# data[].attributes.body
Pre Reading Stage: Elkonin Sound Boxes are use to address Phonemic segmentation. Each box represents one sound/ phoneme in a word.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonemic Awareness for Elementary School:  The A Book

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using Letters and Elkonin Boxes K and 1st

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Uploaded by Teddi Fulenwider on 2014-01-28.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The What's Changed? skill builder has been specifically designed to develop students' phonemic awareness - the ability to discern the sounds, and the sequence of sounds, within a word. Phonemic awareness is a critical skill for learning to read and can be improved with practice.

What's Changed? focuses on developing phonemic awareness with vowel sounds and consonant blends through exercises that require students to listen to two non-words and identify what changed between the two words.

Students develop the core foundational skills that make up phonemic awareness by identifying the type of change that occurred, including:
- identifying the sound that changed ('zat' to 'zad')
- substituting a new letter for the sound that changed ('feld' to 'fald')
- specifying the letter for a sound that was added or omitted ('strek' to 'stek')
- switching two letters for sounds that were switched ('blist' to 'blits')
Students with poor phonemic awareness skills often make these types of errors when reading.

What's Changed? also develops segmentation and blending skills - the ability to segment a word into its individual sounds and then blend the sounds together for whole word reading. These skills are also essential for successfully learning how to read, as they enable students to blends sounds together in order to recognize whole words when reading.

What's Changed? is suitable for students of all ages, particularly emerging readers and struggling readers. It is also good for English language learners wanting to improve their auditory discrimination and pronunciation of English. Parents or teachers can monitor students' progress, and pinpoint weaker areas by looking at the results for each skill type.

There are three different categories in What's Changed?, each with four increasing levels of difficulty. Within each game, the words build from VC (e.g. 'ob') to CCVCC (e.g. 'brisp'). The Standard English category develops letter-sound knowledge for the most common sounds of letters (for example, the /k/ sound of the letter 'c' as in 'cat').

The Readable English category builds on from the Standard English category, including the non-standard sounds of letters (for example, the other sounds the letter 'c' can make such as in 'cell', 'ocean' and 'cello'). In Readable English when a letter makes a sound other than its usual sound, it is marked with a glyph, enabling all the sounds of English to be represented by distinct characters (e.g. the different sounds of the letter 'o' in 'cove', 'love' and 'move' are clearly reflected with different glyphs).

The Color category uses only colors to represent sounds, which requires users to strictly focus on auditory discrimination rather than sound-symbol association.

Readable English: Read It | Speak It | Know It.

This app has been updated by Apple to use the latest Apple signing certificate.

Minor Improvements and Bug Fixes.

The developer, Accessible Publishing Systems Pty. Limited, has not provided details about its privacy practices and handling of data to Apple. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

No Details Provided

The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update.

Information

Seller

Accessible Publishing Systems Pty Limited

Compatibility

iPhone

Requires iOS 7.0 or later.

iPad

Requires iPadOS 7.0 or later.

iPod touch

Requires iOS 7.0 or later.

Mac

Requires macOS 11 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip.

Family Sharing

Up to six family members will be able to use this app with Family Sharing enabled.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
what's changed? skill builder - us version

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
accessible publishing systems pty. limited

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‎What's Changed? Skill Builder - US version

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎The What's Changed? skill builder has been specifically designed to develop students' phonemic awareness - the ability to discern the sounds, and the sequence of sounds, within a word. Phonemic awareness is a critical skill for learning to read and can be improved with practice. What's Changed?...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When phonemic awareness training meets pop culture jargon and clean slang, older students are hooked! Phonemic awareness activities include practice in hearing phonemes, identifying missing phonemes and arranging them into words. What words? Over 250 of them including clean English slang from around the world, surfing terms, social media lingo, school-yard epithets and, of course, a few terms worthy of Captain Underpants.

Extra Goodies like novelty voices, different colour schemes and sound effects can be unlocked with points earned training. Because even older students like funny voices! Or get the Upgrade to Premium to unlock all the Goodies, remove ads (a short video every 15 exercises) and control which phonemes to focus on in the Phoneme Set Editor.

With the Editor feature, you can fine tune which phonemes the learner is asked to identify and differentiate. Want to train on phonemic awareness of word-initial consonants only? Short vowel sounds? Exclude consonant blends? Use single-syllable words only? It's all easy with the Editor. Educators will agree that this premium feature is a must for phonemic awareness training.

With over 250 slang words from all over the globe, there are sure to be some words or usages that are new to your older student or even you. No worries! A tongue-in-cheek slang dictionary is built into the app with a handy text-to-speech function to read the definitions aloud.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Funny Phonemes - phonemic awareness activities - Apps on Google Play

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When phonemic awareness training meets pop culture jargon and clean slang, older students are hooked! Phonemic awareness activities include practice in hearing phonemes, identifying missing phonemes and arranging them into words. What words? Over 250 of them including clean English slang from around the world, surfing terms, social media lingo, school-yard epithets and, of course, a few terms worthy of Captain Underpants.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This app is great for having tiles and being able to make/change your own tile sets. The new drawing features are a distraction for my son, I'd prefer being able to turn them off.

Some time ago, the app started crashing on launch on one of our iPads, but not the other. I discovered today that turning off iCloud syncing stops the crash. It's annoying that I can't use the syncing any more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎Sound Literacy is an instructional tool for tutors and teachers. For help on how to customize Sound Literacy to meet your needs be sure to visit our blog. Sound Literacy is the first iPad app that brings your letter tiles in to the 21st Century.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
See why this app immediately hit the #1 spot for Paid Educational Apps on the App Store! Filled with valuable program content, it was originally designed to sell for $59.99. Due to the overwhelming response, the authors have kept it at its low introductory price.

As powerful as it is fun, this uniquely engaging teaching tool is changing lives one letter at a time! Lively Letters - Phonemic Awareness and Phonics simultaneously trains critical skills for reading, spelling, and pronunciation of English language sounds. Unlike most phonics apps, this one is actually teaching, as opposed to just drilling. With proven strategies such as memory tricks, mouth and hand cues, humorous stories (English and Spanish), colorful pictures of characters embedded into letters, and songs, this multisensory, structured approach has been shown to help students of all ages and abilities, including the most resistant learners and those learning English as a second language. Targeting phonemic (sound) awareness, phonics, and speech production, the three unique teaching activities are based on the key techniques of the world-renowned, research-based program, Lively Letters, created by speech language pathologist, Nancy Telian, MS, CCC-SLP, and published by Reading with TLC. Used by over 15 million students and 75 thousand teachers globally since 1990, the Lively Letters program has been shown to quickly boost skills.

This long-awaited app, created by Penny Castagnozzi and Nancy Telian, can be used successfully on its own or as a supplement to the Lively Letters program materials. It can also be implemented by those with no Lively Letters experience. Although many aspects of this app can be performed independently by students, best gains will be made with some instructor/parent involvement. Some adults and older students can use it independently. The app includes progress monitoring and three activities: Flashing, Tracking, and Matching. Choose which letters and what types of letters to use (i.e., Lively Letters pictures versus plain letters and lowercase versus uppercase letters). Record and play back the students' voices.

Flashing: This activity introduces, drills, and tests the letter sound associations for the 44 English speech sounds, using the multisensory cueing methods that Lively Letters is so famous for. As the chosen letters flash in, students can hear the associated sound, the song, and the story (narrated in English by Marianne Nice, MS, CCC-SLP, or in Spanish by Angela Livingston, MS,CCC-SLP, TSSLD, BE). They can also see photos of the hand and mouth cues can practice printing.

Tracking: In this activity, students engage in the powerful Lively Letters manipulative word play, (tracking) activities. Here you simultaneously train phonemic awareness and phonics, while further practicing letter sounds and speech production. Students have fun building the critical phonemic awareness skills of sound blending, segmenting, and manipulation while learning how to sound out words of increasing length and difficulty for reading and spelling. In response to prompts from the instructor or parent, the student reads and spells new words, based on letter or sound changes made by the instructor. Students can enjoy the Lively Letters "Human - Alien" game where they choose whether each word was a real or nonsense word. Some alternate uses of the Tracking Activity include receptive drilling, printing of the letters, spelling to dictation, marking letter patterns, and dividing multisyllable words.

Matching: Here's a playful way to practice letter sound associations and speech production skills. This activity also offers opportunities to associate uppercase to lowercase letters and to transition from Lively Letters pictures to plain letters. Students have fun playing the classic Match Game, now using the letters and letter types chosen.

Let the fun begin!

Learn more about Lively Letters by visiting www.readingwithtlc.com.

- Fixes user login issue.

Thank you for supporting Lively Letters!

An extraordinary new app

Admittedly, I am a Lively Letters devotee and have used this enjoyable, unique and high effective program to develop reading and writing skills with students in preschool through middle school. Children love this unique, multi-sensory approach to learn their letter sounds and develop phonemic awareness skills - advancing rapidly in learning to read and spell words. Parents frequently ask me why this evidence based program is not used in their child's school to teach literacy skills!

The new Lively Letters app is quite impressive and well thought out. It is truly sensational in bringing together the basic and most important elements of Lively Letters in a user friendly electronic format that is engaging and well polished.

I anticipate that this app will be a highly successful advancing literacy skills.

I recently updated this extraordinary app and discovered that the sound quality for the unvoiced phonemes is improved and it runs with greater speed and ease. Keeps getting better and better. My students so enjoy this program and the app is the icing on the cake!

Worth EVERY PENNY and then some....

I'm a mom of two. One stronger reader and one weaker. They both LOVE this app! With letter sound stories, music, games and an opportunity to practice reading and spelling words... I couldn't be happier!! I will NEVER go back to flash cards again!! Can't relate at all to that previous poor review..... Have to wonder if they saw the same app I did or if they are disgruntled competition?? Hang up your flashcards and join the 21st-century... If My kids love this other kids will too.

Even better!

I'd heard a lot about this app so I bought it a few months ago. I still can't believe the amazing impact it has on my students. They're learning their letter sounds at such a fast pace and are enjoying the activities so much that they're literally begging to meet the next letter sound character! The huge amount of content you get and the results I'm getting make this app invaluable! It's even better than I thought!

Information

Seller

Telian-Cas Learning Concepts Inc

Compatibility

Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Copyright

© 2017 Telian-Cas Learning Concepts Inc

Family Sharing

With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎See why this app immediately hit the #1 spot for Paid Educational Apps on the App Store! Filled with valuable program content, it was originally designed to sell for $59.99. Due to the overwhelming response, the authors have kept it at its low introductory price. As powerful as it is fun, this uniq...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A child's first step toward reading is a strong understanding of phonemes - the sounds that make up words. We designed Professor Pup's Phoneme Farm as a kid-friendly app that builds this foundation for reading success! Our phoneme app immerses children in a farm-themed setting filled with songs, games, and characters that make the learning process fun.

Professor Pup guides kids through forty-nine hands-on lessons, providing encouragement and correction whenever needed. With our easy-to-use parent dashboard, you can adjust the app's settings to suit your child's needs. Phoneme Farm is a learning experience that kids can enjoy independently or with a parent! Please note that Professor Pup's Phoneme Farm app works for tablets and smart phones!

For Parents: Our Home Edition offers you the first five lessons for free. If you like them, unlock the full 49 lessons for $.99! This is a limited promotional offer to support school closures.

--

About Professor Pup's Phoneme Farm App

Developmentally Appropriate
Professor Pup's Phoneme Farm is based on leading research in the field of early childhood
education. The program was developed using developmentally appropriate practices and
evidence-based approaches that stress the significance of building early phonemic awareness skills.

Engaging Activities
Set amidst a delightful farm setting, Professor Pup's Phoneme Farm app includes engaging activities to help children experience and practice the full spectrum of phonemic awareness skills. These important skills include beginning, ending and medial phoneme recognition, blending/segmenting, rhyming and phoneme manipulation. Professor Pup's support and guidance provide the immediate, individualized feedback that children need to experience success and build confidence.

Scaffolded Curriculum
The program begins with phoneme discrimination activities that address initial vowel and
consonant sounds. Once students have acquired these skills, they move on to working with more complex ending and medial sounds. Blending and segmenting are next, followed lastly by phoneme manipulation, which is the process of deletion and substitution of initial phonemes to create new words. In addition to these activities, Phoneme Farm includes a rhyming component that can be accessed at any time.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phoneme Farm: Phonemic Awareness App for Kids - Apps on Google Play

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A child's first step toward reading is a strong understanding of phonemes - the sounds that make up words. We designed Professor Pup's Phoneme Farm as a kid-friendly app that builds this foundation for reading success! Our phoneme app immerses children in a farm-themed setting filled with songs, games, and characters that make the learning process fun.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
SOUND BEGINNINGS helps build strong alphabetic principle skills.
SOUND BEGINNINGS helps develop foundational reading skills through entertaining, interactive games.
* Twelve learning games provide practice in phonics and reading
* Identify the beginning, middle, or ending sound of a word
* Four Unique Games
*Learn the sounds of the letters and how to use them
Six learning games offer practice using the sounds, not the letters' names, and lowercase instead of uppercase letters at the beginning, middle, and end of words.
Feature Highlights:
SOUND BEGINNINGS includes six interactive games, where players match the correct letter/sound to the first, middle, or last sound of the word identifying a pictured object. The first three games, in order of increasing challenge, ask the child to select the correct letter/sound for the beginning, end, and middle of a word. For example, finding the first sound of a word, the following lowercase letters appear at the top of the screen, which is in landscape orientation: r, q, y, s, and j. By touching any letter, the user can hear aloud the sound that the letter makes. Beneath the letters is a photo of a rug and an empty box next to it. Touching the picture allows the player to hear the name of the object out loud. Players can touch the picture and each of the letters as many times as they like before dragging a letter down to the empty box. If they have chosen incorrectly, the game lets them try again without any break in the flow of gameplay.
This matching Letters to Pictures mode continues through the app's first three games. Using the example above, in the first game, players must select "r" as the beginning sound. In the second game, players would select the "g" as the ending sound. And in the third game, players would choose the "u" as the middle sound. Users, parents, and educators can vary the difficulty of each game by specifying three, four, or five-letter words. Additionally, rounds can be set for 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 matches each.
The last three games are identical to the first; except now, players match Pictures to Letters. For example, four photos are in a row across the top of the screen, including a: kangaroo, fish, ball, and plate. A large, lowercase letter "k" is below with an empty picture box next to it. In this example, players would select the kangaroo as the photo matching the first sound of the word. In the last two games, players must drag photos to match the end sound and the middle sound.
Created by a team of educators and experts in early childhood development and education, and tested with preschool children to ensure maximum fun and learning potential, SOUND BEGINNINGS features the outstanding user interface found in all Preschool University apps. The educational games offer entertainment and incentive and employ the most effective teaching methods.

Launch screen update. Fixing sidebar issues for greater compatibility with iPhone 10 iPhone 11.

If you like this app, please leave a review.
Reviews REALLY help.
Reviews are much APPRECIATED.

Nice app!

This is a very simple app, which I like. It has a few bells and whistles to motivate the kids but not too much that it forgets it's an educational game. I like the options you have and the pictures are very cute.

Being a reading teacher, there are a few things that I would add or change:
1. In your sequence of levels, I would put ending sounds before middle sounds. Vowel sounds are harder to hear.

2. When you say the word, it would be nice to have the word segmented. Maybe the could be a hint button the kids could push if they couldn't figure it out and then the word wouild be segmented into phonemes. c- a - t

At any rate, it's a cute app as is but I would love to see the above suggestions implewmented into the app. Thanks for your hard work!

One of the best!

Sound Beginnings is an outstanding app. PreschoolU is one of the best developers for research-based reading apps. They produce the most accurate and well-designed phonemic awareness and phonics apps available on the market. Because the voices can be adjusted for male, female or child, they are equally suitable for people of all ages.

Help learning beginning letter sounds.

This is helping our grandson letter sounds and improving his vocabulary. Thank you.

No Details Provided

The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update.

Information

Seller

PRESCHOOL UNIVERSITY

Compatibility

iPhone

Requires iOS 8.0 or later.

iPad

Requires iPadOS 8.0 or later.

iPod touch

Requires iOS 8.0 or later.

Mac

Requires macOS 11 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip.

In-App Purchases

Sound Beginnings Deluxe $0.99

Family Sharing

With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎SOUND BEGINNINGS helps build strong alphabetic principle skills. SOUND BEGINNINGS helps develop foundational reading skills through entertaining, interactive games. * Twelve learning games provide practice in phonics and reading * Identify the beginning, middle, or ending sound of a word * Four Uni...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Great app for phonemic awareness and phonics, but the words used are frequently not within a preschooler's listening or speaking vocabularies, which makes some of the items quite challenging and instruction ineffective. Even in this video, we see the reading of the word "hull" and then a picture of grain. How many preschoolers have heard or will use the word "hull" with any frequency? Updating this app with more appropriate words for PreK-2nd grade children would improve it's effectiveness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
reading magic-learning to read through advanced phonics games

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‎READING MAGIC-Learning to Read Through Advanced Phonics Games

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎ABC MAGIC READING Short Vowel Words can help your child's future reading success. ABC MAGIC READING gives your child key reading skills practice. ABC MAGIC stays committed to time tested phonics principles, to techniques proven to be successful. Besides the reading feature, there are two skill bu...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'm not one to rate apps all the time but I had to with this one. I'm a tutor and I've an 8-year old student whose reading is not up to par yet. I've been seeking an app that's appropriate for his age (as most apps are for younger ages) and that encourages learning how to read through phonetical execution (my term for sounding out the letters) and not by looking at the images and saying the words from memory, which doesn't teach kids how to read at all!
I am quite thankful for this app.
Please continue to make excellent applications in multiple levels and I will gladly support it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
reading magic 2-learning to read consonant blends through advanced phonics games

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‎READING MAGIC 2-Learning to Read Consonant Blends Through Advanced Phonics Games

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎ABC READING MAGIC 2 will help your child gain mastery with consonant blends. This app will give your child practice with consonant blends to improve their reading skills. This app has three modes. The Blending Mode helps your child learn the essential reading skill of blending, which helps prepare...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Letter Is It? | Random Order | Phonics Song for Kids | Phonemic Awareness | Jack Hartmann

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Party In The Jungle | Fun Phonemic Awareness Song | Jack Hartmann

# data[].attributes.headline
What's the difference between Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

# data[].attributes.subject
What's the difference between Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is Phonemic Awareness? | Reading Lessons

# data[].attributes.body
http://earlyliteracyci5823.pbworks.com/w/page/65610979/Phonemic%20Awareness%20Activities

# data[].attributes.body
http://earlyliteracyci5823.pbworks.com/w/page/65610979/Phonemic%20Awareness%20Activities

# data[].attributes.body
Children will work from left to right saying sounds in words

as they turn on and off the night light for each letter sound.

# data[].attributes.body
http://earlyliteracyci5823.pbworks.com/w/page/65610979/Phonemic%20Awareness%20Activities

# data[].attributes.body
http://earlyliteracyci5823.pbworks.com/w/page/65610979/Phonemic%20Awareness%20Activities

# data[].attributes.body
http://earlyliteracyci5823.pbworks.com/w/page/65610979/Phonemic%20Awareness%20Activities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A phoneme is the meaning of a letter or digraph, the "mouth move" signaled by the letter. The spelling of a word - its letter sequence - is a map of the pronunciation - its phoneme sequence. To learn to read words, we have to understand this mapping.

Thus, learning to read begins by making friends with phonemes - becoming comfortable and familiar with them. Informally, children develop this familiarity in conversations about books read aloud, especially alphabet books and books of nursery rhymes. Guiding and encouraging children's attempts to invent spelling also helps children make friends with phonemes.

Children can also be taught to make friends with phonemes in explicit lessons. When we examine research-based programs for teaching phoneme identities, we find several features:

Research suggests that getting familiar with phonemes helps children make breakthroughs in learning to decode.

A focus on a basic set of individual phonemes

Children need to get a feel for each phoneme they will use in reading and spelling. Just as we do not expect children to learn to recognize all the letters at once, neither should we expect children to learn all the phonemes at once. Instead, we spend time with each phoneme they will need to read and spell words.

Where to start? Continuants phonemes such as /f/, /m/, and /s/ are easy to stretch and pronounce by themselves. Unvoiced consonants like /t/ and /p/ can come soon after. We need vowels right away, because we can't put together any word without a vowel. Long vowels are easier to identify than short vowels. However, short vowels should come early because they are typically the first to be introduced in reading lessons - since they have simple one-letter spellings.

Children do not need to be taught every phoneme. As they get used to identifying a limited set of phonemes, they will learn how to identify others.

Introduce each phoneme one at a time, setting aside from a day to a week for each one. A good introductory strategy is to use meaningful names. Meaningful names provide a familiar image of a sound similar to the sound of the phoneme in the world; for example, /z/ sounds like a buzzing bee. Children readily associate /a/ (short a) with a crying baby.

To get across the idea that a phoneme is the same "mouth move" across many different words, have children learn alliterative tongue twisters, e.g., "Nobody was nice to Nancy's neighbor Nick, but he was never nasty." Once children learn a tongue twister, have them imitate a puppet as he "talks funny," splitting the target phoneme from the rest of the words, e.g., "N-obody was n-ice to N-ancy's n-neighbor N-ick." You can also use a stretchable action figure to give children practice in stretching the sounds. Stretch the arms and legs of the toy as children stretch the target phoneme, e.g., "Nnnnnobody was nnnnnice to Nnnnnancy's nnnnneighbor Nnnnnick."

Children could compose their own alliterations and write them with invented spelling. An excellent resource is a good alphabet book. Look for alphabet books that have multiple examples of familiar words to illustrate each letter, such as Dr. Seuss's ABC.

Activities designed to make each phoneme memorable

After children have been introduced to a phoneme, they need to stretch it, examine it, and make meaningful connections to other things they know about. Ask them to be scientists and figure out how they are making the sound with their mouths. They will need time to experiment and discover what their mouths are doing as they practice producing each phoneme.

Post illustrations of meaningful names, the real-world sounds similar to the phoneme, for review. For example, a picture of a crying baby will help children remember the phoneme /a/.

In the long run, children need to learn letters and digraphs as symbols for phonemes. Teach students to print the most common letter for the target phoneme. Then have them invent spellings for words with this letter. Daily writing opportunities with invented spelling allow children to identify phonemes and practice using correspondences they are learning.

Practice finding each phoneme in spoken words

Phoneme awareness means recognizing phonemes in their natural environment - spoken words. Children have not learned the phoneme until they can spot it in words.

For early practice, help them recognize the target phoneme at the beginning of words. For this, you might have them pick out illustrations of words beginning with the phoneme from a bulletin board. Later have them search for the phoneme elsewhere in the word. Have them choose between words related in meaning to practice the switch from meaning to sound. For example, you might ask them to listen for the sound /s/, the "flat tire" sound in words related in meaning: "Do you hear /s/ in mice or rat? In duck or goose? In nest or cave?"

Only after children recognize phonemes in words should we ask them to think of words that feature the target phoneme. For example, until they can readily find the phoneme in words, they can't search magazines for illustrations that begin with the phoneme. DaisyQuest and Daisy's Castle are excellent computer games that use state-of-the-art animation and synthesized speech to help children find phonemes in word contexts.

Blending and segmentation work with the target phoneme is very helpful in recognizing the phoneme in word contexts. Such work usually requires letters to represent the phonemes, because otherwise children have too many things to think about at once.

Creative teachers will think of many other ways to help children become familiar with phonemes. Their lessons and activities should focus on particular phonemes, make these phonemes familiar to children, and then provide practice finding the phonemes in word contexts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phoneme awareness is the ability to identify phonemes, the vocal gestures from which words are constructed, when they are found in their natural context as spoken words. Children need phoneme awareness to learn to read because letters represent phonemes in words.

# data[].attributes.headline
What's the difference between Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

# data[].attributes.subject
What's the difference between Phonological and Phonemic Awareness?

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Phonemic-Awareness-Boom-Cards-Growing-Bundle-6027710?utm_source=sweetforkindergarten.com&utm_campaign=SFK%20Blog%20%7C%20Phonemic%20Awareness-%20Boom%20Cards

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.ateachableteacher.com/phonemice-awareness-books/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.ateachableteacher.com/phonemice-awareness-books/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Stretchy the Word Snake | Phonics Song for Kids | Segmenting and Blending Words | Jack Hartmann

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.ateachableteacher.com/phonemice-awareness-books/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Miguel the Magic Monkey | Phonics Song for Kids | Reading Skills & Strategies | Jack Hartmann

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
TheLearningStation - Kids Songs and Nursery Rhymes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Apples and Bananas with Lyrics - Vowel Songs - Kids Songs by The Learning Station

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Let's Make a Change (Pre-K) Phoneme Substitution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Learning to read is a complicated process. If you teach English language learners (ELLs), however, there are a number of ways you can support their literacy and language development through targeted instruction.

This article highlights ELL instructional strategies based on the five components of reading as outlined in Teaching Children to Read by the National Reading Panel (2000). This report is a study of research-based best practices in reading instruction and it focuses on the following five instructional areas: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, Comprehension. In addition, the article includes information related to two additional important areas of instruction for ELLs, oral language and the role of the home language.

Each of these topics is explored below, and each section includes:

a definition

an explanation of why the component is important when learning to read

challenges that ELLs may face

strategies for ELL instruction

You will find references to more in-depth information about ELLs and effective reading instruction from recommended resources below.

Note: Since this article includes in-depth information on a number of topics, we encourage you to use it in professional learning communities, jigsaw activities, and other collaborative settings!

What does the research say?

Before jumping in, it's important to note that, in general, what we know about effective literacy instruction for English speakers holds true for ELLs, but modifications and adjustments may be needed (Goldenberg, 2008). Since the original National Reading Panel did not include ELLs' literacy development as part of its research review, a subsequent panel reviewed the research related to language learners and released a report authored by principal investigator Dr. Diane August and panel chair Dr. Timothy Shanahan titled Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth.

Within the executive summary of that report, the authors note that, "Instruction that provides substantial coverage in the key components of reading - identified by the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension - has clear benefits for language-minority students." They continue, "However, while approaches that are similar to those used with native-language populations are effective, the research suggests that adjustments to these approaches are needed to have maximum benefit with language-minority students." (p. 3)

For example, many practices may need modifications or scaffolds which may not be reflected in different reading programs or materials (August, 2018; Goldenberg, 2008), and in some cases, certain strategies may not be appropriate even with adjustments. In addition, the authors note the important role of two areas that were not addressed in the original National Reading Panel: students' home language and oral language.

Many examples of specific modifications are outlined in the strategies below, along with discussion of home language and oral language. You can find additional research resources at the end of the article, including a recent working paper published by Pivot Learning, Narrowing Down to Find Common Ground: Shared Agreements for Effective Literacy Instruction in California.

An in-depth video book study highlighting Literacy Foundations for English Learners by Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan is also publicly available on YouTube.

When working with ELLs, students' home languages are a powerful tool that educators can use - even if they don't speak those languages or are working in a classroom with students who speak many languages. Drs. August and Shanahan write, "Oral proficiency and literacy in the first language can be used to facilitate literacy development in English" (2006, p. 5). And in hisColorín Colorado article about the value of students' home language, Dr. Fred Genesee writes:

Extensive research, again from around the world, has found that children who are learning to read in a second language are able to transfer many skills and knowledge from their first language to facilitate their acquisition of reading skills in the second language. The best evidence of this comes from studies showing that students with strong reading skills in the home language also have strong reading skills in their second language. Much of this work has been done on ELLs in the U.S. (August & Shanahan, 2006; Riches & Genesee, 2006).

Tapping into students' home languages (also referred to as a first or native language) as a resource can take different forms:

Helping students make connections between their language and English in order to identify similarities and differences, such as English/Spanish cognates

Providing opportunities to use the home language in the classroom for reading, writing, and discussion

Encouraging students to draw on all of their language skills across languages, which is called translanguaging

Promoting biliteracy through bilingual or dual-language instruction, which can support students' future opportunities and family ties (not to mention brain health!), with initiatives such as the Seal of Biliteracy, which has been adopted in many states

It is important to keep in mind that the extent to which a student's literacy skills from their first language transfer depends on many factors, such as how similar the alphabetic systems between the two languages are and whether they share any connection in their origins, such as two languages that both derive from Latin (Nieser & Cárdenas-Hagan, 2020, p. 65). The students' levels of literacy in their home language will also have an impact on their literacy development in their new language. Learning more about the languages students speak can help educators target instruction, notice patterns among speakers of the same language, and help students understand the relationship between their language and English

You can also provide students and families with access to bilingual books and texts and encourage families to continue using and developing the home language through activities such as rhymes, storytelling, and conversation at home. You will also find specific strategies related to home language throughout the key components below.

Recommended resources

In addition, as you will see below, oral language has a role to play across all reading skills, yet it often does not receive much attention as a critical part of ELLs' language and literacy development. Drs. August and Shanahan write, "Instruction in the key components of reading is necessary - but not sufficient - for teaching language-minority students to read and write proficiently in English. Oral proficiency in English is critical as well - but student performance suggests that it is often overlooked in instruction." (2006, p. 5)

Oral language supports students' literacy skills in different ways. For example, students need to be familiar not only with the sounds and letters they are learning but also the words in which they appear in order to support their word recognition and comprehension. Other more global oral language skills, such as facility with English syntax and grammar, and the ability to navigate specific language functions like describing, predicting, and comparing, also contribute to both reading and writing development for ELLs.

In addition, strengthening oral language supports students' ability to participate in peer groups and their proficiency in speaking and writing using academic language. Students need opportunities to practice applying their emerging oral language skills through partner talk and peer work (scaffolded with supports such as sentence frames), activities such as partner reading, and responding to comprehension questions using academic language.

Dr. Carrie Simkin, the director of our sister site AdLit.org, offers the following suggestions related to oral language:

Make it a learning target for lesson planning (e.g. be intentional about planning for it).

Consider how much of the learning time in your classroom is text based vs. discussion. Do students have opportunities to discuss ideas or do they mostly respond in written formats? We want to engage students in lively discussions!

Consider if students have opportunities to work in pairs as well as small groups and not just respond to teacher-generated questions.

Have you modeled how to orally respond to questions using the question as a sentence starter? Do you have sentence starters visible for share-outs?

Our strategies related to oral language are also woven throughout the components below.

Recommended resources

Note: You can read more about the role of oral language in the foreword of Comprehension and English Language Learners.

Phonemic Awareness and ELLs

Keeping the areas of home language and oral language in mind, let's dive into the five key skill areas, starting with phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness is an important indicator of how well children will learn to read. Sometimes it is difficult, however, for speakers of a second language to "hear" and say sounds in the language they are learning. If you have had a student who could not master a particular sound in English, the sound may not have been a part of the student's native language.

In her chapter of Literacy Foundations for English Learners, Dr. Virginia Lovelace-Gonzalez notes that, "Phonological awareness skills can transfer across languages when students have opportunities to build these skills in their native language and English" (2020, p. 53).

For example, there are multiple sounds in English and Spanish that will directly transfer between languages, even if the sounds are associated with different letters (p. 50). Dr. Lovelace-Gonzalez writes, "For ELs, phonemic activities in English can be complicated by having to recognize sounds in English that do not exist in their native language...Instructionally, it is important for teachers to determine some of the similarities and differences between English and the student's native language to ensure the opportunity to learn" (p. 53).

Phonemic Awareness: Considerations and Strategies

What: The ability to hear and manipulate the different sounds in our language.

Why it matters: Phonemic awareness is the foundation for spelling and word recognition skills.

Considerations for ELLs

Learn more about the students' home languages.

Start by visiting a resource such as MyLanguages.org or Omniglot.com, which shares an overview of many different global languages.

Ask bilingual colleagues about how their languages are similar or different from English and common areas that need attention when learning English. For example, a group of Ukrainian teachers shared some of the questions that Ukrainian speakers have when learning English in this Colorín Colorado article.

Identify whether there are any sounds that your students' languages share with English. Use these as a starting point in your instruction. In addition, find out which sounds might be new to your students and be sure to include explicit practice of those sounds.

Help students think about the connection between their language and English.

Ask students how their language is the same or different than English in terms of how the language is written, the sounds that letters or symbols make, and words that might be related.

Help students become familiar with sounds, letters, and symbols that are shared between languages, as well as those that are not shared between the languages. (Some examples across different languages are included in Literacy Foundations for English Learners.)

Ask students if they have words that begin with a particular sound, or if there are any words related to a particular word in English. This can work with students who have limited literacy skills in their first language too.

Help beginning readers learn to identify sounds in short words.

Have students practice identifying the sounds in the beginning, middle, and end of these words. You may wish to use words that begin with a consonant, have a short vowel, and end in a consonant (CVC words) such as mat, top, and bus.

One very effective method is having students match pictures of words that have the same beginning, middle, or ending sound.

Use words that students already know in English.

Videos

Learn how to pronounce the 44 phonemes in English.

Phonics and ELLs

Phonics instruction aims to help new readers understand that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds. Students benefit from learning and practicing sounds and symbols, including blended combinations. ELLs often show many strengths in mastering early phonics skills but it's important to remember that decoding while reading and correctly spelling words does not ensure good comprehension.

That's why it's important to ensure that ELLs are familiar with the words they are learning to decode in order to support their comprehension. The authors of Words Their Way with English Learners write, "English learners need structured opportunities to learn many new words to add to their repertoires so that these words can become the material of their literacy learning" (2011, p. 79).

Phonics: Considerations and Strategies

Considerations for ELLs

Use a word study approach.

Word study is a powerful approach that connects letters, sound, meaning, word parts, and usage so that students are learning explicit foundational skills within a meaningful context. For example, ELLs need lots of opportunities to connect the sounds, letters, and words they are learning.

The authors of Words Their Way with English Learners write, "What is key to literacy development for English learners in the emergent stage is that they use language with teachers and peers and see oral language they understand captured in print" (Helman et al, 2011).

Look for opportunities to reinforce phonics in context.

Using literature and content material, you can introduce and reinforce:

letter recognition

beginning and ending sounds

blends

rhyming words

silent letters

homonyms

Vocabulary and ELLs

Vocabulary plays an important part in learning to read, as well as in understanding what is read.

As students learn to read more advanced texts, they must learn the meaning of new words that are not part of their oral vocabulary. For ELLs, vocabulary development is especially important as students' develop academic language - in all subjects and activities! There are numerous ways to support explicit vocabulary instruction, which is essential for developing students' vocabulary knowledge. Dr. Coleen D. Carlson writes,

For EL students, drawing attention to unknown words during the initial presentation of the text, providing appropriate levels of definitions (e.g., providing English labels for words for which concepts and labels in one's native language are understood, quick definitions or demonstrations for simple words) and tying to background knowledge is critical. No amount of simply reading and rereading words will produce knowledge of unknown vocabulary. (2020, p. 97)

Vocabulary: Considerations and Strategies

Considerations for ELLs

Draw upon students' home languages.

You can draw upon students' home languages to build vocabulary by:

It is important to give students as much exposure and experience with new vocabulary words as possible before asking students to use them in a lesson or activity.

Select words that will support the reader's understanding of the story or text, as well as for other phrases and connectors that affect comprehension (even though, except, etc.). You can pre-teach vocabulary by using English as a second language (ESL) methods such as:

Role playing or pantomiming

Using gestures

Showing real objects

Pointing to pictures

Doing quick drawings on the board

Using the equivalent in students' languages and then asking students to say the word in English

Providing a student-friendly definition

Using graphic organizers

Cognates are words in different languages that are derived from the same original word or root. About 40% of all English words have cognates in Spanish (such as the English/Spanish cognate "family/familia"). This is an obvious bridge to the English language for Spanish speakers if the student is made aware of how to use this resource.

Teach students to recognize and use cognates, or words that are related across languages, and encourage students to be on the lookout for cognates from other languages as well.

Give students an opportunity to practice using new words.

As the teacher, you can explicitly teach word meanings to improve comprehension. However, to know a word means knowing it in all of the following dimensions:

The ability to define a word

The ability to recognize when to use that word

Knowledge of its multiple meanings

The ability to decode and spell that word

The ability to use different definitions word accurately in different contexts

Ensure students understand a new word by asking them to produce it themselves either orally or in writing.

I taught a summer school unit on habitats and healthy environments, and every student had to learn the phrase, "Reduce, reuse, recycle." Over the course of four weeks I gave students many opportunities to use those words to describe what we were doing: "We are reusing the grocery bag," or "We reused the scratch paper."

Build students' academic vocabulary.

You can increase students' academic vocabulary by teaching common structures and terms used in a specific content area. For example, sentence frames are a great way to get students familiar with these structures and can be used in writing and speaking:

You can learn more strategies in this related article.

The _____ is ______ than the _____.

I can conclude ______ because _______.

Videos

ESOL Specialist Sheila Majdi: Using sentence frames with ELLs

ESOL specialist Sheila Majdi from Arlington, VA explains what a sentence frame is and how she might use this strategy with ELLs.

Interactive reading of a story

In this classroom clip, first-grade teacher Albuquerque teacher Ali Nava leads her students through an interactive reading of Burro's Tortillas, a Southwestern adaptation of "The Little Red Hen."

Focusing on language in literacy instruction

In this classroom clip, fifth-grade teacher Clara Gonzales-Espinoza helps her students expand their understanding of the way language is used in a picture book version of Cinderella.

Instruction of key academic vocabulary with high school ELLs

In this lesson, students read a letter that Captain John Smith of the English Army wrote to Queen Anne in 1616. You can see lesson materials and reflection interviews from ELL teacher Anne Formato in our related classroom module.

Fluency and ELLs

Fluency is a tricky area when it comes to ELL reading instruction. For native English speakers, fluency and reading comprehension often share a strong correlation because fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time. This is not always the case for ELLs.

Many ELLs can be deceptively fast and accurate in their reading because they are good readers in their primary language and have strong decoding skills. Yet they may demonstrate little understanding of the text, and hearing the text out loud may not necessarily provide a step towards comprehension as it is likely to do for native speakers. One important factor in the connection between fluency and comprehension is ELLs' oral language skills, which Dr. Carlson describes as "an important foundation that supports the role of fluency as a bridge to comprehension" (p. 93).

Fluency: Considerations and Strategies

Inaccurate indicator of ELLs' comprehension

It is not unusual for an ELL student to read a passage beautifully and then not be able answer more than a couple of comprehension questions correctly. Decoding skills (sounding out words) and comprehending the text are two different skills.

Limited benefit from hearing texts read aloud

Native speakers who are not strong decoders can often comprehend text that is read to them better than text that they read themselves. That's because when someone else is doing the reading, they can focus on meaning without having to struggle to get the words off the page.

With ELLs, however, comprehension problems tend to be associated with limited vocabulary and limited background knowledge. Thus, listening to text read by someone else won't enhance comprehension.

Comprehension and ELLs

Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able to 1) decode what they read; 2) make connections between what they read and what they already know; and 3) think deeply about what they have read. Comprehension can be the most difficult skill to master, however, and can elude students who have mastered word-level skills. According to the executive summary of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth,

An important finding that emerges from the research is that word-level skills in literacy - such as decoding, word recognition and spelling - are often taught well enough to allow language-minority students to attain levels of performance equal to those of native English speakers. However, this is not the case for text-level skills - reading comprehension and writing. (p. 4)

ELLs at all levels of English proficiency, and literacy development, will benefit from explicit instruction in comprehension skills along with other skills because improved comprehension will not only help them in language arts and ESL classes - it will help them in content-area classes and in daily activities. It will also improve the chances of their interest in reading for pleasure.

Learn more from the following articles:

Comprehension: Considerations and Strategies

Considerations for ELLs

ELLs who struggle with comprehension may read more slowly, have a hard time following a text or story, have a hard time picking out important events, and feel frustrated. They may also have problems mastering new concepts in their content-area classes or completing assignments and assessments because they cannot comprehend the texts and tests for these subjects.

Check comprehension frequently.

As students read, ask them open-ended questions about what they are reading, and informally test students' ability to sequence material from sentences or a story by printing sentences from a section of the story on paper strips, mixing the strips or word order, and having students put them in order.

Use questions after reading.

After the ELLs and/or whole class have completed the reading, you can test their comprehension with carefully crafted questions, taking care to use simple sentences and key vocabulary from the text they just read.

These questions can be at the:

Videos

This video showcases a 5 th-grade team planning a science lesson about the difference between vascular and non-vascular plants. ESOL specialist Katy Padilla plays a key role in advocating for ELLs throughout the lesson planning process and sharing her strategies for engaging and supporting students.

Making Dual-Language Immersion Work

This video provides an introduction to Claremont Immersion School's dual language model and shows how teachers collaborating to develop a language arts language in English and Spanish.

Assessment for ELLs

Learn how third-grade teacher Samantha Kirch uses informal assessment in her classroom to better evaluate ELLs and their progress.

Story setup: Pre-reading strategies for comprehension

Learn about pre-reading strategies that will lay the groundwork before high school newcomer ELLs tackle a new text.

Teaching ELLs in upper elementary, middle school, and high school

Older ELLs bring a lot of valuable experience and interests to the classroom. At the same time, they face the double challenge of needing to learn content and a new language at the same time, which is further complicated if their literacy skills are limited. While they may still need foundational skills work, it can be hard to find materials that are age-appropriate. You can learn more about specific tips for supporting this diverse population from the following resources:

For great classroom videos at the secondary level, see our classroom video library!

Concluding Thoughts

This is a lot of information, but we hope that these resources and recommendations can inform your work with students as well as the conversations about literacy in your setting. The more familiar your team is with best practices for ELLs, the more effectively you can determine which practices and resources will best support your students in their ongoing literacy development - and future successes!

Recommend Resources

This new working paper released by Pivot Learning reflects collective consensus among literacy experts on key topics concerning (1) literacy and multilingual and English learner students; (2) early screening and assessment; and (3) foundational skills.

To learn more about the paper and how it was developed, see Can common ground be found on teaching reading in California? (EdSource)

Research articles and chapters

Books

Literacy Foundations for English Learners by Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan (You can see the related book study on YouTube.)

Words Their Way with English Learners: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling (2nd Ed.) by Dr. Lori Helman, Dr. Donald R. Bear, Dr. Shane Templeton, Dr. Marcia Invernizzi, and Dr. Francine Johnston

Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners by Dr. Nancy Cloud, Dr. Fred Genesee, and Dr. Else Hamayan

Dual Language Instruction from A to Z: Practical Guidance for Teachers and Administrators by Dr. Else Hamayan, Dr. Fred Genesee, and Dr. Nancy Cloud

Webcasts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reading 101 for English Language Learners

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learning to read is a complicated process. If you teach English language learners (ELLs), however, there are a number of ways you can support their literacy and language development through targeted instruction. This article highlights ELL instructional strategies based on the five components of reading as outlined in Teaching Children to Read by the National Reading Panel (2000).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Keith Stanovich, cognitive scientist and psychologist (1994)

What is Phonological Awareness?

When it comes to reading, you've probably heard of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is a meta-cognitive skill (i.e., an awareness/ability to think about one's own thinking) for the sound structures of language. Phonological awareness allows one to attend to, discriminate, remember, and manipulate sounds at the sentence, word, syllable, and phoneme (sound) level. Examples follow for each level:

Sentence level: How many words are in the sentence, "She sells sea shells by the sea shore?"

Word level: Do these words rhyme: distribution and retribution?

Syllable level: What is the last syllable in the word "discrimination?"

Phoneme level: What is the final sound in photo?

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is an essential skill that underlies a child's ability to learn to read and spell. Phonemic awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness; however, it only pertains to the phonemes (sounds) in words. Hence, exercises that pertain to the sentence and syllable are considered phonological awareness rather than phonemic awareness. Rhyming is also excluded from phonemic awareness, since it does not relate to the individual sounds in the word. Once again, phonemic awareness requires the knowledge that words are comprised of individual sounds that can be manipulated. Using phonemic awareness, one can match, blend, segment, and rearrange sounds in words (or nonsense words).

Without strong skills in phonemic awareness a child cannot begin to connect the sounds of our language to letters or letter combinations. A child must be able to isolate and blend sounds into word parts and words to learn to read and spell. For many dyslexics, this is a very challenging task as evidenced in their great difficulties in decoding and encoding.

We can assess children's initial attempts at phonemic awareness as early as the ages of 3 and 4. Children who do not play rhyming or alliteration games could be suspect for dyslexia down the road. Children with speech sound production problems (articulation) could also have difficulty learning to read and spell. We've a good list of tests, such as the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), to use to determine whether a child has difficulty hearing or processing the individual sounds of our language.

Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness is the only way to go for the children who are not getting it. The earlier the better. Phonemic awareness should first be taught without any letters using blocks or chips to represent the sounds and make them salient to the child. Children need to learn to hear those sounds without being confused by the letters that correspond with them. This is particularly important given that many times the same sound is represented by different letter combinations (think long a in cake, rain, hey, gray, and sleigh). Take words apart auditorily and then put them back together over and over again.

After children learn to isolate and manipulate phonemes, then we introduce single letters and letter combinations or families (e.g., -at, -up, -in., etc.), but not until we are confident that the child can take words apart and put them together using only what he or she hears. Play rhyming and alliteration games. Sing that old song "Hannah hannah, bo-banana, fee-fie-fo-fannah, me-mi-mo-mannah, Hannah!" You get the idea!

What is Phonics?

Phonics refers to sounds as they relate to graphemes (letters) or morphemes (prefixes, suffixes). Therefore, you can say that phonological awareness and phonemic awareness are exclusively auditory skills, whereas phonics maps the auditory patterns (i.e., sounds) with the corresponding visual representations (i.e., letters). Phonics uses letters, while phonological and phonemic awareness do not. Below is a table comparing phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics:

Involves sound (no written symbols)

Involves sound (no written symbols)

Involves symbols (i.e., letters) that represent sounds

There are 48 distinct sounds in English that have definite combinations in syllables, words, and sentences.

There are only 48 distinct sounds in English.

There are multiple ways to represent each sound (e.g., The "o" sound can be spelled a variety of ways in bow, boat, go, thorough, and cope.)

Comprises sounds, syllables, words, and sentences

Focuses on sounds in words

Addresses symbols for sounds, syllables, and words

More and more research is concluding that students with poor phonological awareness skills struggle with reading and spelling. In the brain, the angular gyrus and corresponding regions in the occipital and temporal lobes are responsible for phonological processing abilities. Neuro-imaging of dyslexic brains reveals disruption in this area of the brain. In other words, phonological processing deficits are a hallmark of dyslexia and require explicit and systematic instruction (as well as repeated practice) to build up these neuro-pathways.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Upon completion of this section, you will: Understand that phonemic awareness is an essential skill that underlies a student's ability to learn to read and spell Know the basics of phonemic awareness so that we may help dyslexics and parents understand "Phonological awareness is the most potent predictor of success in learning to read."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today, we know a lot more than we did decades ago about how children learn to read. Thanks to research on the science of reading, we can use evidence-based literacy instruction for all students. The International Dyslexia Association uses the term structured literacy to describe this type of teaching.

What Is Structured Literacy?

It's important to know both what to teach (the content) and how to teach it (the delivery) with structured literacy.

Phonology: the study of sounds in spoken words

Sound-symbol (orthography): how to map sounds (phonemes) to letters (graphemes)

Syllables: knowing the types of syllables and how to divide words into syllables

Morphology: the study of base words and affixes (prefixes and suffixes)

Syntax: understanding the grammatical order of words (like sentence structure)

Semantics: understanding the meaning of words and sentences

Explicit instruction: With explicit instruction, you make learning clear and straightforward for students. There's no guesswork. You directly model a skill using multiple examples, and you verbalize your thought process at the same time. For example, you could use explicit instruction to show students how to segment a one-syllable word into individual sounds.

With explicit instruction, you also provide plenty of guided practice (working with students) and independent practice (having them work on their own). There's a lot of teacher-student interaction with in-the-moment feedback.

Systematic and sequential instruction: With systematic and sequential instruction, you teach skills in a logical order. Students learn and master easier skills before moving on to more complex skills. For instance, you would teach students how to blend two letters before asking them to find the blends in words.

The goal of systematic and sequential instruction is to make sure that students have the knowledge they need to learn a new skill. Teachers who use this type of teaching also continue to practice and review previously learned skills.

Who Does Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction Help?

Evidence-based literacy instruction benefits all students. When general educators use explicit instruction in phonics, reading proficiency rates improve drastically. In one district, student proficiency increased from 47 percent to 84 percent after teachers learned about the science of reading and used explicit and systematic phonics instruction.

But this type of instruction is especially beneficial for some students, including:

Those who learn and think differently. Students with dyslexia benefit from interventions using explicit instruction in phonemic awareness. Likewise, students who struggle with language comprehension benefit from explicit instruction on semantics (meaning) and syntax (the grammatical order of words).

English language learners. Evidence-based literacy instruction can help these students develop reading and writing skills. Specifically, knowing the elements of English (like phonology and syntax) can help unlock the mystery of a new language.

How Is Structured Literacy Different From Other Approaches?

Structured literacy may sound similar to-or perhaps different from-other ways of teaching reading and writing. For that comparison, a mini history lesson can be helpful.

You may have heard of the "reading wars," a decades-old debate about how children best learn to read. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, some educators argued that phonics-based instruction, with its focus on the rules of decoding words, was the most effective. Other educators said that phonics instruction bored students and didn't build a love of reading. They believed in whole language-the idea that immersing kids in books helps them learn to read.

But the "whole language" approach had opponents too. Opponents argued that learning to read doesn't magically happen by putting a book in a child's hands. In fact, research shows that reading is not an innate ability. We naturally learn to speak when we're exposed to oral language as babies. But our brains aren't wired in that same way to read. We must be taught how to read.

As the reading wars continued, a compromise emerged: "balanced literacy." Balanced literacy uses a variety of teaching methods (such as read-alouds, independent reading and writing, and small group instruction) to address the five pillars of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. But finding that balance in busy classrooms is easier said than done. And some educators say they feel unprepared to teach all aspects of literacy, especially phonics.

With the right training, structured literacy can help you explicitly and systematically teach all areas of literacy in an engaging way.

Getting Started In Your Classroom

You may be thinking that your school's literacy curriculum doesn't include these components, or that your teacher preparation program didn't cover literacy instruction in great depth. Don't worry-there are several things you can do.

First and foremost, advocating for quality professional learning opportunities can help you and your colleagues feel you have the resources and support you need.

You can also try teaching strategies to augment your reading program or curriculum, one step at a time. For example, explore these strategies that include key elements of evidence-based literacy instruction:

You'll begin to see how this way of teaching benefits all students, and especially those who struggle with reading and writing. Once you see those gains, you can share those success stories with your colleagues and advocate for changes to how literacy is taught in your district.

About the Author

About the Author

Kim Greene, MA is a managing editor at Understood. A former elementary teacher and a certified reading specialist, she has a passion for developing resources for educators.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Margie B. Gillis, EdD is the founder and president of Literacy How, which provides professional development for teachers on research-based reading practices in the classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Structured Literacy: What You Need to Know

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today, we know a lot more than we did decades ago about how children learn to read. Thanks to research on the science of reading, we can use evidence-based literacy instruction for all students. The International Dyslexia Association uses the term structured literacy to describe this type of teaching.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Many schools have moved to distance learning because of the coronavirus. Schools are taking many different approaches. Some are providing synchronous (real-time) virtual learning via videoconference technology. Others are trying fully asynchronous (not real-time) learning through documents and worksheets designed to enhance at-home learning.

Whatever the approach, distance learning can be a challenge. Teachers and students will need time and practice to get used to it. It may feel daunting to include all students when your classroom is a videoconference.

Luckily, the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can help. When you plan with UDL in mind, you proactively reduce barriers to learning so all the students in your class can engage. Here are some best practices for distance learning with UDL.

1. Explicitly teach expectations and engagement.

Video and distance learning is a totally different medium of teaching and learning. Both you and your students may need time and support to learn how to learn and engage effectively in this space.

Assume that students have a wide range of skills when it comes to technology for virtual learning. That includes learning with digital materials and connecting for learning through virtual conferencing. And the technology students have access to for distance learning will vary.

Know, too, that there will be a learning curve for everyone. It may take some time and repeated support for all students to get the hang of how to interact and learn in this new environment.

2. Allow for asynchronous learning.

Some of your students may not be able to watch a livestream, whether it's due to timing, internet access, or the ability to focus on a lesson via a videoconference. And some students have trouble processing information when it's presented only in auditory form.

If you're delivering live instruction via video, record it for students to review or access later. You can upload the video to a space like Google Classroom or send it to your students via email.

You can also use apps like Otter.ai to generate transcripts from your audio. (Otter.ai offers 600 minutes of transcription free per month.) Other video streaming applications offer live captioning, which may be imperfect, but definitely useful.

It's harder for many students to "watch" instruction via video livestream than in a live classroom. It can be challenging to focus, feel connected, process information, and identify key ideas.

Older students (middle-schoolers and high-schoolers) can work together to help each other. Consider assigning students to take notes for the class using Google Classroom applications.

Along with transcripts and recordings, good notes are really important and helpful to all students. They're especially helpful to students who have trouble with focus, reading, writing, and other challenges that make it difficult to multitask.

4. Make materials accessible.

It's not just video that needs to be accessible. Think, too, about how to make images and digital documents available for all students to access. Here are some best practices to use when creating materials.

Create short text descriptions of images and videos you use during video and distance learning.

Avoid using inaccessible image-based PDFs for handouts and other digital materials. Use Word, Google Docs, or another accessible format instead. (Those formats have optical character recognition (OCR) for screen reader access.)

Check written materials for screen reader accessibility with tools like WebAIM.

If you're not already using these practices in your classroom, try to approach this situation as an opportunity to learn how to be accessible for all. Once you get used to doing it, it's easy to bring these practices into everyday, live learning settings.

5. Embrace your students as teachers.

You can provide them with a sketch and initial thoughts about how you think learning and teaching might work virtually, but create activities that let students provide feedback on your plans. Give them the chance to co-create what teaching and learning will look like now that you're all working remotely.

Communication is extra important when you're working at a distance. Ask your students regularly about their needs and be ready to be flexible and responsive to their concerns.

Remember that many students are digital natives. Ask about their preferences and innovative ideas on how to approach online learning. This supports learner agency, self-determination, and motivation to learn in this environment.

6. Actively build a supportive community.

When you're not in a classroom together, it's not as easy to check in with students about their emotional and physical well-being. Build time into your teaching and learning to reduce social isolation and support feelings of connectedness and belonging.

Integrate small group video discussions (in addition to the whole group) and use discussion boards for older students.

Some video applications, like Zoom, allow you to create separate "rooms" for breakout discussions. (Zoom is temporarily lifting the 40-minute time limit on free basic accounts for schools affected by the coronavirus outbreak. Learn more about how to get access for your school.)

If possible, try to set up weekly (or more frequent) individual virtual check-ins or short phone calls with each of your students. Most of all, encourage engagement to help your students feel like they have agency in this online space. After all, this is their learning community, too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
UDL Best Practices for Distance Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many schools have moved to distance learning because of the coronavirus. Schools are taking many different approaches. Some are providing synchronous (real-time) virtual learning via videoconference technology. Others are trying fully asynchronous (not real-time) learning through documents and worksheets designed to enhance at-home learning. Whatever the approach, distance learning can be a challenge.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Learn the definitions of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness - and how these pre-reading listening skills relate to phonics.

Letter of completion

After completing this module and successfully answering the post-test questions, you'll be able to download a Letter of Completion.

Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness: what's the difference?

Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words. Examples include being able to identify words that rhyme, recognizing alliteration, segmenting a sentence into words, identifying the syllables in a word, and blending and segmenting onset-rimes. The most sophisticated - and last to develop - is called phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. This includes blending sounds into words, segmenting words into sounds, and deleting and playing with the sounds in spoken words.

Phonological awareness (PA) involves a continuum of skills that develop over time and that are crucial for reading and spelling success, because they are central to learning to decode and spell printed words. Phonological awareness is especially important at the earliest stages of reading development - in pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade for typical readers.

Explicit teaching of phonological awareness in these early years can eliminate future reading problems for many students. However, struggling decoders of any age can work on phonological awareness, especially if they evidence problems in blending or segmenting phonemes.

How about phonological awareness and phonics?

Phonological awareness refers to a global awareness of sounds in spoken words, as well as the ability to manipulate those sounds.

Phonics refers to knowledge of letter sounds and the ability to apply that knowledge in decoding unfamiliar printed words.

So, phonological awareness refers to oral language and phonics refers to print. Both of these skills are very important and tend to interact in reading development, but they are distinct skills; children can have weaknesses in one of them but not the other.

For example, a child who knows letter sounds but cannot blend the sounds to form the whole word has a phonological awareness (specifically, a phonemic awareness) problem. Conversely, a child who can orally blend sounds with ease but mixes up vowel letter sounds, reading pit for pet and set for sit, has a phonics problem.

44 phonemes

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet that make up 44 speech sounds, or phonemes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn the definitions of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness - and how these pre-reading listening skills relate to phonics. Letter of completion After completing this module and successfully answering the post-test questions, you'll be able to download a Letter of Completion. Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness: what's the difference?