Discourse is the ability to produce and comprehend extended language such as paragraphs, essays, or multiple sentence structures. This includes narrative skills, expository writing, and dialogue construction. Examples of classroom strategies for discourse processes include storytelling exercises, writing workshops where students focus on structure, and peer discussions/collaborative projects.

DISCOURSE IN THE CLASSROOM:

In my research class, after presentations, students have to give written peer feedback where they write a short paragraph on the presenters topic, strengths, and suggestions for improvement.

Phonemic awareness narrows this focus to individual phonemes, which is essential for connecting sounds to letters (phonics).

Phonics then allows children to decode written words, turning spoken sounds into print.

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in spoken language.

Techniques I use:

Segment (break) a sentence into words

Identify the syllables in a word

A favorite of mine is: Recognize alliteration (words with the same beginning sound)

That’s a complicated sounding term, but it’s meaning is simple: the ability to hear, recognize, and play with the sounds in spoken language. Phonological awareness is really a group of skills that include a child’s ability to:

• Identify words that rhyme

• Count the number of syllables in a name

• Recognize alliteration (words with the same beginning sound)

• Segment (break) a sentence into words

• Identify the syllables in a word

Sound scavenger hunt

Choose a letter sound, then have your child find things around your house that start with the same sound. “Can you find something in our house that starts with the letter “p” pppppp sound? Picture, pencil, pear”

Word families

Word families are sets of words that rhyme. Start to build your family by giving your child the first word, for example, cat. Then ask your child to name all the “kids” in the cat family, such as: bat, fat, sat, rat, pat, mat, hat, flat. This will help your child hear patterns in words.

Rhyme time

“I am thinking of an animal that rhymes with big. What’s the animal?” Answer: pig. What else rhymes with big? (dig, fig, wig)

1) Affix Sort: for example, I am teaching the words expectation, temporary, disgusted this week. So I tease out the prefixes and suffixes (dis-, -ed, -tion, -ary) and students can sort the vocab words by affix and explain how the meaning changes.

2) Here is another activity I would like to try: Word Ladders

• Start with one word (ex., rent).

• Change one letter at a time to make a new word (e.g., tent, sent, sent → spent).

• Builds awareness of spelling changes and word families.

Activites:

1. Sentence scramble, where students arrange the words to form sentences

2. Cloze sentences, where students fill in the blanks in sentences to promote understanding of syntax.

* recognize and spell technical vocabulary (algorithm, encryption, boolean);

* decode unfamiliar words (cyber, logy, pseudo_ )

* build fluency through documentation, code comments, and

* improve written communication through coding , comments, pseudocode and reflections.

My favorite Orthographic Instructional Strategy was to provide a bad tutorial (" make a flappy bird with JavaScript") : Encourages students to slow down and analyze written instructions.

• Builds awareness of how orthographic errors affect clarity in coding, documentation, and digital communication.

Promotes peer discussion and collaborative troubleshooting.

Please note that Students hate me after that assignment. Luckily, it is an online tutorial! :-)

Also, there are different kinds of semantic maps and one the we frequently use is the Concept-Centered Semantic Map which illustrates all words related to the new vocabulary.

An example of an instructional strategy I would use a semantic map to help students brainstorm ideas/definitions related to a unit. For example, in teaching a unit about cooking; the map would include words such as food, fruits, family, flavor, spices, etc.

An example of another instructional strategy I would use is semantic gradients. As students arrange words in a scale/gradation would help build a vast vocabulary for the students, help with comprehension and further assist in developed writing and discussion. For example, words from "happy" to "ecstatic."

An example that can be used is sentence anagrams where students work with words on cards or strips to physically arrange them into meaningful sentences, reinforcing word order and structure

Prior to reading, provide students with a semantic map and use a think-aloud as you model the process of using the semantic map to illustrate the relations between the concept and the knowledge that is associated with the concept.  Write the selected word that is the main focus of the map in the center of the map.  Off the selected word, brainstorm ideas that help explain or clarify the main concept. These can be generated through collaborative discussions.  Off the initial brainstorm, add supporting information – details, inferences, and generalization that supports or clarifies the ideas. These can be generated through collaborative discussions.