Phonemic Awareness Project
- 1. Supporting Phonemic Awareness in the Classroom Final Project Template – Lindsay McMahon
- 2. Final Project Directions As a final project, you will develop plans for teaching phonemic awareness in your classroom, including plans for assessment procedures, analysis, and activities. This final project template will also include one example of a phonemic awareness assessment and analysis on a student. Your plans should incorporate at least one of the technology tools explored in this course and include details for other types of phonemic awareness strengthening activities. Complete this template as the course progresses. This template is due to your facilitator at the end of Session Six. At that time, your facilitator will review your final project and provide feedback for you.
- 3. Part I: General Information (Session One) GRADE: 5-8 – Sub-separate language based classroom – Students diagnosed with autism, PDD-NOS and other language disabilities. LESSON BLOCK LENGTH: 45 minutes Is Phonemic Awareness currently being addressed in your classroom? If so, how? If you are not currently teaching in a classroom, please fill out this template as if you are teaching in the classroom of your choice. I currently teach phonemic awareness is a less direct, explicit manner. We do activities within our weekly reading to help reinforce sound. For example, when reading a story I will ask students what words rhyme with certain vocabulary words. Other activities I do is ask students to find vocabulary words that begin or end with certain sounds. I need to spend more time on phonemic awareness activities.
- 4. Part II: Phonemic Awareness (Session One) Reflect on one of the readings from this session. Some guiding questions could be: Why is phonemic awareness an important step in learning to read? Do you currently assess student’s phonemic awareness? If not, what are the early indicators that allow you to identify if a student is at risk of reading difficulty? Phonemic awareness is critical in learning to read. Students who have a better grasp of phonemic awareness are able to read more fluently. Some of the assessments I did at the beginning of the year were from the Reading A-Z website. These assessments included initial sounds, final sounds, medial sounds, blending sounds, segmenting sounds, manipulating sounds, and rhyming words. All of the students in my classroom are language delayed by several grade levels. Indicators of difficulty include reading all words as sight words when they have similar letters like “cake” as “make”. They are not looking at the whole word but rather parts of the word to determine what the word is.
- 5. Part III: Linguistic Components (Session Two) From the Yopp article, which activities look promising and intriguing? Which ones might be easiest to incorporate into your current curriculum? Which activities, before assessing your students, do you think would benefit your classroom most? How could the activity address the standards? I love the activities that use literature to help support a lesson. For example, using the book The Hungry Thing to work with children on onset manipulation is such a great activity that includes a multisensory approach to learning. I also like any activities that include song or dance. Using familiar songs for children to then fill in their own rhyming word is a great activity. The activity with the song The Ants Go Marching could also be used in a math class with number order, or a science unit about bugs. There are multiple ways to include any unit/theme you are doing in one subject area to be cross curricular.
- 6. Part IV: Audio Recording Practice (Session Two) If you used an audio recording tool that provides an URL please share it here. If not upload it as an audio file here and in the discussion forum. Reflect on this practice. How do you imagine audio recordings will help you teach and your students learn about phonemic awareness? The use of audio is not only helpful with students with language delays but all students. It allows students to hear themselves talking. I have used audio recording before. A student reads a section of a story and then replays it, while reading aloud. We stop and reflect on whether the student stopped at periods, paused at commas, read words correctly, read loud enough, etc. There are many reading skills that students can learn first hand from listening to an audio recording of themselves. What struggles did you or your students face or could face? Sometimes students get very silly when they see themselves or hear themselves. When first presented with an audio recording students can become very silly. However, if they are retaught expected behaviors and they become used to the activity it can be very successful. Other students can struggle with being audio recorded because it makes them self conscience. One student even struggles when he knows I am taking notes when he reads. It results in him being very self conscience, wanting to show that he is “smart”, and results in worse results.
- 7. Part V: Student Assessment (Session Three) Which assessment will you be using on your student? Younger Student Phonemic Awareness Assessment Insert the URL of your audio-recorded assessment with a student here or upload audio file here and in the discussion forum. Assessment part 1 Assessment part 2
- 8. Part VI: Analysis (Session Three) After completing an assessment on a student or small child, you will reflect on their scores using the appropriate worksheet. Please upload the worksheets in the discussion forums if possible. What stands out to you most? Overall, this assessment gave me valuable information for reading instruction. I need to spend much more time on phonemic awareness in reading classes, and less on comprehension. I liked this assignment! Reflect on the areas of student strength. Dakota did an excellent job on identifing beginning sounds of words. You can hear this is the last part of the assessment that is based on DIBELS that he had an excellent understanding of identifying beginning sounds. Reflect on the areas of student weakness. The first part of the assessment was very difficult for him. It was difficult for him to blend together sounds. He was able to correctly blend /k/ /a/ /t/ for say cat and /d/ /o/ /g/ to say dog. However, the remaining words were incorrect. I think part of this is due to processing the sounds and remembering the sounds. I also think that another aspect of his struggle with this part of the assessment was that he has not had to focus on blending sounds in reading. The second part of the assessment was also very difficult for him. When he is asked to segment sounds, he is only able to identify the beginning sound in a majority of the words presented. It is obvious that segmenting has not been a focus in reading for some time for him. At the beginning of that assessment he was identifying beginning and ending sounds such as /d/ and /k/ in duck and /sh/ and /p/ in shop. However, as the assessment goes on, he only identifies the beginning sound.
- 9. Part VII: Strategies (Session Four) Include strategies you will use in your classroom here. Products and Performances I will use an onset and rime slide activity to identify real and nonsense words. The student will read the onset, then read the rime, then read each word, and identify whether the word is real or nonsense. Questions relevant to your lesson My target question is whether the student is able read the real and nonsense words that are produced from the slide activity. I also want them to identify what is heard at the beginning and the end. Instructional Strategies I will begin by modeling the slide activity. I want the student to be able to identify the onset and rime of various words. Specific Skills to be developed Segment and blend onset and rime
- 10. Part VII: Strategies, cont. (Session Four) Include strategies you will use in your classroom here. Activities and procedures Provide the student with Onset and Rime slides and a student sheet. The student selects an Onset and Rime slide. Read the rime (e.g. /ag/). Slides the rime until the first onset can be seen through the window. Read the onset and rime, blends them, and says the word (e.g. /b//ag/, bag”) Determines if the word is real or nonsense word and records it in the appropriate column on the student sheet. Continues until all words are recorded Reviews with a teacher. Extensions and modifications If the student is struggling I will choose to focus on one word family at a time. However, the student has learned word families in elementary school so this should be a review for him. Materials and resources needed Copy machine, scissors, pencil, photocopies of materials. Websites used http://www.fcrr.org/studentactivities/P_026a.pdf (materials for activity) References (copyright needed?)
- 11. Part VIII: Common Core Standards (Session Four) Please list all relevant State Standards here. (Please specify your state and provide state standards website URL) State – Massachsetts http://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html Reading Standards: Foundational Skills – RF. MA.3. – Phonics and Word Recognition- Grade 1 – Decode two syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into two syllables.
- 12. Part IX: Technology (Session Five) Include technology strategies you will use in your classroom here, noting also your access to computers and other required hardware. You may also consider using your newfound podcasting skills in a creative way to help students with phonemic awareness. I have more technology in my current classroom than I did at my previous school. I have a projector that hooks up to a computer. I use this a lot for powerpoints, videos, modeling writing, etc. I also have 2 alphasmarts which students love to use. It enables students to type on a keyboard and then print out work. I have an overhead projector but I can't print on the sheets in the photocopy machine we have here... so it is sitting in my closet. My classroom is attached to a small computer lab (10 computers). I utilize this a lot for review, reinforcement of previously taught concepts, etc. A technology strategy that I want to start using is recording students reading. I think it is a great way to reinforce their learning. I could also use this to post on a classroom website for parents to hear how I pronounce sounds so they can reinforce at home. Many of my parents have a primary language other than English.
- 13. Part X: Reflection (Session Six) Please use this section to reflect on your phonemic awareness plans and the process you have undergone in this course. Include the key points of your learning and how it will change your classroom instruction. This class as well as the phonics course helped redirect my teaching back to the foundational skills of reading. The beginning part of the year I was focusing so much on reading comprehension that I was putting phonemic awareness and phonics in the background. This course reminded me how important those skills are for the other core reading components: fluency and comprehension. I learned that my students needed a MAJOR refresher when it came to letter sounds. From now on, my reading lessons will focus on a phonemic skill, from there comprehension will be addressed. I also was reminded of the importance of assessment. I liked the Younger Phonemic Awareness assessment I did with my student. It is a great assessment for the beginning of the year next year to see what skills students have and where they are lacking.
- 14. Part XI The final part of the coursework is to create a file of all the components of your lesson and upload it in the assignment section or in the discussion forum in Session 6 on the main course page. This file should include, but not limited to: 1. Formal Lesson Write-up a. Including student grade and level b. Standards addressed in lesson c. Goals and Objectives d. Skills addressed e. Clear presentation of the direct instruction f. Materials and Resources g. Follow-up and Assessment 2. All printed materials used in lesson 3. Provide a short explanation of the purpose of the lesson based on prior needs and assessments.