Reading Volume

Arlington (2009) purports "Struggling readers need to read a lot because it is during the actual reading that they can practice all those complicated strategies and skills" (p. 64). Torgeson & Hudson (2006) concur through their research it is not that teaching strategies and word recognition are not important but this will not necessarily guarantee a student will read better. These authors agree that "The only way to do this is to design interventions such that struggling readers engage in lots of text reading" (p. 64, 2009).

Early Reading Instruction

When is your child ready to learn letters? When a child can identify the beginning sound of an object, this is a cue that he is ready to learn letters. If a child can look at a picture of a dog and say the /d/ sound, he/she is then ready to begin learning the shapes of letters that go with the sound he/she hears. The letter now takes on meaning and is not just an abstract symbol

Importance of Phonemic Awareness

In the book Leaning to Read is Child's Play, (Maunz, Matthews, and Klein, 2001), the authors explain how as they worked with the children, they "began to understand the role the ear plays in reading. Not the role of hearing per se, but the ability of a child's brain to perceive the individual sounds of spoken language " p. 32). They discovered that for a child to learn to read, the child must go through a transformation period in which he "learns to focus on the sounds in words rather than their meaning" p. 32). This is why rhyming, blending and playing with sounds is so salient for a child in the early reading stage.

RHYMING

Rhyming is the ability to identify words that have identical ending sounds. Rhyming aids students in developing phonemic awareness which leads to decoding, teaches students to group words together by sounds, and teaches students to make connections that are used to spell words. What are some rhyming activities you can incorporate when helping your son/daughter?
1) Read stories that have rhyming words.
2) Give words with the pattern consonant-vowel-consonant words, such as, cat, hat, top. Tell your child two of these words rhyme but one does not rhyme. Then have your child tell you which one does not rhyme.
3) Select four pictures, one is used as the example. Have your child name each picture and then identify the picture that rhymes with the one you are using as an example.
4) You say a word and have your child come up with a word that rhymes.
5) Play a rhyming memory game.
6) Sing songs together that rhyme - Nursery rhymes certainly fit this category. After singing the song several times. Have the child pick out the rhyming words.

For more ideas check out the websites listed on the sidebar.

Isolated Sound Recognition

We want to familiarize children with speech sounds in isolation before beginning sounds within words. The child needs a teacher, parent, and/or adult to provide them with a concept of speech sounds by associating phonemes with a creature, an action, or an object that is familiar to him/her. For instance, the phoneme/s/ could be associated with the hissing sound of a snake - ssssssss. It might be helpful to create a sound personality by calling /s/s the Skinny Snake, Suzy Snake, or Sammy Snake, etc. Many sounds already have a sound associated with it like a crowing rooster for /r/, a buzzing bee for /z/, the be quiet sound for /sh/. These sound personalities can be pulled out of daily, natural settings.

Segmenting

There are a few websites with information and examples of Phonemic Awareness on the side panel. I encourage you to check them out. They are hyperlinked so just move the cursor over the web address and click.

Once a child understands phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) he/she needs to stretch it out, examine it and make some meaningful connections. Please check out the following website for phonemic segmentation activities:

http://www.pcboe.net/les/elderweb/phoneme%20segmentation/Phoneme%20Segmentation%20Games-1.pdf

Blending Activity

So what does Phonemic Awareness actually encompass? The skills within this component of learning to read are: Blending, Segmenting, Deleting, Rhyming, Isolating and Recognizing Same Sounds. Let's analyze each one of these strands of Phonemic Awareness in regards to meaning and strategies. REMEMBER Phonemic Awareness is solely auditory processing.

Let's begin with BLENDING ACTIVITIES: Collect pictures containing three sounds for beginners. Later you may advance to pictures with four sounds, five sounds, etc. Go through the pictures giving the name for each picture. Make sure your child understands and is familiar with the vocabulary on the cards. It is a good idea to go through the pictures one more time presenting the cards like this: "This is /C/....../A/......./T/. Use the phoneme sounds and not the letters. Then place two cards in front of the child (face up) and ask him/her which picture you are thinking of. "Please give me the /C/....../A/......./T/." The child blends the sounds together and picks the correct picture and gives to you. Continue on through the cards following this same procedure. If you want to make the game more challenging you may use more cards. You could lay 3 or 4 cards out at a time.

Phonemic Awareness

So, why is Phonemic Awareness so important in the reading process? First and foremost, Phonemic Awareness lays the foundation of phonics instruction. This instruction of Phonemic Awareness helps children acquire fluent and precise decoding skills. Children who do not have this instruction have trouble connecting speech sounds to letters which ultimately leads to the fact that the teaching of phonics will not make much sense to them. Phonemic Awareness is crucial when learning to decode language. Torgesen and Mathes (2000) give three reasons for the importance of learning Phonemic Awareness: 1) "It helps children understand the alphabetic principle," 2) "It helps children notice the regular ways that letters represent sounds in words," and 3) "It makes it possible to generate possibilities for words in context that are only partially sounded out."

Laying a Foundation

It is important that the proper foundation be laid by parents and teachers. The first building block of the foundation is Sound. As adults we know that words can be pulled apart and broken into a series of sounds, transformed into words and manipulated again into sounds. Children do not have this understanding. So, the first step toward reading is helping the child develop what is known as Phonemic Awareness. Phonemic Awareness allows one to be able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, or the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning. Separating the spoken word "cat" into three distinct phonemes, /k/, /æ/, and /t/, requires phonemic awareness skill (Wikipedia). Playing with sound, rhyming, isolating beginning sounds, and blending are ways to help a child develop phonemic awareness.

Introduction

Reading has become America's number one priority for very good reason. How else does one learn to read from a menu, training manual or understand how to vote? Reading can change the way we think and shape who we are. Reading makes life more meaningful by allowing us to participate socially, economically, politically as well as reading just for pure joy. Some kids learn to read easily and others struggle every step of the way. There is no one method that works every time for everyone. Reading is not a method but a process. This process is crucial, and this is what we will be discussing in the coming weeks. The building blocks are Sounds, Letters, Words and then Sentences.

Welcome Parents and Students

Welcome to the Title I Reading blog. This blog will be continually updated with current reading strategies and ideas on how to help your child learn to read. I am looking forward to communicating and sharing information. Please feel free to respond and ask questions.