Phonemic Awareness Screeners and Strategies for Struggling S tudents

1. Phonemic Awareness Screeners and Strategies for Struggling Students South Todd Elementary School January 9, 2012 Betsy Madison (betsy.madison@grrec.ky.gov) www.betsymadison.com

2. 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)

3. Phonological Awareness vs. Phonics Phonological Awareness = • sound only, listening to sounds and producing sounds without print Phonics = • Phonological Awareness + letters

4. “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

5. 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)

6. 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)

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. “Some estimates suggest that approximately 90% of students identified as having learning disabilities lack phonemic awareness.” (Stanovich, 1986)

10. Screeners • Phonemic Awareness Screen • easyCBM.com • Phonological Awareness Skills Screener (PASS) • Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST) • Teacher-Made

11. 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.

12. Strategies • KDE Phonemic Awareness Instructional Menu • Phonemic Awareness Activity Cards • speech-language development.com • Florida Center for Reading Research

13. Phonemic Awareness Intervention • Explicit modeling • Many opportunities for practice with new words • Small, discrete steps • If student isn’t responding… • Slow down • repeat

14. 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

15. 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

16. Minimal, Advanced and Adapted Competencies Minimal Essential Skill Advanced Level I Adapted Level I Advanced Level II Adapted Level II

18. Betsy.madison@grrec.ky.gov • Betsymadison.com