Phonemic Awareness

Research is showing the phonemic awareness plays a bigger part in young children’s learning to read than once thought. Not only does it help in their reading but in their comprehension skills. While working on phonemic awareness it is building pathways in their brains building comprehension skills (Plourde & Prado, 2011, p. 32).

Knowing this working and mastering this skill in Kindergarten and the latest First grade. Pre-Schools need to be introduced and supported also. Though the end result is for the child to be able to segment words there are prior skills which may need to be taught before they are able to segment sounds in words. See Phonemic Awareness, U of O

Below is a sheet you might use for tracking your students on phonemic awareness and use as data to show their growth. Keep a sheet on each child. You’ll soon see the students who need to be provided additional instructional support. Phonemic Awareness Screening & Monitoring Sheet

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q2mD1VGZFLdSOrbtTkz6mfZpvwFX6uB7noNFW0Y-6AU/edit?usp=sharing

Parents or Adults Helping in Your Classroom

Do you have adults coming into your classroom wanting to help or parents wanting to know what they can do at home? Here is a handout you can print and have on hand for them to work on comprehension. Remember comprehension is a transfer skill. Children have to develop the ability to recall and retell life events first. Only then are we able to transfer the skill of recall and retell to reading.

Working on Comprehension

Below is a chart to be used as a guide for adults working with students on understanding what they read.

Activities	Reasoning Why
Building Relationships: Be a good listener Don’t judge /Don’t fact-find If something comes up that is a concern, tell the teacher or supervisor that they need to ask the student about what happened. Let the teacher of supervisor investigate.	Students/Children need the nurturing that can come from an adult, take the time to get to know them. If something comes up we want you to keep your relationship and trust. Your job is just to let the person in charge know there might be a concern they need to address.
Have the students tell you a story. Ask Questions to clarify their story.	Having the students tell you a story helps them with building their comprehension. It makes them sequence.
Have the students tell you a story using pictures from a book. You may use a book that just has cool pictures and you don't read the story to the child. Ask Questions to clarify their story.	The end goal is for the students to be able to write a story about an event. They often need more practice telling about an event or story before writing. Writing is a higher skill than telling.
Read to the children. As you read ask them questions about what they think will happen. Ask them to retell the story to you. Have them use the picture of the story to retell.	Modeling reading is always great. As adult readers we intuitively ask questions. Children need to learn this skill. By you stopping and asking them those questions they will learn to transfer questioning to their own reading. Having them retell the story builds their own comprehension skills.
Have the students read to you. When the student comes to a word they don’t know, just say the word for them. Have them tell about what they read.	Having students read to someone is always beneficial. Just telling the student any unknown words allows the flow of the reading to continue and doesn’t take the child’s focus off of remembering what they read.

Dr. Scott’s Creative Teaching

Start of School Think Abouts!

The first couple of days of school is where you set the routines for the year. Taking the time now to think about some basic things will make your school year go so much smoother.

• When the students enter the classroom, what do they need to do?
• What is your attention signal?
• Behavior management plan
• Restroom usage
• Pencil sharpening
• Cell phone rule
• Passing out materials routine
• Submitting assignments
• Emergency evacuation (fire drill)

These are just a few areas to address the first day of school. As you think about these take the time to write each one out. After you have them all written out print them and put them into your sub-folder for any substitutes you might have during the year. By completing this task you will not only help your students’ year go smoothly, but also your year will be fantastic and any substitutes will know your expectations of the students.

Have a great start of the school year!

Time to be Thinking About the School Year!

Time to be thinking about the start of a new school year. For some this will be their first year in the classroom while others this may be the year they are completing their career. Either way your year will be determined by the people you hangout with during the year. They can be Marigolds or Walnuts.  Jennifer Gonzalez on her blog has a great article about working with others in your districts. Find your Marigold and stick close and avoid the Walnuts.

Are you a Marigold or a Walnut? Read her article and you will quickly find out what type you are. If you’re a Walnut, I encourage you to become a Marigold. It will change your life and your perspective of school.

Have a great year!