1. There are many facets to phonemic awareness: isolation, segmentation, blending, deletion, syllabication, onsets/rimes, and rhyming. It can seem overwhelming to “get them all in.” I struggle with it myself as a preschool teacher. I found the section in Chapter 6 ALTERNATIVE METHODS FOR TEACHING PHONEMIC AWARENESS fascinating. To find research stating that focusing on segmenting and blending onsets, rimes, and phonemes gives me a narrower scope in which to spotlight in my instruction. I realize that I have been dividing my instructional attention between too many PA activities has been not a “waste of time” but not a good use of my time. That is not to say that I will cut out all other activities, but I certainly will make better use of my instructional time knowing that what I should be focusing on.
2. One would assume that teaching segmenting would improve blending skills or that focusing on blending skills would improve students’ abilities to segment. Apparently that is not the case. So, which skill is more effective in helping students become readers? I am thrilled to find out that teaching preschoolers segmentation skills is as effective for learning to read words as teaching beginners to segment AND to blend. Teaching students to blend appears to an observer to be “teaching reading.” I will be having a conference with my principal, kindergarten teacher, and first grade teacher to enlighten them as well. Before I do this I will pull up the study and/or studies that came to this conclusion. I hope that this will assist us in working together to align our instruction in order to do what is best for our students and not what just appears to be the best.
3. I have always made sure that I expressed to my students why learning about sounds and letters is important and what they will be able to accomplish. I am essentially stating the objective. I now have evidence to back me up. The term Cognitive Clarity is a new one for me. It seems a more suitable term for knowing what you are trying to do and understanding where you are trying to go than using the word “objective.” Having earned my early childhood degree during the Whole Language Movement, I found that the concept of “whole to part” to be agreeable to what I do in my classroom when teaching literacy skills. I have always felt that my students needed to appreciate the end result (reading) in order to be motivated to learn PA and alphabetic principles. I will absolutely make Cognitive Clarity part of my vernacular.
Implementation
I will continue to teach all aspects of phonemic awareness but because of the information that I learned from my readings, I will bend my focus towards segmentation and blending of onsets/rimes and phonemes. Since research shows that segmentation is as good as segmentation and blending I will narrow my focus even further to teach segmentation skills to a greater extent. My hope is that my kindergarten teacher will be receptive to the research and not expect my students to enter her class with greater blending skills than segmentation skills and she will realize that by focusing on segmentation skills in preschool that I am setting a more solid foundation for her to build on and that she will find that my students are “primed” and will more readily acquire the blending skills that she focuses on.
Strategy
I intend to incorporate THINK CLOUDS and to show students how to monitor their comprehension before, during, and after I read pictureless storied to them. I realize that this strategy is intended to be used by students who can read independently. I plan to make these cards for myself to motivate me to use these questions with my preschool students. Modifications will need to be made. My use of the Think Clouds will help my students construct a logical mental picture of the text thus increasing their visualization skills. Visualization skills will help my students to go from passive to active readers and will facilitate improvement in their comprehension abilities. It is never too early to begin working on comprehension.
Thanks for the cognitive clarity you exhibited in this blog. I can see your thinking and planning as you going through the research. I am amazed on the research that states only 20 hours of phonemic awareness. That must be explicit and systematic lessons. I think a teacher at your level would be doing more whenever you find a "teachable moment". That would be the application of the p.a. into real life. Then truly if the research says phonics should be stressed early and reviewed in grade three, that too must be the lessons. I would hope all teachers would help the students sound out the words or syllables to hear the sounds and then help them "spell" it in the ears and head before putting the spelling down on paper. I personally feel strongly teachers have to help students learn how to segment syllables as well into open and closed syllables and then have them try to hear each sound.
ReplyDeleteThen comes the affixes (word study) in grades 2 and 3 which are the foundation for word study. As the students proceed through school, more and more word study follows.
Even at your level, you should focus on word study.
Please add pictures, or examples of your and your students work. It would be "fun" to see your students learning with information from this course.