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The adult and child exchange roles so that the child learns to become the narrator with the help of the adult who functions as an active listener and questioner.

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Two practices for preschool children ages 3 to 5 demonstrate positive results for (1) phonological awareness training and (2) interactive and dialogic reading.

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Is the ability to detect and manipulate the sounds in words independent of word meaning.

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How can teachers help preschool children?

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Providing systematic and explicit instruction integrated into daily activities.

Planned individual and group instruction sessions.

Teaching adapted to the learning needs of children at all developmental levels.

Establishing an explicit link between the letters of the alphabet and the sounds.

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Students who develop these skills are better prepared to learn to read.

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This visual diagram illustrates the "big picture" of the practices and can be used to engage preschool teachers in discussion about their instruction. Use the left side to discuss the continuum of phonological awareness skills, and the right side to explore ways to implement interactive and dialogic questioning techniques. The diagram can help elicit teachers' ideas about how to integrate these skills into classroom activities. Download diagram (577K PDF)

Recommended practices

Develop phonological awareness skills as a foundation for learning sound-symbol relationships.

Phonological awareness is the ability to detect and manipulate the sounds in words independent of word meaning. It improves school readiness skills and can be taught before children learn to read.

Teachers can help preschool children, ages 3 to 5, by providing phonological awareness instruction that is systematic and explicit, integrated into daily activities, including planned individual and group instructional sessions, and tailored to children's learning needs at all developmental levels. Students benefit when teachers use clear pronunciation of sounds and provide feedback to correct errors, including having children produce correct responses. Phonological awareness instruction can be combined with letter knowledge training to help children learn alphabet letters and make the explicit link between letters and sounds, which facilitates the use of letter-sound knowledge to read and build words. Students who develop these critical skills are better prepared for learning how to read.

Engage preschool children in interactive reading and dialogic reading to improve language and literacy skills

Preschool children, ages 3 to 5, develop early reading and language skills when teachers use interactive and dialogic reading strategies. In interactive reading, children talk with the teacher about the pictures and story; dialogic reading uses a more systematic method to scaffold adult-child language interaction around storybook reading.

Teachers can help children develop language skills by engaging them before, during, and/or after reading the text through explicit interactive techniques such as asking them to point to the story title, predict what might happen next, and retell story events. Dialogic reading can be used to assess and support oral language and vocabulary development through multiple readings, during which the teacher helps the child become the storyteller by gradually using higher level questions to move the child beyond naming objects in pictures to thinking more about what is happening in the pictures, and how this relates to his own experiences.

Intervention reports from the What Works Clearinghouse

Phonological awareness training

Phonological awareness training is a general practice aimed at enhancing young children's phonological awareness abilities. Phonological awareness refers to the ability to detect or manipulate the sounds in words independent of meaning. Phonological awareness is a precursor to reading. Phonological awareness training can involve various training activities that focus on teaching children to identify, detect, delete, segment, or blend segments of spoken words (i.e., words, syllables, onsets and rimes, phonemes) or that focus on teaching children to detect, identify, or produce rhyme or alliteration. Phonological awareness training was found to have positive effects on phonological processing.
Download full report (124K PDF)

Phonological awareness training plus letter knowledge

Phonological awareness training plus letter knowledge is a general practice aimed at enhancing young children's phonological awareness, print awareness, and early reading abilities. Phonological awareness, the ability to detect or manipulate the sounds in words independent of meaning, is a precursor to reading. The added letter knowledge training component includes teaching children the letters of the alphabet and making an explicit link between letters and sounds. Both skills are related to beginning reading. Phonological awareness training plus letter knowledge was found to have potentially negative effects on oral language, positive effects on print knowledge, potentially positive effects on phonological processing and early reading/writing, and no discernible effects on cognition.
Download full report (136K PDF)

Shared book reading

Shared book reading is a general practice aimed at enhancing young children's language and literacy skills and their appreciation of books. Typically, shared book reading involves an adult reading a book to one child or a small group of children without requiring extensive interactions from them. Shared book reading was found to have mixed effects on oral language and potentially positive effects on phonological processing.
Download full report (76K PDF)

Interactive shared book reading

Interactive shared book reading is a general practice that adults may use when reading with children and is intended to enhance young children's language and literacy skills. Typically, interactive shared book reading involves an adult reading a book to a child or a small group of children and using a variety of techniques to engage the children in the text. Interactive shared book reading was found to have mixed effects on oral language, no discernible effects on print knowledge, and potentially positive effects on early reading/writing.
Download full report (117K PDF)

Dialogic reading

Dialogic reading is an interactive shared picture book reading practice designed to enhance young children's language and literacy skills. During the shared reading practice, the adult and the child switch roles so that the child learns to become the storyteller with the assistance of the adult who functions as an active listener and questioner. Dialogic reading was found to have positive effects on oral language and no discernible effects on phonological processing.
Download full report (101K PDF)

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Preschool Language and Literacy Practices

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The What Works Clearinghouse reviewed the research on two practices used in center-based settings with 3- to 5-year-old preK children, as well as a number of specific curricula. Positive results are shown for (1) Phonological awareness training and (2) Interactive and dialogic reading.

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In interactive reading, children talk with the teacher about the pictures and the story.

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How can teachers help preschool children?

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Engaging them before, during and/or after reading the text through interactive techniques.

Ask them to point out the title of the story.

Ask them to predict what will happen.

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Helps assess and support the student's vocabulary and oral language development.

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Involves training activities that focus on teaching children to:

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Identify, detect, remove, segment or combine spoken word segments (i.e. words, syllables, syllables, onsets and rhymes, phonemes).

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It was found to have mixed effects on oral language and potentially positive effects on phonological processing.

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It was found to have negative effects on oral language, positive effects on print knowledge, phonological processing and early reading/writing, and no discernible effect on cognition.

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This post includes the following reading points.
Hey-ho! I just love all things literacy and specifically working with words. I want to delve deeper into phonological development, because.. well.. I just love it! I'm a bit of a nerd that way! Are you too?

You know that phonological and phonemic awareness skills are important and also necessary to understand as a Pre-K-2 teacher.

It is vital that you know and understand what phonological and phonemic awareness is, as it is the foundation for reading success.

According to Calfee, Lindamood & Lindamood, 1973: Children's ability to attend to, and manipulate phonemes strongly correlate with their reading success through to the end of their schooling.

It can be tricky to wrap your head around. You may be confused by the terminologies, definitions, skills sets and acquisition. Well this is the place for you!

Lap it all up in one neat blog post that can also be downloaded fo' free you all! Let's get down to it straight up!
What is Phonological Awareness and why is it so Important?
Phonological awareness skills are the basis for reading. Without these important skills, potential reading difficulties may arise in the early years.

A child who has concrete phonological skills will have a strong platform in which to develop reading skills.
What is Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sound structures within words.

Click here to download the image above fo' FREE!

Phonological skills include:

Rhyme: rhyme awareness and construction

Alliteration: Discrimination and production

Sound and Word Discrimination: Hears units of sounds within a sentence, identifies which word is different

Syllabification: Syllable segmenting and blending

Onset and Rime: Blending and segmenting

Don't confuse phonological awareness and phonemic awareness! While phonemic awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness, it is just one aspect of phonology.

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What is Phonemic Awareness?
Phonemic awareness is one part of phonological awareness.

Phonemic awareness deals with the phoneme. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds aurally.

A phoneme is usually defined as the smallest unit of sound.

Phonics is the system in which sound structures and phonemes are represented.

Phonemic Awareness Skills (also fits under the phonological awareness skills umbrella) include:
Individual Phoneme Skills (aural, no print involved):
Individual Phoneme Isolation:(beginning medial and final): Isolates phoneme in given word

Individual Phoneme Blending: Blends phonemes to make a word.

Individual Phoneme Segmenting: Identifies phonemes in words
Syllable Manipulation:
Syllable (onset-rime) Deletion: Deletes onset and then rime in given words

Syllable (onset-rime) Substitution: Substitutes onset and then rime to make new words

Phoneme Manipulation:

Phoneme Deletion: beginning and final

Phoneme Addition: Adds phoneme to make a new word

Phoneme Substitution: Substitutes a phoneme to make a new word

Note: Phonological skill sets seen above are in chronological order of assessment and teaching.
Why is Phonological Awareness so Important?
Phonological awareness is a vital set of skills that allows us to learn how to read.

Phonological awareness skills provide children with a means to access the written form; phonics. You might know phonics as sound and letter combinations used to represent words.
Research suggests that trouble with phoneme awareness and phonological skills early on is a gauge for poor reading and spelling skills.
According to the National Reading Panel Report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), "The level of phonemic awareness that children possess when first beginning reading instruction and their knowledge of letters are the two best predictors of how well they will learn to read during the first two years of formal reading instruction." (Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler: 1998 -Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum.
What does this Mean for me as an Educator?
Did you know that:

"According to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 37 percent of fourth graders and 26 percent of eighth graders cannot read at the basic level; and on the 2002 NAEP 26 percent of twelfth graders cannot read at the basic level. That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read." Reference: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

Based on this and similar research outcomes, it is vital that early childhood educators understand both phonological and phonemic awareness skills. It is necessary that these skills are explicitly assessed in the first year of formal schooling and again in the second year.

Moreover, teachers need to understand how to integrate phonological and phonemic awareness curriculums for their emergent readers.

Most importantly, it is essential that teachers have access to systematic intervention resources that complement individuals. These skills are most important for Pre-K, to first grade as they are the foundation for reading, as covered. Children with reading difficulties, may benefit in re-assessment and interventions.
How will Assessing and Providing Interventions Help my Students with their Phonics Development?
We know that a robust phonics base curriculum (among other things like: comprehension, vocabulary and fluency) lends itself to higher reading outcomes.

Comparatively, the same applies with the relationship between phonological and phonemic awareness skills, and phonics skills.

We spend a lot of time planning, implementing and assessing phonics skills and knowledge. Is this to the detriment of more foundational skills? Do the students struggling to grasp: letter-sound relationships, vowel sounds, r-controlled vowels, and other spelling conventions actually struggle on a deeper level? Have you assessed these students' phonological and phonemic awareness skills? Are they missing something that can easily be revisited with an intervention session?
Where can I Find Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Assessments and Interventions for my Students?
There are many sites on the net that provide basic assessments. However, I found many of them frustrating as I needed a more global assessment that was explicit for the developmental ranges in my students. So many sources seemed to leave out key skills, aghhh. After a year of investigating what will work, I came up with my own systemic and explicit assessment.

Here are the skills the assessments will cover.

Click here to download it fo' FREE!

After almost 6 months, I devised a HUGE phonological and phonemic awareness assessment and intervention bundle that is conveniently, a 'grab and go' resource. I wanted to create intervention printables that involve very minimal prep, just copy, grab counters and die, and that's about it! Click the images below to see the BUNDLE.

Note: Click here, to see this file in my Teachers Pay Teachers store; Clever Classroom. Or see more images of the file here.

In the intervention digital download you have access to: information pages, tracking pages, assessment pages, as well as print and go games for interventions. I know children learn best from hands-on activities like games so I have included a few for each skill (as seen in skills listed above in the boxes). The games are all black and white so you can place them in a binder, each inside plastic sleeves, or laminated. They will be ready to use at a moment's notice with individuals or small groups.

Above is a snapshot of the Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Binder. Photos of the binder can be viewed here.

This will be a great time saver, not to mention an explicit and systematic way to ensure you're assessing and teaching phonological and phonemic awareness skills and preparing competent readers.

Thanks for dropping by, I hope this post has been of value to you.

You can download the entire blog post for free here.

If you would like to keep up to date with more phonological and phonemic awareness posts, or other word work and reading themed posts, you can follow this blog by clicking here.

Or you can be part of our community who receives information about all things word work straight to your inbox. to join us.

Happy word work!

Emma

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What is Phonological Awareness? - Clever Classroom Blog

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This post includes the following reading points. Hey-ho! I just love all things literacy and specifically working with words. I want to delve deeper into phonological development, because.. well.. I just love it! I'm a bit of a nerd that way! Are you too?

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When I first started teaching, I had a pretty good idea of what shared reading could look like in a Kindergarten or first grade classroom. I knew that I could use big books, large poems, and other enlarged texts for shared reading.

But beyond first grade, I really wasn't sure what shared reading should look like. I knew I wouldn't be using big books with "big kids," but then what should I use for shared reading? Would the purpose be the same?

I don't think I was alone in my confusion, either - I've talked to quite a few teachers who aren't quite sure what shared reading is, what the purpose is, or how it's different from a readaloud.

So to share what I've learned about shared reading, I've created a video about shared reading in the primary grades! Click below to see me talk about how I've used shared reading in my own classroom (sorry for the goofy frozen image!):

For some reason I forgot to mention the most basic thing in the video...that you, the teacher, are the one doing the reading! Sometimes you might read poems or parts of stories chorally, as a class, but the majority of the reading is done by you.

Here's a recap of the video with a few points of additional info:

What is shared reading?

Shared reading is an instructional strategy that can be used to teach many different reading skills (comprehension, fluency, decoding, vocabulary). It is appropriate for just about any grade level.

What does shared reading look like?

You can use many different types of materials for shared reading, as long as all students can clearly see the print. With younger students, you can use big books or poems written on chart paper. You can also take a regular-sized book and place it under the document camera so that the text is enlarged and easily visible.

Reading A to Z and Readworks are other great resources for shared reading. You can find a text and display it on an interactive white board or screen so that students can clearly read it.

Some teachers give students copies of the text for shared reading. This allows all students to clearly see the words when the text can't be easily enlarged. With primary students, however, I prefer to use the document camera to enlarge small texts - I just feel that I can better hold their attention when everyone is looking at the same text together.

Texts for shared reading can be either fiction or nonfiction. I've even heard of teachers using "real-life" texts like maps and brochures for shared reading!

For complete shared reading lessons, check out my second grade reading bundle.

What is taught during shared reading?

Just about any reading skill can be taught through shared reading. At the beginning of Kindergarten, I use shared reading to teach print concepts. I have students come up and show me how to display the book, where the cover is, where the title is, how to turn the pages, how to read from left-to-right, etc. You can use a pointer stick as you teach these concepts.

Shared reading can also be used to teach decoding strategies. Because students can see the large print, you can model how you use visual, syntax, and meaning clues to decode words. You can also get students actively involved in decoding! I like to use sticky notes to cover up part of a word, and then have students use the first letter and the picture to figure out what the word says.

Fluency skills can also be easily taught during shared reading. You can point out punctuation marks and model how you pause or change your voice to match the punctuation mark. To get students actively involved in practicing fluent reading, you can have your kids chorally read part of the text that you've already read aloud. My Kindergarteners also think it's funny when I model reading like a robot to teach them the importance of reading with expression.

No matter what other strategies you are teaching, you should also always be teaching comprehension during shared reading. Talking about the meaning of the text should be part of every lesson, so that students understand that the primary purpose of reading is to comprehend the text. You can also include vocabulary instruction as part of your shared reading comprehension instruction.

When I taught Kindergarten, I typically used only 1-2 texts throughout the week. On Mondays, we usually read a big book all the way through, focusing on comprehension and sometimes vocabulary. On Tuesdays, I chose a decoding teaching point. We usually wouldn't get through the entire big book that day, because I was doing a bit more instruction. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, we read parts of the book again, but I chose different teaching points (i.e. fluency, vocabulary, a different decoding strategy, etc.). Sometimes on Fridays the class would act out the big book, or use puppets or props while we read the text together. This was a lot of rereading of the same text, so I made sure to explain each day why we were reading the text (i.e. "Today as we read, I want to show you how I make my voice match what is happening in the story.") I also made sure to choose repetitive, engaging texts that the kids would enjoy reading with me.

When I taught 1st/2nd, I tended to do more "chunking" of one text into smaller parts (although we definitely did reread texts at times). Sometimes I get hung up on the idea that I have to get through an entire text in one day, but that's just not true! Since shared reading involves stopping and teaching skills, it's just not realistic to expect that you will always get through an entire text in one sitting.

How is shared reading different from a readaloud?

Shared reading, as I've described above, involves quite a bit of pausing to teach or engage kids in practicing a skill. When I do a readaloud, I tend to go through the book a bit more quickly, stopping less frequently.

The other most important difference between shared reading and a readaloud is that during shared reading, kids have their eyes on the print. During a readaloud, you may show the pictures to students, but they are not usually able to see the words clearly. Since students can see the text during shared reading, you are able to teach things like decoding more easily.

How do you use shared reading in your classroom?

Now it's your turn! What does shared reading look like in your classroom? Do you use my shared reading lessons for 2nd grade?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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What is Shared Reading? - Learning at the Primary Pond

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When I first started teaching, I had a pretty good idea of what shared reading could look like in a Kindergarten or first grade classroom. I knew that I could use big books, large poems, and other enlarged texts for shared reading. But beyond first grade, I really wasn't sure what shared reading should look like.

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If we put interactive reading and phonological awareness on a scale, dialogic reading wins by a little bit with positive aspects in oral language and in the phonological process. But phonological awareness has positive effects on the writing and reading process, and negative effects on oral language.