Supporting Phonemic Awareness

1. Supporting Phonemic
Awareness in the Classroom
Cumulative Course Assessment Product Template
Melissa Tremblay Brimmer
January 28, 2016

2. CCAP Directions
As a cumulative assessment, you will develop plans for teaching phonemic awareness in
your classroom, including plans for assessment procedures, analysis, and activities. This
CCAP template will also include one example of a phonemic awareness assessment and
analysis on a student.
Your plans should incorporate at least one of the technology tools explored in this course
and include details for other types of phonemic awareness strengthening activities. See
the Course Details on the home page top section to review the course layout, syllabus,
and expectations.
Complete this template as the course progresses. This template is due to your facilitator
at the end of Session Six. At that time, your facilitator will review your CCAP and
provide feedback for you.

3. Part I: General Information
(Session One)
GRADE: 2, 3, 4
LESSON BLOCK LENGTH: 40 minutes
Is Phonemic Awareness currently being addressed in your classroom? If so, how? If you are not currently
teaching in a classroom, please fill out this template as if you are teaching in the classroom of your choice.
I teach in a substantially separate classroom for students with Language Based Learning Disabilities. I use
the Orton-Gillingham approach in my instruction. Many of my students came to me without strong phonemic
awareness. During lessons, I use many different phonemic awareness activities, including blending,
segmentation and rhyming. I also work with the Speech and Language Pathologist on helping my students
with the articulation which will then help with decoding.

4. Part II: Phonemic Awareness
(Session One)
Reflect on one of the readings from this session. Some guiding questions could be: Why is phonemic
awareness an important step in learning to read? Do you currently assess student’s phonemic awareness? If
not, what are the early indicators that allow you to identify if a student is at risk of reading difficulty?
Phonemic Awareness is a critical skill for students to have in learning to read. Along with letter knowledge,
it is one of the earliest indicators of how well students will read. Students need to be able to manipulate
phonemes whether it is through deletion, blending, segmenting, onset, rime, and isolation. When students
enter my class as a second, third or fourth grader they have already been identified as having a reading
disability and have already received at least one year of specialized instruction in reading. One of my jobs as
the classroom teacher is to try to “backfill” the missing parts and pieces of PA that they are lacking in order
for them to have success.

5. Part III: Linguistic Components
(Session Two)
From the Yopp article, which activities look promising and intriguing? Which ones might be easiest to
incorporate into your current curriculum? Which activities, before assessing your students, do you think
would benefit your classroom most? How could the activity address the standards?
 With my kindergarten aged daughter, we often play word games in the car. We both take turns
segmenting and blending words. I think that these two skill. These activities address the standards
because they are both critical skills necessary for decoding and encoding. Because she is able to segment
a word, she is able to hear the individual sounds necessary for spelling,

6. Part IV: Audio Recording Practice
(Session Two)
If you used an audio recording tool that provides an URL please share it here. If not upload it as an audio file here
and in the discussion forum. You upload the audio file by: Clicking on Insert in the tool bar above, then pick
Audio, then Audio from file or record audio. If you use another recording program or tool try to save as a .wav
file you are able to save and share the audio directly in PowerPoint.
Reflect on this practice. How do you imagine audio recordings will help you teach and your students learn about
phonemic awareness?
 In order for students to be able to develop PA, they need to be able to hear the 44 different phonemes in the
English language. With a recorded piece, students would be able to hear the proper pronunciation of each
phoneme and how the consonants are clipped.
What struggles did you or your students face or could face?
 An area where a child could struggle from just the audio version is the need for a model. I always have my
students face me so that they can see the position of my lips, tongue and teeth when producing the sounds.

7. Part V: Student Assessment
(Session Three)
Which assessment will you be using on your student?
I used the kindergarten Phonemic Awareness Assessment
Insert the URL of your audio-recorded assessment with a student here or upload audio file here and in the
discussion forum.

8. Part VI: Analysis
(Session Three)
 I used the PA Skills Assessment-Kindergarten on my daughter who is in kindergarten.
 Ellie received Early Intervention services for six months beginning at age 22 months. She was initially referred for services for
expressive language deficits, but was found to be "globally delayed" by the Developmental Specialists conducting the assessments.
After 6 months, I requested that she be re-evaluated and at this time she was discharged from EI as all of her skills were
developmentally appropriate. At age 3.11 I made a request to our public school Special Education Department again for a Speech and
Language Evaluation specifically in articulation. She was evaluated by the preschool team. The SLP agreed that she had some
interesting consonant substitutions and some "backing" and "fronting". Although she didn't qualify for services, she was picked up for
an 8 week RTI group.
 On Skill 1-Uppercase Letter Recognition, she scored 25/26. Her miscue was W instead of J. on Skill 2-Lowercase Letter Recognition,
she scored 24/28. Of those, three had to do with directionality: d/b, q/p and g/q. Her other error was a response of z instead of y. Skill
3-Letter Sound Recognition was more difficult, as she scored an 18/30. Some of those errors again had to do with directionality-
saying /p/ for q and /t/ for f. She also mixed up the sounds for /e/ and /i/. Skill 4-Rhyme Recognition, Skill 5-Onset Fluency and Skill 6-
Blending Compound Words and Syllables she scored a 10/10. Skill 7 focuses on Segmenting Words into syllables, she scored a 9/10.
Her biggest challenge came in Skill 8-Identifying final sounds. In this she scored a 6/10, giving me the initial sound or the voiced vs
unvoiced sounds.
 I am not entirely surprised by the results. We play a lot of rhyming games and her preschool teacher had remarked last year that she had
a very solid understanding of onset and rime. I also am aware at her age, the reversals and confusion in regards to directionality are
developmentally appropriate,

9. Part VII: Strategies
(Session Four)
Classroom Strategies
Activities and procedures
• Blending Activity
•“What’s My Word”
•Student listened to a recording of teacher segmenting words into phonemes. T. was required to put the
corresponding number next to the picture of the word.
Extensions and modifications
•A modification which was necessary was repeated listenings of the recording. On the first listen, T. was not able to
identify the word.
Materials and resources needed
•Recording of phonemes
•Worksheet
Websites used
http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/PDF/G2-3/2-3PA_2.pdf

10. Part VII: Strategies
(Session Four)
Classroom Strategies
Activities and procedures
• Segmenting Activity
•“Phoneme Counting Sort”
• Heading cards with the numbers 2-6 were placed on table. Each card representing number of
phonemes in word.
• Student then chose a picture card from pile.
•He said the name of the word and was asked to hold up a finger for each phoneme or sound.
Extensions and modifications
•A modification which was necessary was using colored bingo chips and pulling down a chip for each
sound. For multi-syllabic words, he counted the phonemes for the first syllable and then the second
syllable. Because he struggles so much with blends, adding in more picture cards focusing primarily on
blends
Materials and resources needed
•Picture cards
•Number headings
Websites used
http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/PDF/G2-3/2-3PA_2.pdf

11. Part VIII: Common Core Standards
(Session Four)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2
•Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.A
•Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.B
•Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.C
•Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.2.D
•Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/1/

12. Part IX: Technology
(Session Five)
I am very lucky to have access to a wide range of technology in my classroom. I have six Chromebooks
exclusively for my classroom use as well as an iPad and an iPod touch. The students use the Chromebooks
daily for different activities.
Literacy,
•Lexia CORE 5
•Used o a daily basis for 15 minutes.
•aligned with the Orton-Gillingham work that I do in my classroom and is a great resource for spiraling
back to learned concepts
•RAZ Kids
• RAZ Kids provides the option for students to listen to a book being read as well. This is a wonderful
feature as they are able to hear a story with proper phrasing and fluency.
•Typing Club
3 times per week.
Favorite Literacy apps
•Real Chalkboard, Glow Draw and Kids Doodle for SOS during an O-G lesson,
•Phonics Genius
•Phonics Tic-Tac-Toe
• Sentence Reading Magic
• OG Card Deck and ABC Ninja

13. Part IX: Technology
(Session Five)
Math
•Reflex Math
•Fabulous program for math fact fluency-spirals back if students have reached a roadblock
•Provides great feedback and data to be shared for RTI and Progress Monitoring
•Xtra Math
•Math Playground
Favorite math apps:
•Thinking Blocks Addition
•Bubble Pop, Math Ninja
•Splash Math
•Native Numbers
•Lakeshore Math Gameshow
Students each have a "menu" of activities that they must do throughout the day. Once they have completed the
required activities, they are able to access one of the choice activities.
We are also fortunate to have a Technology/Library block each week. During this time, the students are taught
how to use a wide range of technology including iMovie to create book reviews and Google Classroom so that
they can virtually “share” work with teachers. We are also fortunate to have Bookshare (through Reading for the
Blind) . Stuents are able to access rich literature that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.

14. Part X: Reflection
(Session Six)
Please use this section to reflect on your phonemic awareness plans and the process you have undergone in this
course. Include the key points of your learning and how it will change your classroom instruction.
This class has really helped to push home the point that Phonemic Awareness is a critical component of reading.
When I conducted the various assessments and activities with my students, my strongest readers were also the
ones that were strongest in the various PA activities..
I have started to use the different resources that were shared through readings and from classmates with my
students and they have really enjoyed trying new things.
Because my students are nine, ten and eleven, I often too get caught up in the notion that PA should have been a
skill that they developed much earlier in their schooling and an attempt to not make any of their work look too
babyish. With careful crafting, they are really enjoying the various activities. Anytime I can incorporate a contest
or game-they buy in!
I have told Lisa Brooks in the past that I am interested in taking the LIPS training, and this helped to drive that
point home.

15. Part XI
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DtSleKmw0JsjNy9O0v_m17MXi7-W0f54bCB0VY0D83w/edit?usp=sharing