Differentiating Instruction for Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, and Word Recognition

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Differentiating Instruction for Phonemic
Awareness, Phonics, and Word Recognition

• Sharon Walpole
• Michael C. McKenna

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Agenda

• Who needs this type of instruction?
• What data must be gathered?
• What planning decisions must be made?
• What are some tricks of the trade?

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• We are combining ideas from Chapters 3 and 4

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Remember our plan
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What are we trying to teach?

• These children still need to work on learning
  letter names and sounds, and they are not yet
  able to segment phonemes automatically.
• They will work on coordinated activities to
  manipulate phonemes, learn new letters and
  sounds, and review letters previously taught.
• They will work with letters and words during
  small-group time.

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How will we know when weve accomplished our goal?

• When children are able to segment and blend
  sounds easily, we should change our focus to word
  recognition and fluency. In that group, we will
  continue to work with word recognition, but we
  will be using phonics-controlled text for
  practice.
• Remember that our goal is to make each of our
  groupings temporary and targeted.

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In our tiered system, who is likely to need this
type of differentiated instruction?
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What data can we use to identify the children?
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DIBELS ISF and LNF high risk or some risk

• We KNOW These children are not on track for
  achieving the spring first-grade ORF goal
• We NEED to know Which letter names they need and
  whether they have been taught?

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Lets find out

• Give a letter-name inventory (in random order) to
  see which letters they need.
• Use your phonics scope and sequence to see
  whether theyve had an opportunity to learn those
  letters yet!
• (For early emergent readers, find out whether
  they can sing, say, and finger-point the alphabet
  with an alphabet strip.)

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DIBELS PSFhigh risk or some risk

• We KNOW These children are not on track for
  achieving the spring-first grade ORF goal.
• We can FIGURE OUT Whether they can segment to
  onset-rime or phoneme-by-phoneme.

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Lets find out

• For children with extremely low scores, use an
  informal phonological awareness screening to see
  whether they can respond to syllables or onsets
  and rimes.

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DIBELS NWFhigh risk or some risk

• We KNOW These children are not on track for
  achieving the spring first-grade ORF goal
• We NEED to know What letter sounds letter
  patterns they need to learn and whether they can
  blend sounds.

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Lets find out

• Give a letter-sound inventory (in random order)
  to see which sounds they need
• Use your phonics scope and sequence to see
  whether theyve had an opportunity to learn those
  sounds yet!

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Lets find out

• Use your scope and sequence documents to identify
  all of the words that youve taught already
• Give a high-frequency word inventory only for
  those words.

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And one more thing

• Find out whether these children have concept of
  word (the ability to finger-point while
  pretending to read a memorized text).
• You can do this with any poem or text that youve
  already used often enough that the children have
  memorized it, but it must have at least some
  two-syllable words.

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Now youre ready!

• Do you have one group or two?
• There may be one small group of extremely weak
  students, without any real alphabet knowledge.
• Generally, it will be difficult to work with more
  than 5 students at a time
• Combine all of the items that they dont know
  into one list.

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Combining these results will provide you a
collection of known and unknown items for each
child their needs will probably not be exactly
the same.
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To make your plan, start with the letter names
and sounds

• Divide them into sets of two (and then you can
  add a review letter each day to make three)
• Now choose your Phonemic Awareness strategy.
  Read pages 36-47. Think about whether you have
  pictures and manipulatives to use.

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Initial Sound Sorting Script

• Today we are going to work with words that have
  different beginning sounds. Some of our words
  will sound like /b/ bag, /b/ bag, /b/ bag. Say
  that with me. /b/ bag. Others will sound like
  /m/ mit, /m/ mit, /m/ mit. Say that sound with
  me. /m/ mit. The rest of the words we will work
  with sound like /r/ rat, /r/ rat, /r/ rat. Say
  that one with me. /r/ rat. Then introduce the
  first additional picture for the day. Say, Does
  mop start like bag or like mit or like rat?

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Segmenting and Blending Script

• Ill say the sounds in a word slowly, then you
  say them fast. ffff/iiii/zzzz. Say them fast.
  Fizz. mmmm/aaaa/nnnn. Say them fast. Man.
  p/iiii/nnnn. Say them fast. Pin.
• Lets say the sounds in the word fizz slowly.
  /ffff/ /iiii/ /zzzz/. I hear three sounds in
  fizz. Lets say the sounds in man. /mmmm/ /aaaa/
  /nnnn/. I hear three sounds in man. Say the
  sounds in pin. /p/ /iiii/ /nnnn/. I hear three
  sounds in pin.

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Say-it-and-move-it Script

• Line up your markers on your arrow, and get your
  finger ready to say it and move it. Ill say a
  word. You say my word slowly. Then you say it
  and move it.

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Say-it-and-move-it Script

• ffffffffff

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Say-it-and-move-it Script

• ffffffffff

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Say-it-and-move-it Script

• iiiiiiiiiii

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Say-it-and-move-it Script

• iiiiiiiiiii

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Say-it-and-move-it Script

• zzzzzzz

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Say-it-and-move-it Script

• zzzzzzz

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Move to Word Recognition Instruction

• For your very weakest children, youll need to
  teach letter names and sounds read pages 56-58.
• You can also teach them high-frequency words.

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Choose your Strategies

• Read pages 58 to 67. Sounding and blending is
  appropriate for students who know at least a few
  letter sounds (including at least one vowel).
  Letter patterns are for students who can already
  sound and blend. Decoding by analogy is too hard
  for this group!

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Letter-Name and Letter-Sound Script

• The name of this letter is ___. What name?
  (Students respond chorally.) The sound of this
  letter is ____. What sound? (Students respond
  chorally.) For new letters, some additional
  instruction might be useful. Here is a new
  letter. Watch me write it. The teacher
  demonstrates, verbalizing the strokes. Now you
  write it with me (in the air or on dry-erase
  boards). The name of this letter is ____. What
  name? (Students respond chorally.) The sound of
  this letter is ____. What sound? (Students
  respond chorally.)

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Sounding and Blending Script

• We are going to start today by sounding and
  blending some words. The way that you do that is
  to look at each letter, say each sound out loud
  and then say them fast to make a word. Listen
  to me. /p/ /i/ /g/ pig. Now you try /p/ /i/
  /g/ pig. When you come to a word that you dont
  know you can sound and blend it.

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Letter Patterns Script

• Today we will work on reading and spelling three
  vowel patterns. The /at/ pattern is the sound at
  the end of the word cat. It is spelled a-t. The
  /et/ pattern is the sound at the end of the word
  pet. It is spelled e-t. The /it/ pattern is the
  sound at the end of the word sit. It is spelled
  i-t. First I want you to listen to words and
  tell me whether they sound like cat, pet, or
  sit.
• Lets look at the spellings for all of the words
  that sound like cat. Notice that words with the
  /at/ sound have the a-t pattern. You can use
  that pattern when you read or spell a-t words.

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High-Frequency Word Script

• Today we are going to learn to read and spell
  some really useful words. The first word is
  from. Say that word. Now watch me count the
  sounds in from. /f/ /r/ /u/ /m/. We hear four
  sounds. Say the sounds with me. Now watch me
  spell the word from. The first sound we hear in
  from is /f/, and it is spelled with the letter f.
  The second sound we hear in from is /r/, and it
  is spelled with the letter r. The third sound we
  hear in from is /u/, and it is spelled with the
  letter o. The last sound we hear in from is /m/,
  and it is spelled with the letter m.

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High-Frequency Word Script (cont.)

• Three of the letters and sounds in from are easy
  to remember. The only one that is tricky is the
  o. Remember that in the word from, the /u/ sound
  is spelled with the letter o. If you remember
  that, you can easily read and spell from.

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Gather all of your materials

• Word lists, word cards, Elkonin boxes, teaching
  scripts, white boards, notebooks everything you
  need
• (Use books with word lists in them its faster)
• Remember that our goal is that you plan for three
  weeks at a time

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The very weakest group
Minute allocations are simply an example based
on a 15-minute session.
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A more typical group
Use the same words for both activities!
Minute allocations are simply an example based
on a 15-minute session.
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A more advanced group
Use the same words for both activities!
Minute allocations are simply an example based
on a 15-minute session.
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Try it out!

• Remember that we are hoping for a cycle, with
  teacher reflection. Your goal is to move this
  group into a word recognition and fluency group,
  but youve got to be successful here first.
• At the end of the three weeks, you can use data
  collected as part of the instruction to inform
  your next moves.