Joseph Torgensen's Phonemic Awareness

On the same day as I researched Florida Center for Reading Research: Phonemic Awareness, I also looked into Joseph Torgensen's article on Phonemic Awareness. Fortunately, this provided me with insightful information, which I was in need of when planning my lesson plan for Monday.

When reading the article by Joseph Torgensen, he states “Phonological ability, or talent, is a trait that is strongly heritable. In other words, children can vary in their talent for processing the phonological features of language in the same way they vary among one another in musical ability, height, or hair color.” He also states that this has been proven in a study of twins shows variations in linguistically related to phonological skills in inherited.

 

I must keep in mind, that not all children at a preschool age or even kindergarten age will be able to manipulate phonemes. However, with practice they will be able to improve their ability to decipher individual phonemes. It is hard to believe that such a skill can actually be inherited, however as I read more in his article and my own personal reflection/experiences this does make sense. Just as some children perform better in writing versus reading-- some children have a greater or lesser ability to decipher individual sounds. 

 

   

Phoneme Manipulation

Over the weekend I began researching the Florida Center for Reading Research website which provided meaningful lesson plans in teaching phonemic awareness.  Some of the lesson plans I looked at looked slightly difficult for some of the children in my classroom, as they are at the very beginning stages of gaining phonemic awareness. However, I know that this is a very important skill to obtain upon entering kindergarten and ultimately, it is up to me to foster this skill in the classroom.

On Monday I implemented the lesson plan, without high expectations. The lesson plan I chose was entitled Phoneme Manipulating-- Phoneme Swap.   In this lesson, students decide which phoneme has been changed by comparing two pictures. For example, students say the name of the picture ("boat" and "coat") and then determine what sound has been changed by saying those two sounds (/b/ to /k/). Then the child will state where the sound was changed-- in this case, the beginning.

Half of the class understood what was being asked of them, whereas the other half was confused and unsure of where the sound was swapped. Coincidently, the children who successfully completed this lesson plan was those whom associate letters with letter sounds. The others, who had difficultly, do not quite have this skill down pat.

I hope to continue implementing lesson plans such as this in the classroom more frequently and observe their progress.

Thematic Units: Fire Safety and All About Me

The week of 10/13-10/17 we did a unit on Fire Safety as it was National Fire Safety and Prevention week. A firefighter came to the school and taught the children about fire safety and gave them a tour of his fire truck. Our literacy curriculum consisted of writing the letter 'F' and learning new vocabulary words that begin with 'F', playing a game called Alphabet Siren, matching uppercase to lowercase letters with our fire truck alphabet matching cards, and of course, reading a lot of great books related to fire safety! Alphabet Siren is a game I found online on Pinterest. I wrote letters A-Z on separate small fire truck templates and wrote the word 'siren' on one of the cards. Then I placed all of the cards in a brown bag. Children chose a letter from the bag and said the letter out loud and it's letter sound (if applicable). If a child draw the 'siren' card all of the children make the sound of a siren and get to skip a turn. The children enjoyed this game and when it was over asked me when we would play again! Although the purpose of this activity was for our fire safety week, I have continued to use it during transition periods or if we have some extra free time.



The following week children learned all about themselves in our All About Me unit. Each child created an All About Me book. Inside the book children created a self-portrait, described what they live in (e.g. house, apartment, condo) and their address, how old they are, their favorite food, favorite color, and much more! Children presented their books when they were finished and then brought them home. Some children were able to write some of the words to their story while others needed more help and guidance. We also practiced writing the letter 'H' and shared our letter 'H' bags. Children remembered how to write the letter 'H' by writing two big lines down and one little line across. I have noticed that some children are struggling to remember how to pronounce and write some of our letters from the following weeks so this upcoming week we will be doing a review on letters L, F, E, and H  

Handwriting Without Tears

    Children are already making progress with the Handwriting Without Tears program! I love that we get to spend a whole week on each letter. This has really helped children truly understand what they need to know about each letter. As you know, we started with the letter L. We introduced this letter by having children find an object that begins with the letter L to put inside their Alphabet Bag. Children came back with lots of good examples of objects that begin with L. Some of the objects included a lollipop, lego, licorice, ladybug, lamb, lantern, and much more! After sharing our items, children practiced saying /L/ sound. I read out word cards and had children decipher by the beginning sound of each word whether or not it began with the letter L. Children also went on scavenger hunt in the classroom to look for objects that begin with the letter L. I had to give them a couple hints but they came back with the right objects. :-)
    On Tuesday, our Tuesday/Thursday friends shared their letter bags. Then children began working on an exercise where they trace the upper case and lower case l and then circle the letter L in various words such as ladybug and lollipop. Children learned letter L by making a 'big line' down and 'small line' across. Children did need some extra guidance with this exercise. Luckily, I had a small enough class size to support their learning. On Wednesday, students who did not do the letter L exercise did at this time. Also, children began forming the letter using play dough to form the letter.
    During circle time on Thursday and Friday children came up two at a time to write the uppercase and lower case L. All children were able to write the letter. As a center I put out various alphabet letters where children were to look for the letter L. This week we are starting letter F! Coincidently we are also doing a theme on Fire Safety. :-)

   

Fall is Here!

     Monday marked the first day of fall. There are so many great books related to fall so I thought what a great week to share some of these books! One book the children particularly enjoyed was Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! by Nancy Wallace. In this book children joined Mama and Buddy Bear’s in a stroll through the seasons as they examined the development of leaves on their favorite trees. We also read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colondro, The Leaves on the Trees by Thom Wiley, Discovering My World: Leaves, Leaves, Leaves by Melvin and Gilda Berger, and many more!
    Children also worked on identifying upper and lower case letters G, H, I, J, K by matching upper case to lower case leaf letters.We're Going on a Leaf Hunt and types of apples children remembered from last week's lesson. As I wrote each word I also said the letters in the word and then had children recite them back to me. I had some children come up and draw illustrations under the word later in the day. We also made a Word Chart of words associated with fall. Children were able to identify many words! The words we came up with included leaves, apple pie, apples, apple cider. With some guidance, we then broke up these words in sub categories such as types of leaves as we referred back to our book
        Next week we are starting Handwriting Without Tears. I am very excited to blog about how child respond to this program!

Finally, here are some pictures I'd like to share!

Upper and lower case leaf matching

This is the handbook we will be using
for Handwriting Without Tears.

Books we read related to our fall theme.

Apples, Apples, Apples!

     Last week we did an apples theme in our classroom. The children were excited to discuss what they knew about apples. At the beginning of the week we made a KWL Chart about apples. As a group, children established everything they already knew about apples-- the shape of an apple, different types of apples (e.g. granny smith, macintosh, etc.), how they taste, what can we bake with apples, where do they grow, and so forth. This helped me to understand what they already so I could teach new and exciting lessons throughout the course of the week. As well, children were also able to gain print awareness as we discussed some of the different functions of language such as making a list.

     After starting our KWL chart we read the book The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall. Children were intrigued by the titled and curious as to how there could possibly be an apple pie tree. Before reading the book, children made predictions about why they thought the author titled the book The Apple Pie Tree. I was very impressed with the responses. Colin said, "Because apples come off the tree to make pie." Throughout the book I used dialogic reading and asked some of the following questions: “What do you see on the cover of the book? What do you think this book will be about?” “What do you think grows off the tree?”  “The branches bend down low. They are covered with big red _____ (apples).” “What ingredients do you think mom needs to make the apple pie taste sweet?” “Looking at this picture what does mom have to do to the apples before she puts them in the pie.” “Where do you think mom puts the pan to cook after she added all the ingredients?”

      I love using dialogic reading in my classroom! I've found that it helps students stay focused and interested in the book, while providing basic comprehension skills. By the end of the book children were able to recite what ingredients/steps were needed to bake an apple pie. Children also learned how seasons effect the growth of an apple tree and why apples grow in fall.

   

 

 

 

 

Back to School!

Hi there,

We just finished our first full week of the new school year! The children in our pre-k classroom are ages 3 and 4. Most children will be entering Kindergarten next year. Therefore, it is especially important that they are provided with early literacy skills, as well as other fundamental skills in other prominent areas of preschool curriculum upon entering Kindergarten. Each week my co-teacher and I will devise and implement a curriculum that builds upon previously learned skills. In this blog, I will discuss each week's curriculum related to literacy.

In order for you to get a better feel about where and how we implement literacy in our classroom I wanted to describe to you our classroom environment. Our learning environment is very organized and provides children with the resources they need to learn and grow. We have an area in the classroom that is specifically related to literacy. Our book area has a large selection of books related to our curriculum and the interests of our students. This books are changed out weekly in order to keep children excited and interested in reading. Near the book area are cushions so children can relax and enjoy reading. We also have a circular table that is used for up to 3 or 4 children to work in small groups or with a teacher. On a typical day there are quiet activities related to literacy on the table. Sometimes there are letter stencils, stick-on foam letters, letter puzzles, letter stamps, etc. Adjacent to this table, is a smaller area for two classmates to work independently or as partners on either writing or literacy activities. We like to create our own activities related to the subject and our curriculum. However, we do have some pre-made reading and writing activities at times found here too. I will be posting pictures of this area the week of 9/15-9/20!

This week, children are beginning to develop an understanding of our daily routine and classroom rules/expectations. My co-teacher and I are also gaining an understanding of the children in our classroom and what their strengths and weaknesses are. In order to assess where they are in terms of literacy development we asked various questions. For example, when reading The Kissing Hand, I asked children if they could tell me where the title is, author's name, and where the text is located. During the book, I asked children questions related to the book (i.e. "How do you think Chester felt in the beginning of this book? Why?, How did he feel by the end of the book? Did his feelings change?)-- thus, assessing their comprehension skills. Then, I concluded the book by having children describe how THEY felt on their first day of school and why? (implementing text-t0-self connections). We also had all children attempt to write their names throughout the week (if able to) in order to see where they stand in terms of their writing.  

The week of 9/8-9/12 I will not be in the classroom, so I will post again the following week!


Sarah