Where does phonics instruction fit into a balanced approach to literacy? Recently a great deal of attention has been focused on the teaching of phonics in the elementary grades. Good teachers have always taught phonics. A student cannot learn to read without attending to letters and sounds.
There are numerous examples of how teachers use phonetic activities during reading and writing. For instance: during assisted writing, students use ABC charts, magnetic letters, and practice boards to learn about letters, sounds, and words. While writing independently, students analyze the sequence of sounds within words and apply strategies for noting relationships between spelling patterns. To complement this learning, the teacher addresses phonetic skills during group and individual conferences. The teacher also prompts the students to locate, predict, confirm, and search for visual information while reading. All these activities occur within the context of meaningful reading and writing. In the process, students learn how to transfer their knowledge about letters, sounds, and words across varied and changing circumstances.
This brings up a second question: do we teach phonics in isolation? Well, it depends on how you define isolation. Learning about letters, sounds, and words is a strategic process, rather than memorization or drill. Thus we structure learning opportunities that focus on categorization, comparison, integration, and analysis of graphophonemic information. At the same time, we provide students with varied experiences that promote automatic and flexible control of letters and words. Although some of the information is presented in isolation from the text, it is always based on the knowledge, skills, and strategies that the students bring to the task. As a result, the activities reinforce, link, and expand students’ learning through manipulation and exploration.
Learning About Letters and Sounds
It is a mistake to think that because students know the names of letters that they will be successful readers. As teachers, we encounter students every day who can identify all the letters but are unable to read even the most simple text. Phonemic awareness, not letter knowledge, is a strong predictor of children’s ability to read (Adams 1996). Yet knowing the names of letters is valuable because the names are labels for associating specific letters with their sounds. However, children do not have to know all the letters or sounds before they can begin to read (Clay 1991; Smith 1994).
As students develop letter knowledge, the teacher provides them with opportunities to learn the sound of the letter and how to construct the letter form. The process of learning letters, sounds, and graphic formations concurrently provides students with alternative feedback for checking and confirming each sensory system. Teachers enable students to access knowledge from various categories, thus strengthening the interconnections between related information. This type of support allows students to become flexible with letters. They begin to recognize and use letters in a variety of situations (not only in isolation) Obviously, phonics instruction is a critical component of a balanced literacy program. The difference from some traditional programs is the delivery of instruction!
Check back in a few days to see a more information on phonics instruction and view a video clip of phonics in action.
Phonics Support Sites you may want to check out:
PBD Kids Letter Games
Starfall
Primary Games
ABC Books
Sight Word Books
Phonics Resources
We’ve spoken previously on this blog about Response to Intervention (RTI), a framework for identifying and addressing gaps in student learning that has been widely adopted by school systems nationwide . Much of the discussion we see in the media surrounds issues on the teacher-side of education: professional development and planning, cooperation vs. resistance to change, and the need for infrastructure improvement.
But parental involvement is also essential for RTI or any intervention to succeed. Parents need to know what’s going on in their districts and have a collaborative relationship with the staff who will set and deliver on any goals.
So, if you have a child who is struggling either academically or emotionally or just like to be in-the-know about the policies in your district, use the following as a guide:
- Ask questions to learn your school’s philosophy on evaluating and monitoring students’ progress. There is a lot of research out there on the various models, so request to see the data to support what your school district is doing and to understand why your district settled on using RTI or another framework for identification. In other words, why or why not RTI?
- Understand the steps that are used in the process and whether there are any written or online materials that can act as a primer for parents:
- Screening: How and when is the screening first conducted? At what grade level and in what setting? What screening procedures are used? Is it universal throughout the school, district or state?
- Monitoring: How consistently are students monitored to ensure they are progressing? What measures are used to assess student learning – standardized tests, socialization, qualitative teacher evaluation? Is monitoring done individually or with the entire class? Who conducts the monitoring?
- Interventions: What types of interventions are recommended if needed? Who takes primary responsibility – the classroom teacher or the special education teacher? How do teachers determine if/when the interventions are no longer necessary?
- Outcomes: What type of student information or measures are used to define progress? What type of documentation is kept (and provided to parents)?
- Know your rights, roles and responsibilities as a parent. Ask how you as a parent can be involved in the various phases. Will you have access to the progress reports? Should you be doing anything at home to support the curriculum? Should you set aside time to meet with the classroom or special education teacher?
- Understand what happens in the background. While you may not be able to directly influence the process, it is still useful to know how the staff interacts and supports one another. How are teachers trained to effectively identify and monitor progress? How does the school staff work together on the development and monitoring of the interventions?
- Recognize the benchmarks of success. Most importantly, you need to understand how you (as a school on the macro level and as a parent on the micro level) will identify and measure success. And is there a plan B if things don’t progress the way we hope?
And now we would like to hear from you…. Have you (as a parent, not as a professional) had any first-hand experience with RTI? And for those who haven’t, what advice would you give parents about the RTI process?
More RTI reading:
- RTI – Products and Resources for Parents
- National Center on Response to Intervention
- NASP – Response to Intervention: A Primer for Parents
Metacognition literally means “thinking about thinking.” It has been linked to intelligence and correlated with success in school. Therefore, it’s impossible to discount, both for students and teachers.
There is a knowledge component, i.e., assessing how a task should be done, monitoring your understanding of the task, and evaluating your progress on how well it’s going. And there is a strategic component, i.e., deciding how to allocate resources and time and determining how deeply to commit to the project as a whole and to each step along the way.
All of the following are metacognitive moments that may occur for our children:
- What should my notes look like for this class?
- Should I write a plan before I tackle the project, and if so, how detailed should it be?
- Am I on track on this assignment?
- Does my essay answer the questions?
- Should I work in the library or in my own bedroom?
- Should I listen to music while I work?
- Should I answer the multiple-choice questions first on this test or the essay?
All of these questions show some degree of critical thinking about one’s thinking.
And unfortunately, no standardized test can accurately reflect the critical thinking that goes on behind the scenes. It’s a particularly vexing dilemma because though multiple choice cannot capture the complexity of someone’s thoughts or strategy, there’s no doubt that being equipped with well developed and effective metacognitive strategies is paramount to academic success.
Here at Benchmark Education, we have dedicated our resources to helping students become “big thinkers” and active, strategic readers. Our Anchor Comprehension Workshop units provide the resources to teach comprehension and metacognitive strategies effectively in Grades K–8+. The curriculum guides help not only with thinking about reading, but also in training kids with the skills—like critically viewing text and making inferences—that are required to master multiple-choice questions on the high-stakes tests. For more information, or to order a sample, click here.
It used to be enough just to think . . . now we literally have to think about what we (and our children) are thinking. Do you believe the classroom should spend time focusing on this “big thinking” or do the ends (i.e., getting the right answer on a test) justify the means? If the former, what have you found to be successful? How can we evaluate someone’s metacognitive abilities? Should we?
