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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 7 with Nancy Hennessy

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 7 with Nancy Hennessy

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Recording will be uploaded in the near future to this padlet

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 8 with Dawn Brookhart

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 8 with Dawn Brookhart

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Recording will be uploaded in the near future to this padlet

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter  with William Van Cleave

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter  with William Van Cleave

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Speech to Print Chapter 6 with William Van Cleave

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William Van Cleave

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Created by Dr. Pam Kaster

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Created by Dr. Stephanie Stollar

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 5 with Dr. Stephanie Stollar

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 5 with Dr. Stephanie Stollar

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Speech to Print Chapter 5 with Dr. Stephanie Stollar

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 4 with Dr. Jaclyn Galbally

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 4 with Dr. Jaclyn Galbally

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Chapter 4 Speech to Print Led by Dr Jaclyn Galbally

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Dawn Brookhart

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PPT by Dr. Moats

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Ehri & Mc Cormick, (1998), Phases of Word Learning: Implications for Instruction With Delayed and Disabled Readers

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Ehri & Mc Cormick, (1998), Phases of Word Learning: Implications for Instruction With Delayed and Disabled Readers

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Ehri & Mc Cormick, (1998), Phases of Word Learning: Implications for Instruction With Delayed and Disabled Readers

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The Multifaceted Nature of Reading Acquisition from AIM Institute

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Multifaceted Nature of Reading Acquisition: Unraveling the Reading Rope with Nancy Hennessy

Free Community Webinar Recorded Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - Access to the Experts Speaker Series

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Dr. Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope provides a powerful illustration of the multiple strands of proficient reading. The rope model unravels the critical skills of word recognition and language comprehension. It directly informs our understanding of why some students succeed and some struggle and provides necessary direction for effective instruction. This session with education consultant and AIM Research Advisory Board member Nancy Hennessy defines the strands of the rope, examines individual contributions and necessary interactions, and further develops an understanding of how skilled reading develops.

Nancy Hennessy
Professional Practices Consultant
Nancy Hennessy, a past president of the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), is an experienced teacher and administrator. While in public schools, she provided leadership in the development of innovative programming for special needs students and an award winning professional development initiative. She has delivered keynote addresses, workshops and training to educators nationally and internationally. Nancy co-authored Module 6 of LETRS, Digging for Meaning: Teaching Text Comprehension (2nd edition) with Louisa Moats and the chapter, Word Learning and Vocabulary Instruction, in Multisensory Teaching of Basic Skills (3rd edition). She is the 2011 recipient of IDA's Margaret Rawson Lifetime Achievement Award. Nancy has served as a national trainer for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) and is currently the Professional Practices Consultant at AIM Academy.

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nancy hennessy - multi-faceted nature of reading acquisition

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Nancy Hennessy - Multi-Faceted Nature of Reading Acquisition - AIM Institute for Learning & Research

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Multifaceted Nature of Reading Acquisition: Unraveling the Reading Rope with Nancy Hennessy Free Community Webinar Recorded Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - Access to the Experts Speaker Series Complete Form Below to Access Webinar Recording Dr. Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope provides a powerful illustration of the multiple strands of proficient reading.

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How to Counter Vision-Based Claims About Dyslexia "Cures" 

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How to Counter Vision-Based Claims About Dyslexia "Cures" 

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From the International Dyslexia Association

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Joint Technical Report—Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia, and Vision

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Thank you to Brookes Publishing for so generously sharing this webinar and of course our gratitude to Dr. Moats!

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Thank you to Brookes Publishing for so generously sharing this webinar and of course our gratitude to Dr. Moats!

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Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teaching Reading - edWeb

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This edWebinar will present an overview of the concepts and language content that are essential for teaching reading, spelling, and writing effectively.

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University of Florida Literacy Institute

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University of Florida Literacy Institute

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Ehri's Phases of Word Reading

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Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler

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"Whether performed silently or aloud," Marilyn Adams recently wrote, "reading an alphabetic script with fluency and reflective comprehension incontrovertibly depends on...remarkably rich and over learned knowledge of the language's spellings and spelling-speech mappings....[But] despite myriad proposals to make it easier, alphabetic instruction has been dogged by one problem: Many students find it extremely difficult to induce the words from the code, no matter how they are drilled on the individual letters and sounds." However, she continued, research has now delivered on this fundamental problem: "Research has finally yielded an answer to the question of why learning to use the alphabetic principle is difficult for so many The impasse lies in the perceptual and conceptual elusiveness of the phonemes." What is this elusive element, the phoneme? Why has the lack of phonemic awareness blocked the doorway to reading for large numbers of children? And how might we remedy this situation?
We now have good answers to these questions, and we are extremely pleased to be able to share with our readers the following commentary and sample lessons from a new book, Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum. This curriculum is an example of what we desperately need more of research-based theory translated into field tested materials that teachers can confidently and successfully use in the classroom.
Walking through the fifty-one suggested lessons in this curriculum, as I have, gives one a window into how children can be brought, step by step, to under stand the architecture of their language, and how such understanding prepares them for the most critical academic undertaking of their lives: the mastery of reading and writing. Indeed, one finishes these exercises with a tremendous feeling of optimism, a sense that every child who is successfully led through them-no matter the spareness of that child's home environment-will glide ever so more easily into mastery of the alphabetic code and the door to literacy that it wedges open.
Phonemic Awareness in Young Children is divided into seven sets of multiple lessons (plus appendices filled with numerous additional activities and support materials):

Listening Games: To sharpen children's ability to attend selectively to sounds;

Rhyming: To use rhyme to introduce the children to the sounds of words;

Words and Sentences: To develop children's awareness that language is made up of strings of words;

Awareness of Syllables: To develop the ability to analyze words into separate syllables and to synthesize words from a string of separate syllables;

Initial and Final Sounds: To show the children that words contain phonemes and to introduce them to how phonemes sound and feel when spoken in isolation;

Phonemes: To develop the ability to analyze words into a sequence of separate phonemes and to synthesize words from a sequence of separate phonemes;

Introducing Letters and Spellings: To introduce the relation of letters to speech sounds.

To give you a flavor of how this curriculum can help children grasp the sound-based building blocks of their language, we have chosen two lessons from the very first set of activities (Chapter 3), in which children are introduced to the art of listening actively, attentively, and analytically; one lesson from the chapter that teaches children that words are made of strings of smaller units of speech-syllables; three lessons from "Initial and Final Sounds," which introduces the children to the nature and existence of phonemes; and two lessons from the chapter entitled "Phonemes," which builds on the previous work.
Keep in mind that these activities focus on the structure of spoken language and are preliminary to phonics, instruction. Their purpose is to lay the groundwork, prepare the soil, get children ready for instruction in phonics and spelling. Indeed, as the authors note, "Educators...have found that attending to children's phonemic awareness removes phonics from the realm of drill and skill and makes it learn able and interesting to their students." The activities in this curriculum were originally developed for use with kindergarten children, but the pace and complexity can be adjusted for use in first grade and special education. The authors recommend that fifteen to twenty minutes per day be de voted to phonemic awareness activities. Of course, as with all instruction, some students may need more intensive support than others. Phonemic awareness is not a magic bullet. We know there is no single magic bullet for mastering the complex task of reading. But-while research must continue to refine our knowledge and practice in all aspects of phonological processing-there is now widespread consensus that we have zeroed in on an important piece of the puzzle. On behalf of all the children for whom the lack of phonemic aware ness has been such a stumbling block in learning to read, we must act.
The Nature and Importance of Phonemic Awareness

Before children can make any sense of the alphabetic principle, they must understand that those sounds that are paired with the letters are one and the same as the sounds of speech. For those of us who already know how to read and write, this realization seems very basic, almost transparent. Nevertheless, research shows that the very notion that spoken language is made up of sequences of these little sounds does not come naturally or easily to human beings.

The small units of speech that correspond to letters of an alphabetic writing system are called phonemes. Thus, the awareness that language is composed of these small sounds is termed phonemic awareness. Research indicates that, without direct instructional support, phonemic awareness eludes roughly 25 per cent of middle-class first graders and substantially more of those who come from less literacy-rich back grounds. Furthermore, these children evidence serious difficulty in learning to read and write (see Adams, 1990, for a review).

Why is awareness of phonemes so difficult? The problem, in large measure, is that people do not attend to the sounds of phonemes as they produce or listen to speech. Instead, they process the phonemes automatically, directing their active attention to the meaning and force of the utterance as a whole. The challenge, therefore, is to find ways to get children to no tice the phonemes, to discover their existence and separability. Fortunately, many of the activities involving rhyme, rhythm, listening, and sounds that have long been enjoyed with preschool-age children are ideally suited for this purpose. In fact, with this goal in mind, all such activities can be used more effectively toward helping children to develop phonemic awareness.

The purpose of this book is to provide concrete activities that stimulate the development of phonemic awareness in the preschool or elementary classroom. It is based on a program originally developed and validated by Lundberg, Frost, and Petersen (1988) in Sweden and Denmark. After translating and adapting it for U.S. classrooms, we field tested it with kindergarten students and teachers in two schools receiving Title I funds. We, too, found that kindergartners developed the ability to analyze words into sounds significantly more quickly than kindergartners who did not have this program (Foorman, Francis, Beeler, Winikates, & Fletcher, 1997; Foorman, Francis, Shaywitz, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1997). This ability to analyze words into sounds is exactly the skill that promotes successful reading in first grade (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte 1994).

What Research Says about Phonemic Awareness

Although a number of different types of linguistic awareness are, in one way or another, presupposed in the dialogues and activities of beginning reading instruction, preschool-age children's awareness of phonemes-of the speech sounds that correspond roughly to individual letters-has been shown to hold singular predictive power, statistically accounting for as much as 50 percent of the variance in their reading proficiency at the end of first grade (Blachman, 1991; Juel, 1991; Stanovich, 1986; Wagner et al., 1994). Furthermore, faced with an alphabetic script, a child's level of phonemic awareness on entering school is widely held to be the strongest single determinant of the success that she or he will experience in learning to read-or, conversely, the likelihood that she or he will fail (Adams, 1990; Stanovich, 1986).

Measures of preschool-age children's level of phonemic awareness strongly predict their future success in learning to read; this has been demonstrated not only among English students but also among Swedish (Lundberg, Olofsson, & Wall, 1980); Norwegian (Høien, Lundberg, Stanovich, & Bjaalid, 1995); Spanish (deManrique & Gramigna, 1984); French (Alegria, Pignot, & Morais, 1982); Italian (Cossu, Shankweiler, Liberman, Tola, & Katz, 1988); Portuguese (Cardoso-Martins, 1995); and Russian students (Elkonin, 1973). Measures of schoolchildren's ability to attend to and manipulate phonemes strongly correlate with their reading success through the twelfth grade (Calfee, Lindamood, & Lindamood, 1973). Poorly developed phonemic aware ness distinguishes economically disadvantaged preschoolers from their more advantaged peers (Wallach, Wallach, Dozier, & Kaplan, 1977) and has been shown to be characteristic of adults with literacy problem in the United States (Liberman, Rubin, Duques, & Carlisle, 1985); Portugal (Morais, Cary,Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979); England (Marcel, 1980); and Australia (Byrne & Ledez, 1983). Indeed, among readers of alphabetic languages, those who are successful invariably have phonemic awareness, whereas those who lack phonemic awareness are invariably struggling (Foorman, Francis, Beeler, et al., 1997; Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Winikates, & Mehta, 1997; Foorman, Francis, Shaywitz, et al., 1997; Stanovich, 1986; Tunmer & Nesdale, 1985).

Knowing that so many children lack phonemic awareness and that phonemic awareness is critical to learning to read and write an alphabetic script, we begin to see the importance of making a place for its instruction. In fact, research clearly shows that phone mic awareness can be developed through instruction, and, furthermore, that doing so significantly accelerates children's subsequent reading and writing achievement (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Blachman, Ball, Black, &Tangel, 1994; Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991, 1993, 1995; Castle, Riach, & Nicholson, 1994; Cunningham, 1990; Lundberg et al., 1988; Wallach &Wallach, 1979; Williams, 1980).

About the Structure of Language

In order to build phonemic awareness in all children, classroom teachers should know a little about the structure of language, especially phonology. Phonology is the study of the unconscious rules governing speech-sound production. In contrast, phonetics is the study of the way in which speech sounds are articulated, and phonics is the system by which symbols represent sounds in an alphabetic writing system.

Phonological rules constrain speech-sound production for biological and environmental reasons. Biological constraints are due to the limitations of human articulatory-motor production. For example, humans are not able to produce the high-frequency vocalizations of whales. Other constraints on our ability to produce speech have to do with the way our brains classify and perceive the minimal units of sound that make a difference to meaning-the units we call phonemes.

The differences between the sounds of two phonemes are often very subtle: Compare /b/ with /p/. Yet, these subtle differences in sound can signal dramatic differences in meaning: Compare bat with pat. Fortunately, because phonemes are the basic building blocks of spoken language, babies become attuned to the phonemes of their native language in the first few months of life. However, this sensitivity to the sounds of the phonemes and the differences between them is not conscious. It is deeply embedded in the subattentional machinery of the language system.

Phonemes are also the units of speech that are represented by the letters of an alphabetic language. Thus, developing readers must learn to separate these sounds, one from another, and to categorize them in a way that permits understanding of how words are spelled. It is this sort of explicit, reflective knowledge that falls under the rubric of phonemic awareness. Conscious awareness of phonemes is distinct from the built-in sensitivity that supports speech production and reception. Unfortunately, phonemic awareness is not easy to establish.

Part of the difficulty in acquiring phonemic awareness is that, from word to word and speaker to speaker, the sound of any given phoneme can vary considerably. These sorts of variations in spoken form that do not indicate a difference in meaning are referred to as allophones of a phoneme. For example, in the northern part of the United States, the pronunciation of grease typically rhymes with peace, whereas in parts of the south, it rhymes with sneeze. Similarly, the pronunciations of the vowels vary greatly across regions, dialects, and individuals. Alternatively, variations in spoken form sometimes eliminate phonetic distinctions between phonemes. Thus, for some people, the words pin and pen are pronounced differently with distinct medial sounds corresponding to their distinct vowels. For other people, however, these words are phonetically indistinguishable, leaving context as the only clue to meaning. Indeed, because of variations in the language, even linguists find it difficult to say exactly how many phonemes there are in English; answers vary from forty four to fifty-two.

It is also important to note that phonemes are not spoken as separate units. Rather, they are co-articulated; that is, when we speak, we fuse the phonemes together into a syllabic unit. For example, when we say bark aloud, we do not produce four distinct phonemes: /b/, /a/, /r/, /k/. Instead, our pronunciation of the initial consonant is influenced by the medial vowel, and the medial vowel is influenced by the consonants before and after it. Thus, we talk about r-controlled vowels like the "ar" in bark. Similarly, we speak of nasalized vowels before nasal consonants, such as in the words and, went, and gym. Because these vowels are assimilated into the following consonant in speech, most children have special difficulty representing them as distinct phonemes in reading and spelling, such that, for example, went might be read or spelled as W-E-T.

Consonants as well as vowels are affected by co-articulation. Consider /t/ and /d/. Say the words write and ride. The /t/ and /d/ sound distinct in these two words. However, now say writer and rider. Now the medial /t/ and /d/ phonemes are reduced to a common phoneme (called a tongue flap). Not surprisingly, children are likely to spell writer as R+D-R. Furthermore, /t/ and /d/ are affected by /r/ in consonant blends. Pronounce the following pairs of words: tuck truck; task-trash; dunk-drunk; dagger-dragon. Children notice the change in /t/ and /d/ when followed by /r/ and represent the phonetic detail with spellings of C-H-R-A-N for train and J-R-A-G-N for dragon.

The phonological awareness activities in this curriculum ask children to listen to the sameness, difference, number, and order of speech sounds. As the previous examples illustrate, such activities can become difficult when the phonetic level of speech does not relate cleanly or directly to the phonemic level. Yet, it is ultimately the phonemic level we are after because it is awareness of phonemes that allows children to understand how the alphabet works-an understanding that is essential to learning to read and spell.

For more information on phonology, we recommend Fromkin and Rodman (1993) and Parker and Riley (1994). For more information on how phonology relates to the teaching and learning of reading and spelling, we recommend Hull (1985), Moats (1995), and Treiman (1993). For more information on how to work with children who have extreme difficulty with speech-sound production, we recommend Lindamood and Lindamood (1975). For further information or assistance in working with these children, we add that speech-language pathologists can be very helpful. Their training provides them with in-depth understanding of phonology as well as expressive and receptive syntax (i.e., the rule system by which words may be ordered in phrases and sentences).

About This Curriculum

The design and sequence of the activities in this book are intended to help children acquire a sense of the architecture of their language and the nature of its building blocks. Thus, across chapters, the children's attention is focused and refocused on smaller and smaller parts, on layers within layers of the language. Gradually, they are led to notice how stories are built from sentences, sentences from words, words from syllables, and syllables themselves from a relatively small set of basic speech elements-phonemes. The children are led to see how, within each layer, the parts can be broken apart, separately spoken, and put back together. They are led to see that if the parts are omitted, substituted, or rearranged, then the whole is altered in sound and meaning. They are, in short, led to appreciate the structure of the system.

But that's not all. Over the course of all this structural play, the children also learn how to focus on the parts themselves; this is particularly important at the level of the phonemes. As the children practice synthesizing words from phonemes and analyzing phonemes from words, they are also practicing hearing and saying the phonemes over and over, both in isolation and in context. They are becoming generally familiar with how the different phonemes sound and how they are articulated. They are becoming comfortable with hearing and feeling the identity and distinguishing characteristics of each phoneme, whether spoken in isolation or in the beginning, middle, or end of a variety of words.

Research shows that once children have mastered phonemic awareness in this way, useful knowledge of the alphabetic principle generally follows with remark able ease-and no wonder: Having learned to attend to and think about the structure of language in this way, the alphabetic principle makes sense. All that's left to make it usable is knowledge of the particular letters by which each sound is represented.

Finally, a note is in order about the adaptations and adjustments that we made in putting together this version of the program. While we made a number of modifications, the most important is the addition of a whole new chapter (Introducing Letters and Spellings). The original program involved oral language play only. As such, the reading/writing advantage evidenced by Lundberg et al.'s (1988) young students offered strong validation of the advantages of training phonological awareness, per se. Yet, the rea son for training phonological awareness at all is to make spelling-sound correspondences more learnable when they are taught. In keeping with this philosophy, several more recent studies have demonstrated that the impact of phonemic awareness training on early reading and writing is enhanced still further when spelling-sound correspondences are developed alongside speech-sound correspondences (Ball & Blachman, 1990; Blachman et al., 1994; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991, 1993, 1995; Hatcher, Hulme, & Ellis, 1994). It is important to note that doing so does not amount to a reversion to conventional phonics, for the letter-sound correspondences are not presented for rote memorization in and of themselves. Instead, they are built into the phonemic awareness activities in a way that ensures that the children's growing appreciation of the phonemic structure of the language will yield a confident, productive under standing of the logic of its written representation.

References

Adams, M.J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Alegria, J., Pignot, E., & Morais, J. (1982). Phonetic analysis of speech and memory codes in beginning readers. Memory and Cognition, JO, 451-456.

Ball, E.W, & Blachman, B.A. (1991). Does phoneme segmentation training in kindergarten make a difference in early word recognition and developmental spelling? Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 49-66.

Blachman, B.A. (1991). Getting ready to read: Learning how print maps to speech. In J.F. Kavanagh (Ed.), The language continuum: From infancy to literacy (pp. 41-62). Timonium, MD: York Press.

Blachman, B.A., Ball, E.W, Black, R.S., & Tangel, D.M. (1994). Kindergarten teachers develop phoneme awareness in low income, inner-city classrooms: Does it make a difference? Reading and Writing, 6, 1-18.

Bradley, L., & Bryant, P.E. (1983). Categorizing sounds and learning to read: A causal connection. Nature, 301, 419-421.

Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1991). Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness to young children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 451-455.

Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1993). Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness to young children: A 1-year follow-up. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 104-111.

Byrne, B., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (1995). Evaluation of a program to teach phonemic awareness to young children: A 2- and 3- year follow-up and a new preschoo l trial. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 488-503.

Byrne, B., & Ledez, J. (1983). Phonological awareness in reading disabled adults. Australian Journal of Psychology, 35, 185- 197.

Calfee, R.C., Lindamood, P.E., & Lindamood, C.H. (1973). Acoustic-phonetic skills and reading: Kindergarten through 12th grade. Journal of Educational Psychology, 64, 293-298.

Cardoso-Martins, C. (1995). Sensitivity to rhymes, syllables, and phonemes in literacy acquisition in Portuguese. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 808-828.

Castle, J.M., Riach, J., & Nicholson, T. (1994). Getting off to a better start in reading and spelling: The effects of phonemic awareness instruction within a whole-language program. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 350-359.

Cossu, G., Shankweiler, D., Liberman, I.Y., Tola, G., & Katz, L. (1988). Awareness of phonological segments and reading ability in Italian children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9, 1-16.

Cunningham, A.E. (1990). Explicit versus implicit instruction in phonemic awareness. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 50, 429-444.

deManrique, A.M.B., & Gramigna, S. (1984). La segmentacion fonologica y silabica en niños de preescolar y primer grado [The phonological segmentation of syllables in nine first-year preschoolers]. Lectura y Vida, 5, 4-13.

Elkonin, D.B. (1973). U.S.S.R. In J. Downing (Ed.), Comparative reading (pp. 551-579). New York: Macmillan.

Foorman, B.R., Francis, D.J., Beeler, T., Winikates, D., & Fletcher, J.M. (1997). Early interventions for children with reading problems: Study designs and preliminary findings. Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 8, 63-71.

Foorman, B.R., Francis, D.J., Fletcher,J.M., Winikates, D., & Mehta,P. (1997). Early interventions for children with reading problems. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1(3), 255-276.

Foorman, B.R., Francis, D.J., Shaywitz, S.E., Shaywitz, B.A., & Fletcher,J.M. (1997).The case for early reading interventions. In B. Blachman (Ed.), Foundations of reading acquisition and dyslexia: Implications for early intervention (pp. 243- 264). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Fromkin, V., & Rodman, R. (1993). An introduction to language (4th ed.). NewYork: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Hatcher, P.J., Hulme, C., & Ellis, A.W (1994). Ameliorating early reading failure by integrating the teaching of reading and phonological skills: The phonological linkage hypothesis. Child Development, 65, 41-57.

Høien, T., Lundberg, I., Stanovich, K.E., & Bjaalid, I. (1995). Components of phonological awareness. Reading and Writing, 7, 171-188.

Hull, M. (1985). Phonics for the teacher of reading (4th ed.). Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.

Juel, C. (1991). Beginning reading. In R. Barr, M.L. Kami!, P.B. Mosenthal, & P.D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 2,pp. 759-788). New York: Longman.

Liberman, I.Y, Rubin, H., Duques, S., & Carlisle,]. (1985). Linguistic abilities and spelling proficiency in kindergartners and adult poor spellers. In D.B. Gray &J.F. Kavanagh (Eds.),Biobehavioral measures of dyslexia (pp. 163-176).Timonium, MD: York Press.

Lindamood, C., & Lindamood, P. (1975). The A.D.D. Program: Auditory Discrimination in Depth. Austin,TX: PRO-ED.

Lundberg, I., Frost,]., & Petersen, O.P. (1988). Effects of an extensive program for stimulating phonological awareness in preschool children. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 264- 284.

Lundberg, I., Olofsson, A., & Wall, S. (1980). Reading and spelling skills in the first school years predicted from phonemic awareness skills in kindergarten. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 21, 159-173.

Marcel, A. (1980). Phonological awareness and phonological representation: Investigation of a specific spelling problem. In U. Frith (Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling (pp. 373-403). New York: Academic Press.

Moats, L.C. (1995). Spelling: Development, disability, and instruction. Timonium, MD: York Press.

Morais, J., Cary, L.,Alegria, J., & Bertelson, P. (1979). Does aware ness of speech as a sequence of phonemes arise spontaneously? Cognition, 7, 323-331.

Parker, F., & Riley, K. (1994). Linguistics for non-linguists: A primer with exercises (2nd ed.). Needham, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-406.

Treiman, R. (1993). Beginning to spell: A study of first grade children. New York: Oxford University Press.

Tunmer, W.E., & Nesdale, A.R. (1985). Phonemic segmentation skill and beginning reading. Journal of Educational Psychol ogy, 77, 417-427.

Wagner, R.,Torgesen, J.K., & Rashotte, C.A. (1994). Development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: New evidence of bidirectional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology: 30, 73-87.

Wallach, L., Wallach, M.A., Dozier, M.G., & Kaplan, N.E. (1977). Poor children learning to read do not have trouble with auditory discrimination but do have trouble with phoneme recognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 69, 36-39.

Wallach, M.A., & Wallach, L. (1979). Helping disadvantaged children learn to read by teaching them phoneme identification skills. In L.A. Resnick & P.A. Weaver (Eds.), Theory and practice of early reading (Vol. 3, pp. 227-259). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Williams, J.P. (1980).Teaching decoding with a special emphasis on phoneme analysis and phoneme blending. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 1-15.

Objective

To develop the memory and attentional abilities for thinking about sequences of sounds and the language for discussing them.

Materials needed

Objects that make interesting, distinctive sounds. Some examples follow:

banging on wall/table/lap blowing

blowing a whistle

blowing nose clapping

clicking with tongue closing purse

coloring hard on paper

coughing crumpling paper cutting with a knife

cutting with scissors dropping (various things) drumming with fingers eating an apple

folding paper hammering hopping

noisy chewing

opening window or drawer pouring liquid

ringing a bell

rubbing hands together scratching

sharpening a pencil slamming a book smashing crackers snapping fingers stamping

stirring with teaspoon tearing paper tiptoeing

turning on computer walking

whistling writing on board

writing with a pencil

Activity

In this game, the children are challenged first to identify single sounds and then to identify each one of a sequence of sounds. Both will be very important in the language games to come. The children are to cover their eyes with their hands while you make a familiar noise such as closing the door, sneezing, or playing a key on the piano. By listening carefully and without peeking, the children are to try to identify the noise.

Once the children have caught on to the game, make two noises, one after the other. Without peeking, the children are to guess the two sounds in sequence saying,

"There were two sounds. First we heard a ______, and then we heard a______."

After the children have become quite good with pairs of noises, produce series of more than two for them to identify and report in sequence. Again, complete sentences should be encouraged.

Remember that, to give every child the opportunity to participate mentally in these games, it is important to discourage all children from calling out their answers until they are asked to do so. In addition, both to support full participation and to allow assessment of individual students, it is helpful to switch unpredictably between inviting a response from the whole group and from individual children of your designation.

Note: Because of the importance of the skill exercised through this game, invest special care in noting every child's progress and difficulties. Extra opportunities should be created to work with children who are having trouble with the concept of sequences or in expressing their responses.

Variations

With the children's eyes closed, make a series of sounds. Then repeat the sequence, but omit one of the sounds. The children must identify the sound that has been omitted from the second sequence.

Invite the children to make sounds for their classmates to guess.

These games also offer good opportunities to review, exercise, and evaluate children's use of ordinal terms, such as first, second, third, middle, last. It is worth ensuring that every student gains comfortable, receptive, and expressive command of these terms.

From Chapter 3: Listening Games

NONSENSE

Objective

To develop the children's ability to attend to differences between what they expect to hear and what they actually hear.

Materials needed

Book of familiar stories or poems.

Activity

Invite the children to sit down and close their eyes so that they can concentrate on what they will hear. Then recite or read aloud a familiar story or poem to the children but, once in a while, by changing its words or wording, change its sense to nonsense. The children's challenge is to detect such changes whenever they occur. When they do, encourage them to explain what was wrong. As the game is replayed in more subtle variations across the year, it will also serve usefully to sharpen the children's awareness of the phonology, words, syntax, and semantics of language.
Reverse words:
As illustrated in the following list, you can change any text in more or less subtle ways at a number of different levels including phonemes, words, grammar, and meaning. Because of this, the game can be profitably and enjoyably revisited again and again throughout the year. Even so, in initial plays of the game, it is important that the changes result in violations of the sense, meaning, and wording of the text that are relatively obvious. Following are some examples of the "nonsense" that can be created within familiar poems and rhymes:
Substitute words:
Song a sing of sixpence

Baa baa purple sheep
Swap word order:
Twinkle, twinkle little car

Humpty Dumpty wall on a sat
Swap word parts:
Jack fell down and crown his broke

One, two, shuckle my boo

I'm a tittle leapot
Switch order of events:
The eensy weensy spider went up the spouter wat.

One, two, buckle my shoe Five, six, pick up sticks

Little Miss Muffet, eating a tuffet

Sat on her curds and whey

Goldilocks went inside and knocked on the door.

The first little piggy built himself a house of bricks.

From Chapter 6: Awareness of Syllables

CLAPPING NAMES

Note: Don't forget to switch unpredictably between asking the whole group or individual children to respond.

Objective

To introduce the children to the nature of syllables by leading them to clap and count the syllables in their own names.

Activity

Ask the children to clap and count the syllables of their first and last names to gether.

After determining the number of syllables in a name, ask the children to hold two fingers horizontally under their chins, so they can feel the chin drop for each syllable. To maximize this effect, encourage the children to elongate or stretch each syllable.

As follows, this activity can be done to a rhythmic chant, such as "Bippity, Bippity Bumble Bee":

When you first introduce this activity, model it by using several names of contrasting lengths. Pronounce the first name of one of the children in the classroom syllable by syllable while clapping it out before inviting the children to say and clap the name along with you. After each name has been clapped, ask "How many syllables did you hear?'' Once the children have caught on, ask each child to clap and count the syllables in his or her own name. Don't forget last names, too! It is easy to continue clap ping other words and to count the syllables in each. When doing the activity for the first time, model each child's name by pronouncing it, clapping it, and then having all of the children clap it together. After each name has been clapped by all of the children, ask "How many syllables did you hear?" If a name has many syllables, you may need to let children count the syllables as they are clapping.

Variations

Bippity, bippity bumble bee, Tell me what your name should be.

(Point to a child; that child responds by giving his name. Class repeats name out loud.

Continue with one of the following:)

1. "Clap it!" (Children repeat name, enunciating and clapping to each syllable.)

From Chapter 7: Initial and Final Sounds

FINDING THINGS: INITIAL PHONEMES

2. "Whisper it!" (Children whisper each syllable while clapping.)

3. "Silent!" (Children repeat name, silently enunciating syllables with mouth movement.)

Objective

To extend the children's awareness of initial phonemes by asking them to compare, contrast, and eventually identify the initial sounds of a variety of words.

Materials needed

Picture cards

As the children become more comfortable with the game, spread out pictures from two different sets, asking the children to identify the name and initial phoneme of each picture and to sort them into two piles accordingly.

Pass pictures out to the children; each must identify the initial phoneme of her or his picture and put it in the corresponding pile. This game works well with small groups.

Sound-tration: Pass pictures of objects or animals to the children, naming each picture and placing it face down on the table or carpet. Children take turns flipping pairs of pictures right side up and deciding if the initial sounds of the pictures' names are the same. If the initial sounds match, the child selects another pair; other wise, another child takes a turn. This game works well with small groups.

From Chapter 7: Initial and Final Sounds

WORD PAIRS I:

TAKE A SOUND AWAY (ANALYSIS)

Activity

This game should be played as an extension of Activity 7B: Different Words, Same Initial Phoneme. Spread a few pictures out in the middle of the circle. Then ask the children to find those pictures whose names start with the initial sound on which they have just been working. As each picture is found, the child is to say its name and initial phoneme as be ore (e.g., f-f-f-f-ish, /f-f-f-f/,fish).

Variations

Objective

To help the children to separate the sounds of words from their meanings.

Activity

By showing the children that if the initial phoneme of a word is removed a totally different word may result, this activity further helps children to separate the sounds of words from their meanings. With the children seated in a circle, explain that some times when you take a sound away from a word, you end up with a totally different word. To give the children an example, say 'f-:f-f-ear,' elongating the initial consonant, and have the children repeat. Then say"ear,' and have the children repeat. Ask the children if they can determine which sound has been taken away and repeat the words for them (i.e., f-:f-:f-f-ear...ear.. f-:f-:f-f ..ear...ear).

In this way, the children are challenged to attend to the initial phonemes of words even as they come to realize that the presence or absence of the initial phoneme results in two different words. Across days, gradually work up from the easier initial consonants to harder ones. Sample word lists are provided at the end of the chapter.

Note: Most children can identify the "hidden word" but have a great deal of difficulty in identifying what is taken away. Children may also be inclined to produce rhyming words rather than to focus on initial sounds. With this in mind, take care not to flip back and forth between the activities involving rhyming and initial sounds.

From Chapter 7: Initial and Final Sounds

WORD PAIRS II:

ADD A SOUND (SYNTHESIS)

Objective

Invite the children to use each word of a pair in a sentence to emphasize the difference in their meanings.

When the children are good at this, play it with 71: Spider's Web.

To introduce the children to the challenge of synthesizing words from their separate phonemes.

Activity

Seat the children in a circle, and begin by explaining that sometimes a new word can be made by adding a sound to a word. As an example, say "ox," and have the children repeat it. Then ask what will happen if they add a new sound to the beginning of the word such as f-f-f-f-f: 'f-f-f-f-f ..ox, f-f-f-f .. ox, f-f-f-f-ox." The children say''fox!" You should then explain, "We put a new sound on the beginning, and we have a new word!"

Until the children catch on, you should provide solid guidance, asking the children to say the word parts with you in unison (e.g.,"ice...m-m-m-m ...ice...m-m-m-ice ... mice"). Again, it is appropriate to work up gradually, across days, from the easier initial consonants to harder ones and, only after the latter are reasonably well established, to consonant blends (e.g., mile-smile).

Variations

From Chapter 8: Phonemes

TWO-SOUND WORDS

Objective

To introduce the children to the challenges of analyzing words into phonemes and of synthesizing words from phonemes.

Materials needed

Blocks

Two-phoneme word cards

Activity

The two-sound games serve to introduce the procedure and logic of the more difficult phonemic analysis and synthesis activities that follow. In addition, two-sound words provide an unfettered medium for giving children practice with the sounds of the various phonemes, both in isolation and as blended together in phonologically minimal words. In view of this, it is more helpful to revisit them as needed by individ uals or by the group than to dwell too long in any given session. Because of their foundational importance, however, it is critical that every child grasp this concept be fore moving on to the more advanced activities.

On the first day, it is sufficient to do analysis only. On subsequent days, begin with analysis and shift to synthesis. Similarly, for the first few days, it is wise to separate play with initial consonant words from play with final consonant words for clarity. Once the children have caught on, the two types of words should be freely intermixed. Finally, because the short vowels are so much more variable and less distinctive in both sound and articulation, their introduction should be deferred until the children are reasonably comfortable with long-vowel words. Again, to clarify the children's image of the phonemes and to support their ability to distinguish them one from another, it is valuable to ask them to feel how their mouths change position with each sound or to look at their mouths in a mirror while saying the words. In addition, as in all of the phonemic awareness activities, it is important to ensure that the students are familiar with each word used in these exercises. If you suspect that any of your students are not, it is wise to review the word's meaning and usage.

Note: To play these games, each of the children should have two blocks. In addition, you should have two blocks of your own and a set of pictures of two-phoneme words. Also, before beginning, it is important to have read the introduction to this chapter.

Analysis

A child picks a card and names what it depicts. For this example, let us assume that the child chooses a picture of a hair bow. You would repeat the word, but slowly and with a clear pause (about a half-second interval) between its two phonemes (e.g., "b...ō").Then all of the children should repeat the word in this same manner, "b...

To show that the word bow consists of two separate sounds, the teacher now places blocks in two different colors underneath the picture as she enunciates the sound represented by each.

The children then repeat the word sound by sound while representing the sounds of the word, left to right, with their own blocks. The children should repeat the sounds while pointing to the respective blocks and then the word, pausing slightly less between phonemes with each repetition. (e.g., "b....ō..., bow, b...

Extend the exercise to unpictured words. At the outset of each analysis challenge, be sure to use each word in a sentence for the sake of clarity (e.g.,"Chew. Please chew your food before you swallow it. Chew."). Similarly, ask the children to use each word in a sentence as part of the wrap-up of each synthesis challenge.

Later, this game can be used to teach the alphabetic principle by replacing the colored blocks with letter tokens. If you choose to do so, however, bear in mind that to convey the essential logic of the alphabetic principle, it is best that all words include one letter for each sound, left to right. With this in mind, avoid words with silent letters or digraphs. Use only short vowel words and, among those, only those that are spelled with two letters (e.g., in and am are fine, but not edge or itch).

Synthesis

This game is just the reverse of the analysis game and likewise requires that you model the procedure before turning it over to the children.

Choose a picture and place it face down so the children cannot see it. Then name the picture, phoneme by phoneme (e.g., "b... while placing the blocks beneath the picture. While pointing to their own blocks, the children must repeat the phonemes over and over and faster and faster as they did in the analysis game. When they believe they know the identity of the picture, they should raise their hands. The teacher may then ask the group or any individual to name the picture. After resolving any disagreements, the picture is held up for all to see.

After modeling several words in this way, pass the challenge to the children. For each new picture, help them agree on its name and give them time to analyze it on their own. To gain a good sense of who is and is not catching on, ask one or more individuals to share his or her solution to each word. Then the whole group should repeat the solution together, voicing the separate phonemes of the word as they point to their corresponding blocks.

Variations

Note: All of the words in the following lists consist of only two phonemes. Nevertheless, due to the vagaries of English, the spellings of many involve more than two letters. For this reason, showing the words' spellings will only confuse the issue for now. The following are examples of two-sound words with initial consonants and long vowels:

The following are examples of two-sound words with final consonant sounds and long vowels:

The following are examples of two-sound words with final consonat sounds and short vowels:

From Chapter 8:

TROLL TALK II: PHONEMES

Objective

To reinforce students' ability to synthesize words from their separate phonemes.

Activity

Each child gets from one to three "secret" pictures. They may now give the things in the pictures as "presents," one thing at a time, to another child, by sounding out the word. The child who receives the present has to guess what it is before she or he can have the picture.

This activity is analogous to that presented in 6E:Troll Talk I: Syllables, except that the troll describes his treats phoneme by phoneme instead of syllable by syllable. Every one sits in a circle, and the teacher tells a tale:

Once upon a time, there was a kind, little troll who loved to give people presents. The only catch was that the troll always wanted people to know what their present was before giving it to them. The problem was that the little troll had a very strange way of talking. If he was going to tell a child that the present was a bike, he would say "b...i...k." Not until the child has guessed what the pre sent was would he be completely happy. Now I will pretend to be the troll. I will name a surprise for one of you. When you figure out what it is, it will be your turn.

Choose one child and pronounce the name of a present, phoneme by phoneme. When the child guesses the word, she or he is to name a present for somebody else. Work up from short (two- and three-sound) words to longer ones as children become more adept at hearing the sounds. It is best to limit the game to only four or five children on any given day or it becomes a bit long. Examples of gifts include the following:

Note: If the students are not familiar with trolls, then substitute another person or creature from folklore such as a leprechaun, unicorn, or elf.

Variation

Marilyn Jager Adams is visiting scholar at Harvard University in Cambridge, massachusetts. Barbara R. Foorman is professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. Ingvar Lundberg is professor in the department of psychology at Göteborg University in Sweden. Terri Beeler is assistant professor of urban education at the University of Houston's downtown campus. This article and the classroom activities that follow are drawn from the authors' book Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum, copyright © by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. Reprinted with permission. The book may be ordered directly by writing the publisher (P.O. Box 10624, Baltimore, MD 21285-0624) or by visiting their website (www.pbrookes.com). The price is $24.95. Free shipping and handling with prepayment. Ask for stock #3211.

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"Whether performed silently or aloud," Marilyn Adams recently wrote, "reading an alphabetic script with fluency and reflective comprehension incontrovertibly depends on...remarkably rich and over­ learned knowledge of the language's spellings and spelling-speech mappings....[But] despite myriad proposals to make it easier, alphabetic instruction has been dogged by one problem: Many students find it extremely difficult to induce the words from the code, no matter how they are drilled on the individual letters and sounds."

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Phonemes are Speech Sounds and Articulatory Gestures

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Phonemes are Speech Sounds and Articulatory Gestures

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Spelfabet

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Phonemes are sounds AND articulatory gestures

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Phonemes are perceptually distinct speech sounds that distinguish one word from another, e.g. the “p”, “b”, “t” and “d” in “pie”, “…

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Literacy How

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University of Iowa

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University of Iowa

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Literacy How

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Rollins Center

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By Dr. Pam Kastner

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Kastner- Literacy Nugget- Articulatory Gestures 1.pdf

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Dr. Jaclyn Galbally

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Dr. Stephanie Stollar

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Why Do Some Children Learn to Read Without Explicit Teaching

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Why Do Some Children Learn to Read Without Explicit Teaching

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Buckingham & Castles

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By Jennifer Buckingham & Anne Castles

Learning to read in an alphabetic language such as English is a complex task and, for most children, requires explicit teaching. In particular, an extensive body of research has demonstrated that, in the initial stages of learning to read, children benefit from systematic teaching about the connections between letters and sounds, known as phonics. Phonics knowledge allows children to work out how to say printed words for themselves and, if those words are in their oral vocabulary, to understand them. This initial learning provides the foundation children need to begin to read on their own, and so further build their fluency and text comprehension.

Potentially challenging the idea that basic reading skills must be taught explicitly are reports of children who learn to read even before commencing school, and who do so without direct teaching and with apparently little effort. How do these children achieve this, and what implications does it have for how reading should be taught in schools? To answer these questions, we need to consider these children's reading behaviours against the backdrop of what is known about how the brain learns to read.

An extensive body of research has uncovered the cognitive and neural pathways of learning to read. For beginning readers, the route to the meaning of written words is via a phonological (sound) pathway in the brain. Children decode the phonology of written words using their knowledge of letter-sound relationships and, via this phonology, they access meaning of the word if it is in their vocabulary. Indeed, even when skilled readers encounter novel printed words, as we all do frequently (e.g. listicle, mansplain), they must revert to using this phonological pathway.

When a word has been viewed and read many times, it becomes stored in long-term memory and the reader can then retrieve its meaning directly from print, without going via the phonological pathway. They have a stored memory of the spelling of the word in their brain that allows them to recognise it rapidly regardless of its size, font, case, or colour. Fluent recognition of words via this pathway reduces cognitive load, allowing the reader to focus on comprehension in the broader sense of both literal and inferential meaning.

The ability to bypass the phonological route to reading, and read in this effortless way, is the end result of a complex learning process that is easier for some children than for others. However, irrespective of the ease with which different children learn, the basic acquisition process is the same.

Learning to read without explicit teaching

How, then, does the reading of a child who has not received explicit instruction align with what we know about how the brain learns to read, and how reading should be taught? The answer to this depends on the kind of reading behaviour being displayed by the child: One frequently observed behaviour is that pre-school children begin to spontaneously name individual printed words. Typically, these are words that they see frequently in their environment, and that have a positive association: 'McDonalds' and 'Pepsi' are oft-cited examples! But it doesn't take long to establish that these children are usually not really 'reading'. Rather, they are recognising the words much as they would pictures. Evidence of this is that, if the letters of Pepsi are superimposed onto the McDonalds logo, these children will continue to read it as 'McDonalds'. And if the words are printed on a page in a different font (McDonalds), or case (PePsI), the children will no longer be able to read them. In contrast, as we know, skilled reading involves recognising words accurately and fluently regardless of their surface form. Thus, this early interest in naming words, referred to as logographic reading, cannot be considered an example of reading without explicit teaching.

Some children continue with this logographic strategy even once they commence school, especially if they do not receive sufficient explicit phonics instruction. They might, for example, identify yellow based on it having 'two sticks in the middle', or look because of its 'pair of eyes'. But this strategy will not serve them well once they need also to read follow and boot. Such children often experience problems in the middle years of primary school, when the books become more complex and exceed the size of their bank of memorised words. They then need to be taught phonics so they can decode and read the many new words they will encounter throughout their education.

A second observed form of reading without explicit instruction is when young children apparently 'read' books with which they are highly familiar, and which have been read aloud to them many times by their parents or caregivers. Such children can give a very strong impression of being able to read fluently, saying all the words correctly, and turning the pages at exactly the right point. However, once again, in most cases, these children are not actually reading, but rather are reciting the book from memory. Again, some simple tests will reveal this: ask the child to read a random extract of the text, printed on a separate page. Or ask them to read a book of a similar level of difficulty, but one that has not previously been read aloud to them. If the child struggles, this reveals once again that they are not really reading, but rather are using their excellent memories to mimic the reading process.

A third category of reading behaviour genuinely does represent early reading, consistent with what we know about how the brain reads. A small proportion of children pick up the basic skills of reading before starting school, and with relatively little assistance. Typically, they demonstrate knowledge of letters by the time they are two, and then quickly move on to recognising words and reading text. There have been a number of investigations of these so-called ' precocious readers ', and what is clear is that the way in which they read is no different from that of typical readers. They are adept at phonics, and can read words accurately and fluently, across case, font and size. So, in effect, these children have been able to teach themselves the essential foundation skills of reading: they have not bypassed them but have just acquired them quickly and with little assistance.

This final group of children are very much in the minority. Nancy Young, in her Reading Ladder, estimates that such children represent no more than 5% of children.

Why all children should receive explicit phonics teaching as part of a comprehensive literacy program

Systematic, explicit phonics instruction helps children to make the neurological connections between the areas of the brain that are devoted to visual (writing), phonological (sound), and semantic (meaning) processing. Some children form these neurological connections quickly, while others require more intensive instruction and repeated exposures. A very small number of fortunate children are able to make the connections on their own, without explicit teaching.

When children begin school, we cannot predict with sufficient accuracy which children will struggle to learn to read without explicit, systematic phonics instruction and which will not. Therefore, the most ethical and prudent action is to provide all children with the most effective teaching methods, based on the best available evidence, thereby accelerating the progress of all children and minimising the likelihood that any child will struggle to learn to read.

This article first appeared in Teacher, published by ACER. Reproduced with kind permission. Visit www.teachermagazine.com.au for more.

Jennifer Buckingham is Director of Strategy and Senior Research Fellow at MultiLit, and founder of the FIVE from FIVE project. She has published numerous reports and articles on reading instruction and has provided advice to state and federal governments on the introduction of a Year 1 Phonics Check. Jennifer is a board member of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership.

Anne Castles is Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Scientific Director of the Macquarie University Centre for Reading. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA) and serves on the Editorial Boards of several journals including Scientific Studies of Reading, Cognitive Neuropsychology and the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. She served as President of Learning Difficulties Australia in 2017-18.

This article appeared in the June 2019 edition of Nomanis: www.nomanis.com

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Why do some children learn to read without explicit teaching?

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By Jennifer Buckingham & Anne Castles Learning to read in an alphabetic language such as English is a complex task and, for most children, requires explicit teaching. In particular, an extensive body of research has demonstrated that, in the initial stages of learning to read, children benefit from systematic teaching about the connections between letters and sounds, known as phonics.

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Castiglioni-Spalten, ML.L., & Ehri. L.C. (2003). Phonemic Awareness Instruction: Contribution of Articulatory Segementation to Novice Beginners' Reading and Spelling.   Scientific Studies of Reading, 7(1), 25-52.

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Boyer, N., & Ehri, L.C. (2011). Contribution of Phonemic Segmentation Instruction With Letters and Articulation Pictures to Word Reading and Spelling in Beginners. Scientific Studies of Reading, 15 (5), 440-470.

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 3 with Dr. Carol Tolman

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Recorded Book Chat Chapter 3 with Dr. Carol Tolman

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Speech to Print Book Club; Chapter 3 with Dr. Carol Tolman

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Created by Dr. Carol Tolman

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Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing: What Teachers Need to Know about Phonemic Awareness

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In all honesty, the life lessons I remember most deeply originate with mistakes.

Try to watch a fun movie? I turn the movie on by 10 p.m. and promptly fall asleep.

Try to eat healthy? I inevitably leave the house forgetting my packed lunch, accidently ending up at The Cheesecake Factory.

Plan to be on time for an important event? Neglect to switch my favorite outfit out of the washer and into the dryer.

Although these may not sound like life-shattering mistakes, here's one that was:

On a particularly difficult school day, one my favorite students (all my students were my favorites, by the way), ran into the classroom, shouting:

"Mrs. Tolman, I am so fustated!"

To which I calmly replied:

"Chris, the word is frustrated."

"That's what I SAID: FUSTATED!" Chris shrieked.

Oops! So much for my stellar teaching skills. It was obvious I was adding to his "fustation."

Teacher knowledge is key: We can't teach what we don't know.
To better help Chris, and get him "unfustated," I needed the invaluable information gleaned from years of scientific research. For example, how do our brains store individual speech sounds (phonemes)? Why do some students mispronounce, misread, and/or misspell words? What could I do instructionally to improve Chris' skills? Here's what I've come to understand:

Listening to a student's speech is a window into their understanding of phonemes.
We store speech sounds by place and manner of articulation. This means that "how" we physically make sounds matters. The word " place" refers to whether a sound is made toward the front, middle, or back of our mouth, considering where we put our tongue when we say a sound. The " manner " refers to what happens with your air flow and voicing; some sounds are produced with a lengthy breath of air (/sh/, /m/). (When you see these slash marks, or virgules, I am referring to sounds, not letters.)

In comparison, some phonemes are produced with a quick burst of air (/b/ /k/); linguists refer to these as "stop" sounds. The term "voicing" refers to what's happening in our throat when we make a sound. As you say /sh/, put your hand flat on your throat. You should feel no vibration.

In comparison, say /m/ while feeling your throat. That's a very different feeling! It was not that Chris could not "see" the letter 'r' in the word frustration as he spoke; rather, he could not accurately hear nor feel the way his mouth was supposed to move to represent that particular sound.

Asking Chris to look at how my mouth puckered when I said the /r/ in isolation, and then in the blends 'fr' and 'tr,' talking about what my lips look like, asking him to make his mouth look like mine, and using a mirror would have helped bring this sound to his conscious awareness. The current push for classroom sound walls instead of word walls, replete with mouth pictures, is an example of how to reinforce and deepen students' awareness of creating and manipulating the 44 English phonemes.

If you cannot say a word, you likely will struggle to read and write it.
When writing a word, strong spellers automatically reference numerous connections to what they already know about that word: how it sounds; what letters are used to represent each sound; what morphemes, or smallest meaningful units, are embedded within the word; what that word means; what part of speech it takes in a sentence; and, how that word is used in speech and writing.

Weak spellers may have difficulty in one or more of these layers of language. In Chris' case, I don't believe he ever used the word "frustration" in his writing, choosing a simpler word to spell, such as "mad" or "upset." Weak spellers, especially those with underlying phonological confusions, often write shorter sentences with simpler words, avoiding words they struggle to spell.

I remember Chris trying to write his address for me one day. He struggled writing "avenue," "avnoo," "avin'...then crossed it all out and wrote: "street."

If Chris were to come upon the word "frustration" in his reading, he'd typically look at its beginning letters, identify the first sound, and guess the rest based on pictures or meanings of nearby words. His reading, overall, was slow, labored, and inaccurate, leading to his "fustation."

That same process of using sounds to anchor spellings is used, in reverse, when we read. Good readers process every letter, space, and punctuation mark, automatically activate the corresponding sounds represented by these letters and letter patterns and use their knowledge of sound-spelling patterns to decode unfamiliar words.

Phonemic awareness is an essential foundational skill for unlocking the alphabetic principle to read words. It follows that weak phonemic awareness negatively impacts a student's ability to readily blend words, leading to weak comprehension; we cannot understand what we cannot read.

Join me in an EDVIEW 360 webinar in May, when I will examine what teachers need to know about phonemic awareness through the lens of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Keep your eye on the EDVIEW 360 page for the exact date and registration link.

Until then, I'll likely turn on a chick flick, enjoy a piece of cheesecake, and promptly fall asleep while my clothes gather mildew in the washer. And you know that "fustation" experience with Chris? Perhaps I should have started by asking him why he was so "fustated." I never did find out.

Carol A. Tolman, Ed.D., has a doctorate in educational psychology and has been a consultant at the state, district, and school levels for more than 15 years. Dr. Tolman also has more than 25 years of experience in public schools and the juvenile justice system, spending 12 years designing and implementing an innovative reading clinic for academically challenged high school students.

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Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing: What Teachers Need to Know About Phonemic Awareness

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Phonemic awareness is an essential foundational skill for unlocking the alphabetic principle to read words. It follows that weak phonemic awareness negatively impacts a student's ability to readily blend words, leading to weak comprehension; we cannot understand what we cannot read.

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Dr. Carol Tolman: PHocus on PHonology – The Why, What, and How of Phonological Instruction  

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Dr. Carol Tolman: PHocus on PHonology – The Why, What, and How of Phonological Instruction  

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Recorded webinar from The International Dyslexia Association: New Hampshire Chapter

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As a branch, we have been very busy since our last newsletter serving the needs of our members in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. Be sure to check out our new website that includes great resources like links to our past and upcoming READ for Parents webinars (see below). Additionally, the board has worked to draft Vermont legislation that would require screening students for indicators of dyslexia and provide structured literacy instruction to all students.

These are unprecedented times in our country and the world, as we begin another school year amid a pandemic. For many families, COVID provided a unique opportunity to witness their children's instruction and to see first-hand their child's ability to meet school demands. For some families, this glimpse has raised alarm as they see their child being immersed in balanced literacy approaches that fail to directly teach critical reading components like phonemic awareness, phonics, and decoding, instead of focusing on teaching strategies characteristic of poor readers like and words. Many parents and teachers have begun to realize, what the International Dyslexia Association has purported for years, the importance of structured literacy for all readers and especially those who struggle. We know there is a high comorbidity between reading failure and anxiety and depression in children making it especially important that we provide struggling readers with structured literacy instruction when they begin their school experience in kindergarten or even pre-k.

To bring awareness to this important topic, especially during the pandemic, when anxiety is already high, we are excited to present our fall virtual conference on September 24th - Dyslexia & the Whole Child: The Positive Connection between Structured Literacy and Social Emotional Well-being with special guests Margie B. Gillis, Ed.D. and Linda Siegel, Ph.D. As a result of the morning session with Dr. Margie Gillis participants will be able to:

describe the Structured Literacy approach and explain why it is important for students with reading difficulties,

explain some differences between Structured Literacy and Balanced Literacy,

understand how Structured Literacy might be implemented in different tiers of instruction (i.e., general education, reading intervention, special education),

describe some instructional activities associated with the six elements of Structured Literacy, and

explain the types of assessments that are used to guide the implementation of Structured Literacy.

As a result of the afternoon session with Dr. Linda Siegel participants will:

understand the social and emotional consequences of dyslexia and other learning disabilities

become aware of solutions to these individual and societal problems

become acquainted with the importance of early identification and intervention and simple, inexpensive, and effective early identification and intervention techniques

become aware of techniques to streamline assessment and identification of dyslexia and other learning disabilities

become aware of techniques to foster self-esteem in individuals with dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and

can discuss techniques for empowering students and parents to deal with systemic problems in the identification of and intervention of dyslexia and other learning disabilities

We hope you will join us for this important and informative webinar and our upcoming endeavors.

Brenda Peters, MA, MEd, SAIF, ICALP

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Welcome to the NH Branch of the International Dyslexia Association

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As a branch, we have been very busy since our last newsletter serving the needs of our members in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. Be sure to check out our new website that includes great resources like links to our past and upcoming READ for Parents webinars (see below).

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What's New and Improved in the third edition of Speech to Print 

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What's New and Improved in the third edition of Speech to Print 

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Book Excerpt

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A Sample Syllabus for Speech to Print 3rd edition

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A Sample Syllabus for Speech to Print 3rd edition

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The Bottom Part of

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The Bottom Part of Tolman's Hourglass Figure:  Orthography

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PaTTAN Leaders and Learning in Literacy Webcast; Dr. Carol Tolman:- The Tolman Hour Glass

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Leaders and Learning in Literacy: The Tolman Hour Glass

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Orthographic Mapping

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Orthographic Mapping: What it Is and Why It's So Important

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The History of Writing - Where the Story Begins - Extra History

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Six Syllable Types

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Where did English come from? - Claire Bowern

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Guidance for Educators :  “Install This Research-Based Practice Instead "

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SUMMARY

The main influences on the development of the English language

There are many books and many websites describing the journey of the English language from its ancient origins to todays dynamic and powerful communication tool (you can find some of them on my Sources and Links page). Some follow it in minute and excruciating technical detail, some are brief one-page summaries, and you may be wondering: do we really need another?
Well, perhaps not, but I wanted to create one anyway for my own enjoyment and edification. And this one is neither too long and intimidating nor is it too skimpy and lite, but, as Goldilocks might have said, just right. Not too much in the way of fricatives and palatizations and labialized velars (this does not pretend to be a work of serious philology), but plenty of rollicking historical detail, action and intrigue.

Whatever your thoughts on the matter, English, with all its vagaries and annoying inconsistencies, remains the single most important and influential language in todays world. Throughout history, it has repeatedly found itself in the right place at the right time: English-speaking Britain was the leading colonial nation in the 17th and 18th Century, as well as the leader of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 18th Century; in the late 19th and 20th Century, English-speaking America was the leading economic power, and was also at the forefront of the electronic and digital revolution of the late 20th Century.

But, it has also proved itself the most flexible and resilient of languages, remarkable for its ability to adopt and absorb vocabulary from other cultures. It has survived incursions by invading armies, outfaced potential extinction on more than one occasion, and navigated the changing cultural zeitgeist, growing ever stronger in the process. Its continued vitality is evidenced by the number and diversity of its worldwide variations today.

The main part of this website, the History, can be read as a kind of story, in chapters, following the development of the English language from its Indo-European origins, through Old English and Middle English to Early Modern English and Late Modern English, before a brief look at English Today. But there is also section on Language Issues (including How New Words are Created, Language and Geography and English as a Global Language), a Timeline of important dates in the development of English, a Glossary of some of the technical and historical terms used, and a list of Sources and Links.

I would like to acknowledge at this point my debt to the various websites, books and television series which I have raided, adapted and combined unapologetically, many of which are listed in the Sources and Links page. This is a personal project not a scholarly work, and I have not provided unimpeachable references to original sources for every point I make, although I have given specific references and credits for all images used. Please feel free to contact me if you have any issues about the content or attributions (or lack thereof) or to point out any absolute howlers I may have made.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering, the spelling throughout this website is largely the Canadian English of my adopted country Canada (which itself is a hybrid of British and American spelling), although the words introduced - most of which arrived before Canada was Canada - are generally in British English. Contemporary English spelling is a whole new subject requiring a whole new website, but for starters you can look at another website of mine on Canadian, British and American Spelling.

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The History of English - How the English language went from an obscure Germanic dialect to a global language

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SUMMARY The main influences on the development of the English language There are many books and many websites describing the journey of the English language from its ancient origins to todays dynamic and powerful communication tool (you can find some of them on my Sources and Links page).

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A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: Effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties

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A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: Effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties

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Goodwin

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Kieffer & Lesaux

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Interactive Suffix Checker

Running version User Guide

Real Spelling has developed a Big Suffix Checker flowchart for suffixing stems and base elements. The variant available here is an experimental Interactive Suffix Checker for the web.

It helps spell individual complex words correctly; but it also helps see more generally how the elements of a word sum are modified when they're brought together in their finished word. The principles can be used and re-used repeatedly.

The snapshot shows a typical screen from the original interactive version. The current running version should respond when you click on the 'Start' button. If not, your browser probably objects to the internal coding. The trouble shooting page can help if that's the case.

The checker's online user guide contains more information about the interactive checker including a spelling glossary, a link to Real Spelling's original flowchart, a history of evolving changes and hints on use.

go to welcome page

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Experiments in English spelling and morphology, inspired by Real Spelling

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Susan Ebbers Blog- Vocabulogic

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This post comes to us courtesy of Ally Bush, Marketing/Communications Coordinator at Reading Partners. Reading Partners is a nonprofit dedicated to serving the literacy needs of our nation's students. We envision a future where all children in the US have the reading skills necessary to reach their full potential. By empowering communities through individualized instruction and measurable results, we help our students become lifelong learners. (Originally posted on ReadingPartners.org: How poetry can help kids develop reading skills )

The power of a good poem can help make reading a reality for young kids. From making reading fun to teaching kids different ways to think about phonemic sounds, poetry is an invaluable resource in any young reader's literacy journey. Here are a few ways poetry helps improve reading skills.

Motivates Children to Read

Some parents may have emergent readers who are struggling to find the motivation to pick up a book and hone their skills. If this is the case, try poetry. Kids will find joy in reciting their favorite poems with a caregiver and they'll gain important literacy skills at the same time. As poetry is typically only a few lines, it may feel less daunting to a young reader to tackle a poem as opposed to a longer book.

While being short, poetry is still packed with important literary elements such as characters, narrative structure, new words, and sometimes rhyming that can help children build foundational and more advanced literacy skills.

The musical rhythm of poems can also remind kids of their favorite songs. The next time you feel like reading a poem with your child, try singing it and see what happens.

Teaches Young Readers About Sound

Reading poetry helps children learn about voice, pitch, volume, and inflection. While these are mainly functions of speech, they're also incredibly important for children learning to read. Poetry can teach young readers about speech patterns, which can give them cues to the words on a page.

Additionally, rhyming can help kids identify sounds in words and identify word families. For example, check out this stanza in the poem "The Letter A" by Darren Sardelli:

"Without the A, you couldn't aim

You wouldn't ask for apricots

This stanza could help young readers practice the short "a" and long "a" sounds and expose them to word families such as "air" and "fair." For children learning to read, poems that play with sound and rhyme like this one can offer a new perspective on phonetics.

Like any form of reading, poetry can introduce children to new words. Poetry is unique to other forms of writing in that it typically follows a rhythm. When children read sentences and phrases that have a cadence, it introduces them to new words in new contexts.

Even though it may not seem like it, a poem that rhymes is the result of certain restrictions a poet followed during the writing process. If they want every other line of a poem to rhyme, there are a limited number of rhyming word pairs that could contextually fit in the first and third lines. For the poet, this results in surprising new connections between words. For the reader, these new connections translate to a larger vocabulary.

"The crocodile, with cunning smile, sat in the dentist's chair.

He said, 'Right here and everywhere my teeth require repair.'"

While "chair" is a common word, "repair" may be less familiar to your child in the same word family. The fact that these words rhyme creates a connection between them, which may make these specific words and other words with an ending "-air" sound easier to remember. At the very least, this poem would help a young reader add "repair" to their vocabulary.

Not only does poetry teach children new words, but also it teaches them about the power of those words. Learn more about the higher purpose of poetry, how it can provide meaning and nuance to new words, and how it relates to choosing a crayon color in Poetry: The Power of Words.

Encourages Creativity

Pablo Picasso once said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

Children have wonderful, active imaginations. Poetry can help children tap into their creativity by encouraging them to think about the new and unexpected relationships between words. In addition, having young readers try to write poetry can improve their literacy skills.

The wonderful thing about poetry is that it's subjective. Poetry can have a narrative structure, nonlinear structure, or even just be a collection of your favorite words. When children are learning to read, giving them the freedom to express themselves through poetry can be both an educational and fun experience. And who knows, the creativity of their writing may surprise you!

Reading Aloud

One of the seven most important skills for promoting literacy is supporting oral language. Reading poetry aloud, just like reading other genres aloud, can help children improve their literacy skills. When kids read aloud, they think more deeply about the sound of the words they're saying and therefore improve their reading skills.

Love the idea but don't know where to start? Here are some poetry suggestions to get your kids reading:

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University of Florida Literacy Institute

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University of Florida Literacy Institute

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Morpheme Trees, Morpheme Tutorials,  Morphemes with Greek Roots, Morphemes with Latin Roots, Morphemes and their Meanings

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University of Florida College of Education

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As children progress through the grades, the text they read tends to become more challenging and complex, with more big words. To be effective at reading big words, it helps to understand word parts, including syllables and morphemes. Syllables are the units of sound we can use to divide words (e.g., com-pu-ter). Morphemes are the units of meaning we can use to divide words (e.g., inter-nation-al). These activities help students develop familiarity with syllables and morphemes.

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As children progress through the grades, the text they read tends to become more challenging and complex, with more big words. To be effective at reading big words, it helps to understand word parts, including syllables and morphemes. Syllables are the units of sound we can use to divide words (e.g., com-pu-ter).

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Etymonline - Online Etymology Dictionary

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The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet’s go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms. It is professional enough to satisfy academic standards, but accessible enough to be used by anyone.

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PaTTAN Leaders and Learning in Literacy Webcast with Dr. Pam Kastner and William Van Cleave

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PaTTAN Leaders and Learning in Literacy Webcast with Dr. Pam Kastner and William Van Cleave

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The Structure of the English Langauge

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The Structure of the English Language: A Conversation with William Van Cleave

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Expert Minute with Nancy  Hennessy on Comprehension

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Expert Minute with Nancy  Hennessy on Comprehension

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Center for Dyslexia                        Middle Tennessee State University

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Nancy Hennessy Blog: Sentences: The Busy Bees of Text

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Nancy Hennessy Blog: Sentences: The Busy Bees of Text

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Judi Dodson: The Arc of Vocabulary - Oral Language Links to Reading Comprehension

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Judi Dodson: The Arc of Vocabulary - Oral Language Links to Reading Comprehension

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AIM Institute Teachable Moments

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Join AIM faculty member, Becky Smith as she interviews Judi Dodson about why it is so important for classroom teachers to understand how oral language development links to comprehension. Dodson explains how Integrating oral language activities throughout a classroom day is the best way to bolster language for all students, not just those with learning disabilities like dyslexia. Creating a language-rich classroom is critically important for children with limited language development from impoverished backgrounds as well as for children for whom English is a second language, Dodson says.

Judi Dodson, M.A. has over 30 years of combined experience as an educator of children and teaching teachers. She has worked as a classroom teacher, special education teacher, diagnostic educational specialist, literacy consultant and teacher trainer. Judi has worked as a consultant to the Colorado Department of Education, developing teacher curriculum during Reading First, and has worked as a consultant and teacher trainer in conjunction with other state departments of education, local education agencies and independent schools. She is a national LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) trainer, presentations nationally at conferences on literacy-related issues and is the president of Bridges to Literacy.

One of the most important things to know about Judi is that her work is driven by a sense of the importance of understanding the whole child, and teaching to and from the heart. She believes that finding a balance between social - emotional learning and excellence in academic instruction will support academic achievement while building motivation and a lifelong love of learning. Judi is the author of three books: 50 Nifty Activities for Reading Instruction in the Five Components of Reading; 50 Nifty Speaking and Listening Activities for Oral and Reading Comprehension and The Literacy Intervention Toolkit. Judi has served on the board of the International Dyslexia Association in Colorado and is on the board of the Horizons program in Colorado, also serving as a literacy consultant for Horizons. Judi's work with Horizons (a summer program for children coming from high-risk schools) for over a decade has helped her develop a deep commitment to the importance of high-quality summer programming as a significant factor in overcoming the summer slide and the achievement gap.

Judi is the president of Peruvian Hearts, a non-profit organization founded by her daughter who was adopted from Peru. The organization is dedicated to supporting girls in Peru to become leaders through education, mentorship and empowerment, and break the cycle of generational poverty. She divides her time between consulting with schools locally and across the country, training teachers, writing, and working for girls' empowerment and education in Peru.

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Join AIM faculty member, Becky Smith as she interviews Judi Dodson about why it is so important for classroom teachers to understand how oral language development links to comprehension. Dodson explains how Integrating oral language activities throughout a classroom day is the best way to bolster language for all students, not just those with learning disabilities like dyslexia.

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AIM Institute Teachable Moments

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Listen to Susan Ebbers as she shares her thoughts about the importance of vocabulary instruction with an AIM student. She describes vocabulary as the portal to comprehension and addresses its role in our ability to convey our thoughts. Lastly, Susan speaks to how educators can choose words to teach.

Susan Ebbers has focused her research on morphological awareness, vocabulary, measurement design, and interest as a motivational variable. For her dissertation work, she created a tool for measuring word-learning aptitude. She has taught primary and secondary grades and was awarded by the district for her contributions to literacy. She also served as a K-8 principal. With her publisher, Cambium Learning, Susan has authored four supplemental programs for developing vocabulary, morphology, and/or multidimensional decoding. She is developing a series of children's books, beginning with Jamie's Journey: The Savannah. Learn more at Susan's award-winning, multi-author edublog Vocabulogic or visit her website, Readingway.
Additional Materials

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Listen to Susan Ebbers as she shares her thoughts about the importance of vocabulary instruction with an AIM student. She describes vocabulary as the portal to comprehension and addresses its role in our ability to convey our thoughts. Lastly, Susan speaks to how educators can choose words to teach.

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Western Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center

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Vocabulary Acquisition Lesson Plan Example

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Vocabulary Acquisition Lesson Plan Example

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PaTTAN

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Vocabulary Routine: Grade 2 Video Explicit Instruction

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Vocabulary Instruction - 2nd

Grade Level: Second Grade

School: McKinley Elementary School

Location: Tacoma, Washington

Materials: Wolf! By Becky Bloom

Videographer: Dima Yaremenko
Elapsed Time: 7:54 Introduction:
The students have listened to the read aloud book, Wolf! by Becky Bloom. During the reading of the book, brief explanations of words were given. Three words were selected for explicit, robust vocabulary instruction: concentrate, impressed, and educated.

Focus: As you watch this video, ask yourself:

1) What instructional steps were used to introduce each of the vocabulary words?

2) What other good instructional practices did you observe?
Feedback:

These instructional steps were used:

Write the word on the board or show it on a screen.

Pronounce the word or guide students in using their decoding skills to determine the pronunciation of the word.

Have students pronounce the word, repeating the word a number of times if the word is unfamiliar or difficult to pronounce.

Be sure that the definition contains only known words and is easy to understand.

The examples can be concrete, visual, or verbal.

Verbal examples were used to illustrate concentrate, impressed, and educated.

Use one of these methods:

Ask "deep processing questions".

Have students discern between examples and non-examples.

Have students generate examples.

The instructor:

Group responses (choral responses) when the answers were short and the same.

Partner responses when the answers were long or different.

Partner responses followed by individual turns.

Thumbs up to indicate that they had an answer.

Infusing decoding in presentation of words by having students read the long words by parts.

Involving the students in the examples.

Providing multiple exposures to each word.

Relating the words to their use in the read aloud book.

Reviewing words at the end with simple word associations.

Suggesting ways that the words could be used.

c. Coached students during partner responses allowing students to experience success when they answered in front of classmates.
NOTE: In the video entitled Read Aloud - Wolf 2nd, the students participate in the reading of the book, Wolf! After the read aloud, students are taught three words from the story as shown in this video.

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Explicit Instructions | Effective and Efficient Teaching

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Grade Level: Second Grade School: McKinley Elementary School Location: Tacoma, Washington Materials: Wolf! By Becky Bloom Videographer: Dima Yaremenko Elapsed Time: 7:54 Introduction: The students have listened to the read aloud book, Wolf! by Becky Bloom. During the reading of the book, brief explanations of words were given.

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Specific Reading Comprehension Disability: Major Problem, Myth, or Misnomer?

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Specific Reading Comprehension Disability: Major Problem, Myth, or Misnomer?

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Abstract/ Contact Pam Kastner for further details

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Morphemes

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What is a morpheme?

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning within a word. These units of meaning are spelled consistently even though their pronunciation may change within words, e.g., child/children, heal/healthy. Understanding morphemes is important for understanding reading and spelling. English has a complex writing system that is representative of both sound and meaning.

A morpheme can be a whole word (run), a word part (-ing) or a single letter (-s). Morphemes can be one syllable (eat, church) or more than one syllable (water, carrot, salad), or even a single letter in the case of adding /s/ to indicate plural or third person singular verb eg. waits.

Morphemes include;

prefixes such as un, re, dis

suffixes such as s/es, ed, er, ing

base words such as help, form

roots such as rupt, port, ject

The word cats has two morphemes, 'cat', meaning the furry feline animal, and 's' that denotes the plural.

Why do we need to know about morphemes?

Knowing about and understanding morphemes has the potential to enhance reading, spelling, vocabulary and comprehension. As children progress through the years at school they will encounter thousands of unfamiliar words. Understanding morphemes gives them another key to independently work out both the meaning and the pronunciation of those words, effectively unlocking the power of print.

Children become proficient at using morphemes in their speech early on and this will be reflected in their attempts at writing. For example, a child wants to write about dogs, we often see this spelled in early writing attempts as 'dogz'. This occurs because this is how the word is pronounced phonetically. Children will often spell phonetically until they become aware of morphemes.

Explicit teaching of morphemes

Children can benefit from learning about morphology in the early years of school ( Bowers, Kirby, & Deacon, 2010). For example, explicit teaching of morphology during a phonics lesson will ensure students understand that when we mean more than one, it is always spelled using the letter s even though we often hear the phoneme /z/.
Note: Where we use // around a letter we are representing the phoneme or speech sound. Not everybody is familiar with International Phonetic Alphabet transcription so for simplicity we have used the easy-to-use notation for units of sounds on this page.

There is evidence that explicitly teaching students the patterns for morphemes allows them to read and spell more effectively ( Goodwin & Anh, 2013).

Plurals can be represented by /s/, /z/, and /əz/. Note that /əz/ is the only plural that forms a new syllable.

This is where we can begin to appreciate the importance of correctly teaching students about voiced and unvoiced phonemes, as we outlined on our 'teaching grapheme-phoneme correspondences' page, because it makes spelling easier. Table 1 shows that a base word ending in a voiced phoneme has a plural that is voiced /z/. A base word ending in a voiceless phoneme has an unvoiced plural /s/. The syllable /əz/ is added when the base word ends in one of six consonants /s/, /z/, /sh/, /ch/, /zh/ or /j/.

Understanding voiced and unvoiced phonemes is important for spelling the very common -ed suffix denoting past tense. This suffix can be pronounced in three ways /əd/, /d/, and /t/ but it is always spelled with the letters -ed (see Table 2)

Table 1 - plural

Table 2 - past tense

Again, when the base word ends in a voiced sound, the -ed will be voiced (sailed = /d/), when it is unvoiced the -ed will be unvoiced (fished - /t/) and when the base word ends in /t/ or /d/ the -ed becomes a syllable (rented = /əd/, mended = /əd/).

A child with weak phonemic awareness may struggle to isolate the final phoneme in these words s-ai-l, f-i-sh, r-e-n-t. This highlights the importance of phonemic awareness in reading and spelling and how it can impede an individual's reading and spelling development.

There is no common scope and sequence for introduction of morphemes. Some schools introduce simple morphemes, such as s/es & ed in prep/kindergarten, some schools don't introduce it until Year 1 or 2, or even later.

Understanding the use and function of morphemes in reading and spelling should occur as an addition to systematic phonics instruction. It can be introduced early and simply once children begin to be able to write simple CVC words, such as cat and pet, because these words can be easily turned into plurals.

Morphology can then increase in complexity all the way through the grades into high school and contributes to understanding of academic language used in subjects like literature, maths and science.

Professor Tim Shanahan reflects on what should morphology instruction look like?

How morphology supports learning

Students should be taught about prefixes, suffixes, roots, and base words because it will help them to understand the words they will encounter in upper grades, words such as predict (pre=before & dict = say or tell), k ilometre (kilo = 1000 & metre = unit of length) or biography (bio = life & graphy = process of writing or recording). ( Deacon, Kiefer & Laroche, 2014).

To find out about the meanings of prefixes, suffixes, roots and more you can visit the Online Etymology Dictionary which is described as, 'a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.'

Table 3 contains the most common prefixes and suffixes that are the most functional to teach, and Table 4 contains the most common Latin and Greek roots.

Structured Word Inquiry (Bowers & Kirby 2010) is a valuable method of learning about the meaning of words and how they are constructed. This type of instruction explicitly targets any features and conventions that govern a word's structure, and importantly, the inquiry is very deliberately and purposefully structured by the teacher.

Structured Word Inquiry utilises word families, word webs, word matrices and word sums to help students learn about how words work.

More about this can be learned from the WordWorks website or teacher Lyn Anderson's website where she reflects on introducing morphology to young children and how she teaches morphology using these tools.

Basic word matrix explaining go and do. Source Pete Bowers 2007

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What is a morpheme? A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning within a word. These units of meaning are spelled consistently even though their pronunciation may change within words, e.g., child/children, heal/healthy. Understanding morphemes is important for understanding reading and spelling. English has a complex writing system that is representative of both sound and meaning.

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Structured Literacy Works, But What Is It?

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Structured Literacy Works, But What Is It?

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International Dyslexia Assocat

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Successful literacy instruction and interventions provide a strong core of highly explicit, systematic teaching of foundation skills such as decoding and spelling skills, as well as explicit teaching of other important components of literacy such as vocabulary, comprehension, and writing. See IDA's educator training initiatives brief: Structured Literacy: An Introductory Guide to learn more.

For additional information, see IDA's fact sheet Structured Literacy: Effective Instruction for Students with Dyslexia and Related Reading Difficulties and infographic

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Structured Literacy Works, But What Is It? - International Dyslexia Association

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Successful literacy instruction and interventions provide a strong core of highly explicit, systematic teaching of foundation skills such as decoding and

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Expert Minute: Middle Tennessee State University

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Expert Minute- Middle Tennessee State University

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Structured Literacy and Typical Literacy Practices Understanding Differences to Create Instructional Opportunities

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PaTTAN Leaders and Learning in Literacy Webcast with Dr. Louise Spear-Swerling

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PaTTAN Leaders and Learning in Literacy Webcast with Dr. Louise Spear-Swerling

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A Conversation about Structured Literacy and Dr. Spear-Swerling's article: Structured Literacy and Typical Literacy Practices Understanding Differences to Create Instructional Opportunities

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Leaders and Learning in Literacy: Structured Literacy with Dr. Louise Spear-Swerling

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Scarborough's Reading Rope

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Pathways to Practice Resources - AIM Institute for Learning & Research

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Pathways to Practice Resources - The AIM Institute for Learning & Research translates evidence-based literacy strategies into classroom practices through teacher training.

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University of Florida Literacy Institute