Supporting Phonological Awareness Development

1. Supporting the Development of Phonological Awareness: What, why, and How August 5, 2019 – Jordan School District Nanette Watson, M.Ed. and Cindy Jones, Ph.D. Utah State University

2. Questions What is phonological awareness? Why is it important for children to learn? How can phonological awareness instruction be designed to improve student learning? Objective of Presentation To gain a greater understanding of the developmental progression of phonological awareness (PA) and to learn hands-on instructional tasks that support PA.

3. Myth vs Fact Myth – • phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness are the same thing FACT – • Phonics: letters and letter combinations are used in print to represent phonemes • Phonological awareness: the ability to hear and manipulate spoken language • Phonemic awareness: the ability to hear and manipulate the SMALLEST unit of sound—the phoneme Adams, 1990; NRP, 2000; NELP, 2010; Yopp & Yopp, 2000

4. Phonological Awareness phoneme word syllable onset-rime rhyme

5. Why teach phonological awareness? • It is one of the five* key concepts of early literacy and reading instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000). • *Phonemic awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, Comprehension • Phonological awareness is one of the strongest longitudinal predictors of reading in children (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). • “A core deficit in phonological processing appears to be at the heart of many literacy-learning problems, although it is likely not the sole deficit in many cases” (Troia, 2014, p. 239).

6. “…without an appreciation of its underlying segmental nature. They fail to appreciate the internal sound structure of words.” (Shaywitz, 2003, p. 44)

7. Five Features of Task Difficulty Each feature moves from SIMPLE to COMPLEX • The level of depth of the phonological unit • Word, rhyme, syllable, onset-rime, phoneme • The position of the unit in the stimulus word • Initial, final, and medial • The number of units in the stimulus word • # of words in a sentence, # of syllables in a word, or # of phonemes • The stimulus word frequency • Frequent vs. infrequent (or nonsense word) • The type of task • Identify, isolation, categorization, blending, segmenting, deletion, addition, substitution Troia, 2014

8. 1- The level of depth of the phonological unit • Word: I’m fast as a sailfish. • Rhyme: shark and dark • Syllable: sailfish • Onset-rime: f-ast, d-ark • Phonemic awareness: fast=/f/ /a/ /s/ /t/

9. Task Difficulty

10. 5- The type of task

11. Activity…draw a model Draw a model or anchor chart to explain the features of task difficulty Remember…each feature moves from SIMPLE to COMPLEX • The level of depth of the phonological unit • Word, rhyme, syllable, onset-rime, phoneme • The position of the unit in the stimulus word • Initial, final, and medial • The number of units in the stimulus word • # of words in a sentence, # of syllables in a word, or # of phonemes • The stimulus word frequency • Frequent vs. infrequent (or nonsense word) • The type of task • Identify, isolation, categorization, blending, segmenting, deletion, addition, substitution Troia, 2014 & Honig, Diamond, Gutlohn, 2013

13. Word Level(grades k-1)

14. Rhyme (grades k-1)

15. Syllables(grades k-1)

16. Onset-Rime(grades k-1)

17. Phoneme Matching—Alliteration(grades k-1)

18. Phoneme matching(grades k-1)

19. Phoneme isolating(grades k-1)

20. Phoneme blending(grades k-1)

21. Phoneme matching(grades 2-3)

22. Phoneme isolating(grades 2-3)

23. Phoneme manipulating(grades 2-3)

24. Tips for success • PA activities should be “short and enjoyable” (Shaywitz, 2003, p. 185) “playful and engaging” (Yopp & Yopp, 2000). • PA activities should be “deliberate and purposeful” (Yopp & Yopp, 2000) and explicitly taught (Troia, 1998). • Small group instruction produces greater gains than individual or whole-group (NRP, 2000) • Kindergarten students need 10-15 minutes per day, first grade students need 10 minutes per day, second grade and above only for students as needed (Honig, Diamond, Gutlohn, 2018)

25. Presentation Review • Objective: To gain a greater understanding of the developmental progression of phonological awareness (PA) and to learn hands-on activities that support PA. Think-Pair-Share: one thing that you can implement in your classroom. • Questions? • Feel free to contact us. cindy.jones@usu.edu & nanette.watson@aggiemail.usu.edu

26. References • Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. • Florida Center for Reading Research (n.d.). Retrieved from https://fcrr.org/resources/index.html • Honig, B., Diamond, L., & Gutlohn, L. (2013). Teaching Reading Sourcebook. Novato, CA: Arena Press • National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.. • Troia, G. A., Roth, F. P., & Graham, S. (1998). An educator’s guide to phonological awareness: assessment measures and intervention activities for children. Focus on Exceptional Children, 31(3), 1-12. • Troia, G. A. (2014). Phonological processing deficits and literacy learning. In C. A. Stone, E. R. Sillman, B. J. Ehren, & G. P. Wallach (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Literacy Development and Disorders (2nd ed., pp. 227-245). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. • Yopp, H. K., & Yopp, R. H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54(2), 130-143.