• reading instruction must be systematic and explicit

  • "always a method to the madness", cumulative

• broca's area, parieto-temporal area, occipito-temporal area

• pathways between areas of the brain strengthen as we learn to read so we can easily connect letters, sounds, and meaning

• mapping: make connections between what students are hearing and what they want to say

• reading is not natural

• scientifically based reading instruction involves rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures

• have "professional discernment" to make sure we are doing what is best for our students

• essential components of reading instruction

  • phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension

  • additional components: print awareness, letter knowledge, irregular words, multisyllabic words

• phonemes: smallest unit of sound in a language to distinguish one word from another

• voicing: whether or not vocal cords vibrate during production of consonant sound

• place of articulation: the location in the vocal tract where airflow is constricted to produce a consonant sound (chart in book)

• long vowels - vowel should say its name (U is an exception) ā - long vowel

• short vowel - a with "u" over top

• diphthong: vowel sounds that don't fit within the vowel chart

• grapheme: letter combinations used to represent spoken sounds (chart on pg 35)

• syllables: word of part of a word pronounced as a unit

  • every syllable contains one vowel sound (pg 37)

• morphemes: smallest units of meaning in a language

  • cat --> 3 sounds, 3 symbols, 1 morpheme

  • cats --> 4 sounds, 4 symbols, 2 morphemes

• free vs bound morphemes

  • free --> can stand by itself (cat)

  • bound --> has to be attached to something to have meaning (s)

• colors, words, symbols, etc.

Teacher interaction is a huge influencing factor in building print awareness

• classroom print-rich environments, read-alouds

• interactive read-alouds

• labeling the classroom (in english and/or students first language)

• print-rich environment

• shared writing (teacher models writing and involves students in composing text)

Students have to see it/hear it 17 times before they feel comfortable enough to use a word themselves.

• 26 upper, 26 lower

• relationships between letter shapes and names is not straightforward, they must memorize the information

letter-name iconicity: when the name of the letter contains the sound that the letter represents (k = k sound)

• the letter w does not make a w sound, same with h`

The similarity of letter shapes was the strongest single determinant of confusion errors

students are better at identifying a letter's sound when it was at the beginning of a letter name than when it was at the end or not in it at all - h and w are the most difficult

• y is often used to spell words that begin with w

invented spelling: actually spelling how littles think sounds and letters connect

--> an overall awareness of the sounds in spoken language (auditory)

--> the ability to think about and recognize larger chunks in words

--> ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of words

• includes phonemic awareness

  --> phoneme: smallest unit of speech in the language

Early phonological awareness skills

• counting words in sentences

• rhyming

• syllables

• alliteration

• initial sounds

• onset rime

  --> rime: the vowel and everything that follows (scr|atch)

10-15 minutes DAILY (more is not better) of phonological practice

Knowledge of letter names, sounds, and shapes is essential and supports development of phonological awareness

--> tailor instruction to what students know, need, and can do

--> know your students

Phonemic Awareness

--> phon = sound; eme = unit of language structure

--> phoneme: smallest segment of speech

phonemic awareness: conscious awareness of individual speech sounds, or phonemes, in spoken syllables

• phonemes determine word meaning or can be combined with other speech sounds to make a new word

• ability to consciously manipulate those words

someone who is phonemically aware knows...

• sentences can be broken down into words

• spoken words can be broken into parts

• sounds can be rearranged

• order of sounds in words matters

English has 44 phonemes but only 26 letters

Having phonemic awareness helps students engage with written language so they can easily learn to read and spell

• if the sound before /k/ is a short vowel sound --> ck

• if the sound before /k/ is a long vowel --> k

• no word can end in just V or J (ex: love, have)

--> a strategy necessary for decoding new words and for storing those words in orthographic memory

--> an essential component of effective reading instruction - one of the big 5 ideas or pillars addressed with reading

Decoding: ability to translate a word from print to speech using sound-symbol correspondence (fancy word for reading)

Phoneme: smallest unit of speech sound

Grapheme: represents a phoneme; smallest unit of writing

Orthography: a writing system for representing language

--> /k/ : Kiss or click

--> letter x is never doubled

Phoneme-Grapheme Examples

Jj sound

• j

• dge

• ge

• gi

Consonant Digraph: one grapheme comprised of two letters together that represent one phoneme

• sh, th, ck, gh

--> di: two; graph: to write

• two consonants to represent a single sound

consonant trigraphs: one grapheme comprised of three letters that together represent one phoneme

• tch, dge

orthographic mapping: rapid recognition of all relevant layers of word structure in a mental process

--> "the more students learn about the structure of words, the better they will be able to read them independently, the more readily they will process their meanings, and the more they will understand and remember about spelling"

--> morpheme: smallest unit of meaning in a word

• unkind - two morphemes (un - not; kind)

Phonics Instruction

--> Synthetic Approach (AKA code-based, direct, systematic, explicit)

• follows science of reading

--> Analytic Approach (AKA meaning based, indirect, or implicit phonics)

• students begin with words and are asked to deduce the sound-spelling relationship that is the focus of the lesson

• does NOT follow science of reading

Sound/spelling correspondence lesson

1. Introduce /sh/ sound with pictures using sound puppet

2. connect sound to the spelling sh and introduce words that start/end with it

3. isolate initial sound to have students answer if /sh/ is at beginning

4. do the same with end

5. show students pictures to have them decide if /sh/ is at the beginning or end

6. check understanding by practicing automaticity with multiple letters and having students pronounce sound

Temporarily Irregular Words: One or more sound/spellings in the word have not yet been introduced but, eventually, they will

• not the same as sight words

--> irregular words, high frequency words, and sight words often get confused

• irregular words: at least one feature in the word is not predictable and doesn't sound how it looks; permanent

• high frequency words: words that occur a lot in text; can sometimes be irregular but not always

• sight words: can be any word committed to memory; different for everyone

r-controlled vowel: any vowel followed by 'r'

--> temporarily irregular words

irregular words are often termed as "heart words" because you have to know them by heart

Spiral review is important - come back to past words and check back in on these

Irregular word reading doesn't need to take a lot of time (a couple minutes) - almost like mini-teaches

• there are 6/7 types in our language

  • part of structured literacy instruction

--> closed syllables

• make up 53% of all English syllables

• contain one vowel letter that represents a short vowel sound

• ends in one or more consonants

• r-controlled vowels are their own syllable

• ex.) est-ab-lish, trans-at-lan-tic

--> open syllables

• contain one vowel letter that represents a long vowel

• ends with the vowel letter (vowel = open sounds)

--> vce syllables (vowel, consonant, ends with 'e')

• generally represent long vowel sounds (example exceptions: give, have, love)

• English orthography - words in the English language do not end in the letter v so the letter e is added

--> vowel team syllables

• contain 2 (or more) letters that represent long (or short) vowels, variant words, or diphthongs (vowel digraphs)

• ends with the vowel sound (high, clay, snow) or a consonant (boat, moon)

--> r-controlled syllables

• when a vowel is followed by R, the letter affects the sound of the vowel (the Bossy 'r')

• Ends with a silent E (the bossy e)

--> consonant & LE syllables

• when -le appears at the end of a word and is preceded by a consonant, the consonant +le forms the final syllable

  • exceptions: pick/le

• limited number of consonant +le syllables

  • -ble, -cle, -dle

• always keep the schwa sound

• keep the consonant +le together when dividing syllables (exposes the first syllables as closed, open, or r-controlled)

Syllables and accent patterns

• con' duct vs con duct'

• present - many different ways to emphasize syllables changing the meaning of the words