The document outlines essential concepts for supporting children's reading development, emphasizing that reading is not innate but learned through awareness of phonemes and print. It addresses key areas such as phonological awareness, letter knowledge, word recognition, and the relationship between sounds and their written representations, highlighting the importance of phonemic awareness for reading success. Additionally, it discusses the complexities of English orthography and the need for children to understand word meanings and context to improve literacy skills.

1. Supporting
Children’s Reading
Development
Community of Learners Foundation

2.  Reading is not a natural ability. Speaking
is innate, reading is not.
 Learning to read starts with the
AWARENESS that speech is composed of
individual sounds (phonemes) and a
recognition that written spellings
represent those sounds. (Alphabetic
Principle).
Community of Learners Foundation

3. EARLY LITERACY CONCEPTS
 Distinguishing between print and pictures
 Print and pictures are different but are connected
 You read the print, not the picture
 Understanding a concept of a letter
 There is a difference between a word and a letter.
 A letter has a name and a shape.
 A letter or a group of letters represent a sound.
 A letter has a shape and has features.
 A letter is always the same and you look at the parts to
identify it.
 There are uppercase and lowercase letters.
 .
Community of Learners Foundation

4.  Understanding a concept of a word
 A word is a group of letters that mean something.
 A word in writing is a group of letters with space on
either side.
Community of Learners Foundation

5.  Directionality
 You read and write from left to right.
 You turn pages to read and look at the left page first
 You read left to right and then go back to the left to
start a new line
 The first letter in a word is on the left and the last
letter is right before the space or ending punctuation
 The first word on a page is on top. The last part is at
the bottom.
Community of Learners Foundation

6.  Understanding the concept of the first and last in written
language
* first word in a sentence- left
* last word is before a period or question mark
* first letter of a word is on the left
* the first part of a page is on top
* the last part is at the bottom
 Understanding that one spoken word matches one group of
letters
“ We say one word for each word we see in
writing “
Community of Learners Foundation

7. PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
-refers to both explicit and implicit
knowledge of the sounds of language. It
includes the ability to hear and identify
words, rhymes, syllables, onsets and
rimes
Hearing and Recognizing Word Boundaries
• You can hear words in a sentence if you
stop after each one
• You can say each word in a sentence
I like to go home.
Community of Learners Foundation

8. Term Definition
Phonological Awareness The awareness of any size unit of
sound, including the ability to
separate words into syllables,
phonemes and to generate and
recognize rhyming words
Phonemic Awareness The awareness that spoken
language is made up of individual
units of sound
Phonics An instructional approach for
teaching reading and spelling that
emphasizes sound-symbol
relationship
Community of Learners Foundation

9. Phonemic Awareness - involves the auditory
and oral manipulation of sounds
Phonics is an instructional approach that
builds on the alphabetic principle and
associate letters and sounds with written
symbols.
Simply learning letter-sound relationships
during phonics instruction does not
necessarily lead to phonemic awareness
Community of Learners Foundation

10. Phonemic Awareness and
Learning to Read
 Readers must learn the alphabetic
principle and recognize that words can be
separated into individual phonemes which
can be reordered and blended into words.
This enables learners to associate the
letters with sounds in order to read and
build words.
 Phonemic awareness is a strong predictor
of reading success that persists
throughout school.
Community of Learners Foundation

11.  Rhyming Words
“ Some words have parts that sound alike.
“ You can hear rhymes in songs and poems.
“ You can say words and hear words that rhyme “
 Hearing and Saying Syllables
“Words can be broken into smaller parts called
syllables.
“Some words have one syllables. Some have 2 or more.
 Blending syllables
You can blend syllables together ( pen-cil)
Community of Learners Foundation

12.  Blending and Segmenting Onsets and Rimes
Onset- first sound in a word
Rime- the rest of the sounds in a word
b-at
f-an
 Blending and Segmenting Phonemes
“ You can hear the sounds in a word.”
“ You can say each sound in a word.”
“ You can hear the first sound in a word.”
“ You can say the last sound in a word. “
 Hearing similar beginning phonemes in words
“ Some words sound the same at the
beginning. “ mat- man
“ Some words sound the same at the end
fan - win
Community of Learners Foundation

13. Sound to Letters
(Phonemes to Graphemes)
 The brain must be able to memorize a set of
squiggles and identify which symbols called
graphemes correspond to the phonemes already
stored in the mental lexicon.
 The rules of spelling that govern a spelling are called
its orthography.
Community of Learners Foundation

14. Drawbacks:
1.Letters of the alphabet are abstract ad thus
unfamiliar to the new reader and he sounds they
represent are natural segments of speech.
2.There are 44 English phonemes but only 26
letters. In other words, each phoneme is not
coded with a unique letter.
Ex. more than 12 vowel sounds but only 5 vowels
Community of Learners Foundation

15.  English has a deep orthography which
makes it one of the most difficult to learn
especially for those whose native
language has a more reliable letter-to-
sound correspondences such as Spanish
Community of Learners Foundation

16.  how a letter is pronounced depends on
the letters that surround it .ex r-
influenced ; e in dead, deed, dike
 consonant digraphs/trigraphs represent
single sounds
THERE ARE MORE THAN 1100 ways to
represent the sounds of the 44 English
phonemes.
Community of Learners Foundation

17. LETTER KNOWLEDGE
 refers to the what children need to learn about the
graphic characters that correspond with the sounds of
language
- Children need to learn the names and purposes of
letters as well as the particular features of each
 Identifying Letters
 Recognizing Letters in Words and Sentences
 Forming Letters
Community of Learners Foundation

18. LETTER-SOUND
RELATIONSHIPS
The sounds of language are related in simple and complex
ways to the 26 letters of the alphabet
• Consonants
• Vowels
Community of Learners Foundation

19. LETTERS TO WORDS
Decoding –ability to use the alphabetic
principle to sound out a word by recognizing
which phonemes are represented by the
letters and then blending those phonemes
into a legitimate word.
Community of Learners Foundation

20. HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS
 Words that appear frequently in simple texts they read
 Makes reading more efficient as recognition of high
frequency words become automatic
Community of Learners Foundation

21. WORD MEANING AND
VOCABULARY
 Children need to know the meaning of the words they
are learning to read and write
 Children need to have multiple encounters with these
words
 Accuracy in spelling requires knowing the meaning of
the word you want to write.
 Comprehension and accurate pronunciation are also
related to knowing word meanings.
 Knowing synonyms, antonyms and homonyms will help
students build more powerful systems for connecting
and categorizing words
Community of Learners Foundation

22.  Concept Words ex days of the week, color and shape
words, seasons, number words
 Related Words
*Some words go together because of how they sound e.g.
sleep/slip, ate/eight
* Some words go together because of how they look e.g.
* Some words go together because of what they mean e.g.
family – mother,father ,son
Community of Learners Foundation

23. What literacy skills and
concepts and skills do
we need to assess ?
Community of Learners Foundation

24.  Concepts of Print/Book Knowledge
 Concept of letter, word, picture and sound
 Meaning of Punctuation Marks
 Book parts
 Directionality
 concept of the first and last in written language
Community of Learners Foundation

25.  Phonological Awareness
 Hearing and Recognizing Word Boundaries
 Recognizing and Supplying Rhyming Words
 Blending and Segmenting Onsets and Rimes
 Blending and Segmenting Syllables
 Blending and Segmenting Phonemes
Community of Learners Foundation

26.  Letter Knowledge
 Identifying Letters
 Recognizing Letters in Words and Sentences
 Forming Letters
 Letter Sound Relationships
 Beginning, Medial, Final Sounds
 Short and Long Vowels
 Blends and Digraphs
Community of Learners Foundation

27. References:
 Sousa, David A. “How the Brain Learns to Read”. Corwin Press, 2005
 Dehaene, Stanislas. “ Reading in the Brain”.Viking, Penguin Group
 Willis, Judy M.D. “Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies for Improving Fluency,
Vocabulary and Comprehension” . ASCD.
 Bear, Invernzzi, Templeton, Johnston. “Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics,
Vocabulary and Instruction. Pearson Education Limited.
 Sprenger, Marilee. “Wiring the Brain for Reading: Brain-based Strategies for
Literacy Learning”.Jossey-Bass
 Pinnel,Gay Su and Fountas, Irene C. “The Continuum of Literacy Learning: A
Guide to Teaching”. Heinemann Publishing.
 Pinnel,Gay Su and Fountas, Irene C. “Word Matters:Teaching Phonics in the
Reading/Writing Classroom”. Heinemann Publishing.
Community of Learners Foundation