I did not post back then, but in January, we received a new set of instructions from the school explaining how we should work on fluency.
The instructions explain how fluency means using the appropriate pitch, pace, phrasing and expression. The instructions explain that this kind of fluency "aids comprehension."
The sheet explains 5 different methods parents can use at home to increase reading fluency.
1. Echo reading: You read one line and the child reads the same line. Increase the number of lines at a time to 2 and so on. This should be done at least once a week.
2. Choral reading: You and your child read the same text aloud together. Choral reading should be done at least twice a week.
3. Partner reading. You read a sentence and your child read the next and so on. When the child's reading improves, you read a page and your child reads the next page and so on. This should be done at least once a week.
4. Repeated reading. Read the same book or story more than once in the same week.
As you can guess, I was busy actually teaching reading, so I chucked these instructions to the side. Frankly, in my opinion, fluency comes with actually knowing how to read. And, some of these instructions seemed to me as if they were actually a deceptive way to disguise that the books have gone beyond the child's memorized words. After all, if the parents are reading the text first, that tells the child what the words are so that the child doesn't have to figure them out. That's even so with the choral reading, because I would bet that some children will be slightly behind the parent - like when you're singing a song you don't know the words to.
And, I just love that there was an assessment at the bottom giving guidance on determining the fluency of a child's reading. For example -
Needs work - Reading is word by word, slow, and choppy, with some words missed and not enough expression to show an understanding of the text.
Finally, I really don't care if my daughter can read the three little pigs and use the wolf's voice for the wolf. I'd rather that she can actually read the words.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Rhyming
I remember from my daughter's early first grade days that there was a big focus on rhyming. But at the time I wondered why this was so important in first grade. As far as I was concerned, rhyming is relevant to writing rhyming poetry. It seemed unnecessary for first grade.
I have since read that rhyming is considered by some to be helpful for children learning how to read. But to me it seems like reading should come first and then rhyming. For instance, how does a child look at the words "red" and "said" and know that they rhyme unless the child can actually read the words. Also, although words like "bed" and "red" will probably appear to a child to rhyme, even if a child can't read the words, how does this help a child to actually read these words. I realize that the thought is that if the child knows the word "red" but not the word "bed", that through rhyming the child should know the word "bed." But this does not help children at all when the sounds are the same but the spellings are vastly different.
My daughter, for instance, brought home this terrible rhyming assignment in the first month or so that had words my daughter could not read at all and she was supposed to be able to pick out the rhyming words. It was the most horrendous and frustrating assignment for my daughter all year. And, she didn't learn anything from it, nor would I have expected her to.
I have since read that rhyming is considered by some to be helpful for children learning how to read. But to me it seems like reading should come first and then rhyming. For instance, how does a child look at the words "red" and "said" and know that they rhyme unless the child can actually read the words. Also, although words like "bed" and "red" will probably appear to a child to rhyme, even if a child can't read the words, how does this help a child to actually read these words. I realize that the thought is that if the child knows the word "red" but not the word "bed", that through rhyming the child should know the word "bed." But this does not help children at all when the sounds are the same but the spellings are vastly different.
My daughter, for instance, brought home this terrible rhyming assignment in the first month or so that had words my daughter could not read at all and she was supposed to be able to pick out the rhyming words. It was the most horrendous and frustrating assignment for my daughter all year. And, she didn't learn anything from it, nor would I have expected her to.
Friday, March 11, 2011
We Teach Phonics
I recently asked my daughter's school district what the district policy is on the teaching of phonics and here's what I received in response:
As recommended by the district, state and current evidenced-based research on best practices, the first grade teachers at *** use a balanced literacy approach that includes components of alphabetics, vocabulary, and sight words. Students are immersed in alphabetics daily which includes both phonemic awareness and phonics (sound isolation, identity, categorization, blending, segmentation, phonemic deletion, and onset-rime). Systematic strategies are taught to teach students how to isolate and manipulate phonemes in words (beginning, middle, and end). Vocabulary instruction is taught through three components: oral, listening and speaking, within context at students’ independent and instructional level. Research informs us that vocabulary is best learned when taught explicitly, when students are engaged in class discussion and conversation, when read aloud to, and when they read on their own. Sight word recognition is taught through systematic instruction based upon evidence that quick and effortless recognition of words is necessary for readers to read fluently. In addition, in acknowledgment of research that indicates alphabet and phonemic awareness are the two best indicators of how well children will learn to read, the **** First Grade teachers work hard to provide individualized instruction through scheduled word work, Intervention Block, Guided Reading, Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop.
I see a lot of phonemic awareness, but where is the phonics? What is described as phonics parenthetically is virtually only a list of phonemic awareness topics.
As recommended by the district, state and current evidenced-based research on best practices, the first grade teachers at *** use a balanced literacy approach that includes components of alphabetics, vocabulary, and sight words. Students are immersed in alphabetics daily which includes both phonemic awareness and phonics (sound isolation, identity, categorization, blending, segmentation, phonemic deletion, and onset-rime). Systematic strategies are taught to teach students how to isolate and manipulate phonemes in words (beginning, middle, and end). Vocabulary instruction is taught through three components: oral, listening and speaking, within context at students’ independent and instructional level. Research informs us that vocabulary is best learned when taught explicitly, when students are engaged in class discussion and conversation, when read aloud to, and when they read on their own. Sight word recognition is taught through systematic instruction based upon evidence that quick and effortless recognition of words is necessary for readers to read fluently. In addition, in acknowledgment of research that indicates alphabet and phonemic awareness are the two best indicators of how well children will learn to read, the **** First Grade teachers work hard to provide individualized instruction through scheduled word work, Intervention Block, Guided Reading, Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop.
I see a lot of phonemic awareness, but where is the phonics? What is described as phonics parenthetically is virtually only a list of phonemic awareness topics.
Friday, February 18, 2011
How Not to Teach Context Clues and I am a Phonicator
This is a follow-up to my most recent post on context clues gone bad, in which I provided my own observations on the proper use of context clues.
I came across this interesting blog post today on the use of context clues:
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-not-to-teach-context-clues/
According to this article, I am a Phonicator. The author defines a Phonicator as a person who "de-emphasize[s] the use of context clues to “guess” the meanings of words and teach[es] students to decode words in and out of context." That must be me, because the "guessing" aspect is what in my opinion has caused the most problems for my daughter and what is my biggest pet peeve over how the school has taught my daughter to read.
The author, feels that context clues should not be used as a primary strategy for determining unknown words for a beginning reader and that instead context clues should serve as a backup after applying phonics principles.
I came across this interesting blog post today on the use of context clues:
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-not-to-teach-context-clues/
According to this article, I am a Phonicator. The author defines a Phonicator as a person who "de-emphasize[s] the use of context clues to “guess” the meanings of words and teach[es] students to decode words in and out of context." That must be me, because the "guessing" aspect is what in my opinion has caused the most problems for my daughter and what is my biggest pet peeve over how the school has taught my daughter to read.
The author, feels that context clues should not be used as a primary strategy for determining unknown words for a beginning reader and that instead context clues should serve as a backup after applying phonics principles.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Context Clues Gone Bad
My two cents for today ---
As I think back, I remember that when I taught my brother and two sisters how to read I used context as an aid in reading. But my use of context was connected with phonics and was only to assist a reader who was close with the sounding out, but just not there yet, particularly when there might be alternate ways to say the word. At that point, it sometimes makes sense to think about context to get to the right sounding out. And the reader's reasonable expectation of being correct in such a case, in my opinion, should be very high. So, I think context should play a part, including the rest of the words in the sentence but only when phonics rules have been applied first and only when the reader is having a lot of trouble.
But using the context, such as the first letter of the word, the ending sound, the relative length of the word, the text in the rest of the sentence, and pictures, if available, seems almost destined to have an exponentially high error rate. For instance, one time, my daughter read biting as bringing. Both start with b, and both end in "ing." And, I don't remember the sentence, but bringing made perfect sense to my daughter as a correct word. If she had applied phonics, then bringing would not even be considered as an option. She might have instead read the word as bitting, and then realized her mistake by the fact that it's not a word she knows (not a word at all) and it doesn't fit in with the story, but biting which sounds close would have fit into the story and is the only other alternative because there's only two possibilities for the word if you know phonics. Further still, if you knew that biting was made from bite with the e removed and ing added, your level of certainty would be 100%.
So, I remember saying back all those years ago, "Does that make sense" when a sibling had sounded out a word incorrectly and did not make a correction. I have resisted that statement with my daughter, but it does make sense to me to make the statement (no pun intended) but only judiciously. But as to the other context clues used by proponents of whole language, such as using the first letter, a picture and even the last sounds of a word (while ignoring everything in the middle) are not appropriate.
As I think back, I remember that when I taught my brother and two sisters how to read I used context as an aid in reading. But my use of context was connected with phonics and was only to assist a reader who was close with the sounding out, but just not there yet, particularly when there might be alternate ways to say the word. At that point, it sometimes makes sense to think about context to get to the right sounding out. And the reader's reasonable expectation of being correct in such a case, in my opinion, should be very high. So, I think context should play a part, including the rest of the words in the sentence but only when phonics rules have been applied first and only when the reader is having a lot of trouble.
But using the context, such as the first letter of the word, the ending sound, the relative length of the word, the text in the rest of the sentence, and pictures, if available, seems almost destined to have an exponentially high error rate. For instance, one time, my daughter read biting as bringing. Both start with b, and both end in "ing." And, I don't remember the sentence, but bringing made perfect sense to my daughter as a correct word. If she had applied phonics, then bringing would not even be considered as an option. She might have instead read the word as bitting, and then realized her mistake by the fact that it's not a word she knows (not a word at all) and it doesn't fit in with the story, but biting which sounds close would have fit into the story and is the only other alternative because there's only two possibilities for the word if you know phonics. Further still, if you knew that biting was made from bite with the e removed and ing added, your level of certainty would be 100%.
So, I remember saying back all those years ago, "Does that make sense" when a sibling had sounded out a word incorrectly and did not make a correction. I have resisted that statement with my daughter, but it does make sense to me to make the statement (no pun intended) but only judiciously. But as to the other context clues used by proponents of whole language, such as using the first letter, a picture and even the last sounds of a word (while ignoring everything in the middle) are not appropriate.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Fascinated by the Dictionary
Tonight I told my daughter that sometimes I run across a word that I don't know. She was surprised. I told her that I look in a dictionary and the dictionary tells you how to say a word and what it means. I also gave her a children's dictionary that someone gave us awhile back that at the time we thought was too old for her. She loved it. We even looked up some words together. I think it would be too confusing though to explain to her the how the pronunciation symbols work.
Need To Practice the Vowel Combinations More
My daughter had been doing so well with her reading but this past weekend it looked like she had taken some steps back. This evening I discovered that the problem was a need to review the sounds like aw, au, ay, ai, oy, oi, etc. It only takes about about 10 minutes to review everyday. We also need to do more practice with the silent "e." It was better tonight after the review.
Not sure what we are going to do with the ough sound....
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_different_ways_can_you_pronounce_ough
7 different sounds. I think we can wait for that one and that schwa sounds for that matter. We'll do those when she's a bit older.
Not sure what we are going to do with the ough sound....
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_different_ways_can_you_pronounce_ough
7 different sounds. I think we can wait for that one and that schwa sounds for that matter. We'll do those when she's a bit older.
Mommy, Why was the Alphabet Invented?
Yesterday my 6 year old daughter asked me why someone invented the alphabet. I told her that long, long ago people used to communicate by speaking and drawing pictures. Then I mentioned that drawing a picture helps for some things, but there are just some things you can't communicate with a picture. As an example I asked her to suppose that I wanted her to clean her room and I drew her a picture of a messy room. I said that she might just think I wanted to draw a picture of her room and she may not know that I wanted her to clean her room. She seemed to understand and laughed. Then I told her that some smart person decided that if we had a system of symbols to represent sounds that words could be put down in writing. So that when we speak the sounds and put them together we make the words that we speak.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
My Mom Taught Me
I have pleasant memories of my mom teaching me phonics. Unbeknownst to my mom at the time, because I never told her until I was an adult, I had been terrified of my kindergarten teacher because she yelled constantly. So no wonder I had not learned how to read at all in kindergarten.
My mom used yellow sheets of lined paper upon which she wrote words like ball, cat and dog down on the paper and showed me how to read each one. She was successful in teaching me and I went on to first grade. I wished I could remember how my reading instruction went from there, but I do remember my teacher in 1st or 2nd grade writing the word "enough" on the board and asking anyone if they knew the word. I remember being proud of myself because I was the only one who raised a hand and knew the word. I don't remember how I knew that word, but I went on to read well in advance of my grade level.
I was the oldest of 5 children, and in my adolescence, I taught the youngest 3 children how to use phonics to read. My mom even took me to the library so I could help my brothers and sisters pick out books. We would play school and I would teach and they would learn. I now know from my current research that I had taught them some of the vowel combinations, such as ow, oo, er, or and ar, but I had not taught all the other sounds that are possible. Each of them knew basic phonics reading when they went to school. The school must have continued to teach phonics, because all went on to be good readers, and one is a postdoctoral fellow in a specialized science, and at least two remember being taught phonics.
Anyway, I mention all of this because when it came to my daughter I wanted her to learn to read before she went to school. At first, she did not want to learn from her mom. So I purchased some DVDs for her to watch. That got her interested and she started to ask me how to spell words and she started to spell words herself. She could read some 3 and 4 letter words, but I could not yet get her to read a book with me. But I was patient and did not push. Given that she had the basics of reading, I expected that she would do well with reading in school when someone other than her mom would be teaching her. And, I expected that the school would use phonics to pick up where I left off. But that just didn't happen. And, now I'm wondering just how long I will be teaching her in order to fill in the gaping gaps in her education at school. I suspect at this moment that it will be through her all her public school years.
My mom used yellow sheets of lined paper upon which she wrote words like ball, cat and dog down on the paper and showed me how to read each one. She was successful in teaching me and I went on to first grade. I wished I could remember how my reading instruction went from there, but I do remember my teacher in 1st or 2nd grade writing the word "enough" on the board and asking anyone if they knew the word. I remember being proud of myself because I was the only one who raised a hand and knew the word. I don't remember how I knew that word, but I went on to read well in advance of my grade level.
I was the oldest of 5 children, and in my adolescence, I taught the youngest 3 children how to use phonics to read. My mom even took me to the library so I could help my brothers and sisters pick out books. We would play school and I would teach and they would learn. I now know from my current research that I had taught them some of the vowel combinations, such as ow, oo, er, or and ar, but I had not taught all the other sounds that are possible. Each of them knew basic phonics reading when they went to school. The school must have continued to teach phonics, because all went on to be good readers, and one is a postdoctoral fellow in a specialized science, and at least two remember being taught phonics.
Anyway, I mention all of this because when it came to my daughter I wanted her to learn to read before she went to school. At first, she did not want to learn from her mom. So I purchased some DVDs for her to watch. That got her interested and she started to ask me how to spell words and she started to spell words herself. She could read some 3 and 4 letter words, but I could not yet get her to read a book with me. But I was patient and did not push. Given that she had the basics of reading, I expected that she would do well with reading in school when someone other than her mom would be teaching her. And, I expected that the school would use phonics to pick up where I left off. But that just didn't happen. And, now I'm wondering just how long I will be teaching her in order to fill in the gaping gaps in her education at school. I suspect at this moment that it will be through her all her public school years.
Clarification
I should clarify the previous post. All through this process after I discovered the existence of this problem - when the facade of my daughter having excellent reading skills crumbled away - I have been reading more than the school assigned books and have been reading more time with her. I had been doing this practically every night except for one night of the week when my daughter has gymnastics. We've read books leveled between 2nd and 5th grade.
But this week, I let up a little and just read the school assigned books. I did not review the phonic sounds with her - which, I had been doing periodically. I was tired and we were generally busy. But just that small amount of time of letting up and just doing the school assigned work was enough for some of the bad habits to creep back, even though my daughter knows better. Fortunately, she knows and understands her phonics. It is just a matter of training her to consistently apply them.
My daughter was pretty consistent before this week, but I suspect the teacher, whether knowingly or unknowingly, has worked to undue some of my work. I don't know if she knows what I've been doing at home with the phonics but I believe she probably does know based upon how my daughter reads now. For instance, she was recently moved into the group that reads the chapter books. And, you can hear her sound out words while she's reading.
But this week, I let up a little and just read the school assigned books. I did not review the phonic sounds with her - which, I had been doing periodically. I was tired and we were generally busy. But just that small amount of time of letting up and just doing the school assigned work was enough for some of the bad habits to creep back, even though my daughter knows better. Fortunately, she knows and understands her phonics. It is just a matter of training her to consistently apply them.
My daughter was pretty consistent before this week, but I suspect the teacher, whether knowingly or unknowingly, has worked to undue some of my work. I don't know if she knows what I've been doing at home with the phonics but I believe she probably does know based upon how my daughter reads now. For instance, she was recently moved into the group that reads the chapter books. And, you can hear her sound out words while she's reading.
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