Presentation (Transcript)

	Teaching Phonological Awareness

		The Problem: Recognizing written words at a nearly automatic rate is necessary to enable good reading comprehension; yet, this is one of the most difficult skills for students with reading disabilities to develop (e.g., Morrison, 1987; Stanovich, 1982, 1988; Vellutino, 1979). Over the past three decades, researchers from countries all over the world have conducted studies to examine why it is easier for some students than others to develop fluent word recognition (e.g., Hoien, Lundberg, Stanovich, & Bjaalid, 1995; Hu & Catts, 1998; Cossu, Shankweiler, Liberman, Tola, & Katz, 1988; Elkonin, 1973 ). While it makes sense that it would be more difficult for students with low intellectual abilities to learn to read, the major question has been why has learning to read been so difficult for so many students with average to high intellectual abilities? Numerous studies have been conducted to try to answer this complex question. Over the years, assessments were given to thousands of students from preschool through adulthood to measure vocabulary knowledge, intelligence, phonological awareness, reading and spelling skills, math skills, spatial skills, and thinking skills (e.g., Liberman, Rubin, Duques, & Carlisle, 1985; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1994; Wagner, Fletcher, Shaywitz, Shankweiler, Katz, Liberman, Stuebing, Francis, Fowler, & Shaywitz, 1994). Comparisons were made between those students who were progressing at the normal rates of development and those who were struggling to learn to read. Although individual students differed from each other, one of the most consistent findings was that students with reading disabilities had significantly poorer phonemic awareness than did their successfully reading peers (Adams, 1990; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1994; Wagner, Fletcher, Shaywitz, Shankweiler, Katz, Liberman, Stuebing, Francis, Fowler, & Shaywitz, 1994). The struggling readers hadn't learned how to think about spoken words as specific sequences of phonemes and therefore had difficulty learning to automatically recognize the letter patterns that represented each phoneme. What We've Learned: Identifying poor phonological awareness as an underlying problem for struggling readers was a great breakthrough, but it was just a start. In the last fifteen years, and especially in this last decade, researchers have continued to intensively research phonological awareness. Although many questions remain, we now know some of the basic benchmarks of normal phonological awareness development. These were outlined in the article you read by Joe Torgesen and Patricia Mathes (1998). We also know that if students are not progressing through these benchmarks at the indicated rates, they are at risk for developing reading disabilities. We have also learned what types of assessments can help us more accurately identify those students who may be at risk for reading difficulties (e.g., Lindamood, Bell, & Lindamood, 1992; O'Connor & Jenkins, 1997; Torgesen, 1999; Yopp, 1988). We know that when teachers use the types of explicit and systematic instructional interventions that you will be learning about in this and the following lessons, fewer beginning readers end up with severe reading disabilities, and more older students and adults become more fluent in word recognition (e.g., Ball & Blachman, 1991; Becker & Gersten, 1982; Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991; Iversen & Tunmer, 1993; Lundburg, Frost, & Peterson, 1988; Torgesen, Wagner & Rashotte, 1994).

		The purpose of this lesson is for you to learn how to strengthen the phonological awareness of students of any age who are struggling with beginning reading and spelling. To enable you to benefit most from this lesson, you should have already read the required reading, What Every Teacher Should Know about Phonological Awareness (Torgesen & Mathes, 1998), which lays the foundation for this lesson. After discussing the objectives for this lesson, we will review the important concepts related to phonological awareness and then examine how you used phonological awareness when you learned to read. Following that, you will be learning about three types of research-based activities that have been shown to significantly increase students' phonological awareness: sound comparisons, Sound Synthesis, and sound analysis. We will then discuss the instructional considerations that should be made in teaching lessons to strengthen phonological awareness. Finally, we will do a quick review of this lesson and preview the next lesson in this module, Beginning Word Reading.

		At the end of this lesson, you should be able to do four things. You should be able to explain the concepts related to phonological awareness and describe the roles they play in learning to read and spell. Based on the required reading, you should be able to explain the normal developmental course for phonological awareness. You should be able to discuss the differences and similarities among sound comparison, sound synthesis, and sound analysis activities. Finally, you should be able to discuss the instructional considerations required for choosing examples that should be used in activities that are known to strengthen phonological awareness.

		Let's do a quick review of some concepts associated with phonological awareness and then take a look at how you used these skills when you learned to read.

		Phonological awareness is the broadest term used to refer to one's sensitivity to the sound structures of words. Phonological awareness involves being able to recognize and manipulate different sizes of sound units within words, from syllables to phonemes. A more refined level of phonological awareness is phonemic awareness.

		Joe Torgesen defines phonemic awareness as an "explicit understanding that words are composed of segments of sounds smaller than a syllable, as well as knowledge, or awareness, of the distinctive features of individual phonemes themselves" (1999, p. 129). Torgesen's definition of phonemic awareness differs from other definitions in that his definition includes knowing the distinctive characteristics of individual phonemes, which you learned about in Lesson 2: Learning About Phonemes. Other definitions of phonemic awareness do not include this level of knowledge. Yet, while the sound of an individual phoneme may differ because of dialect of the speaker or the surrounding phonemes in the word, the movement of the mouth to produce each phoneme remains relatively constant (Shankweiler & Liberman, 1989). By knowing the distinctive characteristics of each phoneme and paying attention to how the mouth, teeth and tongue work together to say a word, it is easier to correctly identify individual phonemes. As you look through teaching materials designed to help students increase their phonemic awareness you may not see an emphasis on the distinctive characteristics of individual phonemes. However, recent research shows that this level of explicitness benefits most students and is especially beneficial for those students who have the most difficulty with phonemic awareness (e.g., Kennedy & Backman, 1993; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997). As you work to strengthen your students' phonological and phonemic awareness with the types of research-based activities you will be learning about in this and the next lesson, it is important to help students pay attention to how their lips, teeth and tongue work together to produce different phonemes. Ultimately, this will have a positive impact on your students' reading and spelling success.

		For instance, the sound of the phoneme \| l \| changes slightly depending on where it occurs within a word. Say these words: 'last', 'flat', 'shelving', 'ball'. Notice that although there are slight differences in the sound of the phoneme \| l \| in each of these words, the way you produce these sounds is fairly consistent. By knowing the unique characteristics of the \| l \| phoneme and how it feels to produce it, students would still be able to identify the \| l \| sound in each of these words.

		Let's look at how you used your phonemic awareness in learning to read. Take just a moment to read and think about the sound patterns in the words on your screen. Did you use your phonemic awareness and notice that each of these words has the phoneme \|A\| in it? While you automatically recognized each word in this list, did you also notice that each word has a different sequence of letters that represents the phoneme \|A\|?

		What you did to read each of these words was to use your knowledge of phonics which is the systematic way that specific letters or graphemes are used to represent phonemes in spoken words. As you read the words, you automatically recognized each of the seven different graphemes or sequences of letters that can represent the single phoneme \|A\|. When you were first learning to read each of these words, you learned the most common spellings for the phoneme \|A\|. Later you learned the less common spellings for the phoneme \|A\|. Each time you saw these words again, you were able to recognize the words more quickly until, like today, you were able to read them automatically. This is what beginning readers need to learn to do.

		As you read in the required reading, phonological awareness is important for beginning readers for three reasons. First, it helps beginning readers understand how the sounds in words relate to the letters or graphemes that represent them. This is called the "alphabetic principle. " Second, it "enables students to notice the regular ways that letters represent sounds in words" (Torgesen & Mathes, 1998, p. 4) just like you associate the phoneme \|A\| with the seven different graphemes for \|A\|. Third, with a basic understanding of letter-sound associations, students have a way to approach sounding out unknown words. While direct instruction in reading words is essential, and should be extensive, it is obviously impossible to teach students each of the one million plus words in the English language. Students must be able to analyze spoken words and word spellings so that they can expand their reading vocabularies independently.

		What complicates matters for students that are learning to read English is that we use just 26 letters to make up the over 250 graphemes which represent the phonemes in the English language. Although curriculum guides for teaching reading (e.g., Collections for Young Scholars, 1995; Direct Instruction Reading, 1995) generally recommend teaching students the most common 85 to 100 graphemes, fluent readers often know all of the phoneme-grapheme relationships. By knowing which phoneme each grapheme represents, readers are able to arrive at a close approximation of the pronunciation for each word in the English language. Without this understanding of how the phonemes relate to letters, it would be like having to memorize random letter sequences for any given word. Considering that by the eighth grade, students are exposed to over 80,000 different words in their text books (Adams, 1990), being able to read them all would require memorizing the equivalent of the phone numbers in the phone book of a small city. To help students understand the relationship between specific phonemes and graphemes, which is necessary for word reading, we need to provide the types of explicit, systematic instruction that will develop students' phonological and phonemic awareness.

		For the remainder of this lesson, you will be learning about three types of research-based phonological awareness activities that have been shown to strengthen students' phonological awareness and are especially helpful for students who are struggling with beginning reading and spelling. There is still much research that needs to be conducted to establish reliable growth rates for phonological development. However, we do know that students who are not meeting the developmental benchmarks outlined in the required reading are likely to have great difficulty in learning to read. For these students, as well as for older students who are struggling with learning to read and spell words, incorporating phonological awareness activities as a key part of regular reading instruction can help these students make substantial progress in learning to read. For students in kindergarten, phonological awareness activities should be taking place simultaneously with instruction in the sound-symbol relationships, which will be discussed in Lesson 4: Beginning Word Reading and Spelling.

		Following an introduction to each of the three types of phonological awareness activities, you will be listening to one or more 'mini-lessons' in which a teacher is working with students to strengthen their phonological awareness. Although the content of each mini-lesson differs, the six steps of instruction are the same. In the first step, the teacher will briefly describe what they will be doing together and why they will be doing it. For all of the phonological awareness activities, students can be told that the purpose of the activity is to help them learn to think about the different sounds in words, which will help them learn to read and spell. In the second step the teacher will demonstrate what she wants the students to do. In the third step she will guide students by prompting them with appropriate questions to enable them to do the task correctly.

		She will also be continuously checking or monitoring students' responses. If the responses are incorrect, she will either re-teach the original task or supply the correct answer. The teacher will provide practice activities and test students on several similar items to make sure they understand the task. After students reach a 90% or higher accuracy rate, they can independently do a similar activity.

		There are three types of research-based activities that help students strengthen their phonological awareness: comparing sounds, synthesizing sounds, and analyzing sounds. Let's talk about comparing sounds.

		Sound Comparisons When students learn to compare sounds in words, they learn that there are a number of different types of sound comparisons. If you put the different types of sound comparison tasks on a continuum, from easier to harder, the two easier types of tasks are making comparisons based on rhymes and initial sounds. These are the types of tasks you would expect a kindergarten child who has no difficulty with phonological awareness to be able to perform after some initial instruction. Comparing sounds at the end and in the middle of words is harder. Students may not be able to make accurate comparisons of sounds at the end or in the middle of words and syllables until after they have started initial word reading. For each of the sound comparison types, the easier level is to make judgments about the sameness or differences among the sounds. A more difficult level is sound production, which requires students to listen to a word or sound unit and then produce or come up with words with the same phoneme or phoneme sequence (Catts & Vartianen, 1993). It is easier to judge if the words 'mat' and 'moon' begin with the same sound or if the words 'how' and 'now' rhyme than it is to produce or think up a word that begins with the same sound as the word 'mat' or a word that rhymes with 'how'. So, when teaching comparisons, begin with the easier level of activities that require students to judge whether a rhyme or initial sound is the same or different. Once students can make correct judgments, move to the more difficult production level that requires students to listen to a word and produce a word with the same initial sound or the same rhyme. After mastering that level of sound judgments and production, students can learn to make the same types of comparisons of ending sounds. After students master that, you can have them follow the same sequence with middle sounds. Just remember that judgments precede production for each type of sound comparison.

		In just a moment, you will be listening to several mini-lessons. The first mini-lesson is an introductory lesson in which students are just learning how to make judgments about initial sounds. This lesson has been adapted from the Phonological Awareness Training for Reading Kit which was developed by Joe Torgesen and Brian Bryant (1994). Notice how the wording used by the teacher is consistent and concise. The teacher also directs students to pay attention to how their lips, teeth and tongue work together to produce the sounds they are comparing. The lesson is also very interactive as students have a high rate of participation. Although this mini-lesson is appropriate for kindergarten and first grade students, it can be adapted for older students and English language learners. Before teaching this or any other lesson, you must be sure that students understand the concepts that are required to complete the task; you may need to teach the concepts. For example, in order for students to be able to do the comparisons of initial sounds in this mini-lesson, students would have to first understand the concepts of comparing, first, same and different.

		(chime) T: In order to learn to read and spell, you must learn to think about the different sounds that you hear in words. One way to think about the sounds in words is to compare the sounds. Today we are going to compare the first sounds in words by playing a game called "Same or Different." To play this game, I'm going to say two words and then ask you if the first sound in each word is the same or different. Let me show you how to play this game. Listen carefully so you'll know what to do when it's your turn. My turn. Ready? (pause) Listen to the word 'sun' \|sssss\|u\|n\|, \|sssssssss\|u\|n\|. Say \|sssssss\|u\|n\|. S: \|sssssssss\|u\|n\|. T: Feel what your lips, teeth and tongue are doing when you say the first sound of the word 'sun'. Your lips and teeth are almost closed and your tongue is almost touching your front teeth as a little stream of air is being blown out of your mouth. Feel that? \|ssssssss\|. Say \|ssssssss\|. S: \|ssssssss\|. T: Good, what is the first sound in the word 'sun'? S: \|s\|. T: You're right. The next word is \|ssssssss\|i\|k\|. He was feeling 'sick'. \|sssssss\|i\|k\|. Say \|sssssssss\|i\|k\|. S: \|sssssssss\|i\|k\|. T: Good, what is the first sound in the word 'sick'? S: \|s\|. T: So, do \|sss\|un\| and \|sssss\|ik\| have the same first sound? S: Yes. T: Great. O.K., this time the words are 'sun' and 'moon'. \|sssssssss\|u\|n\| \|mmmmmmmm\|OO\|n\|. Say \|ssssssss\|u\|n\| 'sun'. S: \|ssssssss\|u\|n\|. T: What is the first sound in the word 'sun'? S: \|ssssss\|. T: Great, now say \|mmmmmmmm\|OO\|n\|. S: \|mmmmmmm\|OO\|n\|. T: What is the first sound in the word moon? S: \|mmmmm\|. T: Good, notice that when you say the first sound in the word 'moon' your lips are closed and your nose is vibrating. It's almost like humming. So, do 'sun' and 'moon' have the same first sound? S: No. T: That's right. (chime) Although the wording would change, the type of lesson you just listened to is useful for introducing sound judgment activities that require comparing rhymes, as well as initial, ending, and middle sounds.

		Once students master sound judgment, they can move on to sound production activities. In just a moment you will be listening to another mini-lesson in which students are just learning to produce words that have the same first sound as the sound the teacher gives. (chime) T: Remember how we've been playing different games to help us learn to think about the sounds in words? Well, today we are going to play a "Same Sound Game." To play this game, I'm going to say a sound and then I'll call on one of you to say a word that starts with that sound. I'll say my sound like this - \| lllll \| \| llll \| - and ask you to say a word that starts with \| lllll \|. Then I'll call on one of you and you'll say \| lllll \| \| llll \|, 'light' starts with \| lllll \|. Then everyone will say \| lllll \| \| lllll \| 'light' starts with \| lllll \|. Ready? T: \| lllll \| \| lll \| What's a word that starts with \| llll \|? (student's name) S: \| lllll \| \| lllll \|. 'Like' starts with \| lllll \|. T: \| lllll \| lllll \|. Great. Everyone. T & S: \| lllll \| \| lllll \|. 'Like' starts with \| lllll \|. T: Good, \| llll \| \| lllll \|. What's a word that starts with \| lllll \|? (student's name) S: \| lllllll \| \| llll \|. 'lamb' starts with \| llll \|. T: Terrific! (chime) In both mini-lessons you just listened to, the teacher described what the students were going to do and why. The teacher then demonstrated what she wanted her students to do and she prompted them so they would do the activities correctly.

		In the previous segment, you learned that in doing sound comparisons, judgments are easier than productions. You also learned that the easiest levels for sound comparisons are initial and rhyming sounds, followed by ending sounds. The hardest level is middle sounds.

		Sound Synthesis At the same time that students are learning to make judgments about initial and rhyming sounds in words, they can also be doing some beginning sound synthesis activities. Synthesis means to take separate pieces and put them together to make a complete whole.

		In sound synthesis activities, students take separate sound units and blend them together to make a whole word. To teach sound synthesis you start by saying the individual sound units that you want your students to blend together. Next, you model saying the sound units at faster and faster rates without stopping between the sound units until you say the whole word at the normal rate. At the easiest level, students should first blend or put together compound words. Then they move on to blending two- and three-syllable words. Some curriculum guides also include blending the onset rime units of a syllable which you may not be familiar with. The onset is the initial consonant sound or sounds in a syllable that come before the vowel. The rime, spelled 'r' 'i' 'm' 'e', is the ending portion of the syllable. So, in the word 'foot' the onset would be \|f\|, and the rime would be \|oot\|. For the word 'street', the onset would be \|str\| and the rime would be \|Et\|. Finally, the most difficult level of blending and the most important for both reading and spelling is blending at the phoneme level. Blending phonemes would sound like this. \|ssssss\|uuuuuu\|nnnnn\| \|sss\|uuuu\|nnn\| 'sun'. Once students learn to orally blend two- and three-phoneme words, they should begin using letters and learn to sound out and blend two- and three-letter words. We will discuss how to teach sounding out words in the next lesson.

		During initial instruction in the blending process, you will need to segment the practice words into the appropriate size sound units, and then model the blending process. So to teach blending of compound words you would segment the compound words into the individual words. To teach blending of multi-syllabic words you would segment the words into syllables. To teach blending of onset rime units, you would segment the words into onset and rime units. And to teach blending of phonemes you would segment words into their phonemes and have your students blend them back together. Listen to this mini-lesson as the teacher introduces a lesson on blending phonemes. Notice that when it's the students' turn to blend the phonemes, the teacher first says the sounds slowly without stopping between the sounds. Next she pauses for just a couple of seconds to give her students thinking time to process the sounds and make them into a real word. Thinking time is extremely important and will make the difference between mostly correct responses and mostly incorrect responses. By looking at her students' eyes the teacher can tell when her students are done blending the sounds. When they are ready, she signals the students to respond together by saying, "What word?"

		(chime) T: In order to learn to read, you need to learn how to blend sounds together to make words. To learn how to do that, we are going to play a game called "Say It Fast." In order to play the game you have to listen to me very carefully because I'm going to say some sounds very slowly. Then I want you to say the sounds faster to make them into a real word. It will be my turn first so I can show you what I want you to do. Ready? \|ooooooooo\|nnnnnnnnnn\|. Now I'm going to say those sounds really quietly to myself until I can make them into a real word \|ooooo\|nnn\| \|ooo\|nnn\| 'on'. That word is 'on'. I'm going to do another one. Ready, listen. \|iiiiiiiiii\|ffffffffff\| \|iiiiiii\|ffffff, \|iiiii\|ffff\| 'if'. That word is 'if'. O.K. Now it's your turn. Listen as I say the sounds slowly. Then wait until I say "What word?" Then, you say the word fast. Ready? \|ooooooooooo\|nnnnnnnn\|. (pause) What word? S: 'on'. T. Great, let's try another one. Ready? \|iiiiiiiiiiii\|ffffffff\| (pause) What word? S: 'if'. T: Great, let's try one that is a little harder. Ready? \|rrrrrrrrrrrr\|uuuuuuuuu\|nnnnnnnn\| What word? S: 'run.' T: Fantastic! Great job. (chime)

		Now, it's your turn. In just a moment you will practice teaching blending by reading the script. Because teaching blending is probably new to you, it will help you to have a script to read the first time. Because you may still be learning to read the phoneme symbols, the correct spelling of each segmented word appears in parentheses before you see the phoneme symbols for what you are supposed to say. Take this opportunity to feel what it's like to teach a lesson like this. Either read this script out loud or practice it by whispering. Try to use the same amount of time that you would to actually instruct students. Ready?

		In order to teach students how to blend sounds at the easiest level, you use words with continuous sounds and sustain the sounds with no breaks between them, just like you practiced. At the more advanced level, you say the individual sound units with a delay of one to two seconds between them. Then, students blend the sound units together to make a word. Like this, "\|m\| \|a\| \|n\|." What word?" "\|man\|." This second method is often used when assessing students on their oral blending skills.

		Various curriculum materials that have been developed to teach phonological awareness use similar methods for blending syllables, initial and final sounds, and onset rime units. Because students of all ages may need to learn these skills, curriculum materials for older students, such as Breaking the Code by Jerome Lebo, suggest using more complex vocabulary words. When teaching older students how to blend initial sounds, you can have students blend words like 'b .... illion', 's... ail', or 'r....ide'. For blending syllables, you can use words like 'mul...ti...pli...ca...tion' or 'his...tor...y'. For blending onset rime units you can use words like 'ch....art' 'str....ike' or 'gl...obe'.

		Errors Types and Corrections in Sound Synthesis Activities Researchers at the University of Oregon (Carnine, Silbert, & Kameenui, 1998) have identified three types of errors students might make when doing oral blending. Students might imitate the teacher and draw out the sounds instead of saying the target word at a normal rate of speed. Students may substitute a sound or omit a sound.

		For all three types of errors, it is recommended that the same correction procedure be followed. In the first step of the correction procedure, you stop and tell your students the correct response and then ask the question that resulted in the error and model the correct response. For sound substitutions or omissions, you immediately emphasize the correct sound. In the second step, you would do the troublesome item with your students and have them pay attention to how their mouths are producing the sounds. In the third step, you would test your students on the problem item to see if they could give the correct response on their own. The fourth step requires going back to the first item of the practice activity so that students get more practice. So, if you are blending five words in a row and a mistake is made on the third word, you would make the correction and then go back to the first item of the practice activity and continue through the fifth item. As with all of the group instruction sessions, you must constantly monitor all students' responses. If one student makes a mistake, rather than single that student out, just stop the group and follow the correction procedure steps that were just discussed. Make sure you monitor the student that had difficulty. If he or she continues to have difficulty, you should work individually with the student to help him or her master the sound blending task.

		Sound Analysis In this lesson you have already learned about the importance of helping students develop their phonological awareness to enable more success in learning to read and spell. You learned about sound comparison activities that required sound judgments and sound production. You learned about sound synthesis activities and how to correct student errors. Try to remember the important details related to each of these topics. Sound analysis consists of several types of skills. One skill, segmenting sounds, involves taking the sounds in a word apart. Segmenting sounds is a complementary process to the process of sound synthesis, which is putting sounds together. Other sound analysis skills are sound deletion, which is removing a specific sound unit, and sound manipulation, which is substituting or adding another sound unit. The sound analysis skills of deletion and manipulation will be addressed in Lesson 4 of this module. In this segment of the lesson we will discuss the sound analysis activity of sound segmenting.

		By segmenting words into their component sounds, students learn to pay attention to the sound structures of words. As students begin to read, sound segmenting will help them notice how phonemes correspond to graphemes. Segmenting sounds is also a necessary skill for spelling. By learning how to pay attention to how they produce sounds in the words they say, students will learn how to choose appropriate graphemes to represent sounds. The continuum of difficulty for segmenting sounds is the same as for blending sounds. It is easier to blend and segment compound words and multi-syllabic words than it is to segment and blend phonemes. As segmenting and blending are complementary processes, once students understand how to blend a particular type of sound unit, they can learn to segment that type of sound unit. So, once students learn how to blend compound words they can learn how to segment compound words. They then should move through learning to blend and segment words with 2 or more syllables, onsets rime units, and then learn to blend and segment at the phoneme level. If you first teach blending and then segmenting, students will soon understand that these are complementary processes. Teaching students to segment words into syllables, as well as onset rime units, has two purposes. The first purpose, and the goal of initial instruction in segmenting, is to help students understand that words can be broken into different sizes of sound units. Once students have a basic understanding of segmenting larger sound units, you should quickly move them into segmenting words into phonemes. The second reason to focus on segmenting syllables, as well as onset rime units, is to help students develop strategies for sounding out and spelling long or complex words. During initial instruction in segmenting, you should move students quickly through the larger sound units and focus primarily on segmenting phonemes. For teaching segmenting, it is very helpful for students to use clear physical cues or manipulate materials to gain an understanding of syllables, onsets and rimes, or phoneme size sound units.

		One method you will learn to teach segmenting sounds is called "Say It, Move It, Say It" which was adapted from the work of Ellen Wynne Ball & Bonita Blachman (1991) and the Russian linguist Elkonin (1973). Although there are a number of versions of this method in various phonological awareness programs, in the book Road to the Code: A Program of Early Literacy Activities to Develop Phonological Awareness (1999), Benita Blachman, Ellen Wynne Ball, Rochella Black, and Darlene Tangel provide a series of increasingly challenging lessons using the "Say It and Move It" technique. A typical activity would have students working with a sheet of paper with a simple line drawing of a common object whose name consists of two or three sound units. The example on your screen is of a three-phoneme word. Below the picture is a row of squares that represents the number of sound units in the word. When students first learn to analyze words with "Say It, Move It, Say It" activities, students are directed to say the name of the picture and then say the name very slowly while moving one token into one square, from left to right. Students then say each sound slowly while looking at the corresponding token. Finally they say the word again at the normal rate. This process combines sound analysis and sound synthesis.

		For instance, students would say the word 'hat' slowly like this, \|hhhhh\|\|aaaaaaaaa\|t\| and use one token to represent each of the three phonemes \|h\| \|aaaaaaaa\| \|t\| in the word 'hat'. Then students blend the sounds back together again while pointing to each token \|hhhhhhh\|aaaaa\|t\|. Finally, they say the original word, 'hat'. Using a concrete representation of the sound units makes it easier for students to understand the process. This method has been shown to significantly increase the phonological awareness of those students who learned this process as compared with those who had less explicit instruction in segmenting and blending (Ball & Blachman, 1991).

		The next level of difficulty involves students using different colored tokens. Consonants are in one color, vowels, in another. Finally, the most difficult level is introduced once students know a few letter-sound correspondences. Letters are placed on the tokens and students begin segmenting and blending words using letters. We will discuss this process in more depth in Lesson 4, Beginning Word Reading.

		Another segmenting activity, 'Sound Counting' does not require materials, can be used with individuals or groups of students. To teach segmenting, the teacher says the target word at a normal rate, and as students watch her signals, they sustain each sound for approximately 1 1\|2 seconds before switching to the next sound. Students can be asked to hold up one finger for each sound that they hear. In just a moment, you will hear a demonstration of segmenting sounds. (chime) Teacher: Listen, remember how we've been learning to think about the sounds in words and we've broken big words up to count how many syllables are in words? Today you're going to learn how to break up small words and how to count the number of the smallest sound parts called phonemes. Learning how to do this will really help you when you are trying to write words. I'm going to say a word. Then I'm going to say the word very slowly and put one finger up in the air for each sound I hear in the word. Watch me and listen to how I do this. The word is (pause) 'as' \|aaaa\|zzzzzzzzzzz\| (putting up one finger for each sound). How many fingers do I have up? Students: Two. Teacher: Good, there are two sounds in the word 'as'. As I was walking to the store I saw a cute little dog. 'As', the two sounds in the word 'as' are \|aaa\| \|zzzz\|. What are the two sounds in the word 'as'? S: \|aaaa\| \|zzzzzzzz\|. T: Great. Watch me and listen as I count the sounds in another word. The word is 'mom' \|mmmmm\|ooooooo\|mmmmm\|. How many sounds are in the word 'mom'? S: Three. T: Good, the three sounds in the word 'mom' are \|mmmm\|ooooo\|mmmmm\|. What are the three sounds in the word 'mom'? S: \|mmm\| \|oooo\| \|mmmm\|. T: Great, let's do a couple of words together. Put one hand up in the air so you can count the sounds. Ready? The word is 'zoo', what word? S: 'zoo'. T: Let's say the word 'zoo' slowly. Watch my signal. Ready? T&S together: \|zzzzzzz\|OO OO OO OO OO\|. T: How many sounds are in the word 'zoo'? S: Two T: Great, what are they? S: \|zzzzzzz\| \|OO OO OO OO OO\|. T: Terrific, let's do another one. (Chime)

		Now it's your turn to practice teaching segmenting. Go ahead and read the script (sound analysis). Looking back at the script, and thinking about what you learned in the second lesson of this module, Learning About Phonemes, you should have noticed several things about these examples. Because this is the introductory lesson on segmenting, only words with continuous sounds were used because continuous sounds are easier to sustain than stop-like sounds. There was also a range of phonemes used, so that different consonant phonemes as well as vowel phonemes were used for each example. Also, because you don't want to overwhelm students as you begin, the lesson started with a two-phoneme word and was followed by the teacher's three-phoneme example. Lastly, the examples were words that most students should have in their speaking vocabularies.

		Now you are going to hear part of a peer-tutoring session that took place in an inner-city school in which most of the students came from low-income homes - a factor that can place them at-risk for having reading difficulties. You will be hearing two first graders doing a phonemic awareness activity that was developed as part of the First Grade Peer-Assisted Learning Program (Mathes, Howard, Allen, & Fuchs, 1998). The classroom teacher integrated this program into the school district's mandated reading program. This easily run tutoring program has shown to improve students' phonological awareness significantly as compared to programs without the peer-tutoring component. Each type of peer-tutoring activity is introduced after the teacher has taught all students to do the activity with an approximate 90% accuracy rate. In PALS, students are paired for the tutoring sessions for approximately 20 minutes a day. The segmenting activity you are about to hear is one of several activities that each partner practices during their daily session. (chime) (Transcript of students' dialogue) A: 'It', say it slow. B: \|iiiiiii\|ttttttt\|. A: Good. 'Fan', say it slow. B: \|fffffffff\|aaaaaaaa\|nnnnnnnn\|. A: Good. 'Mom', say it slow. B: \|mmmmmm\|ooooooo\|mmmmmm\|. As you heard, it doesn't take very long to go through a list of words. Dimensions that Contribute to Phonological Difficulty

		While the processes of teaching segmenting and blending are relatively simple, in order to ensure that students are successful, it is vital that teachers are systematic in developing carefully sequenced activities with the appropriate examples of words and sound segments for students to master. While many of the research-based curriculum guides on teaching phonemic awareness have carefully sequenced activities and examples (e.g., Breaking the Code, 1999; Collections for Young Scholars, 1995; Corrective Reading, 1999; Phonemic Awareness in Young Children, 1997; The Phonological Awareness Kit, 1995; Phonological Awareness Training for Reading, 1994; Reading Mastery, 1995; Road to the Code, 1999; Sounds Abound, 1993), it is important that you understand the factors that make examples more or less difficult so you can independently choose appropriate examples and provide additional practice opportunities for those who need them.

		Sylvia Barrus Smith, Deborah Simmons and Edward Kameenui (1995) identified the following four dimensions of phonological difficulty: the size of the sound unit, the number of sound units, the position of the sound units in the word, and the phonological properties of the sound units.

		When you are first introducing students to thinking about the sounds in words, the size of the sound unit you choose for segmenting and blending depends upon your students' prior knowledge. Although your goal is for students to segment and blend words at the phoneme level, to help students understand the processes of segmenting and blending it is easiest to start with the largest sound units. You may need to begin with compound words, moving to syllables, onset rime units, and finally work at the phoneme level. For students at the kindergarten or first grade levels, it may take several months to be able to begin working at the phoneme level. For older students, it could be a matter of a week to a few minutes to work through the easier levels. Once students start working at the phoneme level, you should still review the other levels on a regular basis for several months.

		The second dimension that contributes to the difficulty of a phonological awareness task is the number of sound units. It is easier to remember and work with two or three sound units than with four or five sound units. So, it's easier to segment and blend words with two or three syllables than it is to work with words with four or more syllables. At the phoneme level, it is easier to work with words with two and three phonemes than it is to work with words with four or more phonemes. Remember that when working at the sound level, it is not the number of letters in a given word that makes a difference; it is the number of sound units. So, even though the word 'light' has five letters, it only has three phonemes, \|l\| \|I \| \|t\| as do the two-letter word 'ox' \|o\| \|k\| \|s\| and the three-letter word 'man' \|m\| \|a\| \|n\|.

		The third dimension that increases phonological difficulty is the position of the sound unit to be detected. The easiest level is detecting initial sounds; the next easiest is detecting ending sounds. The most difficult is detecting middle sounds. This applies both to the syllable and phoneme levels.

		The last dimension of phonological difficulty refers to the specific characteristics of the phonemes. In the last lesson, you learned that working with continuous sounds is easier than working with a stop-like sound. Likewise, working with voiced sounds is easier than unvoiced sounds. Working with single consonants is also easier than working with consecutive consonants in consonant blends and consonant clusters. Consonant blends are two consecutive consonants and consonant clusters are three consecutive consonants that each say their own sounds. For instance, \|bl\|, \|gr\|, \|cl\|, and \|nd\|, are consonant blends while \|str\| and \|spr\| are consonant clusters. By helping students attend to how their lips, teeth and tongue work together to produce these phonemes, you can help them be more successful at identifying the individual phonemes in consonant blends and clusters. Vowels can also be difficult for students to identify. As you learned when looking at the vowel circle in Lesson 2, neighboring vowels can be easily confused because there are very slight changes in the mouth and tongue from one vowel to the next. Finally, for the youngest students, working with the phonemes \|l\| and \|r\| may be difficult if they can not yet pronounce these sounds. In summarizing the dimensions of phonological difficulty, when teaching phonological awareness activities, begin with the easiest types of tasks and move to the more difficult ones. Select examples for practice that are consistent with each other and yet provide a range of examples.

		In the final segment of this lesson, we will discuss the key instructional considerations for group instruction. Because you want to involve as many students as you can at all times, you will want at least two-thirds of the responses to be group responses during instruction. If the answers are short and the same, using group responses makes all students accountable and more attentive. The bonus in having students respond together is that they will have less time for other behaviors that may not be as conducive to learning. In order to have students respond together, you will have to develop a signal that indicates to your students when they are to respond. You will need to practice giving signals and your students will have to practice responding at the same time. You should ask your question, allow sufficient thinking time, then signal your students to respond together. When using group responding, you will need to carefully monitor your students. You want to make sure all students are giving the correct responses. If an error is made, you need to provide corrective feedback and have your students practice the item correctly. You also need to watch for any student who may rely on other students for the correct response. Students who watch other students to arrive at the correct response may need more instruction and more individualized attention to master the task. As useful as group responses may be, there are certainly times when group responding is not appropriate. Group responses are not appropriate when you expect the answers to be different or longer. You may not want to use group responding for word games, and you would use fewer group responses once you begin teaching more complex reading skills, especially those related to reading comprehension.

		Review There were four goals for this lesson. The first goal was for you to be able to explain the concepts related to phonological awareness and to describe the roles they play in learning to read and spell. You should also be able to explain the normal developmental course for phonological awareness. Students who are not meeting these benchmarks may be at-risk for reading disabilities and will need more intensive instruction. Another goal was for you to be able to discuss the differences and similarities among sound comparison, sound synthesis, and sound analysis activities. Finally, you should be able to discuss the instructional considerations required for choosing examples that should be used in activities that are known to strengthen phonological awareness. As you will be teaching these three types of phonological awareness activities simultaneously, there are benefits to consistently using the same instructional or 'game-like' routines for each level of phonological difficulty. For example, by using the same "Say It, Move It, Say It" activity for segmenting and blending compound words, syllables, onsets rime units, and phonemes, students will already know the routine and be able to concentrate on the new type of sound unit. Using the same routines will also help students to see the relationships between the larger and smaller sound units. These research-based activities will need to be integrated into a comprehensive language arts program that provides enough intensity and teacher guidance to ensure that each student profits from instruction. You also learned about the dimensions that contribute to phonological difficulty: the size of the sound unit, the number of sound units, the position of the sound units, and the phonological properties of the sound unit. Knowing these factors should help you chose appropriate words for instructional activities. Finally, you learned about the key instructional considerations for group instruction which are getting frequent responses, providing thinking time, signaling, monitoring students, and giving corrective feedback. Preview As important as phonological awareness is, once students begin to work at the phoneme level, it is important to have them begin to apply their knowledge to reading and spelling. In the next lesson, you will be learning how to integrate what you have learned about phonemes and phonological awareness to teach letter-sound associations and beginning word reading.

Gildroy, P. G. (1999). Teaching phonological awareness (Module 1, Lesson 3). In B.K. Lenz & P.G. Gildroy (Eds) Beginning word reading [Online]. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, Center for Research on Learning. Available: Onlineacademy.org

Meyen, E. L. The Online Academy: Linking teacher education to advances in research. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. (Contract No. H029K973002; 1997 -- 2000, U. S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs).

Beginning Word Reading