Chapter four covers phonemic awareness and chapter five covers phonics. Phonemic awareness is all about the ability to hear and make sounds, but only orally. Phonics on the other hand is a different story completely. Phonics combines oral with visual. Students are able to create the correct sound that is connected to the correct letter or blend of letters. Phonics also seems more complicated on paper because there is so much to phonics. It includes the graphophonic system, phonomes, graphemes, vowel dipthongs, vowel digraphs, consonant clusters, consonant digraphs, and allaphones. The question that I had about the reading has more to do with phonics than phonemic awareness. Phonics seems so vast to me. There are so many parts to phonics that I feel like I don't know where to begin. The problem that I think that I am going to have with teaching phonics is the articulation. How do I know if I am doing it correctly and how do I learn if I am not? After reading the two chapters, I have discovered the true difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness is only sounds. Absolutely no representations of the letter or sounds can be used during phonemic awareness. Phonics is about using a representation with a sound to create a connection for the student. Basically, these two chapters have scared me. There is so much information to take in about phonemic awareness and phonics that it makes me feel overwhelmed. But at the same time, the information is wonderful because once I read the examples, it made sense. I really loved looking over the activities in the chapters because I thought they sounded like fun.
Chapters four and five discuss phonemic awareness and phonics. Both of these are extremely important in reading. I feel that taking the time to teach and reinforce the skills is very worth it in the classroom. I did not realize the importance of language play prior to reading chapter four. There were some great methods for creating an environment that encourages word play. When I was a student we were introduced to a wide variety of literature including; rhymes, poetry, narrative texts, expository texts, wordless pictures books, etc. I feel that including all of these elements throughout the course of the school year will be very important for students. One idea that I thought was excellent was the use of jump rope jingles. At times I feel that the kinesthetic learners are not given opportunities to learn in their best method. This would be a very easy way to incorporate exercise and reading content. With the drop in physical education courses I think that it is important to get our students up and moving. I do not think that we can expect students to sit in the classroom all day and focus without integrating movement! Finally, I though one very important piece of this chapter was to watch students as we informally assess them over the course of the year. We could give students hundreds of multiple choice exams and we would still not know their true abilities and the areas they are struggling in. When we know what we are watching for we are able to assess students in real situations and the application of reading is extremely important. In chapter five the textbook discusses phonics instruction. I thought that the five principle of phonics instruction were very important. The most important were basing instruction on what the student knows, using appropriate texts, and teaching in a meaningful context. We must use the students’ schema to build new lessons. This will help the information become more relatable which will aid in their retention. If we use texts that are too easy for students, or that are at their frustration level they will have a difficult time. Material that is too easy becomes boring, and material that is too hard will cause students to give up. And finally, the teaching should be done in a meaningful context. Students must understand why the information they are learning is important, and how they can apply it to their lives. Application is what we should hope for. Phonemic awareness and phonics are both very important for students. I think that chapters four and five did a great job of explaining what both are and successfully ways that we can teach them to our students. The activities will be very helpful, especially in our internships. I also love the resources in the appendices! I was very excited to find all of the great things that were located in the back.
Brandy, The English language is filled with so many rules and exceptions! When I read the chapters I also felt a bit overwhelmed about all of these exceptions. I wonder if you could find a video online that shows the proper articulation. Then you could record yourself and see how you are doing it. That might help! I found the activities to be very helpful! I liked that they told us what to look for in students who had the problems that went with each activity. I think that will be very useful in our tutoring sessions, especially because we are just beginning!
Chapter four covered phonemic awareness and chapter five covered phonics. I found the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness to be interesting and learned that one the first three will be mastered by the end of kindergarten and the last four by the end of first grade. I also found the discussion on whether students need these skills and the controversy surrounding how teachers should facilitate children’s growth to be intriguing. After reading chapter 4, it’s my goal to learn as much as I can about phonemic awareness so I can better help my students learn our English language. After reading chapter 5, I discovered the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness is strictly sounds (no visual) whereas phonics is using representation with a sound to create a connection of the students. The five key principles of phonics instruction were beneficial to read. I also enjoyed the various activities included in these chapters. They will be great resources for tutoring and for classroom use.
In response to Brandy: I was kind of overwhelmed after reading these two chapters as well! The English language is comprised of many rules and exceptions. I also enjoyed looking over the activities included in the chapters. What a great resource for tutoring and classroom use! I think practice will help us become more familiar and confident with phonemic awareness and phonics.
Kacey, I really enjoyed reading about the different activities for teaching the specific skills as well. I think that the text book is filled with great resources, activities, and ideas. My pages are all marked with highlighters and written ideas that I have when I am reading through the material. I still feel slightly nervous when thinking about tutoring, but this has helped me get more excited!
In response to Kacey, I can't believe how much we are expected to master by the end of first grade. It doesn't seem like much, but when you are little, it is hard to focus your attention on one thing for a long time. I also like the different activities for teaching skills. I now have some great resources.
Chapter 4 is all about phonemic awareness which is hearing the sound and saying what it is. It is all audio not visual at all. There is a great deal of discussion still if it is useful between some professionals. Personally I feel it is very useful. I loved all the activities that were given towards the end of the chapter. I will be tutoring Kindergartners and I think that these ideas will be of great use for me. Chapter 5 deals with Phonics, here you see the words as well. Personally I loved the articulation of vowel sounds picture, since I have a child with a cleft palate and I have to train him how to say certain sounds so this will be very beneficial to me. The 5 principles on phonics is a great way for us to go back to and refer what we need to be doing. Finally the assessment check lists were a great idea for me. I like the simplicity of them yet it still has you check the important factors. Has anyone seen their teachers using some of the activities listed in 4 or 5 and what are some of the favorites?
In response to Kacey F, I also found the debate on Phonemic awareness, very interesting. I agree that it is vitally important to have this segment included in your curriculum. I agree with you, that I need to learn as much as I can now, to benefit the children later. I also think that this part is key for students who are ELL.
Both chapters tie together greatly and are some of my favorite things about reading. I have really gotten to like phonics and phonemic awareness since taking Dr. Walizer's reading/language arts class. Out of all of my methods classes, it had the most to learn. I felt as if i left getting my money's worth. Also, working in a first grade classroom all year has helped me apply it to everyday life. Students were introduced to never letters or blends with a "touchy-feely" bag. If there was a rubber snake in the bag for the day, students would be learning about the letter "s". Chapter 4 is great on its ideas on teaching students different techniques for understanding phonemic awareness. Rhyming can be a great way to teach students. Being able to sound out each letter or blend is important. When my teacher gives her spelling tests, she says the words and sounds out the letters. I had never seen this done before, but it is extremely helpful for those students who know their sounds. Phonics sometimes can be difficult sometimes. For instance, my teacher gave the students a spelling test and one word was coat. Many students spelled it "koat" because of the sound the c makes in the word. The students now know the difference in short and long vowels, but haven't learned how to react to the special ones yet. The phonogram word wall on page 121 reminds me of an activity I've seen in the elementary classroom. Students have letters and spell out words using the letters, and sometimes only have to change out one letter to make the new word. For example, bat, cat, fat. For students to be successful readers, they need to have this part down pat.
In response to Jen H.: I really haven't seen many of these activities used, but have you ever heard of sparkle? I thought of this when I saw one of the activities, but it is a neat game. The teacher points at different students and they have to say a letter. They are spelling out their spelling words. For instance, if the word is away, the teacher points at one student, they say "a", then point at the next student and they say "w", and so on. If they do not say the correct letter, they have to sit down. The one still standing wins. They cannot get help, such as what the word was or what the previous letter was. They just have to be paying attention.
Chapter 4 and 5 were very helpful in increasing my understanding of phonemic awareness and phonics. I found the detail on the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness on page 81 to be very informative and really like how the text provided examples to go with each dimension. I also like that the text provides explicit details on working with ELL students due to the increasing number of these students in the education system. The differences in phonemes between languages makes it very difficult for many of these students to produce these sounds. The examples of activities and literature to use when working with phonemic awareness makes this book a great resource for future use. Chapter 5 provides a great list of vocabulary terms on page 109 and includes examples for each term. The English language is very complex and the relationship between letters and sounds is not consistent. This makes learning the language difficult at best. The principles of phonics instruction have helped me realize what steps I need to take to properly administer phonics instruction. I cannot recall being taught phonics or phonemic awareness but I realize how helpful these can be in the early years. In my reading internship course last semester there were some students who had not mastered these skills, and they were in sixth grade. By this time, the instructor was not teaching these skills to the general class but these students were removed for individual instruction. I did not attend these sessions but hope that they were receiving some help in these areas.
Response to Lori: I agree that Dr. Walizer’s course was very beneficial and I too felt that I got my money’s worth out of it. It sounds like you have had some great experience working with phonics and phonemic awareness. I was in a 6th grade class for my reading internship and missed out on working on these skills. I hope that my tutoring sessions are able to help me work on these and figure out which techniques I can best use to help my students.
Chapters 4 and 5 covering phonemic awareness and phonics were great. There were so many helpful activities located at the back of the chapters. I really like the “Children are Sounds” phonemic awareness activity on page 100 of chapter 4. Each child is assigned a sound and the class has to put the sounds together to form a word. The “Change Hen to Fox” variation activity on page 126 of chapter 5 also looked like a good phonics activity. Students switch one letter at a time to change the entire word. While phonemic awareness is all about auditory and hearing sounds, phonics is about the sound-symbol relationships. Both of these concepts are very important in order for children to become good readers when they are older. Although phonics and phonemic awareness are only two of the many important aspects of learning to read, they can make a huge difference. In both kindergarten and first grade, I had teachers that retired the year after I was in their class. Because they were older teachers and had been teaching for many years, they were not big on breaking up reading into segments such as phonics and phonemic awareness. My family moved the summer before my second grade year and I can remember that I was behind the other students in my second grade class when it came to phonics and phonemic awareness. I could read, but I was not good at sounding out unfamiliar words and such. Luckily, my teacher worked with me to get me caught up on what I had missed in kindergarten and first grade. I came to appreciate what phonics and phonemic awareness can do for a reader. I am tutoring three students in fifth grade and I am curious if they will be needing instruction in these areas or if we will be focusing more on fluency and comprehension.
I also appreciated the section on ELL students and phonemic awareness. I have a 5th grade student in my tutoring group from India who recently moved to Kansas. His family speaks Gujarati at home and it has been difficult communicating with his parents. The young boy speaks English fairly well but his teacher noticed that he struggled reading and suggested that I try and get him in my tutoring group. It will be interesting to see if he struggles with English phonemes. I will refer back to page 84 of our DeVries textbook to see if he struggles with any of the sounds that aren’t a part of his first language.
Phonics, which is covered in chapter 4, refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters, such that of the /k/ which can be represented by c, k, ck, ch, or q spellings, and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce pronunciations of unknown words. Learning phonics helps children to read and spell. Knowing the sounds of letters and letter combinations will help your child decode words as they reads. Knowing phonics will also help children know which letters to use as they write.
Phonemic awareness, covered in chapter 5, allows listeners to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes. Being able separate the spoken word “cat” into three distinct phonemes , /k/, /a/, and /t/ requires phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness improves children’s word reading and reading comprehensions, and also helps them with spelling. Phonemic awareness and phonics go hand in hand .
I too liked the "Children are Sounds" activity. I also found these flash cards that have letters and parts of pictures on them. The students use the letters to make words, but the pictures also match up kind of like a puzzle. The student can use the picture to assist them in pronouncing the word. There are pictures and letters on both the front and back side of the cards.
Chapter 4 and 5 somewhat go hand-in-hand because chapter 4 discusses phonemic awareness and chapter 5 discusses phonics. Phonemic awareness is a child’s understanding and conscious awareness, that speech is composed of identifiable units, such as spoken words, syllables, and sounds. As I was reading through the chapter I noticed that each question that was addressed there was a debate as to whether or not that person supported it or not. Is it a bad thing if you don’t choose either side? I felt like each researcher had some good points, but I didn’t necessarily completely agree one way or the other. I enjoyed reading the section over introducing children to the sounds of language. I thought there were some really neat ways to teach it and introduce it to the students, and I felt like it can be done in a fun way. I thought the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness were very interesting and it gave me a better idea of what to expect from my students and at what age to expect it. Chapter 5 helped me distinguish the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness is strictly sounds/oral and phonics uses a representation of the sound that can easily be presented to the students. In the book it says, “Phonics is important for readers as they attempt to understand how the sounds of language create words.” I liked how they just came out and said what researchers and educators agree on. I liked how the book made lists of what struggling readers are presented with when they are reading, and I think the principles of phonics instruction is something I will refer back to. After reading through these chapters it has made me realize that I need to learn as much about phonics that I can.
I think it is so great to hear that you want to learn as much as you can about phonemic awareness. I think that is a really good approach to take, especially in your first years of teaching. I think the principles of instruction are something you will continually refer back to, to stay on track with the students. It is interesting to hear what teachers and researchers have to say about supporting their students with all of this.
Chapter 4 was a very interesting chapter over phonemic awareness. I found it very interesting when the chapter talked about phonemic awareness and English Learners. I had no idea that different languages had different numbers of phonemes. No wonder why people find English a hard language to learn. They have to learn a lot more phonemes that aren’t found in their native language. As a child I always liked learning new songs, nursery rhymes, poems, jump rope jingles, tongue twisters, and children’s books. Reading the section over introducing children to the wonderful sounds of our language was really interesting for me. Not only can songs, nursery rhymes, poems, jump rope jingles, tongue twisters, and children’s literature help children learn language; it can also help children correct a speech problem. When I was little I had trouble saying my /f/ sound. My speech teacher told my Mom to have me read Jack and The Beanstalk because it had a lot of the /f/ sound in it. Soon I had that book memorized and it helped me learn how to pronounce the /f/ sound. The activities at the end of the chapter can help teachers work on syllables with their students.
Chapter 5 was boring in my opinion. It had a lot of good information though. I liked how it broke the chapter down into sections; what teachers need to know about pho9nics, how students learn phonics, how to teach phonics, types of phonics assessments, effective strategies for teaching phonics, and computer programs that reinforce phonics. I did find that the figures in this chapter gave a lot of information that you could see at a glance. I found figure 5.3 (articulation of vowel sounds) interesting. I never thought of where you articulate the vowel sounds in your mouth at. It would make sense for teachers to know about this and use this information to help struggling readers learn to correctly say their vowels. I also thought that the activities at the end of the chapter are good for helping students learn their consonant sounds, onset and rime, word patterns, and sounds within words.
I agree with you that Chapter 4 & 5 go hand in hand. They are essentially talking about the same thing just in different ways. I think that every teacher should learn as much about phonics instruction as they can. It's a good way to get students to learn how to read.
I thought the new jingles was interesting too because I also loved learning these in school. I think it's a great idea for kinesthetic learners to become involved also. It's good to try and make sure you are reaching all of the learning styles in your classroom, and some children definitely learn better while moving. I know I was one of them.
Chapter 4 was all about phonemic awareness. I really enjoyed the 7 dimensions of phonemic awareness because it laid it all out for us. We always hear about phonemic awareness but sometimes just reading about it and reading examples of it helps me remember it. I also liked how it gave us the 44 most common phonemes. It was nice to know that because that is what most of children are going to learn and remember since they are the most common. The activities in this chapter really made me feel better about phonemic awareness because now I know some learning activities that SHOULD work. Chapter 5 was on phonics and what really helped me in this chapter was the phonics glossary at a glance. It was nice to see the definitions of some of these words that we are constantly hearing. I also thought the section over consonants was interesting because it said as teachers it's important that we make sure we teach our children the proper positions of our tongue when we are saying words. I never thought about make sure our mouth and tongue looks right when we say words. Very interesting.
While reading this information I kept saying how I wish I had this knowledge earlier. I worked with a student who moved away recently that could not rhyme or rime. (I never knew the difference until now) This was a fifth grade student who was extremely low in reading. Now I now where some of his problem is but it is too late for me to attempt to help him as they moved. Phonemic awareness or being able to hear the different sounds versus phonics of connecting the letters to the sounds is a bit confusing. I imagine when I start working more with them I will get better at distinguishing one from the other. I liked all the ideas in the book regarding teaching strategies, these should come in handy. I cannot wait to get all the testing done on my tutoring students to see if I will be able to tell in what area they need to work on. The activities are great but there are not a lot for the older grades. It is my understanding that the phonics and phonemic awareness should be fairly well understood by third grade, however I know that it is good for all students to work on them.
In regards to what Hannah said: It is nice that you have such an experience with phonics and phonemic awareness. I don't remember learning to read that way, so my only experiences are with my reading classes.
Chapters four and five were full of important information about phonemic awareness and phonics. Until last semester I had not thought about all of the work that children have to put into learning the English language but now, as I learn how to teach students what I already know, I am finding that it is a lot more difficult than I had remembered! I really liked reading through these chapters because it explained everything about phonemic awareness and phonics. I am glad to have such a great resource at my fingertips! The activities at the end of each chapter were also a bonus! Since I will be in the classroom soon, it is nice to know that I will have such successful activities for the students to participate in to learn about phonemic awareness and phonics!
In response to Janet H…I also hope I will be able to tell which area(s) my tutoring students will need help in and be able to help them better themselves in those area(s)! I am glad for the activities in the back of the book but also wondered about older grades. I have not worked with older students until this semester (I went from 1st to 6th from last semester to this semester) so I have little experience with older students. My biggest question is what to do with students who have practiced speaking the wrong way for so long that they don’t know how to change. I have a student in my tutoring sessions right now that has a speech impediment. He has trouble with his r sounds and when he talks the r sounds come out as w sounds. My sister also had this problem and I think she ended up going to a speech person in the school to get special help.
Chapter 4: This chapter has been my favorite chapter that I have read since I started the education program. I am a firm believer that phonemic awareness prepares students to be good readers and spellers. I taught for 4 years in a Pre-K classroom where phonemic awareness was the foundation of our curriculum and you could see the students blossom right before your eyes. I do agree with the statement Cunningham on page 85 that different children need different amounts and forms of phonemic awareness instruction. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses a child possess will provide the teacher with better information that can be used in instruction. There are so many wonderful ideas in this chapter many of which that I have implemented into my tri-fold board and literature packets. I have a nursery rhyme in each of my packets and with some I have sequencing cards to go with each as well as an expository and narrative book. We will also have a rhyme that we will read each week and one posted for the month. I have so many highlighted areas and markers in this chapter of ideas and books to use in my instruction that it is hard to read with all of the comments I have wrote in the margins. As a little girl I can remember the jump rope jingles and what a great book that you can use to integrate P.E. into your classroom especially with the cold weather and indoor recess. It gave me an idea. I am sure that when the gym is not in use teachers can sign up for time. I would love to set up a time to use the gym and do the jump rope jingles. This would be great for indoor recess time as well! I also love the riddles. I think this would be a great idea to put on the tri fold and have the students read and then make a guess on a sticky note and then at the end of the session reveal the answer. Sooooo many great ideas. I need to start planning. Question: Will we be doing and phonemic awareness assessment? If not is this something we can do on our own? This would be great information to have especially to show parents! Chapter 5: This chapter was a great review over terms that we became familiar with in reading and language arts class. The portion on what teachers should know was a beneficial read. Adult readers tend to take for granted all of the things that we have learned over the years. Reading and writing is hard to learn. This chapter broke down the vocabulary and terms that a reading teacher will need to know in order to understand their struggling readers better. I really enjoyed the part about how student learn phonics. After my assessments I have realized that this is an area that all of my tutorees need instruction in. Figures 5.4 is something that I would like to put in a power point and print off to put up in my classroom. I found that these would be very helpful to readers and writers. I have made my checklist for phonemic awareness and now I will need to do another for the checklist found in 5.7. I find that these will be great ways for me to monitor students progress and understand better the needs of my students. As in chapter 4 this chapter provides so many skill specific activities that are easy to implement into my tutoring session.
In response to Jaclyn C: I too loved the jump rope jingles. I thought that these 2 chapter gave great ideas for building phonemic awareness and phonics skills. I too saw the need for the checklist assessments. This is a great way to easily check progress and keep up to date records on each student. I am fortunate to have young children so my reading inventory is just the right type for my first graders. I enjoyed reading about how to structure the reading texts for students as well. I have even printed many of the books from starfall.com for them to read as well.
I’m not sure if, after reading through Chapter 5, that I’m not more intimidated now than I was before. The discussion of graphemes, phonemes, blends, etc. is probably harder for me to understand as reading instruction was quite a bit less advanced when I was in kindergarten. I have always been a strong reader, but I don’t believe that had to do with any specific reading instruction.
The most interesting portion of the two chapters was the discussion of the number of phonemes in the English language, as opposed to any other language. That, added to the fact that English is one of the most complex languages to learn due to inconsistencies, makes teaching reading/language arts daunting even for a class without any ELL students!
After reading both chapters, I reflected on my son’s experience with the commercial program Hooked On Phonics. We purchased the kindergarten level program and began using it with him this past summer, before he entered kindergarten. Because he knew all of his letters, and the sounds most of them made, the program recommended he begin at the kindergarten level. The program, at this level at least, is very focused with onsets and rimes. Rimes are introduced, and then onsets are added in sequence. The child repeats after each, and then has the opportunity to say them by him/herself. Then the child does follow-up work in a workbook, with the words mixed up from the original order to ensure that the onset/rime combinations are learned. After a few lessons, high frequency sight words are added, as are words previously experienced in the lessons. Each “word family” exercise ends with a short story that includes words from that family. At the end of each section the child reads a small book that reflects all that has been learned at this point, and so on.
What I noticed with my son was how quickly he caught on to the patterns of onset and rimes. He loved the challenge. However, when he read the stories and books, he was not showing much comprehension yet, mostly just fluency. He didn’t use the pictures for clues unless I prompted him when he would get stuck on a word. When school began, he chose not to continue the program at home. Now when he reads, he reads with expression and much greater comprehension. He uses picture clues, which means he sometimes uses a different word than what is printed (“kitty” instead of “cat” for example). However, I think the phonics program gave him a great introduction to the sounds that make up words. I just wonder if he would be reading as well now if we hadn’t tried it.
In response to Janna C. It's interesting how your speech teacher used a rhyming book to help you learn the "f" sound. Children really love poetry that rhymes, or stories that are predictable, and memorize them quickly. My son is a big fan of the series based on "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly". Although I'd seen the picture of how we produce sounds before, it was in conjunction with teaching speech to the hearing impaired. I never thought about it as useful to students whose hearing is fine as well.
I thought that Chapter 4 had great information for activities. The phonic awareness reminded from the Reading and Language Arts class and internship. It was interesting to see and observe the children with phonic awareness and what they understand. For Chapter 5 this was very helpful for me on the “long vowels and diphthongs,” because I remember substituting and looking at this words and not sure on the pictures for short sounds or long sounds. I personally think this gave great explanation on the assessment. I feel little lost on this point so it was nice to have some more guidance. Also I feel that visual ideas are great. With my tutoring students I think that they will enjoy this. I didn’t have any questions on this reading. The reading reflected me on my Reading and Language Arts test and substituting. The reading material gave me a better understanding of what I should be doing. My own experiences would be that I’m still learning and feeling that this material will help me with testing and understanding what to do.
In response to Sara C. I have always wondered about the program "Hooked on Phonics." It is great to hear that it worked on your son and also you worked with him before he went to school. I feel it gives the child an introduction of what he/she will be learning.
I found these chapters to be very helpful after the first week of tutoring. I realized that one of the assessments I gave checked if students could distinguish oddity. I had one student absent that day, but of the four students I assessed, I had two who would immediately guess one word and two who would pay very close attention to my mouth as I said all three words. Many times I saw the last two students mouthing the words immediately after I said them. These two students did better on the assessment than the other two. I didn’t realize that there were so many more phonemes in the English language, or that phonemes were the reason I have problems saying many of the words/names that come from Asian languages. In my high school there were 4 girls who all had the same name, or so we thought. They all shared the same first name but spelled their last names different (Nguyen, Huynh,…). To English speakers the last names all sounded the same, (When). The Jen Huynh in my class explained to me one day that the emphasis they put on sounds was what made their names sound different to people who can speak the language, as much as I tried I don’t think I ever said their names “correctly”. The book said, when you have a diverse classroom with students who are English language learners, to start with the phonemes that are present in both languages. This makes a lot of sense and I am glad that the book provided us with the list of phonemes that are similar between English and other languages. All of the activities that chapter 4 discussed sound like fun. I remember doing many of them growing up. We use to spend the entire recess jumping rope and reciting these rhymes and jingles. We never realized we were helping ourselves build phonemic awareness. Do children still jump rope and sing the tunes at recess? Since phonemic awareness is an important part of my tutoring this semester I found all the activities the book gave to be awesome! I can’t wait to try some of them out with my Kindergartners. Chapter 5 had a ton of key points about phonics! I found all of the lists to be very helpful. The paragraph about the graphophonic system talked about knowing the number of sounds and the number of letters a word has. Dr. Walizer showed us how to help students understand the how many were in each word. We would put up the number of fingers equal to the number of letters in the word. Then we would group the letters together to make the correct number of sounds. Doing this with children allows them to see how many letters and sounds they are working with and it helps them in breaking down the word for spelling purposes. I think that both phonemic awareness and phonics are very important for children when learning how to read. As adults we often take for granted how easy it is to read and pronounce words. It’s important to remember that we are giving our children so many words and rules to learn at once that any kind of activity or practice we can give them will help them!
I agree that it is important for us to learn as much as possible about phonics and phonemic awareness now, so that we will be prepared to teach our students. Are you wanting to go back to SW Kansas after you graduate? It seems like being able to break down the English language using the information we have learned so far on phonemic awareness and phonics will be extremely helpful when teaching ELL children.
I thought what was interesting was the differences in phonemes between the different languages. I had never read anything about that and it made me think of the ELL students that we have at our school. It must be tremendously difficult to be a first grader and when the parents are Spanish speaking only to not only maintain their native language, but to learn English as well.
I enjoyed reading these two chapters and I liked the activities that were provided. I have used some of these activities while working in the school. It mentioned the book Phonics A-Z and I did purchase the book last year just to have as a future reference. One thing that I find puzzling is at what point does the school system decide that a phonics program is not providing the necessary development needed among students? Our school system has been using Animated Literacy ever since I have been there (5th year) and the students are still struggling with phonics in 4th grade. The school does Dibels testing and MTSS groups, but it seems as though the teachers commment that so and so doesn't know his short vowel sounds. It makes me wonder if this is a good program for kindergarten and then a more extensive program should be used in 1st grade on.
Chapters 4 & 5 have a lot of great information. As we get farther and farther into this book it becomes more important that I keep it for future reference. Chapter 4 talked about phonemic awareness. It gave tons of examples of different ways to assess a child's phonemic awareness. The seven dimensions of phonemic awareness are new to me but I found them all quite interesting. It makes sense that phonemic awareness would be a huge part of reading. I enjoyed reading about the different ways to introduce phonemic awareness to children. The riddles, jingles, and tongue twisters are something I'd like to try with my group of students because I think they'd enjoy it. The games and activities were also great! Chapter 5 goes along with chapter 4 well because it's about phonics. I thought this chapter also had a lot of great information. I thought the chart showing the articulation of the vowel sounds was very interesting. I read about a bunch of different ways of assessing phonics that I plan to use in the future. In the tutoring I have a young girl who's primary language is Spanish. I assumed she would have trouble with some of the sounds but she surprised me and did extremely well at sounding out the words she wasn't familiar with. I think she has skills in both areas that I didn't think she'd have. Assessing these areas helps drive instruction! I can remember having a phonics work book in about first grade. We would get out our workbook and do a page or two until the teacher told us to stop. I also remember that I was a pain so the teacher let me work ahead to keep me occupied and I finished the entire book around November.= and the teacher had to get a harder book for me to work on. I wonder why it is that some children just seem to have the natural ability to read. I don't ever remember struggling to read or not liking to read. My mom was a reader so it was natural in our house to see my mom, brother, sister and I all sitting around reading although my brother and sister despised it. Do you think seeing family members enjoy reading makes a big impact on a child's like or dislike of reading? I'm sure it does but I also know a lot of people who like to read when no one else in their family does. There are so many rules and exceptions in the English language. I think it's important to take it slow and give the children ways to make remembering them easier. We always used little jingles and rhymes to remember. You know, I before E except after C! I look forward to helping my students with phonics!
Janel, I remember jump roping too! I thought it had kind of disappeared. But, the other day when I was giving my interest inventories one of the boys in my group said that he loved to jump rope so I think it's funny you said that! I also didn't know that doing things like that could increase phonemic awareness but it's great that something fun and easy can make such a difference. I also liked your comment about how adults sometimes take for granted how hard it is to pronounce words. All too often we see adults making fun of a child who can't read or pronounce a word and it's disgusting. I'm sure at one point in time or another the individual found a word that he/she struggled with as well... Good post!
In response to Jen H...I agree these are very helpful chapters, especially for you since you are tutoring Kindergarteners! I am doing 4th grade, so I am still working some phonics/phonemic awareness into lessons, but just not as overtly since they have a good handle on it. I appreciated those assessment checklists, too. Very helpful! Julie
Super information in both of these chapters! My tutoring group is made up of 4th graders, but after reviewing these 2 chapters, in a way I was jealous of those of you with younger groups who will get even more phonics/phonemic awareness practice in! Regardless, I am still working phonemic awareness into my lessons with 4th graders by having them create a dictionary of phonograms. It is going well so far. I found the checklists in the book to be very helpful, along with all the examples - tongue twisters, jump rope jingles, etc. to get young students motivated. There was a lot of revelant information regarding English Language Learners as well that we will all need to know. I really like the Devries text and they way the information is unfolding for us as the semester progresses.
Chapter 4 has been very interesting for me and has really helped me get a better grasp on the difference between phonics and phonemic awareness. The two terms have always seemed fairly similar and when I would hear one or the other I always found myself thinking "Okay, which one is that?" I feel like I understand all that phonemic awareness entails now. Reading through the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness made a big difference for me. I know they have been discussed in class, but seeing them and being able to read through them is how I comprehend information the best.
Something else that got my attention in this chapter was the information about the differences and even lack of phonemes that occur in different languages. I had honestly never even thought about that. But it does make perfect sense. I can certainly understand why some ELL students will struggle with English words when they are not even familiar with how to make the sounds because they exist in their native language. I thought about that for a little while and realized how difficult it would be to learn just word translations for another language, let alone try to learn to make entire new sounds also. The text made an excellent suggestion when working with ELL students. It said to begin with words having common phonemes across both languages and then move on to unfamiliar phonemes. It seems logical now, but if you've never thought about the concept it's a big help.
Chapter 5 also made me really think about the struggles children go through when learning to read and spell. I honestly don't remember learning letters, numbers, and sounds. It just seems like I must have always known. Sometimes I wish I could remember what it was like when I was being taught these things so maybe I could help my students even better. It's amazing we learn to read and spell at all with all the sounds one letter can make in the English language. How confusing for a child! No wonder so many children have difficulty reading. To look at our language objectively, it looks like trying to teach a five year old algorithms. I really think my understanding and patience for students learning to read has taken a reality check after reading these two chapters. I think I tend to take for granted that it should be fairly simple....not so much!
I agree with you regarding the riddles, jingles, and tongue twisters that Chapter 4 suggested. That is a fun way to get students to participate in learning. The assessment ideas and methods presented by both chapters will be extremely helpful and useful. I always wish I could be creative enough to develop such efficient tests. Thank goodness for the researchers and teachers who have all come before us that have developed such great tools for us all to use.
You mention having memories of learning to read...I'm jealous! I wish I could remember. I remember doing art projects from kindergarten and first grade but not learning to read. But I think you are right when you say that some children seem to have an easier time learning to read. I do think a lot of it stems from whether or not reading occurs in the home regularly or not. You ask a good question wondering if seeing family members reading will impact the child's feelings toward reading. I absolutely think the family's views will affect how the child feels about it.
I really found both of these chapters very interesting and helpful. Chapter 4 had some great ideas for introducing sounds. I think the nursery rhymes and the jump rope jingles are ones that kids would pick up on the easiest because they hear the tunes so frequently anyway. I found myself highlighting a lot in Ch. 4. I liked intervention activities that were in this chapter. I would like to use the Let’s Make Music activity on page 94and the humpty dumpty game or pg 98. I also found the “What teacher’s should know” section of Ch. 5 very helpful. I think teacher modeling is very important so that section stuck out to me as well. The interventions for Ch. 5 were also very helpful. I like doing alliterations with my children, my youngest daughter says her “S” out of the side of her mouth (she is in Speech for it) so we practice the correct way to say our “S” with Sally sells seashells by the seashore. We have fun with it. I also like the phonogram word wall and the flip books. Both dealt with word families. Overall these chapters had some really great ideas and helpful information.
Shayla, I felt that reading the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness helped me to understand it better too. I also found the checklist for the seven dimensions helpful.
While reading Chapter 4 it's hard to believe we learned a language so complex and confusing. I found myself rereading the difference between "phonemic awareness" and "phonics" a few times. Then when I got to the difference between "rhyme" and "rime" I was even more confused. Researchers, including Blevins argue that children must be aware of phonemic awareness if they are to become proficient readers. If that doesn't scare teachers...I don't know what does!
I was relieved when I read that Songs, Poems, Jump Rope Jingles, Tongue Twisters and Children's Literature all help students learn our complex language. It helped my rising blood pressure a bit to know that we as teachers can make reading and language arts entertaining with these tools!
As I have been looking through our PLT Study book I noticed a question about Encoding.. so I know that Chapter 5 will be important which includes Encoding Words on page 113.
I was so happy to see the She Sells Seashells by the Seashore tongue twister in your blog. That gets stuck in my head all the time! I'm not sure what triggers it, but sometimes I'll be taking a test or driving and I'll just repeat it over and over in my head. I never registered that students could use tongue twisters to focus on phonics. They always seemed like fun games to me. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Personally, Chapters 4 and 5 contained a lot of information for me about Phonemic Awareness and Phonics. These are two areas that last year in Reading Methods, I had no clue what each of them meant. On page 81, the dimensions of phonemic awareness helped me understand exactly what the term means and the examples were especially helpful! It was last year in my internship class that I saw the teacher put her hand under her chin to count the number of syllables in the word, that was an Aha moment for me. My children have never had any difficulties in regards to the seven abilities, so reading this is an eye opener for me. The paragraph on English learners and the fewer phonemes reminds me of my mom who is 100% Italian and her pronunciation or enunciation of some English words. I never really thought why she couldn’t pronounce some words; just that it was a “mom” thing. I love all the nursery rhymes and poems, especially the activity pages. Last year in Reading internship, the mentor teacher used a magnetic board and had her lower level readers practice writing (moving the magnet letters) and sounding them out as they spelt them. They also had to decode the words. So, she had them decode the word, say the word and then spell the word correctly. She did this with their spelling words of the week and they performed A LOT better on the tests. Before she did this activity with them, she assessed them one by one on their phonics. She gave them a Quick Phonics Screener test. It was a lot longer than the 20 lines we have. She knew that they were poor readers, but she didn’t know why until she gave them the assessment.
I love the tongue twister, Sally Sells Seashells by the seashore. It's just fun to say. I remember trying to say it as fast as you can without messing up.
I am tutoring fourth graders as well and they have a great handle on the phonics. I would say what makes a long a sound, and they would but know the answer, I tried that with all of the vowels or would give them a word and have them tell me the short o or whatever. They knew them.
Chapter 4 and 5 covered the first two parts of the big 5 in reading and language arts, Phonemic awareness and phonics. While reading the chapters I focused on how to identify phonemic awareness from phonics. Phonemic awareness is strictly auditory, where as phonics is visual and the written language. I really like the section in chapter 4 where it discussed songs, nursery rhymes and poems to teach phonemic awareness. So many language skills can be transferred from these into the learning of phonics. As a student I remember working a lot with tongue twisters, and nursery rhymes but I don’t remember discussing the language arts and reading skills incorporated in these activities. I think that reading and language arts methods gave us a great base for our background knowledge in phonics. Dr. Walizer left a lasting impression of vowel sounds and phonograms. I say base because there are so many tricks to the English language that I feel sometimes that I will never learn all the rules and exceptions! I have been lucky enough to be in an internship classroom that does the Phonics Dance so I’ve been able to see that method to teaching reading as well as learning total reading. Our text is going to be a great resource later in our own classrooms. I really like the Humpty Dumpty game described in chapter 4 as well as the flip books in chapter 5.
It is comforting to know that with the help of songs, poem, nursery rhymes, and tongue twisters we can make learning reading and language arts fun and exciting for students. We talk a lot about motivating students and some days I wonder if I'm going to continue to come up with creative motivation but with great resources like our book in this class as well as the shanker book, I should always be able to find a good idea.
Chapters 4 and 5 were about Phonemic Awareness and Phonics. Obviously phonics are vital in a child’s education and if not taught properly and thoroughly then students will not have foundation to build upon. As important as it is for children to identify letters it is just as important for children to know what sound the letters and letter combinations make. The English language has so many phonemes and is so intricate. This only proves why English learners have difficulty in adjusting to and learning the English language. I remember my high school Spanish teacher telling me that the English language was one of the most difficult languages to learn because of the many different sounds. Spanish is much easier to learn because what you see is what you say. The English language is not like that at all! I have found myself explaining to my own children about different sounds in words when they are reading to me….words like gnat, knowing, etc… I love the ideas given in Chapter 4 about ways to introduce children to the sounds in the English language. A few ideas given are songs, nursery rhymes, jump rope jingles, and my favorite tongue twisters. I also appreciated the specific information given about assessing phonemic awareness.
Chapter 5 covered the topic of phonics. After reading Chapter 5, I have decided that it is a goldmine of information about phonics. I LOVE the Phonics Glossary At A Glance on page 109 & 110. I will make a copy of this page for reference throughout this class! I honestly find all of the charts/illustrations (such as Figure 5.3) helpful and informative. I thought the Articulation of vowel sounds illustration on page 111 was very neat. The 5 Principles of Phonics Instruction given in Chapter 5 is a great overview of teaching phonics (page 113).
Lastly, I appreciate and enjoy review all of the strategies and activities at the end of the chapters. I look forward to using some of these activities in my tutoring sessions. The thought of teaching phonics can be overwhelming!
I also thought that the information given in Chapter 4 regarding ELL was very informative and helpful! The English language is so difficult because there are so many different sounds. A lot of words do not sounds how they are written. I also agree with you that the vocab terms on page 109 were awesome! It is a great refreasher especially for someone like me who has returned to college after 10 years!
In chapter four, I was glad to get a true definition of phonemic awareness, a child’s understanding and conscious awareness that speech is composed of identifiable unites, such as spoken words, syllables, and sounds. I really found it helpful to determine the details of phonemic awareness. Starting on page 81 the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness are shared, the examples and explanations of each dimension was great to read. The English learns section was also very valuable as well, I liked that it explained about the tongue and lips movements. I have not had the opportunity to work with an English learner yet, but I am getting this opportunity during my tutoring sessions. The student is a more advanced English learner, but it is obvious some areas are difficult, so I am ready to be able to help improve her speaking abilities. I found figures 4.2 and 4.3 to be very helpful as well. I believe knowing what the student may be familiar with or not familiar with is very important. Being able to help them review and then advance will be more important than trying to guess what he/she may or may not know. Also, I have not had the chance to work with the lower level students, so learning more about the nursery rhymes and poems activities was neat, and helps me feel more prepared for when I do get the chance to work with this level of students. The strategies and activities at the end of the chapter were great too! I will definitely use this as a reference later on during my future career!
Chapter five was great as well. One of my favorite figures in this chapter was figure 5.3, the articulation of vowel sounds. I think this information is great to know as an educator. Being armed with this information will make it easier to try and help students really understand where certain sounds come from, instead of telling them to “watch me say it”. I understand when teachers try to ‘show’ you how it sounds, and it does help, but I think the information shown here could really help a student understand better. I even sat and tried each provided word in the figure and enjoyed it. Again, the strategies and activities at the end of the chapter were great and fun to read. I even plan on trying the "Word Sorting with Words" activity with my tutoring students. I think letting the students include their own creativity into an assignment is much more exciting for them than just giving them a prepared sentence and then doing the sorting activity.
Chapter 4 talks about phonemic awareness and chapter 5 talks about phonics. The chart showing the 44 most common phonemes on page 80 was very informational. I tagged that age, so I know the most used ones. The seven dimensions in the chapter are what Ms. Stoppel covered in the adobe connect this week. I read them each in depth and understand them a lot better. The section about the phonemes found in English as well as Spanish was very interesting to me. I guess I never realized how many were in both types of languages. I had a foreign exchange student from Germany and she talked Romanian and German. She struggled the most with our speech. She had a hard time understanding why we said words a certain way and why we pronounced them differently than other times. I am trying to remember a word that had two ways of saying it and she would just give up. We made a pact as a family. She would teach us a word in German or Romanian and we would teach her how to say a certain word better so she could understand it. Well after all the time she was here (a year) I think I only remember one or two words she taught us. She also struggled with spelling and the understanding of the words. I look at how she had a hard time and look at a student learning our language and can see the frustration they have. We just have to help them through it and teach them the best we can. There are going to be some words that they will never pick up on or fully understand. I liked the sections about the nursery rhymes, the jump rope jingles and the tongue twisters. Those were cute and something I will probably find myself using when possible. I am really into those types of things. The different activities in chapter 4 are things that I hope to use and implement in my teaching at some point. In chapter 5 the decoding section was very interesting and helpful. This is always the section I am the most nervous about. The articulation of vowel sounds is great thing to have close by to explain things better. Again after reading these chapters I am not letting this textbook go. I am going to use it a lot in my teaching career.
After reading each of the chapters, I would have to say that chapter 4 caught my attention the most; the information in chapter 5 was important but I really found some different things to focus on in chapter 4. Songs was the first section that caught my attention. Since I am a music nut, I love incorporating music into my lessons and in different activities I use with children. When I was in elementary school, we used songs for everything and to this day I can still remember some of my favorite ones we did in school; like the McDonalds one we did in class! Children learn well from songs because it makes learning fun and easy; in my lesson plans for tutoring, I have a song of the day everyday because I think these songs are fun for the children to do before the lesson. Not only do they get a chance to get their wiggles out, it is a way for them to learn new songs that they might have not heard before. Some songs even come from popular nursery rhymes and this makes it even better because some children in this day and age, have no idea what nursery rhymes are; which brings me to the next section in the book, nursery rhymes and poems. Exposing children to nursery rhymes is important because like I mentioned above, no one uses these anymore! When I was talking with one of my friends the other day, he hadn’t even heard of “Where is Thumbkin!” It was a shock for me because I remember singing and doing nursery rhymes all the time at home and in school. This is a fun way for them to learn to read also; since the literature is rhyme, it makes it easier to remember. Younger children have fun doing this because not only are the songs fun but the actions that go with them are even better! Even if the rhyme doesn’t have actions that go to it, have the children come up with some to get them involved. I love nursery rhymes and I think every classroom should have a huge book of them on hand for children to look at!
I found chapter four and five to be incredibly important because phonemic awareness and phonics are the building blocks to successful reading for students. Phonemic awareness focuses on hearing things, such as syllables, initial letter sounds, rime and rhyme. The difference between phonemic awareness and phonics is that phonics focuses on visual. Phonemic awareness is particularly important for younger students and really the base of learning to read. I liked the part of chapter four that talked about incorporating songs and nursery rhymes to help children learn phonemic awareness because most of them have grown up hearing both from parents so it is easier to relate to them. I will definitely look back in this book in the future because the activies given are amazing and I will use them in my future classroom, or at least look back and get some ideas. Looking at chapter five I really liked looking at decoding and encoding words because that is so important when learning to read. Children need to be able to look at words and break them apart to see and hear where the sounds come from. Again, the intervention section was great and I was introduced to so many new ways of teaching phonics such as dominoes and flip books. I know I will be referring to these two chapter in my internship and pulling ideas to use on my students.
In response to Brandy – I think these chapters were major eye openers for me as well. I still don’t completely understand it all and I still would feel apprehensive about whether I am teaching it right or wrong. I want to teach it the best I can for the students. There is always so much information we have to know in order to teach them and we don’t want to lead them in the wrong direction. I think if we keep reading about it and learning how to teach it, we will all end u doing fine when we teach it.
In response to Lacey, I agree with you about the music section, i loved it! I come from a huge music family with my mom being a music teacher, so i found that section to be really helpful. I think music and songs also help with momeory because it's something different that the students haven't heard befoere so it's easier to remember.
In response to April B: I have a student in my tutoring group now that can speak very little English and since my Spanish isn't that great, I have to come up with other ways to help her understand what we are doing during activities. I just purchased some Skippyjon Jones books that have a little bit of Spanish words in them, however I still don't know if she will totally understand the book. Because of this issue, I have been thinking about different ways I can do activities using Spanish words also. It will be a challenging process for me but on the other hand, it will provide me with a great learning experience as well.
In response to Jen Hittle, I agree with you stance on the usefulness of phonemic awareness. I thought the seven dimensions in themselves were a great chunk of information to leads me to acknowledging the importance of phonemic awareness. I think it is great you will get the chance to practice some of the activities at the end of the chapter with your kindergartners. I haven’t had to chance to deal with such low grades during my experiences yet, so I am looking forward to hopefully getting that chance during my student teaching semester.
As for chapter five, I think it is great that the information will not only help you as a teacher, but also with your child. That is great that you are getting this information from such a great source! I also found the principles on page 113 were great, as well. I have not yet had the chance to see my mentor teacher perform any of these activities, but I plan to use the “Word Sorting with Words” activity during my tutoring sessions. I love the idea that this activity can include the students’ creativity instead of just simply doing what the teacher instructs them to do.
Chapters 4 and 5 cover phonemic awareness and phonic respectively. Phonemic awareness and its dimensions requires the ability to both hear and create sounds orally. Conversely, phonics included phonemic awareness but adds visual (writing) into play. Phonics includes graphemes, graphophonic system, allophones, vowel dipthongs, consonant clusters, vowel digraphs, consonant digraphs, and phonemes. In essence, phonics is simply phonemic awareness in written fashion. We went over this in Dr. Walizer’s Reading/LA Methods but these chapters went a little further. I am thinking there will be challenges for me or any first year teacher in teaching phonemic awareness and phonics. I can remember using phonemic awareness back in Kindergarten when I was learning to create sounds and hear sounds but that’s the only time I remembered phonemic awareness in any of my classrooms. I believe phonics came in the play when I was learning invented spellings. After the fourth grade, is phonics or teaching phonemic awareness still useful? Some may say it depends on your audience but for the average class is where my question is directed towards.
In response to Lacey - I agree that children learn things better when music is involved. I am actually getting ready to teach measurements (Math) through a song that the music teacher is helping me with.
This best thing about this text is all of the great Ideas it gives me. I really like the different ways you can work with phonics. The English language is so complex with so many exceptions to the rule that it is very hard for children to learn how to spell correctly, this has been a big struggle from me and still is.I think that it is very important to really work on spelling every day and do activities with the spelling list on a daily bases. These chapters gave several examples of fun games that the children can play to work on the spelling.
To Tara, I agree with you this chapter was just full of wonderful Ideas! I think that it is great that when you were working in your pre-K class you worked on phonemic awareness. I think that children should start learning sounds with letter at a young age and it is best to teach them when they learn the letter. I have worked with pre-k as well and we show a letter and the children would tell us the letter then we would as for the sound it said and the children would tell us the sound and put an action with it. It really helped them learn.
By far these two chapters were the best. There is so much information in this chapter regarding Phonemic Awareness and Phonics. I am a really big on teaching Phonemic Awareness and Phonics, I believe having a great foundation in them will help the child to become a better reader and speller. I am currently using a variety of Phonemic Awareness and phonics activities with my own children and also the children I am currently tutoring. I am currently tutoring a kindergarten who has a speech impairment and I will be focusing on a lot of the phonemic awareness activities listed in our textbooks from our reading methods class. I love watching the kindergarteners using their sounds to spell their words. It shows how strong their foundation is in Phonics when they are able to sound spell their words when writing.
Christine, I like those activities that you spoke about that your mentor teacher did in your reading internship class. I just picked up some of those magnetic words and letters at our local bookstore today for my students that I am tutoring. It looks like they will have fun with making new nonsense words with them too!
I really enjoyed reading chapter 4 which covered phonemic awareness. On page 81 there were 7 dimensions of phonemic awareness which I found to be extremely helpful. I found it interesting that the English language has 44 phonemes whereas the Spanish language only has 24 sounds. I thought that all of the activities included in the chapter about introducing children to the sounds in the English Language were wonderful! My reading and language arts mentor teacher did some language arts activities with songs and the students absolutely enjoyed every part of it! I never thought to do things such as jump rope jingles or tongue twisters to help students with their phonemic awareness. I also liked the activity of the sound boxes on page 94 that Mrs. Stoppel had pointed out in class. Chapter 5 covered the topic of phonics. I had never heard of the graphophonic system before reading this chapter so it was interesting to learn about that. The chapter included a ton of great information about how students learn phonics and great tools to help students in gaining the needed knowledge for phonics. It is important to remember to teach phonics using systematic instruction so that there is a planned sequence in your teachings. I thought that both chapters this week went into depth about the struggles students may come across in learning phonemic awareness and phonics, along with instructional tips and tools for educators to help students. I didn’t have any questions about this chapter, but does anyone have any activities that they have used that help with phonics or phonemic awareness?
In response to Brooke W-- That is great that you are able to use the tools and tips provided in our text to help with not only the students you tutor but also your own children! These chapters gave so many great activities for phonics and phonemic awareness that can be adapted for any grade level. I am sure having a child with a speech impairment in your tutoring group will help you immensely in the future as an educator.
Chapter four covers phonemic awareness and chapter five covers phonics. Phonemic awareness is all about the ability to hear and make sounds, but only orally. Phonics on the other hand is a different story completely. Phonics combines oral with visual. Students are able to create the correct sound that is connected to the correct letter or blend of letters. Phonics also seems more complicated on paper because there is so much to phonics. It includes the graphophonic system, phonomes, graphemes, vowel dipthongs, vowel digraphs, consonant clusters, consonant digraphs, and allaphones.
ReplyDeleteThe question that I had about the reading has more to do with phonics than phonemic awareness. Phonics seems so vast to me. There are so many parts to phonics that I feel like I don't know where to begin. The problem that I think that I am going to have with teaching phonics is the articulation. How do I know if I am doing it correctly and how do I learn if I am not?
After reading the two chapters, I have discovered the true difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness is only sounds. Absolutely no representations of the letter or sounds can be used during phonemic awareness. Phonics is about using a representation with a sound to create a connection for the student.
Basically, these two chapters have scared me. There is so much information to take in about phonemic awareness and phonics that it makes me feel overwhelmed. But at the same time, the information is wonderful because once I read the examples, it made sense. I really loved looking over the activities in the chapters because I thought they sounded like fun.
Chapters four and five discuss phonemic awareness and phonics. Both of these are extremely important in reading. I feel that taking the time to teach and reinforce the skills is very worth it in the classroom. I did not realize the importance of language play prior to reading chapter four. There were some great methods for creating an environment that encourages word play. When I was a student we were introduced to a wide variety of literature including; rhymes, poetry, narrative texts, expository texts, wordless pictures books, etc. I feel that including all of these elements throughout the course of the school year will be very important for students.
ReplyDeleteOne idea that I thought was excellent was the use of jump rope jingles. At times I feel that the kinesthetic learners are not given opportunities to learn in their best method. This would be a very easy way to incorporate exercise and reading content. With the drop in physical education courses I think that it is important to get our students up and moving. I do not think that we can expect students to sit in the classroom all day and focus without integrating movement!
Finally, I though one very important piece of this chapter was to watch students as we informally assess them over the course of the year. We could give students hundreds of multiple choice exams and we would still not know their true abilities and the areas they are struggling in. When we know what we are watching for we are able to assess students in real situations and the application of reading is extremely important.
In chapter five the textbook discusses phonics instruction. I thought that the five principle of phonics instruction were very important. The most important were basing instruction on what the student knows, using appropriate texts, and teaching in a meaningful context. We must use the students’ schema to build new lessons. This will help the information become more relatable which will aid in their retention. If we use texts that are too easy for students, or that are at their frustration level they will have a difficult time. Material that is too easy becomes boring, and material that is too hard will cause students to give up. And finally, the teaching should be done in a meaningful context. Students must understand why the information they are learning is important, and how they can apply it to their lives. Application is what we should hope for.
Phonemic awareness and phonics are both very important for students. I think that chapters four and five did a great job of explaining what both are and successfully ways that we can teach them to our students. The activities will be very helpful, especially in our internships. I also love the resources in the appendices! I was very excited to find all of the great things that were located in the back.
Brandy,
ReplyDeleteThe English language is filled with so many rules and exceptions! When I read the chapters I also felt a bit overwhelmed about all of these exceptions. I wonder if you could find a video online that shows the proper articulation. Then you could record yourself and see how you are doing it. That might help! I found the activities to be very helpful! I liked that they told us what to look for in students who had the problems that went with each activity. I think that will be very useful in our tutoring sessions, especially because we are just beginning!
Chapter four covered phonemic awareness and chapter five covered phonics. I found the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness to be interesting and learned that one the first three will be mastered by the end of kindergarten and the last four by the end of first grade. I also found the discussion on whether students need these skills and the controversy surrounding how teachers should facilitate children’s growth to be intriguing. After reading chapter 4, it’s my goal to learn as much as I can about phonemic awareness so I can better help my students learn our English language.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading chapter 5, I discovered the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness is strictly sounds (no visual) whereas phonics is using representation with a sound to create a connection of the students. The five key principles of phonics instruction were beneficial to read. I also enjoyed the various activities included in these chapters. They will be great resources for tutoring and for classroom use.
In response to Brandy:
ReplyDeleteI was kind of overwhelmed after reading these two chapters as well! The English language is comprised of many rules and exceptions. I also enjoyed looking over the activities included in the chapters. What a great resource for tutoring and classroom use! I think practice will help us become more familiar and confident with phonemic awareness and phonics.
Kacey,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about the different activities for teaching the specific skills as well. I think that the text book is filled with great resources, activities, and ideas. My pages are all marked with highlighters and written ideas that I have when I am reading through the material. I still feel slightly nervous when thinking about tutoring, but this has helped me get more excited!
In response to Kacey,
ReplyDeleteI can't believe how much we are expected to master by the end of first grade. It doesn't seem like much, but when you are little, it is hard to focus your attention on one thing for a long time. I also like the different activities for teaching skills. I now have some great resources.
Chapter 4 is all about phonemic awareness which is hearing the sound and saying what it is. It is all audio not visual at all. There is a great deal of discussion still if it is useful between some professionals. Personally I feel it is very useful. I loved all the activities that were given towards the end of the chapter. I will be tutoring Kindergartners and I think that these ideas will be of great use for me.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 deals with Phonics, here you see the words as well. Personally I loved the articulation of vowel sounds picture, since I have a child with a cleft palate and I have to train him how to say certain sounds so this will be very beneficial to me. The 5 principles on phonics is a great way for us to go back to and refer what we need to be doing. Finally the assessment check lists were a great idea for me. I like the simplicity of them yet it still has you check the important factors.
Has anyone seen their teachers using some of the activities listed in 4 or 5 and what are some of the favorites?
In response to Kacey F,
ReplyDeleteI also found the debate on Phonemic awareness, very interesting. I agree that it is vitally important to have this segment included in your curriculum. I agree with you, that I need to learn as much as I can now, to benefit the children later. I also think that this part is key for students who are ELL.
Both chapters tie together greatly and are some of my favorite things about reading. I have really gotten to like phonics and phonemic awareness since taking Dr. Walizer's reading/language arts class. Out of all of my methods classes, it had the most to learn. I felt as if i left getting my money's worth. Also, working in a first grade classroom all year has helped me apply it to everyday life. Students were introduced to never letters or blends with a "touchy-feely" bag. If there was a rubber snake in the bag for the day, students would be learning about the letter "s". Chapter 4 is great on its ideas on teaching students different techniques for understanding phonemic awareness. Rhyming can be a great way to teach students. Being able to sound out each letter or blend is important. When my teacher gives her spelling tests, she says the words and sounds out the letters. I had never seen this done before, but it is extremely helpful for those students who know their sounds. Phonics sometimes can be difficult sometimes. For instance, my teacher gave the students a spelling test and one word was coat. Many students spelled it "koat" because of the sound the c makes in the word. The students now know the difference in short and long vowels, but haven't learned how to react to the special ones yet. The phonogram word wall on page 121 reminds me of an activity I've seen in the elementary classroom. Students have letters and spell out words using the letters, and sometimes only have to change out one letter to make the new word. For example, bat, cat, fat. For students to be successful readers, they need to have this part down pat.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Jen H.:
ReplyDeleteI really haven't seen many of these activities used, but have you ever heard of sparkle? I thought of this when I saw one of the activities, but it is a neat game. The teacher points at different students and they have to say a letter. They are spelling out their spelling words. For instance, if the word is away, the teacher points at one student, they say "a", then point at the next student and they say "w", and so on. If they do not say the correct letter, they have to sit down. The one still standing wins. They cannot get help, such as what the word was or what the previous letter was. They just have to be paying attention.
Chapter 4 and 5 were very helpful in increasing my understanding of phonemic awareness and phonics. I found the detail on the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness on page 81 to be very informative and really like how the text provided examples to go with each dimension. I also like that the text provides explicit details on working with ELL students due to the increasing number of these students in the education system. The differences in phonemes between languages makes it very difficult for many of these students to produce these sounds. The examples of activities and literature to use when working with phonemic awareness makes this book a great resource for future use.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 provides a great list of vocabulary terms on page 109 and includes examples for each term. The English language is very complex and the relationship between letters and sounds is not consistent. This makes learning the language difficult at best. The principles of phonics instruction have helped me realize what steps I need to take to properly administer phonics instruction. I cannot recall being taught phonics or phonemic awareness but I realize how helpful these can be in the early years. In my reading internship course last semester there were some students who had not mastered these skills, and they were in sixth grade. By this time, the instructor was not teaching these skills to the general class but these students were removed for individual instruction. I did not attend these sessions but hope that they were receiving some help in these areas.
Response to Lori:
I agree that Dr. Walizer’s course was very beneficial and I too felt that I got my money’s worth out of it. It sounds like you have had some great experience working with phonics and phonemic awareness. I was in a 6th grade class for my reading internship and missed out on working on these skills. I hope that my tutoring sessions are able to help me work on these and figure out which techniques I can best use to help my students.
Chapters 4 and 5 covering phonemic awareness and phonics were great. There were so many helpful activities located at the back of the chapters. I really like the “Children are Sounds” phonemic awareness activity on page 100 of chapter 4. Each child is assigned a sound and the class has to put the sounds together to form a word. The “Change Hen to Fox” variation activity on page 126 of chapter 5 also looked like a good phonics activity. Students switch one letter at a time to change the entire word.
ReplyDeleteWhile phonemic awareness is all about auditory and hearing sounds, phonics is about the sound-symbol relationships. Both of these concepts are very important in order for children to become good readers when they are older. Although phonics and phonemic awareness are only two of the many important aspects of learning to read, they can make a huge difference. In both kindergarten and first grade, I had teachers that retired the year after I was in their class. Because they were older teachers and had been teaching for many years, they were not big on breaking up reading into segments such as phonics and phonemic awareness. My family moved the summer before my second grade year and I can remember that I was behind the other students in my second grade class when it came to phonics and phonemic awareness. I could read, but I was not good at sounding out unfamiliar words and such. Luckily, my teacher worked with me to get me caught up on what I had missed in kindergarten and first grade. I came to appreciate what phonics and phonemic awareness can do for a reader.
I am tutoring three students in fifth grade and I am curious if they will be needing instruction in these areas or if we will be focusing more on fluency and comprehension.
In response to Tyler G…
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated the section on ELL students and phonemic awareness. I have a 5th grade student in my tutoring group from India who recently moved to Kansas. His family speaks Gujarati at home and it has been difficult communicating with his parents. The young boy speaks English fairly well but his teacher noticed that he struggled reading and suggested that I try and get him in my tutoring group. It will be interesting to see if he struggles with English phonemes. I will refer back to page 84 of our DeVries textbook to see if he struggles with any of the sounds that aren’t a part of his first language.
Phonics, which is covered in chapter 4, refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters, such that of the /k/ which can be represented by c, k, ck, ch, or q spellings, and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce pronunciations of unknown words. Learning phonics helps children to read and spell. Knowing the sounds of letters and letter combinations will help your child decode words as they reads. Knowing phonics will also help children know which letters to use as they write.
ReplyDeletePhonemic awareness, covered in chapter 5, allows listeners to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes. Being able separate the spoken word “cat” into three distinct phonemes , /k/, /a/, and /t/ requires phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness improves children’s word reading and reading comprehensions, and also helps them with spelling. Phonemic awareness and phonics go hand in hand .
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI too liked the "Children are Sounds" activity. I also found these flash cards that have letters and parts of pictures on them. The students use the letters to make words, but the pictures also match up kind of like a puzzle. The student can use the picture to assist them in pronouncing the word. There are pictures and letters on both the front and back side of the cards.
ReplyDeleteChapter 4 and 5 somewhat go hand-in-hand because chapter 4 discusses phonemic awareness and chapter 5 discusses phonics. Phonemic awareness is a child’s understanding and conscious awareness, that speech is composed of identifiable units, such as spoken words, syllables, and sounds. As I was reading through the chapter I noticed that each question that was addressed there was a debate as to whether or not that person supported it or not. Is it a bad thing if you don’t choose either side? I felt like each researcher had some good points, but I didn’t necessarily completely agree one way or the other. I enjoyed reading the section over introducing children to the sounds of language. I thought there were some really neat ways to teach it and introduce it to the students, and I felt like it can be done in a fun way. I thought the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness were very interesting and it gave me a better idea of what to expect from my students and at what age to expect it. Chapter 5 helped me distinguish the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Phonemic awareness is strictly sounds/oral and phonics uses a representation of the sound that can easily be presented to the students. In the book it says, “Phonics is important for readers as they attempt to understand how the sounds of language create words.” I liked how they just came out and said what researchers and educators agree on. I liked how the book made lists of what struggling readers are presented with when they are reading, and I think the principles of phonics instruction is something I will refer back to. After reading through these chapters it has made me realize that I need to learn as much about phonics that I can.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Kacey:
ReplyDeleteI think it is so great to hear that you want to learn as much as you can about phonemic awareness. I think that is a really good approach to take, especially in your first years of teaching. I think the principles of instruction are something you will continually refer back to, to stay on track with the students. It is interesting to hear what teachers and researchers have to say about supporting their students with all of this.
Chapter 4 was a very interesting chapter over phonemic awareness. I found it very interesting when the chapter talked about phonemic awareness and English Learners. I had no idea that different languages had different numbers of phonemes. No wonder why people find English a hard language to learn. They have to learn a lot more phonemes that aren’t found in their native language. As a child I always liked learning new songs, nursery rhymes, poems, jump rope jingles, tongue twisters, and children’s books. Reading the section over introducing children to the wonderful sounds of our language was really interesting for me. Not only can songs, nursery rhymes, poems, jump rope jingles, tongue twisters, and children’s literature help children learn language; it can also help children correct a speech problem. When I was little I had trouble saying my /f/ sound. My speech teacher told my Mom to have me read Jack and The Beanstalk because it had a lot of the /f/ sound in it. Soon I had that book memorized and it helped me learn how to pronounce the /f/ sound. The activities at the end of the chapter can help teachers work on syllables with their students.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 was boring in my opinion. It had a lot of good information though. I liked how it broke the chapter down into sections; what teachers need to know about pho9nics, how students learn phonics, how to teach phonics, types of phonics assessments, effective strategies for teaching phonics, and computer programs that reinforce phonics. I did find that the figures in this chapter gave a lot of information that you could see at a glance. I found figure 5.3 (articulation of vowel sounds) interesting. I never thought of where you articulate the vowel sounds in your mouth at. It would make sense for teachers to know about this and use this information to help struggling readers learn to correctly say their vowels. I also thought that the activities at the end of the chapter are good for helping students learn their consonant sounds, onset and rime, word patterns, and sounds within words.
In response to Shelby H.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Chapter 4 & 5 go hand in hand. They are essentially talking about the same thing just in different ways. I think that every teacher should learn as much about phonics instruction as they can. It's a good way to get students to learn how to read.
Janna:
ReplyDeleteI thought the new jingles was interesting too because I also loved learning these in school. I think it's a great idea for kinesthetic learners to become involved also. It's good to try and make sure you are reaching all of the learning styles in your classroom, and some children definitely learn better while moving. I know I was one of them.
Chapter 4 was all about phonemic awareness. I really enjoyed the 7 dimensions of phonemic awareness because it laid it all out for us. We always hear about phonemic awareness but sometimes just reading about it and reading examples of it helps me remember it. I also liked how it gave us the 44 most common phonemes. It was nice to know that because that is what most of children are going to learn and remember since they are the most common. The activities in this chapter really made me feel better about phonemic awareness because now I know some learning activities that SHOULD work.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 was on phonics and what really helped me in this chapter was the phonics glossary at a glance. It was nice to see the definitions of some of these words that we are constantly hearing. I also thought the section over consonants was interesting because it said as teachers it's important that we make sure we teach our children the proper positions of our tongue when we are saying words. I never thought about make sure our mouth and tongue looks right when we say words. Very interesting.
While reading this information I kept saying how I wish I had this knowledge earlier. I worked with a student who moved away recently that could not rhyme or rime. (I never knew the difference until now) This was a fifth grade student who was extremely low in reading. Now I now where some of his problem is but it is too late for me to attempt to help him as they moved. Phonemic awareness or being able to hear the different sounds versus phonics of connecting the letters to the sounds is a bit confusing. I imagine when I start working more with them I will get better at distinguishing one from the other. I liked all the ideas in the book regarding teaching strategies, these should come in handy. I cannot wait to get all the testing done on my tutoring students to see if I will be able to tell in what area they need to work on. The activities are great but there are not a lot for the older grades. It is my understanding that the phonics and phonemic awareness should be fairly well understood by third grade, however I know that it is good for all students to work on them.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to what Hannah said: It is nice that you have such an experience with phonics and phonemic awareness. I don't remember learning to read that way, so my only experiences are with my reading classes.
ReplyDeleteChapters four and five were full of important information about phonemic awareness and phonics. Until last semester I had not thought about all of the work that children have to put into learning the English language but now, as I learn how to teach students what I already know, I am finding that it is a lot more difficult than I had remembered! I really liked reading through these chapters because it explained everything about phonemic awareness and phonics. I am glad to have such a great resource at my fingertips! The activities at the end of each chapter were also a bonus! Since I will be in the classroom soon, it is nice to know that I will have such successful activities for the students to participate in to learn about phonemic awareness and phonics!
ReplyDeleteIn response to Janet H…I also hope I will be able to tell which area(s) my tutoring students will need help in and be able to help them better themselves in those area(s)! I am glad for the activities in the back of the book but also wondered about older grades. I have not worked with older students until this semester (I went from 1st to 6th from last semester to this semester) so I have little experience with older students. My biggest question is what to do with students who have practiced speaking the wrong way for so long that they don’t know how to change. I have a student in my tutoring sessions right now that has a speech impediment. He has trouble with his r sounds and when he talks the r sounds come out as w sounds. My sister also had this problem and I think she ended up going to a speech person in the school to get special help.
ReplyDeleteChapter 4:
ReplyDeleteThis chapter has been my favorite chapter that I have read since I started the education program. I am a firm believer that phonemic awareness prepares students to be good readers and spellers. I taught for 4 years in a Pre-K classroom where phonemic awareness was the foundation of our curriculum and you could see the students blossom right before your eyes. I do agree with the statement Cunningham on page 85 that different children need different amounts and forms of phonemic awareness instruction. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses a child possess will provide the teacher with better information that can be used in instruction. There are so many wonderful ideas in this chapter many of which that I have implemented into my tri-fold board and literature packets. I have a nursery rhyme in each of my packets and with some I have sequencing cards to go with each as well as an expository and narrative book. We will also have a rhyme that we will read each week and one posted for the month. I have so many highlighted areas and markers in this chapter of ideas and books to use in my instruction that it is hard to read with all of the comments I have wrote in the margins. As a little girl I can remember the jump rope jingles and what a great book that you can use to integrate P.E. into your classroom especially with the cold weather and indoor recess. It gave me an idea. I am sure that when the gym is not in use teachers can sign up for time. I would love to set up a time to use the gym and do the jump rope jingles. This would be great for indoor recess time as well! I also love the riddles. I think this would be a great idea to put on the tri fold and have the students read and then make a guess on a sticky note and then at the end of the session reveal the answer. Sooooo many great ideas. I need to start planning. Question: Will we be doing and phonemic awareness assessment? If not is this something we can do on our own? This would be great information to have especially to show parents!
Chapter 5:
This chapter was a great review over terms that we became familiar with in reading and language arts class. The portion on what teachers should know was a beneficial read. Adult readers tend to take for granted all of the things that we have learned over the years. Reading and writing is hard to learn. This chapter broke down the vocabulary and terms that a reading teacher will need to know in order to understand their struggling readers better. I really enjoyed the part about how student learn phonics. After my assessments I have realized that this is an area that all of my tutorees need instruction in. Figures 5.4 is something that I would like to put in a power point and print off to put up in my classroom. I found that these would be very helpful to readers and writers. I have made my checklist for phonemic awareness and now I will need to do another for the checklist found in 5.7. I find that these will be great ways for me to monitor students progress and understand better the needs of my students. As in chapter 4 this chapter provides so many skill specific activities that are easy to implement into my tutoring session.
In response to Jaclyn C:
ReplyDeleteI too loved the jump rope jingles. I thought that these 2 chapter gave great ideas for building phonemic awareness and phonics skills. I too saw the need for the checklist assessments. This is a great way to easily check progress and keep up to date records on each student. I am fortunate to have young children so my reading inventory is just the right type for my first graders. I enjoyed reading about how to structure the reading texts for students as well. I have even printed many of the books from starfall.com for them to read as well.
I’m not sure if, after reading through Chapter 5, that I’m not more intimidated now than I was before. The discussion of graphemes, phonemes, blends, etc. is probably harder for me to understand as reading instruction was quite a bit less advanced when I was in kindergarten. I have always been a strong reader, but I don’t believe that had to do with any specific reading instruction.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting portion of the two chapters was the discussion of the number of phonemes in the English language, as opposed to any other language. That, added to the fact that English is one of the most complex languages to learn due to inconsistencies, makes teaching reading/language arts daunting even for a class without any ELL students!
After reading both chapters, I reflected on my son’s experience with the commercial program Hooked On Phonics. We purchased the kindergarten level program and began using it with him this past summer, before he entered kindergarten. Because he knew all of his letters, and the sounds most of them made, the program recommended he begin at the kindergarten level. The program, at this level at least, is very focused with onsets and rimes. Rimes are introduced, and then onsets are added in sequence. The child repeats after each, and then has the opportunity to say them by him/herself. Then the child does follow-up work in a workbook, with the words mixed up from the original order to ensure that the onset/rime combinations are learned. After a few lessons, high frequency sight words are added, as are words previously experienced in the lessons. Each “word family” exercise ends with a short story that includes words from that family. At the end of each section the child reads a small book that reflects all that has been learned at this point, and so on.
What I noticed with my son was how quickly he caught on to the patterns of onset and rimes. He loved the challenge. However, when he read the stories and books, he was not showing much comprehension yet, mostly just fluency. He didn’t use the pictures for clues unless I prompted him when he would get stuck on a word. When school began, he chose not to continue the program at home. Now when he reads, he reads with expression and much greater comprehension. He uses picture clues, which means he sometimes uses a different word than what is printed (“kitty” instead of “cat” for example). However, I think the phonics program gave him a great introduction to the sounds that make up words. I just wonder if he would be reading as well now if we hadn’t tried it.
In response to Janna C.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how your speech teacher used a rhyming book to help you learn the "f" sound. Children really love poetry that rhymes, or stories that are predictable, and memorize them quickly. My son is a big fan of the series based on "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly".
Although I'd seen the picture of how we produce sounds before, it was in conjunction with teaching speech to the hearing impaired. I never thought about it as useful to students whose hearing is fine as well.
I thought that Chapter 4 had great information for activities. The phonic awareness reminded from the Reading and Language Arts class and internship. It was interesting to see and observe the children with phonic awareness and what they understand. For Chapter 5 this was very helpful for me on the “long vowels and diphthongs,” because I remember substituting and looking at this words and not sure on the pictures for short sounds or long sounds. I personally think this gave great explanation on the assessment. I feel little lost on this point so it was nice to have some more guidance. Also I feel that visual ideas are great. With my tutoring students I think that they will enjoy this.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t have any questions on this reading. The reading reflected me on my Reading and Language Arts test and substituting. The reading material gave me a better understanding of what I should be doing. My own experiences would be that I’m still learning and feeling that this material will help me with testing and understanding what to do.
In response to Sara C. I have always wondered about the program "Hooked on Phonics." It is great to hear that it worked on your son and also you worked with him before he went to school. I feel it gives the child an introduction of what he/she will be learning.
ReplyDeleteI found these chapters to be very helpful after the first week of tutoring. I realized that one of the assessments I gave checked if students could distinguish oddity. I had one student absent that day, but of the four students I assessed, I had two who would immediately guess one word and two who would pay very close attention to my mouth as I said all three words. Many times I saw the last two students mouthing the words immediately after I said them. These two students did better on the assessment than the other two.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t realize that there were so many more phonemes in the English language, or that phonemes were the reason I have problems saying many of the words/names that come from Asian languages. In my high school there were 4 girls who all had the same name, or so we thought. They all shared the same first name but spelled their last names different (Nguyen, Huynh,…). To English speakers the last names all sounded the same, (When). The Jen Huynh in my class explained to me one day that the emphasis they put on sounds was what made their names sound different to people who can speak the language, as much as I tried I don’t think I ever said their names “correctly”. The book said, when you have a diverse classroom with students who are English language learners, to start with the phonemes that are present in both languages. This makes a lot of sense and I am glad that the book provided us with the list of phonemes that are similar between English and other languages.
All of the activities that chapter 4 discussed sound like fun. I remember doing many of them growing up. We use to spend the entire recess jumping rope and reciting these rhymes and jingles. We never realized we were helping ourselves build phonemic awareness. Do children still jump rope and sing the tunes at recess? Since phonemic awareness is an important part of my tutoring this semester I found all the activities the book gave to be awesome! I can’t wait to try some of them out with my Kindergartners.
Chapter 5 had a ton of key points about phonics! I found all of the lists to be very helpful. The paragraph about the graphophonic system talked about knowing the number of sounds and the number of letters a word has. Dr. Walizer showed us how to help students understand the how many were in each word. We would put up the number of fingers equal to the number of letters in the word. Then we would group the letters together to make the correct number of sounds. Doing this with children allows them to see how many letters and sounds they are working with and it helps them in breaking down the word for spelling purposes.
I think that both phonemic awareness and phonics are very important for children when learning how to read. As adults we often take for granted how easy it is to read and pronounce words. It’s important to remember that we are giving our children so many words and rules to learn at once that any kind of activity or practice we can give them will help them!
In response to Kacey:
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is important for us to learn as much as possible about phonics and phonemic awareness now, so that we will be prepared to teach our students. Are you wanting to go back to SW Kansas after you graduate? It seems like being able to break down the English language using the information we have learned so far on phonemic awareness and phonics will be extremely helpful when teaching ELL children.
Brandy C-
ReplyDeleteI thought what was interesting was the differences in phonemes between the different languages. I had never read anything about that and it made me think of the ELL students that we have at our school. It must be tremendously difficult to be a first grader and when the parents are Spanish speaking only to not only maintain their native language, but to learn English as well.
I enjoyed reading these two chapters and I liked the activities that were provided. I have used some of these activities while working in the school. It mentioned the book Phonics A-Z and I did purchase the book last year just to have as a future reference. One thing that I find puzzling is at what point does the school system decide that a phonics program is not providing the necessary development needed among students? Our school system has been using Animated Literacy ever since I have been there (5th year) and the students are still struggling with phonics in 4th grade. The school does Dibels testing and MTSS groups, but it seems as though the teachers commment that so and so doesn't know his short vowel sounds. It makes me wonder if this is a good program for kindergarten and then a more extensive program should be used in 1st grade on.
ReplyDeleteChapters 4 & 5 have a lot of great information. As we get farther and farther into this book it becomes more important that I keep it for future reference. Chapter 4 talked about phonemic awareness. It gave tons of examples of different ways to assess a child's phonemic awareness. The seven dimensions of phonemic awareness are new to me but I found them all quite interesting. It makes sense that phonemic awareness would be a huge part of reading. I enjoyed reading about the different ways to introduce phonemic awareness to children. The riddles, jingles, and tongue twisters are something I'd like to try with my group of students because I think they'd enjoy it. The games and activities were also great!
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 goes along with chapter 4 well because it's about phonics. I thought this chapter also had a lot of great information. I thought the chart showing the articulation of the vowel sounds was very interesting. I read about a bunch of different ways of assessing phonics that I plan to use in the future.
In the tutoring I have a young girl who's primary language is Spanish. I assumed she would have trouble with some of the sounds but she surprised me and did extremely well at sounding out the words she wasn't familiar with. I think she has skills in both areas that I didn't think she'd have. Assessing these areas helps drive instruction!
I can remember having a phonics work book in about first grade. We would get out our workbook and do a page or two until the teacher told us to stop. I also remember that I was a pain so the teacher let me work ahead to keep me occupied and I finished the entire book around November.= and the teacher had to get a harder book for me to work on. I wonder why it is that some children just seem to have the natural ability to read. I don't ever remember struggling to read or not liking to read. My mom was a reader so it was natural in our house to see my mom, brother, sister and I all sitting around reading although my brother and sister despised it.
Do you think seeing family members enjoy reading makes a big impact on a child's like or dislike of reading? I'm sure it does but I also know a lot of people who like to read when no one else in their family does.
There are so many rules and exceptions in the English language. I think it's important to take it slow and give the children ways to make remembering them easier. We always used little jingles and rhymes to remember. You know, I before E except after C! I look forward to helping my students with phonics!
Janel,
ReplyDeleteI remember jump roping too! I thought it had kind of disappeared. But, the other day when I was giving my interest inventories one of the boys in my group said that he loved to jump rope so I think it's funny you said that! I also didn't know that doing things like that could increase phonemic awareness but it's great that something fun and easy can make such a difference.
I also liked your comment about how adults sometimes take for granted how hard it is to pronounce words. All too often we see adults making fun of a child who can't read or pronounce a word and it's disgusting. I'm sure at one point in time or another the individual found a word that he/she struggled with as well... Good post!
In response to Jen H...I agree these are very helpful chapters, especially for you since you are tutoring Kindergarteners! I am doing 4th grade, so I am still working some phonics/phonemic awareness into lessons, but just not as overtly since they have a good handle on it. I appreciated those assessment checklists, too. Very helpful! Julie
ReplyDeleteSuper information in both of these chapters! My tutoring group is made up of 4th graders, but after reviewing these 2 chapters, in a way I was jealous of those of you with younger groups who will get even more phonics/phonemic awareness practice in! Regardless, I am still working phonemic awareness into my lessons with 4th graders by having them create a dictionary of phonograms. It is going well so far. I found the checklists in the book to be very helpful, along with all the examples - tongue twisters, jump rope jingles, etc. to get young students motivated. There was a lot of revelant information regarding English Language Learners as well that we will all need to know. I really like the Devries text and they way the information is unfolding for us as the semester progresses.
ReplyDeleteChapter 4 has been very interesting for me and has really helped me get a better grasp on the difference between phonics and phonemic awareness. The two terms have always seemed fairly similar and when I would hear one or the other I always found myself thinking "Okay, which one is that?" I feel like I understand all that phonemic awareness entails now. Reading through the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness made a big difference for me. I know they have been discussed in class, but seeing them and being able to read through them is how I comprehend information the best.
ReplyDeleteSomething else that got my attention in this chapter was the information about the differences and even lack of phonemes that occur in different languages. I had honestly never even thought about that. But it does make perfect sense. I can certainly understand why some ELL students will struggle with English words when they are not even familiar with how to make the sounds because they exist in their native language. I thought about that for a little while and realized how difficult it would be to learn just word translations for another language, let alone try to learn to make entire new sounds also. The text made an excellent suggestion when working with ELL students. It said to begin with words having common phonemes across both languages and then move on to unfamiliar phonemes. It seems logical now, but if you've never thought about the concept it's a big help.
Chapter 5 also made me really think about the struggles children go through when learning to read and spell. I honestly don't remember learning letters, numbers, and sounds. It just seems like I must have always known. Sometimes I wish I could remember what it was like when I was being taught these things so maybe I could help my students even better. It's amazing we learn to read and spell at all with all the sounds one letter can make in the English language. How confusing for a child! No wonder so many children have difficulty reading. To look at our language objectively, it looks like trying to teach a five year old algorithms. I really think my understanding and patience for students learning to read has taken a reality check after reading these two chapters. I think I tend to take for granted that it should be fairly simple....not so much!
Shaina,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you regarding the riddles, jingles, and tongue twisters that Chapter 4 suggested. That is a fun way to get students to participate in learning. The assessment ideas and methods presented by both chapters will be extremely helpful and useful. I always wish I could be creative enough to develop such efficient tests. Thank goodness for the researchers and teachers who have all come before us that have developed such great tools for us all to use.
You mention having memories of learning to read...I'm jealous! I wish I could remember. I remember doing art projects from kindergarten and first grade but not learning to read. But I think you are right when you say that some children seem to have an easier time learning to read. I do think a lot of it stems from whether or not reading occurs in the home regularly or not. You ask a good question wondering if seeing family members reading will impact the child's feelings toward reading. I absolutely think the family's views will affect how the child feels about it.
I really found both of these chapters very interesting and helpful. Chapter 4 had some great ideas for introducing sounds. I think the nursery rhymes and the jump rope jingles are ones that kids would pick up on the easiest because they hear the tunes so frequently anyway. I found myself highlighting a lot in Ch. 4. I liked intervention activities that were in this chapter. I would like to use the Let’s Make Music activity on page 94and the humpty dumpty game or pg 98. I also found the “What teacher’s should know” section of Ch. 5 very helpful. I think teacher modeling is very important so that section stuck out to me as well. The interventions for Ch. 5 were also very helpful. I like doing alliterations with my children, my youngest daughter says her “S” out of the side of her mouth (she is in Speech for it) so we practice the correct way to say our “S” with Sally sells seashells by the seashore. We have fun with it. I also like the phonogram word wall and the flip books. Both dealt with word families. Overall these chapters had some really great ideas and helpful information.
ReplyDeleteShayla,
ReplyDeleteI felt that reading the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness helped me to understand it better too. I also found the checklist for the seven dimensions helpful.
Julee,
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. These chapters have some great ideas and activities in them!
While reading Chapter 4 it's hard to believe we learned a language so complex and confusing. I found myself rereading the difference between "phonemic awareness" and "phonics" a few times. Then when I got to the difference between "rhyme" and "rime" I was even more confused. Researchers, including Blevins argue that children must be aware of phonemic awareness if they are to become proficient readers. If that doesn't scare teachers...I don't know what does!
ReplyDeleteI was relieved when I read that Songs, Poems, Jump Rope Jingles, Tongue Twisters and Children's Literature all help students learn our complex language. It helped my rising blood pressure a bit to know that we as teachers can make reading and language arts entertaining with these tools!
As I have been looking through our PLT Study book I noticed a question about Encoding.. so I know that Chapter 5 will be important which includes Encoding Words on page 113.
In response to Kim D,
ReplyDeleteI was so happy to see the She Sells Seashells by the Seashore tongue twister in your blog. That gets stuck in my head all the time! I'm not sure what triggers it, but sometimes I'll be taking a test or driving and I'll just repeat it over and over in my head. I never registered that students could use tongue twisters to focus on phonics. They always seemed like fun games to me. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Personally, Chapters 4 and 5 contained a lot of information for me about Phonemic Awareness and Phonics. These are two areas that last year in Reading Methods, I had no clue what each of them meant. On page 81, the dimensions of phonemic awareness helped me understand exactly what the term means and the examples were especially helpful! It was last year in my internship class that I saw the teacher put her hand under her chin to count the number of syllables in the word, that was an Aha moment for me. My children have never had any difficulties in regards to the seven abilities, so reading this is an eye opener for me.
ReplyDeleteThe paragraph on English learners and the fewer phonemes reminds me of my mom who is 100% Italian and her pronunciation or enunciation of some English words. I never really thought why she couldn’t pronounce some words; just that it was a “mom” thing.
I love all the nursery rhymes and poems, especially the activity pages. Last year in Reading internship, the mentor teacher used a magnetic board and had her lower level readers practice writing (moving the magnet letters) and sounding them out as they spelt them. They also had to decode the words. So, she had them decode the word, say the word and then spell the word correctly. She did this with their spelling words of the week and they performed A LOT better on the tests.
Before she did this activity with them, she assessed them one by one on their phonics. She gave them a Quick Phonics Screener test. It was a lot longer than the 20 lines we have. She knew that they were poor readers, but she didn’t know why until she gave them the assessment.
In response to Kim D.,
ReplyDeleteI love the tongue twister, Sally Sells Seashells by the seashore. It's just fun to say. I remember trying to say it as fast as you can without messing up.
In response to Julie,
ReplyDeleteI am tutoring fourth graders as well and they have a great handle on the phonics. I would say what makes a long a sound, and they would but know the answer, I tried that with all of the vowels or would give them a word and have them tell me the short o or whatever. They knew them.
Melinda S.
ReplyDeleteChapter 4 and 5 covered the first two parts of the big 5 in reading and language arts, Phonemic awareness and phonics. While reading the chapters I focused on how to identify phonemic awareness from phonics. Phonemic awareness is strictly auditory, where as phonics is visual and the written language. I really like the section in chapter 4 where it discussed songs, nursery rhymes and poems to teach phonemic awareness. So many language skills can be transferred from these into the learning of phonics. As a student I remember working a lot with tongue twisters, and nursery rhymes but I don’t remember discussing the language arts and reading skills incorporated in these activities. I think that reading and language arts methods gave us a great base for our background knowledge in phonics. Dr. Walizer left a lasting impression of vowel sounds and phonograms. I say base because there are so many tricks to the English language that I feel sometimes that I will never learn all the rules and exceptions! I have been lucky enough to be in an internship classroom that does the Phonics Dance so I’ve been able to see that method to teaching reading as well as learning total reading. Our text is going to be a great resource later in our own classrooms. I really like the Humpty Dumpty game described in chapter 4 as well as the flip books in chapter 5.
In response to Larissa Whit.
ReplyDeleteIt is comforting to know that with the help of songs, poem, nursery rhymes, and tongue twisters we can make learning reading and language arts fun and exciting for students. We talk a lot about motivating students and some days I wonder if I'm going to continue to come up with creative motivation but with great resources like our book in this class as well as the shanker book, I should always be able to find a good idea.
Chapters 4 and 5 were about Phonemic Awareness and Phonics. Obviously phonics are vital in a child’s education and if not taught properly and thoroughly then students will not have foundation to build upon. As important as it is for children to identify letters it is just as important for children to know what sound the letters and letter combinations make. The English language has so many phonemes and is so intricate. This only proves why English learners have difficulty in adjusting to and learning the English language. I remember my high school Spanish teacher telling me that the English language was one of the most difficult languages to learn because of the many different sounds. Spanish is much easier to learn because what you see is what you say. The English language is not like that at all! I have found myself explaining to my own children about different sounds in words when they are reading to me….words like gnat, knowing, etc… I love the ideas given in Chapter 4 about ways to introduce children to the sounds in the English language. A few ideas given are songs, nursery rhymes, jump rope jingles, and my favorite tongue twisters. I also appreciated the specific information given about assessing phonemic awareness.
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 covered the topic of phonics. After reading Chapter 5, I have decided that it is a goldmine of information about phonics. I LOVE the Phonics Glossary At A Glance on page 109 & 110. I will make a copy of this page for reference throughout this class! I honestly find all of the charts/illustrations (such as Figure 5.3) helpful and informative. I thought the Articulation of vowel sounds illustration on page 111 was very neat. The 5 Principles of Phonics Instruction given in Chapter 5 is a great overview of teaching phonics (page 113).
Lastly, I appreciate and enjoy review all of the strategies and activities at the end of the chapters. I look forward to using some of these activities in my tutoring sessions. The thought of teaching phonics can be overwhelming!
In response to Tyler G.:
ReplyDeleteI also thought that the information given in Chapter 4 regarding ELL was very informative and helpful! The English language is so difficult because there are so many different sounds. A lot of words do not sounds how they are written. I also agree with you that the vocab terms on page 109 were awesome! It is a great refreasher especially for someone like me who has returned to college after 10 years!
In chapter four, I was glad to get a true definition of phonemic awareness, a child’s understanding and conscious awareness that speech is composed of identifiable unites, such as spoken words, syllables, and sounds. I really found it helpful to determine the details of phonemic awareness. Starting on page 81 the seven dimensions of phonemic awareness are shared, the examples and explanations of each dimension was great to read. The English learns section was also very valuable as well, I liked that it explained about the tongue and lips movements. I have not had the opportunity to work with an English learner yet, but I am getting this opportunity during my tutoring sessions. The student is a more advanced English learner, but it is obvious some areas are difficult, so I am ready to be able to help improve her speaking abilities. I found figures 4.2 and 4.3 to be very helpful as well. I believe knowing what the student may be familiar with or not familiar with is very important. Being able to help them review and then advance will be more important than trying to guess what he/she may or may not know. Also, I have not had the chance to work with the lower level students, so learning more about the nursery rhymes and poems activities was neat, and helps me feel more prepared for when I do get the chance to work with this level of students. The strategies and activities at the end of the chapter were great too! I will definitely use this as a reference later on during my future career!
ReplyDeleteChapter five was great as well. One of my favorite figures in this chapter was figure 5.3, the articulation of vowel sounds. I think this information is great to know as an educator. Being armed with this information will make it easier to try and help students really understand where certain sounds come from, instead of telling them to “watch me say it”. I understand when teachers try to ‘show’ you how it sounds, and it does help, but I think the information shown here could really help a student understand better. I even sat and tried each provided word in the figure and enjoyed it. Again, the strategies and activities at the end of the chapter were great and fun to read. I even plan on trying the "Word Sorting with Words" activity with my tutoring students. I think letting the students include their own creativity into an assignment is much more exciting for them than just giving them a prepared sentence and then doing the sorting activity.
Chapter 4 talks about phonemic awareness and chapter 5 talks about phonics. The chart showing the 44 most common phonemes on page 80 was very informational. I tagged that age, so I know the most used ones. The seven dimensions in the chapter are what Ms. Stoppel covered in the adobe connect this week. I read them each in depth and understand them a lot better. The section about the phonemes found in English as well as Spanish was very interesting to me. I guess I never realized how many were in both types of languages. I had a foreign exchange student from Germany and she talked Romanian and German. She struggled the most with our speech. She had a hard time understanding why we said words a certain way and why we pronounced them differently than other times. I am trying to remember a word that had two ways of saying it and she would just give up. We made a pact as a family. She would teach us a word in German or Romanian and we would teach her how to say a certain word better so she could understand it. Well after all the time she was here (a year) I think I only remember one or two words she taught us. She also struggled with spelling and the understanding of the words.
ReplyDeleteI look at how she had a hard time and look at a student learning our language and can see the frustration they have. We just have to help them through it and teach them the best we can. There are going to be some words that they will never pick up on or fully understand. I liked the sections about the nursery rhymes, the jump rope jingles and the tongue twisters. Those were cute and something I will probably find myself using when possible. I am really into those types of things. The different activities in chapter 4 are things that I hope to use and implement in my teaching at some point.
In chapter 5 the decoding section was very interesting and helpful. This is always the section I am the most nervous about. The articulation of vowel sounds is great thing to have close by to explain things better. Again after reading these chapters I am not letting this textbook go. I am going to use it a lot in my teaching career.
After reading each of the chapters, I would have to say that chapter 4 caught my attention the most; the information in chapter 5 was important but I really found some different things to focus on in chapter 4.
ReplyDeleteSongs was the first section that caught my attention. Since I am a music nut, I love incorporating music into my lessons and in different activities I use with children. When I was in elementary school, we used songs for everything and to this day I can still remember some of my favorite ones we did in school; like the McDonalds one we did in class! Children learn well from songs because it makes learning fun and easy; in my lesson plans for tutoring, I have a song of the day everyday because I think these songs are fun for the children to do before the lesson. Not only do they get a chance to get their wiggles out, it is a way for them to learn new songs that they might have not heard before. Some songs even come from popular nursery rhymes and this makes it even better because some children in this day and age, have no idea what nursery rhymes are; which brings me to the next section in the book, nursery rhymes and poems.
Exposing children to nursery rhymes is important because like I mentioned above, no one uses these anymore! When I was talking with one of my friends the other day, he hadn’t even heard of “Where is Thumbkin!” It was a shock for me because I remember singing and doing nursery rhymes all the time at home and in school. This is a fun way for them to learn to read also; since the literature is rhyme, it makes it easier to remember. Younger children have fun doing this because not only are the songs fun but the actions that go with them are even better! Even if the rhyme doesn’t have actions that go to it, have the children come up with some to get them involved. I love nursery rhymes and I think every classroom should have a huge book of them on hand for children to look at!
I found chapter four and five to be incredibly important because phonemic awareness and phonics are the building blocks to successful reading for students. Phonemic awareness focuses on hearing things, such as syllables, initial letter sounds, rime and rhyme. The difference between phonemic awareness and phonics is that phonics focuses on visual. Phonemic awareness is particularly important for younger students and really the base of learning to read. I liked the part of chapter four that talked about incorporating songs and nursery rhymes to help children learn phonemic awareness because most of them have grown up hearing both from parents so it is easier to relate to them. I will definitely look back in this book in the future because the activies given are amazing and I will use them in my future classroom, or at least look back and get some ideas. Looking at chapter five I really liked looking at decoding and encoding words because that is so important when learning to read. Children need to be able to look at words and break them apart to see and hear where the sounds come from. Again, the intervention section was great and I was introduced to so many new ways of teaching phonics such as dominoes and flip books. I know I will be referring to these two chapter in my internship and pulling ideas to use on my students.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Brandy –
ReplyDeleteI think these chapters were major eye openers for me as well. I still don’t completely understand it all and I still would feel apprehensive about whether I am teaching it right or wrong. I want to teach it the best I can for the students. There is always so much information we have to know in order to teach them and we don’t want to lead them in the wrong direction. I think if we keep reading about it and learning how to teach it, we will all end u doing fine when we teach it.
In response to Lacey,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the music section, i loved it! I come from a huge music family with my mom being a music teacher, so i found that section to be really helpful. I think music and songs also help with momeory because it's something different that the students haven't heard befoere so it's easier to remember.
In response to April B:
ReplyDeleteI have a student in my tutoring group now that can speak very little English and since my Spanish isn't that great, I have to come up with other ways to help her understand what we are doing during activities. I just purchased some Skippyjon Jones books that have a little bit of Spanish words in them, however I still don't know if she will totally understand the book. Because of this issue, I have been thinking about different ways I can do activities using Spanish words also. It will be a challenging process for me but on the other hand, it will provide me with a great learning experience as well.
In response to Jen Hittle, I agree with you stance on the usefulness of phonemic awareness. I thought the seven dimensions in themselves were a great chunk of information to leads me to acknowledging the importance of phonemic awareness. I think it is great you will get the chance to practice some of the activities at the end of the chapter with your kindergartners. I haven’t had to chance to deal with such low grades during my experiences yet, so I am looking forward to hopefully getting that chance during my student teaching semester.
ReplyDeleteAs for chapter five, I think it is great that the information will not only help you as a teacher, but also with your child. That is great that you are getting this information from such a great source! I also found the principles on page 113 were great, as well. I have not yet had the chance to see my mentor teacher perform any of these activities, but I plan to use the “Word Sorting with Words” activity during my tutoring sessions. I love the idea that this activity can include the students’ creativity instead of just simply doing what the teacher instructs them to do.
Chapters 4 and 5 cover phonemic awareness and phonic respectively. Phonemic awareness and its dimensions requires the ability to both hear and create sounds orally. Conversely, phonics included phonemic awareness but adds visual (writing) into play. Phonics includes graphemes, graphophonic system, allophones, vowel dipthongs, consonant clusters, vowel digraphs, consonant digraphs, and phonemes. In essence, phonics is simply phonemic awareness in written fashion. We went over this in Dr. Walizer’s Reading/LA Methods but these chapters went a little further. I am thinking there will be challenges for me or any first year teacher in teaching phonemic awareness and phonics. I can remember using phonemic awareness back in Kindergarten when I was learning to create sounds and hear sounds but that’s the only time I remembered phonemic awareness in any of my classrooms. I believe phonics came in the play when I was learning invented spellings. After the fourth grade, is phonics or teaching phonemic awareness still useful? Some may say it depends on your audience but for the average class is where my question is directed towards.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Lacey - I agree that children learn things better when music is involved. I am actually getting ready to teach measurements (Math) through a song that the music teacher is helping me with.
ReplyDeleteThis best thing about this text is all of the great Ideas it gives me. I really like the different ways you can work with phonics. The English language is so complex with so many exceptions to the rule that it is very hard for children to learn how to spell correctly, this has been a big struggle from me and still is.I think that it is very important to really work on spelling every day and do activities with the spelling list on a daily bases. These chapters gave several examples of fun games that the children can play to work on the spelling.
ReplyDeleteTo Tara, I agree with you this chapter was just full of wonderful Ideas! I think that it is great that when you were working in your pre-K class you worked on phonemic awareness. I think that children should start learning sounds with letter at a young age and it is best to teach them when they learn the letter. I have worked with pre-k as well and we show a letter and the children would tell us the letter then we would as for the sound it said and the children would tell us the sound and put an action with it. It really helped them learn.
ReplyDeleteBy far these two chapters were the best. There is so much information in this chapter regarding Phonemic Awareness and Phonics. I am a really big on teaching Phonemic Awareness and Phonics, I believe having a great foundation in them will help the child to become a better reader and speller. I am currently using a variety of Phonemic Awareness and phonics activities with my own children and also the children I am currently tutoring. I am currently tutoring a kindergarten who has a speech impairment and I will be focusing on a lot of the phonemic awareness activities listed in our textbooks from our reading methods class. I love watching the kindergarteners using their sounds to spell their words. It shows how strong their foundation is in Phonics when they are able to sound spell their words when writing.
ReplyDeleteChristine, I like those activities that you spoke about that your mentor teacher did in your reading internship class. I just picked up some of those magnetic words and letters at our local bookstore today for my students that I am tutoring. It looks like they will have fun with making new nonsense words with them too!
I really enjoyed reading chapter 4 which covered phonemic awareness. On page 81 there were 7 dimensions of phonemic awareness which I found to be extremely helpful. I found it interesting that the English language has 44 phonemes whereas the Spanish language only has 24 sounds. I thought that all of the activities included in the chapter about introducing children to the sounds in the English Language were wonderful! My reading and language arts mentor teacher did some language arts activities with songs and the students absolutely enjoyed every part of it! I never thought to do things such as jump rope jingles or tongue twisters to help students with their phonemic awareness. I also liked the activity of the sound boxes on page 94 that Mrs. Stoppel had pointed out in class. Chapter 5 covered the topic of phonics. I had never heard of the graphophonic system before reading this chapter so it was interesting to learn about that. The chapter included a ton of great information about how students learn phonics and great tools to help students in gaining the needed knowledge for phonics. It is important to remember to teach phonics using systematic instruction so that there is a planned sequence in your teachings. I thought that both chapters this week went into depth about the struggles students may come across in learning phonemic awareness and phonics, along with instructional tips and tools for educators to help students. I didn’t have any questions about this chapter, but does anyone have any activities that they have used that help with phonics or phonemic awareness?
ReplyDeleteIn response to Brooke W-- That is great that you are able to use the tools and tips provided in our text to help with not only the students you tutor but also your own children! These chapters gave so many great activities for phonics and phonemic awareness that can be adapted for any grade level. I am sure having a child with a speech impairment in your tutoring group will help you immensely in the future as an educator.
ReplyDeleteKelsey M, skype me sometime today and I can give you some ideas on what I have used!
ReplyDelete