Building a Reading Foundation

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Building a Reading Foundation

• Teresa Gore

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Preparing Children to Read
The single most important activity for building
the knowledge required for eventual success in
reading is reading aloud to children. This is
especially so during preschool years.
From Becoming a Nation of Readers

• Phonological Awareness
• Print Awareness
• Letter knowledge
• Print Motivation
• Vocabulary
• Narrative Skills

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Phonological Awareness

• Phonological awareness, also known as
  phonemic awareness, is not new to the field of
  literacy. For over fifty years studies of the
  relation of a childs awareness of the sound of
  the spoken language and their ability to read
  have been assessed. Recent studies have
  determined that there is a correlation between a
  childs phonemic awareness and the success in
  learning to read. In a closer look, a
  kindergarteners phonemic awareness appears to be
  the best single predictor of successful reading
  acquisition.

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Phonological Awareness
Starts with the knowledge of sound

• Phonemes-smallest part of an individual sound
• Graphemes-The smallest written part of a language
  (p, b, s, or ch,sh)
• Onset and Rime-These are word chunks that are
  bigger than phonemes, but smaller than word
  syllables in a word. The onset is the beginning
  consonant sound in a word, while rime is the
  part that follows that contains the vowel. (Like
  chop, ch is the onset, and op is the rime.)
• Digraphs- These are two letters that represent
  one phoneme, or sound in a word. (Like ch in
  chop)
• Blend- These are phonemes that have been blended
  together in a word. (Flag f and l are separate
  phonemes, but in the word flag the blend
  together.)

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Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness teaches children that
spoken words are made up of smaller speech units.

• Phonemic awareness is not phonics, it more of
  an understanding of the spoken language. Children
  who are phonemically aware can tell that a three
  letter word like cat is represented by three
  separate sounds. Also word like cart, if you left
  the last letter off, you would have car. While
  Phonics is the understanding of the relationship
  between specific printed letters as well as
  specific sounds. A phonic understanding would be
  if they knew what letter was the first one in the
  word cat.

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Phonological Awareness Class Application
to the

• Nursery Rhymes and Riddles- Where sounds are
  manipulated and children can become more
  sensitive to the sound structure of language.
• Read Aloud books- Where books are used that draws
  a childs attention to the sound structure of
  spoken language.
• Invented spelling - Practice with sounds
• Songs Sing songs with different notes
• Poems Rhyming, as well as others
• Manipulating phonemes Making new words
• Rhyming Games- Ask what rhymes with words in a
  story
• Syllables- Clap the syllables in words as a group

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Print Awareness
Awareness of print helps children to understand
language to print as well as understand that
print is useful.
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Print Awareness Class Application

• Read Aloud Everyday Print- Things like menus,
  signs, lists.
• Point out Print- Point to words as you read them,
  in books, ads, especially words that repeat
• Books- Let the children turn the pages, try
  holding the book, or even tell you the story.
• Book Position- Hold the book backwards,
  upside-down, try and see if the children can find
  your error

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Letter Knowledge

• By knowing the names and sound of letters
  encourages children to figure out how sound works.

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Letter knowledge Class Application

• Reading-Point out letters while reading, read ABC
  books with letters and clear pictures
• Writing- Write letters in the air, or on a board,
  talk about the shape
• Practice- Make letters out of clay, trace with
  finger, practice writing
• Manipulation- Use letter cut outs, letter
  magnets, have children try and put the letters in
  their name in the right order

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Print Motivation

• Getting children interested in books will
  create an interest in learning to read

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Print MotivationClass Application

• Book Sharing- Make book sharing a special time,
  get the children involved in the stories by
  asking questions, making predictions, figuring
  out patterns, or repeating lines
• Books- Have a variety of books in your class,
  both fiction, and nonfiction as well as
  incorporating books of childrens individual
  interests
• Reading- Read things throughout the classroom, as
  well as objects in the class
• Class books- Create books with the class using
  their ideas and model writing the words down that
  they say

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Vocabulary

• Increasing vocabulary helps children
  understand what they are reading, as well as
  recognize written text. Vocabulary is learned
  from books more than from normal conversation
  with adults of children or from television
  exposure.(B. Hart and T.R. Risley) Reasearch
  shows that children with bigger vocabularies are
  better readers.

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VocabularyClass Application

• Talk- When you talk, children are picking up
  vocabulary.
• talk about a variety of things, as well as
  feelings
• Ask your child to give more details, or ad
  details to what they say to you
• Read- Every day, as well as a variety of genre,
• Ask questions about the text and the pictures
• Question- Look at thing around you ask questions,
  as well as trying to find words that mean the
  same thing

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Narrative Skills

• Being able to tell stories as well as
  retelling stories helps children understand what
  they read increasing comprehension

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Narrative SkillsClass Application

• Tell stories- Both from books, as well as from
  memory
• -Ask questions
• -Make predictions
• -Do retells
• -Talk about story order first, middle, last
• - Reread a familiar book, take turns telling
  it
• - rewrite a familiar story with the class,
  model writing in front of the class

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Activate Their Minds

• With these six building blocks
• -Phonological Awareness
• -Print Awareness
• -Letter Knowledge
• -Print Motivation
• -Vocabulary
• -Narrative Skills
• We are creating an environment enriched with the
  skills for successful readers.