Inquiry Term 2 2019: Developing Phonemic Awareness

I am continuing to develop phonemic awareness in our Literacy programme.  In discussions with colleagues who teach higher up in the school, they have identified children who seemed to be "stuck" with their reading at fairly low levels because they can not decode.  In an attempt to help children develop good decoding skills at the Year 1 level I am using a variety of different ways to try to engage the children to notice patterns and to use appropriate ways to decode.

 We still do alphabet poems, songs and chants daily "to warm up our brains" (as one child put it) before beginning our literacy programme.  I have added blends and chunks for those children who already know all their alphabet sounds and were showing an awareness that groups of letters make certain sounds.

Two of the children have made a valuable discovery in noticing that some words look and sound alike at the end and that one chunk can unlock many more words.  Our brain like to be "pattern detectors" so learning words by chunking is a natural way to learn. They are saying "It looks a bit like..." or "It sounds like..." showing that they are beginning to notice patterns in words and thinking about rhyming words.  So they do know how to use these skills on occasions but not at every occasion that they need to.  Listening to their friends reading is often the quicker option.

I was planning on using Elkonin boxes to help children build phonological awareness by segmenting words into individual sounds or phonemes.  The child listens to a word and moves a token into a box for each sound or phoneme.  But the children who already have good alphabet sound knowledge found a way that works for them.  I said that they needed to stretch out all the letters in the word to be able to hear them individually and to think of the letters as if they were on an elastic band.  They are able to individually identify the sounds letters make but had trouble "putting them together".  The child puts out his hands as if he was going to clap then pulled his hands apart as he says each sound or phoneme such as "rrrr  aaaa nnnn".

then pulled his hands apart as he says each sound or phoneme such as "rrrr  aaaa nnnn".

He then snaps his hands back together putting the sounds back in the order he first said them.

Snapping the sounds back together

 He is usually able to say the word he needs by manipulating the sounds until he can "hear" a word that sounds familiar and would fit in with the story.

We have several letter/ word sound activities on our class site for the children to use on completion of reading and writing tasks.  They have sound bites so that the children hear the sound of the letters as well as seeing what they look like.  These activities are very popular with most children completing some of these activities daily.

As the children are constructing their stories for writing, they are also recording the sentences on their iPad using the record option.  This gives them the opportunity to replay their story to listen to how it sounds and to check their story to see if they have written all the words they need.  The checking is a visual as well as an auditory exercise and can help those children who find difficulty in holding a sentence in their head long enough for them to get it recorded on paper.  It also helps a child revisit a word to listen to the sounds or the initial sound to be able to make an attempt to find it on class spelling resources. 

While the children are waiting to come up for their group reading they are reading familiar texts.    Those children that are reading each night are beginning to develop more confidence and fluency.  They are attempting to use strategies to decode and self correct.

While the results on the 5 week reading graph are not showing spectacular improvement there has been upward movement for three of the priority learners and the fourth child is becoming more confident saying the words she knows and is reading more fluently and is not despondent about where she is at with her reading.

Five Weekly graph of Priority learners

She is steadily able to identify more letter sounds and for some children progress is not like the hare but more like the tortoise and perhaps for her this will stand her in good stead.

Letter Id Data

Where to from here?  What else can I do to help these students pick up the pace?  While pondering these questions I try to help these children to remain positive about their progress.  They still enjoy reading and try their best to complete tasks.  Their fluency has also improved as has their letter sound knowledge.  It is a case of putting the knowledge and skills they are learning to greater use each time they come to an unknown word and not waiting for others to help them out.