Conquer the Code: Sounds, Symbols, and Syllables

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Conquer the CodeSounds, Symbols, and Syllables

• IDA Florida Branch Conference - May 1, 2006
• E. Judith Cohen, Ed.D.
• Florida International University

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Reading . . .

• an extraordinary ability,
• peculiarly human and yet
• distinctly unnatural.
• Dr. Sally Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003

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Literacy . . .

• Begins at birth,
• and
• is a lifelong process!

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Unfortunately,

• Children are not born with this insight, nor
  does it develop naturally without instruction.
• Reid Lyon, 1997, NICHD

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In todays world,

• learning to read well is a key to the future
  success of our children. Not only is reading
  fluently and with comprehension by third grade a
  legislated priority, it is an ethical and
  professional imperative.
• (Wolfe and Nevills, 2004)

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In fact,

• teaching reading is
• Rocket Science!
• (See Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science What
  Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and Be
  Able to Do by Louisa C. Moats, AFT, June 1999)

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Research Practice

• National Research Council Committee on National
  Research Council Preventing Reading Difficulties
  in Young Children (1998)
• National Research Council - Starting Out Right A
  Guide to Promoting Childrens Reading Success
  (1999)
• National Reading Panel Teaching Children to Read
  (2000)
• Put Reading First The Research Building Blocks
  for Teaching Children to Read (2001)
• Scientific Research in Education (2002)

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Reading and the Brain

• If we provide intervention at an early age,
  then we can improve reading fluency and
  facilitate the development of the neural systems
  that underlie skilled reading.
• (Sally and Bennett Shaywitz,
• Educational Leadership, March 2004, p. 10)

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Language Components

• Receptive Expressive
• Oral Listening Speaking
• Written Reading Writing

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The Big Five

• Phonemic Awareness
• Phonics
• Vocabulary
• Fluency
• Text Comprehension

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Reading Components and the Big Five

• Means
• DECODING
• Phonemic Awareness
• Phonics

• End
• COMPREHENSION
• Vocabulary
• Text Comprehension

Fluency
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Lesson Plan Format

• Preread Schema
• Read it Story grammar
• Reread it Fluency
• Discuss it Vocabulary
• React to it Comprehension
• Code it Alphabetic code
• Apply it Practice
• Transfer it Generalization

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Read with HuGs

• uniting
• Holistic Graphophonic
• strategies

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Reading is the union of

• Comprehension Decoding
• (Holistic) (Graphophonic)
• Pre-read it Code it
• Read it Hear it
• Reread it See it
• Discuss it Associate it
• React to it Expand it

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Code it Alphabetic Code

• Hear it
• See it
• Associate it
• Expand it

• Phonological sound
• Print symbol
• Sound/symbol
• Structural analysis

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Conquer the Code Sounds, Symbols, and Syllables

• Sounds
• Phonological Awareness
• Phonemic Awareness
• Symbols
• Print Awareness
• Alphabet knowledge
• Syllables
• Vowel Patterns
• Syllabication

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Oral Language

• Listening and Speaking
• Literacy Events
• Grand Conversations
• Phonological Awareness sensitivity to the sounds
  of language

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Phonology Sounds

• Phonological awareness
• Phonemic awareness
• 44 phonemes (speech sounds)
• Oral / auditory
• Related to reading and writing

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How many sounds?

• in the word box
• in the word enough
• in the word precious

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44 Sounds of the English Language

• Vowels (10)
• /a/ /a/
• /e/ /e/
• /i/ /i/
• /o/ /o/
• /u/ /u/

• Consonants (18)
• /b/ /j/ /s/
• /k/ /l/ /t/
• /d/ /m/ /v/
• /f/ /n/ /w/
• /g/ /p/ /y/
• /h/ /r/ /z/

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44 Sounds of the English Language

• Vowel Diphthongs (2)
• /ou/
• /oi/
• Vowel Variants (3)
• /au/
• /oo/ (moon)
• /oo/ (book)
• Schwa (1)
• /?/

• Consonant Digraphs(7)
• /sh/ /ch/ /wh/
• /th/ /th/ /zh/
• /ng/
• r-controlled (3)
• /ar/ /or/ /er/

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Phonological Awareness

• Funnel ogical awareness
• Sensitivity to the sounds of language
• words, syllables, and sounds
• Includes phonemic awareness
• Necessary for understanding the alphabetic
  principle and how sounds match print

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Phonological Awareness

• Word awareness
• Rhyming words
• Syllable awareness
• Alliteration
• Onset-rime
• Phonemic segmentation and blending
• Phonemic manipulation

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Phonological Activities

• Clapping, standing, using body motions
• Manipulatives, e.g., linking blocks, puzzles,
  objects, chips or tokens
• Pictures, books, posters
• Music and rhyme
• Feel it in your mouth!
• Elkonin (sound) boxes

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Written Language

• Reading and writing
• Print awareness
• Reading decoding comprehension
• Sound symbol connection phonics
• Writing spelling, handwriting, written
  expression writing process

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Orthography Symbols

• Alphabet (26 letters)
• Represent speech sounds
• Written / visual
• Spelling patterns

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Print Awareness

• Concepts of Print
• Book concepts
• One-to-one correspondence
• Directionality
• Alphabet Knowledge
• Recognition
• Identification
• Formation

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How do children develop print awareness?

• Read alouds
• Shared reading
• Print rich environment
• Big Books, little books, lots of books
• Hearing poems, nursery rhymes
• Seeing charts, signs, lists, Morning Message
  and Sign in

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Alphabet Activities

• Sort plastic or magnetic letters
• Use letter cards with the ABC song
• Match environmental print labels to alphabet
  letter cards
• Locate target letter by using highlighter tape
• Write letters in the air, using large muscle
  movements
• Write letters in shaving cream, sand, or
• rice trays

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Pre-Phonics

• Phonological Awareness
• Oral
• Sounds
• Print Awareness
• Visual
• Symbols

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Phonics

• refers to instructional practices that
  emphasize how spellings are related to speech
  sounds in systematic ways.
• (Snow, Burns, Griffin, 1998)

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What is the Alphabetic Principle?

• the systematic and predictable relationship
  between the letters of written language and the
  sounds of spoken language
• the way print matches speech
• the relationship between phonology and
  orthography
• also known as the alphabetic code

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Why learn the Alphabetic Code?

• It provides the understanding for the internal
  structure of words.
• It helps children recognize familiar words and
  decode new words.
• It connects reading and writing.
• It enables children to read with fluency and
  comprehension.

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Phonics

• Synthetic Phonics
• Part to whole
• Analytic Phonics
• Whole to part
• Word families (rimes)
• Vowel Patterns
• 6 Syllable types
• 85-88 regularity

• Structural Analysis
• Root words, prefixes suffixes
• Compound words
• Contractions
• Syllabication

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Color-Code
Vowels a e i o u -y -w Digraphs sh ch th wh ph Blends bl- cr- st- -nd -mp etc.
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Orthography Syllables

• Six basic syllable types
• 85 88 of English language
• Vowel Patterns (syllable types)
• Structure of our language
• Alphabetic code

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Vowel Patterns

• Regular
• Reliable
• Research-based

• Effective
• Efficient
• Easy to use

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Vowel Pattern Chart
Closed Open Silent e
Bossy r 2 Vowels Talkers Whiners Cle
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Vowel Pattern Chart
Closed cat fish bub- Open me go ta- Silent e ride cape hope
Bossy r car girl tur- 2 Vowels Talkers Whiners boat boy meat clown Cle ta - ble bub - ble tur - tle
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Vowel Patterns

• Closed
• A word or syllable that contains only one vowel
  followed by one or more consonants
• the vowel is short.
• One lonely vowel squished in the middle,
• says its special sound just a little.
• sat bed fin top gum
• sand best print shop lunch
• at Ed in on up

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Vowel Patterns

• Open
• A word or syllable that ends with one vowel the
  vowel is long.
• If one vowel at the end is free, it pops way up
  and says its name to me.
• me she hi go flu fly

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Vowel Patterns

• Silent e Magic e
• A word or syllable that ends in e, containing one
  consonant before the final e and one vowel before
  that consonant the vowel is long.
• The magic e is quiet, but it has a claim to
  fame
• it makes the vowel before it say its real name.
• The magic e is so powerful, it gives all its
  strength to the other vowel so that it can say
  its real name.
• make Steve ride hope cube

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Vowel Patterns

• Bossy r r-controlled
• A word or syllable containing a vowel followed by
  r the vowel sound is altered by the r.
• The letter r is so bossy, it tells the vowel that
  it cant say its real name (long vowel) or its
  special sound (short vowel), but must say the r
  sound (as in car, for, her).
• car her girl for curl

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Vowel Patterns

• Double Vowel Talkers vowel digraphs
• A word or syllable containing two adjacent
  vowels the first one is long.
• When two vowels go walking, the first one does
  the talking and says its name.
• rain day see meat pie
• boat toe slow suit blue

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Vowel Patterns

• Double Vowel Whiners diphthongs and variants
• A word or syllable that contains two adjacent
  vowels the vowels say neither a long or short
  vowel sound, but rather a very different sound.
• Sometimes when two vowels are next to each other,
  they make a funny whining sound, like when you
  fall down and say ow, aw, oy, and get a
  boo-boo.
• fault saw foil boy loud cow moon new
  book

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Vowel Patterns

• Cle consonant le
• This syllable ends with le preceded by a
  consonant, and occurs in two-syllable words.
• When a word ends with a consonant and le, the
  le grabs the consonant before it, and the word
  breaks into two parts right before that
  consonant.
• bubble cable eagle poodle pur-ple

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Vowel Pattern Prediction Power The prediction
power of the patterns ranges from 77 to 89, each
of which is much better than predictions on the
basis of chance alone. Teaching children vowel
patterns can make a difference in their fluency
and comprehension (May, 2002).
Closed 86 89 Open 77 Silent e 81
Bossy r 2 Vowels Talkers Whiners 77 Cle
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Irregular / Memory Words

• About 12 15 of English words do not conform to
  the regular patterns
• Can be taught through context, repetition,
  multisensory techniques, and learning games,
  e.g., Word Wall activities, VAAKT (associative
  word cards), BINGO

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Structural Analysis

• Root words and affixes
• Compound words
• Contractions
• Syllabication

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Root Words and Affixes

• Prefix Root Suffix
• un friend ly
• re heat ed
• in spect or
• Color-highlight or draw a box around affixes
  (prefix green suffix red)
• Make charts for similar affixes

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Compound Words

• Begin with whole word, e.g., doghouse
• Segment and blend
• Use fists, puzzles, linking blocks
• Make lists of compound words
• Use color-coding (doghouse)
• Practice deletion (say doghouse without dog)

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Contractions

• Compare long and short forms, e.g.,
  do not (long 2 words)
• dont (short contraction)
• Highlight apostrophe (use elbow macaroni) and
  deleted letter/s in red
• Use a rubberband to show long and shortened forms
  (same meaning)
• Make lists of contractions from stories

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Syllabication Patterns

• Cle turtle tur tle
• VC/CV rabbit rab bit
• V/CV tiger ti ger
• VC/V camel cam el
• V/V lion li - on

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Strategy for Syllabication

• Spot and dot the vowels
• Connect the dots
• Look at the number of consonants between the
  vowels
• If 2 break between the consonants
• If 1 break before the consonant if it doesnt
  sound right, move over one letter

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Apply and Transfer

• Provide many opportunities to use these skills
  and strategies, both in isolation and in
  connected text
• Fiction and non-fiction
• Poetry and songs
• Decodable text
• Learning games and activities

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Why?

• When students have the MEANS to conquer the code,
• they will reach the GOAL, and
• master the meaning!

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The End

• Remember . . .
• Teach a child to read,
• Give a gift for life!!
• Thank you for your
• kind attention!
• Happy Teaching!

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Contact information

• E. Judith Cohen, Ed.D.
• cohenj_at_fiu.edu
• 305-348-6668
• For more information, see
• Focus on Phonics Assessment and Instruction,
• Wendy Cheyney E. Judith Cohen (1999)
• The Wright Skills Program (PreK Grade 3)
• Fast Track Reading
• Wright Group/ McGraw-Hill
  www.wrightgroup.com

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Websites of Interest

• www.aft.org American Federation of Teachers
• www.ascd.org Association for Supervision and
  Curriculum Development
• www.educationworld.com Education World
• www.fcrr.org Florida Center for Reading Research
• www.idafla.org Florida Branch - IDA
• www.interdys.org International Dyslexia
  Association
• www.nifl.gov National Institute for Literacy
• www.nationalreadingpanel.org National Reading
  Panel
• www.reading.org International Reading
  Association
• www.readingrockets.org Reading Rockets