This document provides a template for a cumulative assessment product (CCAP) on developing plans to teach phonemic awareness in the classroom. It includes sections for general information, why phonemic awareness is important, current assessment practices, linguistic components, audio recording examples, conducting a student assessment, analyzing student results, instructional strategies, connecting to standards, using technology, and reflecting on learning. The template is to be completed throughout a training course and submitted for review.

1. Supporting Phonemic
Awareness in the Classroom
Cumulative Course Assessment Product Template
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

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.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

3. Part I: General Information
(Session One)
GRADE:
LESSON BLOCK LENGTH:
Phonemic Awareness currently being addressed in your classroom? If so, how?
This school year I have been able to address the Phonemic Awareness of my students. At the beginning of this
course I thought I was only addressing the phonetic awareness of my students but after reflection of my practice I
realized that I am also providing my students with instruction of Phonemic Awareness. Two days a week my
students have a twenty minute lesson on the Phonemic Awareness and Phonetic Awareness. The first ten minutes
of the lesson students work on blending and segmenting sounds. Students will also engage in substitution activities
such as the teacher introduction the word “rat” and then the students would have to replace the initial sound to
make a new word like “/b/at”.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

4. Part II: Phonemic Awareness
(Session One)
Why is phonemic awareness an important step in learning to read?
In the article, “The Importance of Phonemic Awareness in Learning to Read” by Wesley A. Hoover it clearly
states that a person needs to have an understanding between spoken words and written print. If a student never
makes this connection then the student is less likely to become a reader. The article goes on to say that when a
student has strong phonemic awareness skills, the student would have strong decoding skills which then leads to
strong reading skills. I have to agree with that point as I see that everyday with my students. My students that have
strong phonemic awareness skills are able to decode unknown words. They are able to then re-read the sentence
to gain meaning. Without a doubt if a student is reading a language that has an alphabetic principle like English or
Spanish it is vital that they have phonemic awareness skills.
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?
I do not formally asses my students on their phonemic awareness but informally twice a week my students are
assessed on certain blended sounds such as /ch/ or /ee/. This assessment is conducted in a small group with three
students. I say the sound, then the students repeat the sound and then finally the students individually will say the
sound. If a student mispronounces the sound we repeat the sound until the student has correctly pronounce it.
There have been a few times when I have had to go to the student’s speech teacher to help when a student is
struggle with a particular sound.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

5. Part III: Linguistic Components
(Session Two)
From the Yopp article, which activities look promising and intriguing?
 In the Yopp article there are three activities that look promising and intriguing. The activities are blending,
segmenting and segmentation. These activities look promising because they can be easily incorporated into
my current curriculum. I already have have time carved out in my class to conduct these activities. What I find
intriguing about the activities is that each activity can be done at the syllable, onset –rime and the phoneme
level. Typically I only do these activities at the syllable or onset-rime level; I have never thought to conduct the
activity at a phoneme level.
Which activities, before assessing your students, do you think would benefit your classroom most?
 The activities that I believe to benefit my students the most are the blending and segmenting activities at the
syllable and on-set rime level. These activities will enable my students to correctly pronounce unknown
vocabulary words and then be able to make meaning out of the sentence, paragraph and then the whole
passage.
How could the activity address the standards?
 Very few of the 6th
grade standards address phonemic awareness but this skill is required so that students can
make meaning of the text. There is one standard that loosely connects and that is CCL6.6 which is vocabulary
acquisition and use.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

6. Part IV: Audio Recording Practice
(Session Two)
Audio Recording of Consonants sounds:
How do you imagine audio recordings will help you teach and your students learn about phonemic awareness?
 The audio recordings could really help the students hear the errors that are making when they are making the
consonants and vowel sounds. I could easily set up a learning center where the students would have to listen
to a series of initial sounds or blends. The students would then have to record themselves. After they record
themselves the could hear their own misproncations of certain sounds. I believe that it might make the
students more aware of there own misunderstanding or misconceptions about a sound.
What struggles did you or your students face or could face?
 I was surprised at the number of errors that I made in my recordings. I wondered if it was because I was
congested or have I always made those errors. I have many concerns for my students if we should make an
audio recording; the first being that the students would not be able to hear their own errors, second their
articulation disability will prevent this activity from being useful and finally and least concerning if my students
would be willing to make an audio recording.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

7. Part V: Student Assessment
(Session Three)
Which assessment(s) will you be using on your student?
Older Student Pre-Assessment: Substitution
Older Student Pre-Assessment: Sound Segmentation
DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

8. Part VI: Analysis
(Session Three)
After completing an assessment on a student or small child, you will reflect on their scores using the appropriate worksheet. Please upload the
worksheets in the discussion forums if possible.
 What stands out to you most?
The thing that stood out the most after conduction the assessment was that my student struggles with his
phonemes. For example when I conducted the Older Student Pre-Assessment: Substitution the student really
struggled with completing the task orally. My students need to have more practice sounds orally.
 Reflect on the areas of student strength.
The strength of my student was his fluency. As a class we have been doing a fluency program three times a day.
When I conducted the DIEBLS fluency assessment my student read 111 CWPM. I consider this a strength
because at the beginning of the school year his CWPM was only 86 and now it has grown to 111 CWPM.
 Reflect on the areas of student weakness.
My student’s weakness is his ability to isolate sounds and has limited phonemic awareness skills. Although he is
one of my stronger readers I have come to realize he does not know his foundational skills as well as I thought
he did.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

9. Part VII: Strategies
(Session Four)
Include strategies you will use and currently using in your classroom here.
 Elkonin Boxes (Segmentation)
 Clapping games (Syllable Games)
 Speedy Rime Words (onset-rime manipulation)
 The Phoneme Game (Phoneme Segmenting)
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

10. Part VII: Strategies, cont.
(Session Four)
Include strategies you will use in your classroom here.
 The activity that I did with my students was Speedy Rime Words (onset-rime manipulation). I made a few minor
changes to the way the activity was conducted. In the original directions the students were to write their words
on a piece of paper. The modification that I made was that I put the six students into two teams and the teams
would compete against each other. The teams would select a different student for each round. The round one
member would come to the board and had one minute to build as many "at” words as possible. Then teams
would have a 30 second conversation and then round two and three would occur at the board. The team with
the most correct words built would receive a point. During this activity all of the students were activity and
passionately engaged. My students were encouraging each other and working collaborating it was really nice
to watch. I believe the activity was effective in that one group said that was the most words they had ever
written. I also like this activity because of the limited required materials, markers and a board. The major
change I would make the next time I do this activity is that the teams would write their answers on chart paper.
Students were looking at the other team's words and there was some copying.
 Speedy Rime Words (onset-rime manipulation)
http://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/F_007a.pdf
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

11. Part VIII: Common Core Standards
(Session Four)
Please list all relevant State Standards here.
Language Standards 6–12:
2.Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when
writing.
 Use punctuation (commas, parentheses, dashes) to set off nonrestrictive/parenthetical elements.*
 Spell correctly.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/ela/0311.pdf
(This is the only standard that would directly addresses Phonemic Awareness. The part of the standard that address that would address
Phonemic Awareness is spelling)
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

12. Part IX: Technology
(Session Five)
Include technology strategies you will use in your classroom:
 The types of technologies that I will continue to in my classroom are the wordle.net and mobymax.com.
Wordlet.net allows me to display information about about a topic in a new and interesting way. For example I
use the wordlet.net to engage students in conversation about character traits or the theme of a passage. I will
continue to use mobymax.com as a tool for my students to work on remedial reading and vocabulary skills.
 After completing this course I know that I need to add more phonemic awareness activities into my curriculum.
A couple of ideas that I have are to have a learning station where the students would have an opportunity to
record themselves or listen to recording of the different consonants and vowel sounds. I also spent some time
looking for different games that address phonemic awareness to put on my iPad that my students could play.
The one that I am going to have them play is called “Phonetics Showdown” created by the Cambridge English
Online. In this game the student has to select the correct sound to complete before the other student.
 My classroom has limited technology devices. I have a laptop, iPad and a projector that the students all use
depending on the academic task.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

13. 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 course has been a great reminder that I need to always start small to get big in this case I need to go
back to the phoneme level (small) to improve my students reading (big). I realize that I have not been
incorporating enough Phonemic awareness in my everyday lessons. Some of the things I have realized in this
course is that my students need to listen to themselves and others in making sounds. My students also need to
spend move time “playing” with sounds. I know that I can incorporate in the moment learning opportunities like
when a student does not pronounce a word correctly we can take apart, more than decode the word and get to
the phoneme level of the word. As a result of this class I know that I need to incorporate direct instruction of my
students PA skills. I am also going to change how I start my class, each day I will read a Shel Silverstein poem
to support their onset-rime skills.
Wendy Welch 2/23/15

14. Part XI
Lesson Plan
Wendy Welch 2/23/15