Phonemic Awareness Screeners and Strategies for Struggling Students
South Todd Elementary SchoolJanuary 9, 2012Betsy Madison ([email protected])www.betsymadison.com
Let’s make sure we’re all on the same page
Phonemic Awareness vs. Phonological Awareness
Phonological Awareness = • the ability to recognize the sounds of spoken language and how
they can be segmented, blended, and manipulated. • includes awareness at the phoneme level, syllable level, word
level, and sentence level
Phonemic Awareness = • awareness at the level of a single unit of sound, regardless of the
number of letters in the sound (/m/ in made, /th/ in thing, /dge/ in bridge)
Phonological Awareness vs. Phonics
Phonological Awareness = • sound only, listening to sounds and producing
sounds without print
Phonics = • Phonological Awareness + letters
“You don’t try to build a wall. You don’t set out and say, ‘I’m gonna build the biggest,baddest, greatest wall that has ever been built.’ You say, ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.’ You do this every single day, and soon you have a wall.” Will Smith
Phonemic Awareness Continuum
• Phoneme Isolation (recognize individual sounds in a word)
• Phoneme Identification (recognize same sound in different words)
• Phoneme Categorization (recognize the odd word in a set)
• Phoneme Blending (combining phonemes to form a word)
Phonemic Awareness, continued…
• Phoneme Segmentation (break a word into its separate sounds)
• Phoneme Deletion (identify how a word would sound if one sound were omitted)
• Phoneme Addition (add a single phoneme to a word to create a new word)
• Phoneme Substitution (replace a phoneme in a word with another phoneme to create a new word)
When should Phonemic Awareness Instruction occur?
• All kindergartners should receive formal instruction
• Once assessment indicates students have a skill, instruction should be discontinued.
• Most children have acquired phonemic awareness by the middle of the first grade.
• Don’t delay phonics instruction for students who haven’t yet acquired phonemic awareness.
When should you suspect a student is not phonemically aware?
• After First Grade, if a student reads with…– poor fluency,– has difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words,– has difficulty sounding out multi-syllabic
words,– has poor comprehension,
screen student for phonemic awareness.
“Some estimates suggest that approximately 90% of students
identified as having learning disabilities lack phonemic
awareness.” (Stanovich, 1986)
Screeners
• Phonemic Awareness Screen• easyCBM.com
• Phonological Awareness Skills Screener (PASS)
• Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST)
• Teacher-Made
Let’s Practice
• Give a partner 2 sections of the Phonemic Awareness Screener
• Partner administer 2 different sections
• “Students”– Please make several errors on one of the
sections administered to you.
Strategies
• KDE Phonemic Awareness Instructional Menu
• Phonemic Awareness Activity Cards• speech-language development.com• Florida Center for Reading Research
Phonemic Awareness Intervention
• Explicit modeling• Many opportunities for practice with
new words• Small, discrete steps• If student isn’t responding…
– Slow down– repeat
With Older Students
• Teach phonemic awareness only to students who are struggling with it.
• Teach only the skills they need.• Assess and screen to determine needed
skills.• If student isn’t responding….
– Slow down– Switch it up & repeat skill
Let’s Practice
• In which area does your student need help?
• Using the resources you’ve been given, locate a strategy/activity you could do to address your student’s need.
• Share
Minimal, Advanced and Adapted Competencies
Minimal Essential Skill
Adapted Level II
Adapted Level
I
Advanced Level I
Advanced Level II
• [email protected]• Betsymadison.com