for Educators (4th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

4. Phonics • When children start reading printed words, it’s known as phonics • One way to think about phonics is the relationship between phonemes and graphemes • Learning the intricacies of this relationship is integral to learning how to read The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

5. Sight words • Sight words are words that can be read automatically (without having to decode the word) • This can be any word that is read automatically. • For most people college-age or older, this is words like sociology and epiphany. • This is not to be confused with high-frequency words (words that are seen often in text) • High-frequency words include: the, is, and, or, was, etc. The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

6. Stages of Sight Word Learning • Pre-alphabetic • Pre-school and Kindergarten • Partial-alphabetic • Kindergarteners, early first graders and older problem readers • Full-alphabetic • Consolidated-alphabetic • Automatic-alphabetic • The last three are learned by children at varying speeds, but children are typically at the last stage when entering middle-school The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

7. Stages of Sight Word Learning • Pre-Alphabetic • Knowledge of the alphabet is not used when reading words • Children are therefore limited to words that they see often in their environment (restaurants, food/toy names, T.V. show names) • Children may also read words by using contextual cues • Since children at this stage do not know very many words, contextual clues are often based on illustrations • An example would be a child reading pop under a picture of a Mountain Dew bottle The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

8. Stages of Sight Word Learning • Partial-alphabetic • As children begin to learn letters, they can begin to guess words by using contextual cues, sight words and the letters they know together • An example would be seeing the letter b along with the picture of someone reading and guessing “book” • Children may also begin guessing words when they recognize the first and last letter (by doing this, children often skip over the middle letters and are incorrect in saying the word) • Children learn the sound of letters whose names are informative of their sound first (k, t and s for example) • Children do not decode unfamiliar words The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

9. Stages of Sight Word Learning • Full alphabetic • Children begin to break words apart into their various letters and sounds • Can match graphemes with phonemes and have a working knowledge of the major relationships between graphemes and phonemes • Children begin to decode words and improve upon their skills through practice • The encounter of more words and their ability to decode increases children’s sight word “bank” The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

10. Stages of Sight Word Learning • Consolidated-alphabetic • Children begin to learn chunks of letters that often appear in words • Learning these chunks and their pronunciations includes parts of words like affixes, root words, onsets, rimes and syllables • Continue to add to the sight bank while also learning multi-letter combinations that can be applied to many words (this leads to less confusion between words) • Knowing letter chunks and their pronunciations also helps children think about the influence of certain letters or combination of letters on words (Sale vs. Sail) The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

11. Stages of Sight Word Learning • Automatic-alphabetic • The reader has all of the skills needed to read accurately and quickly • Most words encountered are in the child’s sight bank • Unfamiliar words are decoded using a variety of strategies The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

12. Cueing Systems • Children use different cueing systems while reading to make sense of the text • These cueing systems can also be used by teachers to get students to learn words without giving them the answer • The different cueing systems are: the pragmatic system, semantic system, syntactic system and phonological system The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). More Letter-Sound Knowledge, Vocabulary, and Morphology. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

13. Cueing Systems • Pragmatic Cueing systems • This system deals with language variations according to social and cultural uses (Shedd, 2008) • An example of this is a child understanding that an adult speaks differently to a baby than to another adult (sasked.gov)

14. Cueing Systems • Semantic cueing systems • This system deals with meaning that focuses on vocabulary (Shedd, 2008) • “Does that make sense?” • Child reads: The horse had four bedrooms • Text reads: The house had four bedrooms • Teacher asks: “Does that make sense? Does a horse have bedrooms? The word starts like horse. What would make sense? Can you guess what has bedrooms?” Example above from http://www.csufresno.edu/scs/reads/cueing.html

15. Cueing Systems • Syntactic cueing systems • This system focuses on structures that govern how words are combined in sentences (Shedd, 2008) • “Does that sound right?” • “The pitcher threw the ball” vs. “The ball threw the pitcher” Example above from http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/ela/e_literacy/integrating.html

16. Cueing Systems • Phonological cueing systems • This system focuses on sounds that correspond to written symbols • “Does it look right?” • Child reads: He jumped over the fence • Text reads: He jumped over the gate • Teacher says: “That was a good try. You can jump over a fence, but does the word look like fence? What would you expect to see at the beginning of the word fence?” (Child respond “f”) “Is this an ‘f’?” (You point to the letter “g”). “What sound does the letter ‘g’ make?” The example above is from http://www.csufresno.edu/scs/reads/cueing.html

17. Approaching decoding • Some ways in which children decode words can be seen under “the progress of phonological skill” in the P.A. PowerPoint. • Other ways in which children may figure out a word include: • Analogy: recognizing a new word based on an already known word • Prediction: guessing what the word might be based on initial letters, words before and after the text, or contextual clues • Sight (previously discussed in slide 5) The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

18. Approaching decoding cont’d • The importance of decoding • If children learn the various types of decoding, they will be able to read almost anything • Children often learn knew words this way, without ever formally being taught the word • In this way, reading often can expand a child’s vocabulary immensely • Also, reading often helps children hone these different techniques The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan

19. Stages of Spelling development • The previous information mainly dealt with decoding words in order to read them • When children begin to write however, they must recall how words are spelled • The following are the stages of spelling development children progress through

20. Stages of Spelling Development • Prephonemic • The stringing of letters together without attempting to represent speech sounds in any systematic way • In this way, children typically represent the length of words, but nothing else • abbatts = running vs. tra = car The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Writing. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan.

21. Stages of Spelling Development • Early Phonemic • Letters are used to represent sounds, but letters are only written for one or two sounds of a word • In this way, children begin to convey letter-sound knowledge in their writing, but usually only for the beginning or end of words • Srn = Spider-man The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Writing. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan.

22. Stages of Spelling Development • Letter-name • Phonemes are represented by letters, based on the similarities between the sound of letter-names and the respective phonemes • In this way, children convey their knowledge of the letters that are informative of the sound they make • Kap = cape The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Writing. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan.

23. Stages of Spelling Development • Transitional • Words look like English, but are often spelled incorrectly • Children know the majority of the letter-sounds, but make common spelling mistakes due to a small sight word bank • Soower = Sewer The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Writing. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan.

24. Stages of Spelling Development • Correct • The majority of words are spelled correctly • Children’s sight word bank and letter-sound knowledge is very high and can therefore spell many words • Children can also guess fairly accurately at how to spell unfamiliar words The information above is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Writing. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan.

25. Issues for SLL’s • Issues with letter-sounds • SLL’s will learn letter-sounds that may be different from their first language • Because of this, they may need to hear the sounds aloud more times than non-SLL’s (Shedd, 2008) • Until SLL’s learn the English language well, cues such as semantic, syntactic and pragmatic could be of little use to them • This is because the structure and meaning of many languages is different from English • SLL’s could also potentially have zero English sight words coming into school, depending on how long they have been in the country and how many English texts are at their home

26. Assessments and Activities • Using a chant to clap syllables in a students name • ALL: Name, name, what’s your name? I have a name and you have a name (pointing) What’s your name? (point to a student) Child: Manuel ALL: Ma-nuel, Ma-nuel, Ma-nuel (clapping syllables) • This activity is especially good for pre-schoolers, kindergarteners and SLL’s • This helps children to hear the different parts of speech while breaking their own names into syllables The information above is from http://www.csusm.edu/Quiocho/ph.second.htm

27. Assessments and Activities Cont’d • Names Test • The Names test involves giving a child a list of names (first and last) and having them speak the names aloud • Responses and errors are recorded by the teacher • This assesses a child’s ability to decode unknown words • This can also be a good indicator of what the child needs to work on, depending on which names/parts of names were incorrect The above information is from http://geckoes4.eschoolonline.com/es4/nova/sdcoe/trec/modules/int_docs/module06/pdf/names_test.pdf

28. References • Shedd, Meagan (2008). Letter-Sound Knowledge. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan. • Gleason, J.B. (2005). The Development of Language (6th edition). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. • Shedd, Meagan (2008). More Letter-Sound Knowledge, Vocabulary, and Morphology. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan • Saskatchewan Education (2000). Early Literacy: A Resource Guide For Teachers. http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/ela/e_literacy/integrating.html • Tutor Information: Literacy Games and Strategies. http://www.csufresno.edu/scs/reads/cueing.html • Shedd, Meagan (2008). Writing. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan.

29. References Cont’d • Second Language Learners Considerations. http://www.csusm.edu/Quiocho/ph.second.htm • Cunningham, P. Names Test. http://geckoes4.eschoolonline.com/es4/nova/sdcoe/trec/modules/int_docs/module06/pdf/names_test.pdf