Questions

1. Questions **Why do we see the development of spelling and concept of word occur simultaneously? **Why is it important to assess for phonemic awareness? How does the development of phonemic awareness connect to the development of reading?

2. Save the Last Word for Me • **Comprehension strategy supports students with challenging material • **Jot down quote (could also be, “notes on important info, critical sentence, record of what students don’t understand” • **Student reads quote • **Others respond to the idea and converse • **Student who introduces the idea has the “last word” with “opinion or could summarize discussion”. • **Can be a DURING Reading activity (teacher has stopping points in the reading assignment)

3. Morris: Developmental Sequence • ABC (alphabet knowledge): beginning kindergarten (Time 1) • Concept of Word AND Spelling of Beginning and Ending Consonants: mid kindergarten (Time 2) • Phoneme Segmentation, CVC words: ending kindergarten (Time 3) • Word Recognition (decodes and reads printed words): Oct. of first grade (Time 4) • Contextual reading ability: end of first grade (Time 5)

4. Quick Learning Checks • Discussion on pertinent items/questions/implications for instruction for concept of word and spelling inventory – due today • Learning Goals/personal responses to reading • Sign up sheets for topic/time for core, supplemental and intervention materials (Oct. 9 and 16th) and for text sets (Nov. 20th or 27th)

5. Developmental Characteristics of Emergent Readers—(some background thoughts) • Literacy development – begins at birth • Attachment to child at birth – more secure the attachment/more effective parent is at helping child explore world • Secure attachment at school – predicts higher level academic performance in primary grades • Quality of social/emotional relationships with primary caretaker affects quality of preschooler literacy interactions. • Some children more at risk for not developing secure relationships (more difficult temperment)

6. Vgotsky: adult inner speech important mechanism for thought • People subvocalize to mediate performance; occurs with challenging problems • Vgotsky: theory on how inner speech develops in childhood; preschoolers use audible speech to organize their thinking • Zone of Proximal Development (Zyvotsky)—not too difficult/not too easy; security of attachment linked with linked support from adults when children need it • SCAFFOLD: through doing a task with support, the child internalizes the kinds of thinking which was previously supported by an adult.

7. Language Skills • Development of oral communication skills during preschool is prerequisite to success in reading and writing (Snow) • Child in professional family: 4 million verbal utterances in a year; child on welfare only 250,000 utterances • Storybook reading (Mem Fox, Reading Magic) : positive correlation between amount of storybook reading during preschool and subsequent vocabulary and language development, children’s interest in reading, early success • Early literacy activities important (Whitehurst doing research on how to help parents) • Striking correlations between children’s language on entrance to kindergarten and success in reading during primary grades • Juel’s study: followed a sample of 54 children in Gr. 1-4; continued underachievement in reading –88% chance that if a child was having difficulty reading at end of Gr. 1, then the child would still have difficulty in grade 4.

8. Phonemic Awareness • Best predictor of poor reading achievement in grade 1 is phonemic awareness • Low phonemic awareness in grade 1 (in Juel’s study): highly predictive of continuing reading difficulties in grade 4 • Poor readers at all ages: less phonemically aware than same age good readers • Children with poor phonemic awareness: difficulty with letter sound relationships and spelling • Deficiencies in phonemic awareness impact learning to decode/that in turn causes children to read less (Matthew Effect) • Need to provide phonemic awareness instruction in Grade K/1 • Lundberg, Frost & Peterson (1988): children with daily phonemic awareness (rhymes, syllables, identifying phonemes, segmenting words into phonemes, synthesizing phonemes into words) – students trained with phonemic awareness performed better than did students in control classes • Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum

9. Key Points • Adult /child attachment and interaction • Appropriate Level for the child (same with motivation – goal is best achieved when requires some effort, but also is attainable) • Phonemic awareness • Language – great difference between home and school cultures for many children (Attend Early Literacy Conference this spring to learn more!) Know literacy development of the children we teach! • Canadian study: Lesaux & Siegel (2003): Balanced literacy: children in ESOL/systematic phonemic awareness in K/systematic phonics in 1st; by 2nd, grade, were at level.

10. Case Study:Atticus: Howard Street Tutoring Teacher says, “Atticus is one of my lowest readers. He knows most of his letters and he tries very hard. However, he is having difficulty learning and holding onto sight words. I’m not sure he is benefiting from even the slow paced instruction I provide to the lowest reading group in my classroom.” • Word Recognition (Graded Lists) • 0% flash, 0% untimed • Oral reading accuracy (could not read emergent passage independently) • Spelling: 0/10 words spelled correctly • Could not represent beginning consonant in 4 out of 10 words • “With examiner’s help, was partly successful in finger point reading the emergent passage.” (Could not go back and identify individual word in the line after reading) • Identifies 19 upper case & 16 lower case letters; wrote 15 letters from dictation • Conclusions about Atticus: _________________

11. Instructional Implications for Atticus • Contextual reading • Word Study (alphabet, beginning consonants, eventually short-vowel word families) • Possible order for consonants: b,m,s/ c,f,l /t,g,r/j,p,v /k,n,d /w,z,h • Sentence/picture captions in little book • See “lesson plan”

12. Best Interventions • “Active aggressive and provided at the onset of the problem” (Walpole/McKenna) • Intensive: usually daily, no time wasted, individually or small groups • Specialized: by teachers with more/better than typical training • Targeted: maximizing support in specific area of need • Ann Duffy (2001): “instruction that enables struggling readers to make rapid progress and read as well as or better than their peers not struggling in reading”—she changed instruction to meet student needs!

13. Our children who struggle…. • (Foorman, Francis, Shaywitz, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1997): are not simply developing more slowly; they are actually missing important knowledge and skills relative to normally developing peers • (Connie Juel, 1988): at the end of first grade have an 88% chance of struggling at the end of fourth grade – kindergarten & first grade are the prime time for intervention

14. Matthew Effect • Term coined by Stanovich (1986) – • “Spiraling effects of reading failure” • Children who struggle avoid reading—then children do not develop fluency and vocabulary • Gap widens between the best and worst readers ---”until it is unbridgeable”

15. Factors Predicting Reading Failure • 1998 National Research Council: (Snow, Burns, Griffin) • severe cognitive deficits • Severe hearing and language impairments • Attention problems • Depressed early language development • Depressed preschool literacy skills • Family history of reading problems • Limited English language proficiency (although strong in any other language correlates highly with strong English reading skills) • Low socioeconomic status individually or neighborhood • Placement in schools with low achievement • Poor instruction (we will avoid this!!!!!!!!!!)

16. Most Important Part & Effective Part of Intervention Program: • …..”increasing the amount and quality of classroom instruction.” • “No program can counter the negative effects of poor classroom instruction.” (Walpole & McKenna, The Literacy Coach’s Handbook)

17. Comprehensive Reading Inventory (Measures on Phonemic Awareness) • Initial Consonants Test • Phonemic Segmentation Test • Blending Sounds Test

18. Frayer Model • Phonological Awareness • Phonemes • Phonics