EL 312ZA by Alex Larson

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-08-19 18:23:28 UTC

The left hemisphere of the brain is crucial for reading

Broca's area: language production and organization
Parieto-temporal area: decoding words through conscious effort
Occipito-temporal area: rapid word recognition and storage

The structures of English

Phonemes
Graphemes
Syllables
Morphemes

The Simple View of Reading

alarso12 — 2025-08-19 18:25:04 UTC

Credit: YouTube, Zaner-Bloser

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-08-19 18:25:10 UTC

In module 1 week 1, the importance of the brain functions and research based teaching is the key points. Phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension are all essential parts of teaching how to read. In order to comprehend reading there needs to be word recognition and language comprehension understanding to accomplish this. The phonological assembly needs to be developed overtime to allow us to enable reading.

In module 1 week 2, the key point is the structure of the English language. Different vocabulary words such as phonemes, graphemes, syllables, and morphemes. There are different types of phonemes such as consonant and vowel. There's also free and bound morphemes. All of these factors make up the English language and are important vocabulary to remember when teaching others the language. Understanding graphemes and morphemes will help to teach the relationship between the sounds and spelling of different words.

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-09-04 02:17:14 UTC

12 different parts of print referencing

What is a cover?
What is a title?
Who is an author?
Who is an illustrator?
Where do we start reading in a book?
What direction do we read on a page?
What page do we read next?
Where do we start reading on a line?
Identification of a word
Identification of spaces
Counting words
Word and picture association

Print Referencing

alarso12 — 2025-09-04 02:55:10 UTC

Credit: Professor Starr's Print Awareness Powerpoint

Sample Resource

alarso12 — 2025-09-04 03:07:54 UTC

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rsx8dYX1Gk

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-09-04 03:08:10 UTC

In Module 2, print awareness is discussed in terms of importance and ways to teach it. Print is a form of communication and awareness will play a big part in learning to read. Print awareness should be taught by the end of Kindergarten. If there is low scores during assessments, schools will provide additional help. Print referencing is one of the most beneficial ways for students to learn this information. Teachers reading and describing and asking questions are all ways that students will comprehend the information better. Understanding the importance of describing the components of print is a beneficial resource to have as a future teacher. Ensuring that students understand every part of a book will help to improve quality of lessons and that every student can start their reading journey off on a great start.

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-09-14 20:38:44 UTC

Letter-name iconicity: name of a letter contains the sound that the letter represents
Guided practice:
- Trace letter form with finger
- Trace letter form with pencil
- Copy letter form with finger
- Copy letter form with pencil
Writing learning objectives: a clear and effective learning objective states what the learner will be able to do upon completion of a lesson, unit, or module, in terms of behavioral change

Bloom's Taxonomy

alarso12 — 2025-09-14 20:40:57 UTC

Credit: Jessica Shabatura / https://tips.uark.edu/using-blooms-taxonomy/

Sample Resource

alarso12 — 2025-09-14 20:49:18 UTC

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OLnYhx5q2A

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-09-14 21:01:39 UTC

In Module 3, letter knowledge is discussed. This included ways to teach phonologically and visually, what letters may be more difficult for students to learn, and activities to use. The phases of writing development is another important term discussed in this chapter so that as an educator we can better understand where to meet our students at. For example, a student in early Pre-K will be in the pre alphabetic phase, meaning they are new to letter-sound connections. While a student in Kindergarten will be in the early alphabetic phase and start to understand the connection between letters and sounds. This chapter gave many resources on the best practices to use in the classroom. The sample lesson of introduction then teaching/modeling then working together in guided activities, and finally students working independently was one that I found useful and will use in the future. Using these tips and resources will allow educators to understand the reason behind letter knowledge while also using the sample lessons and objectives to create effective lesson plans.

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-09-22 19:27:09 UTC

Phonemic awareness: the ability to detect, identify, and manipulate phonemes in spoken words. The most essential level of phonological awareness.
Phonemic awareness is included in phonological awareness. They are not the same thing.
Instruction is all auditory
Teachers models then students practice
English has 44 phonemes but only 26 letters

Phonological Awareness Umbrella

alarso12 — 2025-09-22 19:29:11 UTC

Credit: Zoe Del Mar / https://www.hmhco.com/blog/what-is-phonological-awareness?srsltid=AfmBOoqlXk5CHaYSUL4b5sKolDlxPEM6hT_CZUn1VLNGe2ZoHZlykaDi

Sample Resource

alarso12 — 2025-09-22 19:29:51 UTC

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omHTs_PjqOs

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-09-22 19:29:59 UTC

In this module, the importance of phonological and phonemic awareness are discussed. Phonological and phonemic awareness allow students to understand the relationship between spoken and written language and how it can be represented and broken. There are important levels to learning this, which include: word, syllable, intrasyllable and phoneme. These understandings will be the most crucial step to learning how to read and spell. Another important instruction is making sure that this is happening at the right time, Pre-K/Kindergarten. Finally, the best way for students to understand is to teach/model and small-group guided practice. They will get the chance to see and act out on their own to fully comprehend the information.

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-10-26 02:10:48 UTC

Ehri's Phases of Word Recognition

Pre-alphabetic (visual cues)
Partial alphabetic phase (use of graphene-phoneme connections)
Full alphabetic phase (words are accessed through phonological recoding)
Consolidated alphabetic phase (multi-letter patterns are consolidated in memory)
Automatic phase (highly developed strategies)

Most common/effective phonics instruction is synthetic phonics

Systematic & explicit
Begin with identifying sounds with letters and letter combinations
Reading decodable books

Taught in K/1st Grade

Phonics Explicit Teaching

alarso12 — 2025-10-26 02:19:32 UTC

Credit: Teaching Reading Sourcebook / https://www.teachingreadingsourcebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SB3_Sec3_Slides.pdf

Sample Resource

alarso12 — 2025-10-26 02:37:52 UTC

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVZULjEdZ-g

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-10-26 02:38:16 UTC

In this module, there was a lot of information regarding phonics. Phonics is teaching the relationship between phonemes and graphemes. This should be taught systematically and explicitly to ensure there is no confusion and students have a deep understanding as it will determine their comprehension later on in school/life. Students will learn consonants/short vowels, consonant blends, consonant digraphs, r-controlled vowels, long vowels, silent consonants, and diphthongs. There are also specific lessons that will help students better retain the information. Blend words were an example, teaching sound-by-sound and transitioning to continuous. Another example is word work activities such as elkonin boxes and closed, open, and blind sorting. Building word recognition through repeated opportunities to read is another great way to teach phonics. A piece of information that stuck with me was that everything a teacher says should encompass their spoken communication with students during a lesson. This reminded me to be intentional with the words that I say and how I say them.

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-11-09 14:21:32 UTC

- Irregular words: a word that contains one or more sound/spelling correspondences that a student does not know and therefore cannot decode

Permanently: words have one or more sound/spellings that are rule-breakers and not pronounced conventionally (ex: said, of, two)
Temporary: start off irregular because a specific sound/spelling pattern has not been taught (ex: why, she for)

- Elkonin boxes and heart words are resources to use when decoding irregular words

-Teaching irregular words strategies are sound-out and spell-it-out

- Integrate within phonics lesson

- Lesson: Intro, practice irregular words, reading new words, apply to decodable

High Frequency Words - Spelling Pattern Groups

alarso12 — 2025-11-09 14:44:21 UTC

Credit: How to Teach Sight Words – Part 2

https://ortongillinghammama.com/how-to-teach-sight-words-part-2/

Sample Resource

alarso12 — 2025-11-09 14:45:19 UTC

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_jLABjt_Ds

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-11-09 14:48:04 UTC

Module 6 discussed irregular words and the best ways to teach them. Irregular words consist of permanently and temporarily irregular words. Permanently irregular words are words that have rule-breakers and are not pronounced conventionally. Whereas temporarily irregular words are sounds/spelling that have not been taught yet and will eventually become decodable. In the future, using elkonin boxes to help identify the permanently irregular words will be a helpful tool. After placing the words in the elkonin boxes we can then decipher the heart word. We will use the heart to symbolize the part of the word that has to be known by heart. Ultimately, this will all be taught after students have had some practice reading CVC words. It will also be integrated with a phonics lesson. When I start teaching it will be important to remember the way a lesson should go for students to identify these words. First, I should start by introducing the words then practicing irregular words with tools such as magnet letters or writing on whiteboards. Then we will practice reading new words and the previously taught word with automaticity with tools such as flashcards or slides. Finally, we will apply to decodable.

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-11-19 21:22:27 UTC

Syllabication is the division of a multisyllabic word into separate syllables with each syllable containing one vowel sound.

Syllable types:

Closed
Open
Vowel Combinations
R-controlled
Vowel-consonant e
Consonant -le

Suffixes: follow root words (-ing, -ed)

Prefixes: beginning of a root word

Picture

alarso12 — 2025-11-19 21:22:33 UTC

Credit: EdPuzzle Module 7 Week 1

Sample resource

alarso12 — 2025-11-19 21:22:38 UTC

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RBfm5OzCpw

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-11-19 21:22:44 UTC

Module 7 discussed multisyllabic words, different types of syllables, and how to teach these topics. Vocabulary words such as syllables, syllabication, and flexible syllabication were all defined and gave a better understanding of the process of multisyllabic words and how to teach them. There are many different syllabication rules but it is less important to memorize and know every rule than it is to practice dividing words into syllables. There are three research-based approaches that will be helpful in the future and that is using syllable types and division principles, identifying affixes or word parts, and using flexible syllabication strategies. These strategies will be resourceful to know and utilize when I have my own classroom. Knowing the six different syllable types will also allow me to teach my students these different strategies and know which to use. The 6 different syllable types are closed syllables, open syllables, vowel-consonant-e, r controlled, vowel digraph/diphthong, and consonant -le. When teaching this information to students in the future, it should be as follows --> guided practice, connect to text, dictation, and then word practice for automaticity.

Module Facts

alarso12 — 2025-12-03 17:54:57 UTC

Spanish is a simpler language from a phonetic standpoint.
5 vowels
- open /a/
- semi-open /e/
- semi-open /o/
- closed /i/
- closed /u/
Systematic instruction should be used when teaching Spanish
Majority of syllables fall into open CV and closed CVC pattern

Picture

alarso12 — 2025-12-03 17:55:03 UTC

Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/417708934159925613/

Sample Resource

alarso12 — 2025-12-03 17:55:13 UTC

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fpOGurcw5YE

Reflection

alarso12 — 2025-12-03 17:55:28 UTC

Chapter 2, Structure of Spanish, discussed the vowels, consonants, and syllable patterns that are incorporated into the Spanish language. There is no set sequence for teaching Spanish sound/spelling relationships but there are guidelines that can be followed to help students learn. The chapter also displayed ways that English and Spanish words differ to better decipher the languages. This will help me in my future teaching experiences by giving me a way to help any non-English speaking students and finding ways to relate to their native language if it's Spanish.