Supporting
Children’s Reading
Development
Community of Learners Foundation
Reading is not a natural ability. Speaking
is innate, reading is not.
Learning to read starts with the
AWARENESS that speech is composed of
individual sounds (phonemes) and a
recognition that written spellings
represent those sounds. (Alphabetic
Principle).
Community of Learners Foundation
EARLY LITERACY CONCEPTS
Distinguishing between print and pictures
Print and pictures are different but are connected
You read the print, not the picture
Understanding a concept of a letter
There is a difference between a word and a letter.
A letter has a name and a shape.
A letter or a group of letters represent a sound.
A letter has a shape and has features.
A letter is always the same and you look at the parts to
identify it.
There are uppercase and lowercase letters.
.Community of Learners Foundation
Understanding a concept of a word
A word is a group of letters that mean something.
A word in writing is a group of letters with space on
either side.
Community of Learners Foundation
Directionality
You read and write from left to right.
You turn pages to read and look at the left page first
You read left to right and then go back to the left to
start a new line
The first letter in a word is on the left and the last
letter is right before the space or ending punctuation
The first word on a page is on top. The last part is at
the bottom.
Community of Learners Foundation
Understanding the concept of the first and last in written
language
* first word in a sentence-left
* last word is before a period or question mark
* first letter of a word is on the left
* the first part of a page is on top
* the last part is at the bottom
Understanding that one spoken word matches one group of
letters
“ We say one word for each word we see in
writing “
Community of Learners Foundation
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
-refers to both explicit and implicit
knowledge of the sounds of language. It
includes the ability to hear and identify
words, rhymes, syllables, onsets and
rimes
Hearing and Recognizing Word Boundaries
•You can hear words in a sentence if you
stop after each one
•You can say each word in a sentence
I like to go home.
Community of Learners Foundation
Term Definition
Phonological AwarenessThe awareness ofany size unit of
sound, including the ability to
separate words into syllables,
phonemes and to generate and
recognize rhyming words
Phonemic Awareness The awareness that spoken
language is made up of individual
units of sound
Phonics An instructional approach for
teaching reading and spelling that
emphasizessound-symbol
relationship
Community of Learners Foundation
Phonemic Awareness -involves the auditory
and oral manipulation of sounds
Phonics is an instructional approach that
builds on the alphabetic principle and
associate letters and sounds with written
symbols.
Simply learning letter-sound relationships
during phonics instruction does not
necessarily lead to phonemic awareness
Community of Learners Foundation
Phonemic Awareness and
Learning to Read
Readers must learn the alphabetic
principle and recognize that words can be
separated into individual phonemes which
can be reordered and blended into words.
This enables learners to associate the
letters with sounds in order to read and
build words.
Phonemic awareness is a strong predictor
of reading success that persists
throughout school.
Community of Learners Foundation
Rhyming Words
“ Some words have parts that sound alike.
“ You can hear rhymes in songs and poems.
“ You can say words and hear words that rhyme “
Hearing and Saying Syllables
“Words can be broken into smaller parts called
syllables.
“Some words have one syllables. Some have 2 or more.
Blending syllables
You can blend syllables together ( pen-cil)
Community of Learners Foundation
Blending and Segmenting Onsets and Rimes
Onset-first sound in a word
Rime-the rest of the sounds in a word
b-at
f-an
Blending and Segmenting Phonemes
“ You can hear the sounds in a word.”
“ You can say each sound in a word.”
“ You can hear the first sound in a word.”
“ You can say the last sound in a word. “
Hearing similar beginning phonemes in words
“ Some words sound the same at the
beginning. “ mat-man
“ Some words sound the same at the end
fan -win
Community of Learners Foundation
Sound to Letters
(Phonemes to Graphemes)
The brain must be able to memorize a set of
squiggles and identify which symbols called
graphemes correspond to the phonemes already
stored in the mental lexicon.
The rules of spelling that govern a spelling are called
its orthography.
Community of Learners Foundation
Drawbacks:
1.Letters of the alphabet are abstract ad thus
unfamiliar to the new reader and he sounds they
represent are natural segments of speech.
2.There are 44 English phonemes but only 26
letters. In other words, each phoneme is not
coded with a unique letter.
Ex. more than 12 vowel sounds but only 5 vowels
Community of Learners Foundation
English has a deep orthography which
makes it one of the most difficult to learn
especially for those whose native
language has a more reliable letter-to-
sound correspondences such as Spanish
Community of Learners Foundation
how a letter is pronounced depends on
the letters that surround it .ex r-
influenced ; e in dead, deed, dike
consonant digraphs/trigraphsrepresent
single sounds
THERE ARE MORE THAN 1100 ways to
represent the sounds of the 44 English
phonemes.
Community of Learners Foundation
LETTER KNOWLEDGE
refers to the what children need to learn about the
graphic characters that correspond with the sounds of
language
-Children need to learn the names and purposes of
letters as well as the particular features of each
Identifying Letters
Recognizing Letters in Words and Sentences
Forming Letters
Community of Learners Foundation
LETTER-SOUND
RELATIONSHIPS
The sounds of language are related in simple and complex
ways to the 26 letters of the alphabet
•Consonants
•Vowels
Community of Learners Foundation
LETTERS TO WORDS
Decoding –ability to use the alphabetic
principle to sound out a word by recognizing
which phonemes are represented by the
letters and then blending those phonemes
into a legitimate word.
Community of Learners Foundation
HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS
Words that appear frequently in simple texts they read
Makes reading more efficient as recognition of high
frequency words become automatic
Community of Learners Foundation
WORD MEANING AND
VOCABULARY
Children need to know the meaning of the words they
are learning to read and write
Children need to have multiple encounters with these
words
Accuracy in spelling requires knowing the meaning of
the word you want to write.
Comprehension and accurate pronunciation are also
related to knowing word meanings.
Knowing synonyms, antonyms and homonyms will help
students build more powerful systems for connecting
and categorizing words
Community of Learners Foundation
Concept Words ex days of the week, color and shape
words, seasons, number words
Related Words
*Some words go together because of how they sound e.g.
sleep/slip, ate/eight
* Some words go together because of how they look e.g.
* Some words go together because of what they mean e.g.
family –mother,father,son
Community of Learners Foundation
What literacy skills and
concepts and skills do
we need to assess ?
Community of Learners Foundation
Concepts of Print/Book Knowledge
Concept of letter, word, picture and sound
Meaning of Punctuation Marks
Book parts
Directionality
concept of the first and last in written language
Community of Learners Foundation
Phonological Awareness
Hearing and Recognizing Word Boundaries
Recognizing and Supplying Rhyming Words
Blending and Segmenting Onsets and Rimes
Blending and Segmenting Syllables
Blending and Segmenting Phonemes
Community of Learners Foundation
Letter Knowledge
Identifying Letters
Recognizing Letters in Words and Sentences
Forming Letters
Letter Sound Relationships
Beginning, Medial, Final Sounds
Short and Long Vowels
Blends and Digraphs
Community of Learners Foundation
References:
Sousa, David A. “How the Brain Learns to Read”. Corwin Press, 2005
Dehaene, Stanislas. “ Reading in the Brain”.Viking, Penguin Group
Willis, Judy M.D. “Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies for Improving Fluency,
Vocabulary and Comprehension” . ASCD.
Bear, Invernzzi, Templeton, Johnston. “Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics,
Vocabulary and Instruction. Pearson Education Limited.
Sprenger, Marilee. “Wiring the Brain for Reading: Brain-based Strategies for
Literacy Learning”.Jossey-Bass
Pinnel,GaySu and Fountas, Irene C. “The Continuum of Literacy Learning: A
Guide to Teaching”. Heinemann Publishing.
Pinnel,GaySu and Fountas, Irene C. “Word Matters:TeachingPhonics in the
Reading/Writing Classroom”. Heinemann Publishing.
Community of Learners Foundation