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The key concepts for this topic focus on L1 and L2 skill development. This includes the big 5 essential components of reading instruction:  Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension.  These skills are all important to developing literacy and can help educators as they plan instruction and make considerations for EB students and their literacy development.

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This graphic demonstrates the big 5 components, outlining the skills needed to develop proficiency.

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This article helps teachers apply The Big 5 components of reading when considering instructional practices and assessments to use in the classroom.

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Reading is a complex process. For a child to be able to read proficiently, they must master five key components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These "Big Five," as defined by the National Reading Panel, provide a comprehensive picture of what literacy means. Teachers can use the Big 5 to inform their instructional practices and identify areas in which students are proficient and where they may need more help.

While we must always remember that a student is more than a test score, assessments can be powerful tools to track progress and tailor teaching strategies to meet each student's individual needs. Let's explore how to assess student's progress in the Big 5 components of literacy.

How Do I Assess the Big 5 Components of Reading?

To understand where students need additional support, you'll want to get a sense of how they're performing in the Big 5 areas. We recommend using a universal screener and then drilling down from there. You can use our Assessment Flow Chart to figure out how your assessments can pinpoint just what your students need. From there you can put the data you've gathered into use in your small group instructional time.

Fluency

Fluency is how well a child reads and understands the content of what they're reading. Fluency is important to assess because there is a strong correlation between fluency and comprehension. Once a child is no longer focusing on reading the text, they can devote all of their attention on understanding the text.

You can use our Fluency Assessment to calculate a student's oral reading fluency score to get a picture of how they're reading compared to grade-level national norms. We recommend using trackers to monitor accuracy and WPM (words per minute) over time.

See it in Action!

Watch as these teachers guide their students in a fluency assessment. See how they explain what fluency is and what the children are expected to do? This communicates expectations and helps children better understand what they're about to do.

Comprehension

There are many ways to assess comprehension. One simple way to assess comprehension is by asking students to retell what they read and/or asking a couple of questions and scoring their responses using our Retell Rubric . Maximize time by using the same passage you used for the fluency assessment.

Phonics

You may find some of your students are having trouble reading fluently and understanding the text. Now you can use the Assessment Flow Chart to meet students where they are and scaffold what they need to fill in the gaps.

Phonics refers to the knowledge and ability to use letter-sound relationships to read and spell words. The data you get from phonics assessments can help you pinpoint specific skills students need more support with. Good phonics instruction helps students read decodable words - a vital aspect of fluency. Start by giving students a Phonics Survey that includes a list of real and nonsense words. If a student struggles with individual words, drill down more to understand a student's knowledge of letter sounds as this corresponds to a child's ability to read words.
Protip: When you sense a student getting frustrated, take a break! Praise them on their efforts and use it as an opportunity to make a shift and assess a student's understanding of letter-sound correspondence.
Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is the ability to detect, identify, and manipulate large and small parts of spoken language. Phonemic awareness - or the ability to detect, identify, and manipulate phonemes in a spoken word - is one aspect of phonological awareness. If you have to drill down as far as phonological awareness with a student, we recommend you also check their alphabet knowledge, even though it's not technically a phonics or phonological awareness skill. Knowing the names of letters can make it easier for a child to match the letter-sound correspondence.
Protip: If a student comes to a letter they do not know, let them skip it, but note it on your recording sheet.
Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the knowledge of words and word meanings - an integral part of comprehension. Even if students can decode a word, if they don't know what it means, they can't fully comprehend the text. Students must have both fluent word recognition skills and a robust vocabulary. Without intervention, a student's word gap grows larger and larger, making comprehension harder to achieve.

Check out our list of engaging vocabulary formative assessment ideas to incorporate in your classroom. Remember, readers can't comprehend texts without most of the words mean, which is why we must always build upon our student's vocabulary knowledge.

Ensuring Literacy for All Children

The absence of automatic word recognition or vocabulary can be detrimental to a child's future. You can drill down to create a comprehensive picture of each child's reading abilities and keep track of their progress. Knowing your students makes it possible for us as teachers to adapt our instructions to make each child a successful reader.

Want to learn more? Take our free, video-based course " Assessing Our Students " to learn more about how you can effectively meet children where they are.

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The 5 Critical Components of Reading and How to Assess Student Progress | Cox Campus

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Reading is a complex process. For a child to be able to read proficiently, they must master five key components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These "Big Five," as defined by the National Reading Panel, provide a comprehensive picture of what literacy means.

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(screenshot from one class discussion post)

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In a class discussion regarding this topic, I learned more about the importance of educators to not only teach students, but to understand their needs.   Using pictures, gestures, and clues are all great ways for educators to assist students acquiring English.  It's also important for educators to avoid focusing on a student's English language errors to prevent them from feeling self-conscious or reluctant to practicing the language.

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One key takeaway from this topic was learning about the Big 5 components and how to apply the Big 5 when planning instruction and assessments. It's so important to consider the components and understand the process of language development that EB students are acquiring. Learning more about the components and considering the different aspects can help educators when selecting strategies and assessments that will benefit the language development for EB students.

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Language brokering is translating language by a youth for their parents or other adults who are less able to understand the dominant language. Most of these younger children are helping translate anything school related. They have to help translate for medical issues, bills, restaurants and any situation when is English is not spoken. Although these kids might feel a sense of pride it can also be a burden for them.

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These are just some of of the things EB students have to help their families translate.
Letters

* Personal correspondence

* Institutional correspondence

* Community

Forms

* Applications

* Membership

* Reports (e.g., police, insurance)

* Contracts

* Personal records

* Surveys

* Consent/permission

Advertisements

* Paper fliers

* Newspaper, magazine, radio, television

* Public signs and notices

Labels

" Food

* Health/beauty " Pharmaceutical

" Clothing

* Song lyrics in CD/cassette cases

Records of transactions

* Receipts

* Financial statements

Fiction

* Children's storybooks

* Movies

News

" Television

* Newspaper

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We participated in a Yellowdig activity this week discussing our experiences with language brokering and translation. I was surprised and encouraged by how many students are the language brokers for their families. This is a screenshot of a poll asking if my peers had seen language brokering in their schools. 83% that participated said they had seen it before.

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My takeaways about language brokering is how much pressure this can put on students. We often think they are happy to do it, but after reading the articles I can see how this can be frustrating for them. I think teachers need to understand that not all EB students have the language skills to translate.

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Phonics is the relationship between sounds and symbols. Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes in words.

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This article gives definitions of phonics, phonological awareness, and phonemic awareness. It helps distinguish the differences between the 3 concepts.

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Post Promise: Literacy is one of the most vital skills we teach in the primary grades. In this post I'll help clear up what phonological awareness is and how it's different from phonemic awareness and phonics. This will set the stage for future posts where I share what skills are involved in phonological awareness and strategies to teach phonological awareness to a classroom of learners with different learning styles.

Hey there, teacher friend! Let's have an honesty minute. When you think about helping your learners become readers, what's going through your mind? Do you get excited sizzles of inspiration? Or does your stomach curl into a ball in intimidation? If it's a little (or more) of the second, I'm here to help!

This is actually one of the most important skills we'll teach in primary grades. There is a correlation between ability to read and graduation rate. In fact, students who don't become proficient readers are four times more likely to not graduate from high school. What we do in kindergarten, first, and second grades affects our students' entire futures.

Leading our primary students to become readers is a huge responsibility, and we shouldn't take it lightly. It can be a daunting task with a class full of expectant faces trusting YOU to make all those building blocks from letter recognition to sight words come together in the beautiful adventure of reading.

There are many components that come together in the ability to read, and I'm going to break them down for you! Think of phonological awareness like a video game made of different levels. Each level requires more skill to master than the one before it.

Phonological Awareness

For early learners, the main priority is to make sense of spoken language. They need to be able to recognize and comprehend what they hear before they can start to break apart what that spoken language is made of and begin to manipulate it themselves.

Phonological awareness is understanding that spoken language is made of smaller parts. Our learners hear language all the time, so they may naturally begin to grasp some parts of phonological awareness. However, we still need to make sure ALL of our students understand ALL of the skills that make up phonological awareness.

These smaller parts of language are words, syllables, and sounds. The unit of a word is maybe the most intuitive. Children definitely recognize the word recess, and they know what it means!

Students need to learn what syllables are and be able to identify syllables within words. Syllables are made of sounds, which are the smallest units of spoken language. Sounds are known as phonemes.

Phonological awareness includes being able to hear a word, like dog, and know it is made of one syllable. Students also need phonological awareness to know that the word dog rhymes with log.

So, a student with phonological awareness would not only know that "recess" means free time (and hopefully going outside!), but they would also be able to break the word into two syllables. They would be able to tell you it rhymes with mess and guess but not with book.

Phonemic Awareness

In the past, phonological and phonemic awareness have been used interchangeably. That has caused some confusion, because they are actually two different, but very related, concepts. Remember our video game analogy? Phonemic awareness is the most advanced skill in phonological awareness.

Phonemic awareness is all about the sounds, or phonemes, of the spoken language. This skill could be mastered by someone without ever seeing the alphabet or words in writing. Phonemic awareness only requires being able to hear language being spoken.

A student who has phonemic awareness would recognize the sounds that make up the word dog and be able to make those sounds. They could correctly make the sounds for d, o, and g, and blend them together to make the word dog.

At this level, they could hear that there is a dog outside the window and expect to see a four-legged furry critter rather than a bulldozer. They can relate the sounds of the word to the whole part and know what it stands for.

However, they might not be able to rhyme dog with log and frog and know that it doesn't rhyme with hat. They also wouldn't be able to tell you that dog has one syllable while recess has two.

Phonics

Phonics connects sounds to the symbols of written language. In order to succeed at phonics, students must be proficient with the alphabet as a written system. Phonics is the ability to be able to recognize a sound, or phoneme, and associate it with the written symbol, or letter, that represents that sound. A student who doesn't know the alphabet and recognize the sounds it represents would not be able to develop the skill of phonics.

For example, phonics is being able to see a written word, make the corresponding sounds, and put them together to say the complete word. If a student sees the word "dog" written, they must be able to know the letter "d" as well as what sound it makes. By working their way through each letter in the word, they can speak all of the sounds in that word and finally blend it all together.

In order to master phonics, students must have phonemic awareness. They can't connect the sounds that letters make to the symbols they represent if they don't know and understand those sounds.

However, students can have phonemic awareness without being proficient in phonics. They may be able to repeat the three sounds, or phonemes, in "dog" and blend it together without being able to point out the letters that make up those sounds.
One more time...
Let's look at another example just to make sure the distinction between these three topics is clear.

Let's take the word clock.

Phonemic awareness allows a student to recognize the four sounds, or phonemes, in this word: /c/, /l/, /o/, and /ck/. If you (the teacher) say these four sounds separately, a student could blend them together, say clock, and know that it means the gadget hanging on the wall that tells them when it's time for lunch.

Phonics lets a student match the three phonemes to their written symbols, the letters of the alphabet. They could see the word written, sound out the phonemes, and put it together to make the whole word.

Having phonological awareness means a student could tell you there is one syllable in clock and that it rhymes with lock but not ball. They need to have a solid grasp of phonemic awareness to be able to do this.

Now what?

I'm so glad you asked! Simply knowing the components that make up the skill of literacy, and understanding the difference between them, adds to our knowledge base. It can make us more effective teachers, but only if we add strategies to this knowledge!

In my next post in this series, I'm going to share with you the different skills that are included in phonological awareness. We've already talked about a couple, like rhyming and counting syllables.

If you'd like to learn more about this topic, I made a four part video series: Phonological Awareness 101. This post covers only part of Video 1. In the video series, I also share the secret sauce to teaching phonological awareness.

I'll give you a hint: it's a way to make this strongly auditory skill more relatable to all the students in your classroom. Plus, the techniques can be incorporated directly into your regular instruction time dedicated to phonological awareness. I'll also share some tools I made that I use in my classroom regularly to save you time so you can implement these strategies as early as today.

Check in, teacher friend! Do you have more questions about phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, or phonics? Let me know!

XOXOXO

Toni

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What is Phonological Awareness? (v. Phonemic Awareness & Phonics) - Teacher Toni

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Post Promise: Literacy is one of the most vital skills we teach in the primary grades. In this post I'll help clear up what phonological awareness is and how it's different from phonemic awareness and phonics.

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During Week 4, we completed a Padlet for a reading response about phonics and phonemic awareness. If you scroll to Amanda Ervin's post, you can read more about my understandings of the two, and how I teach it to my emergent bilinguals.

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My biggest take away about phonics and phonemic awareness is that these are the basic building blocks to achieve reading comprehension. There was a pyramid in the Powerpoint from Week 4 that demonstrated this. I enjoyed learning more strategies to help teach emergent bilinguals.

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Digital Texts are a way to teach literacy to Emergent Bilinguals by using technology. There are many different tools that teachers can use including Voice thread, and blogs.

This type of learning is informal and wants students to play a big role in the learning process. Students are creating something during this process and are not just bystanders.

As our students use these digital texts we want these students to not only gain valuable literacy skills but also digital literacy skills.

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We participated in a discussion board this week where each person shared a Digital Tool, or activity.
I have listed these tools below
Epic!
News2You stories
Seesaw
IXL.com
Tumblebooks
Peardeck
Dreambox
Kahoot!
Freckle
Raz Kids
Flipgrid
Nearpod
Lexia Core 5
Boom Cards
Book Creator

The list goes on and on..
Below I will put some examples of some of these digital tools!

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Here is a screenshot of a math problem from IXL.
I have used the paid version and the free version.
I have used this as an activating strategy for math, used it as review problems, and have also had students work on these problems independently.

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Here is an example of a review morning work that my students did this week.
Students click add response, complete the assignment and then hit the green check to turn it in.

These assignments can be sent to individual students or the whole class, this is a great way for me to check for understanding before we review for our test and also a great way for me to differentiate my assessments.

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My biggest takeaway from Digital Texts is that there are so many different ways to help our Emergent Bilinguals and that we cannot be afraid to try a new technology with our students. Our students all learn in different ways and all have different needs and a one size fits all teaching method is not going to reach all the kids in our classroom. Our Emergent Billinguals also have a different set of needs and these Digital tools can help our students achieve their goals.

My school is having our Emergent Bilinguals work on Lexia Core 5 everyday for 15-20 minutes. This program is supposed to give our Emergent Bilinguals a lot of support in reading.

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CRP is learning about your students and how their culture contributes to the classroom. CRP is a student centered approach that allows student's culture and uniqueness to be identified  and nurtured to promote student success.    Teachers need to evaluate their own beliefs and attitudes about racial diversity. As educators we need to make our classroom culturally welcoming with our students and families.

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Building a culturally welcoming school and classroom is important to make students feel like they belong. I have been building a diverse library in my classroom. When students can see themselves in books they can relate and often share how they feel.
https://coloursofus.com/the-50-best-multicultural-picture-books-of-2020/

Below is descriptions of my project that got fully funded on Donors Choose. "Characters Like Me"
My classroom is filled with diverse students! I am always looking for books with characters and situations they can identify with! When children can identify with the characters or story it becomes more meaningful. I want my students to connect with literature and develop a love for reading. When they are engaged in stories it will help them with comprehension, vocabulary skills and making connections to real life. All of these skills are important to building a foundation for reading. With all of these new books I have chosen I hope to build a library that all of my students can enjoy and relate to!

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My biggest take away on CRP is how important it is for teachers to understand their beliefs and prejudices about culturally diverse students. We need to realize how these differences contribute to our classroom. As teachers we need to incorporate ways to help EB students be successful in the classroom. Being familiar with how students learn and how we can make connections with their prior knowledge will help with success in the classroom.