Katie

Owen Strategy Handbook Phonemic Awareness

Instructional Activity
Making Words

Summary Description
Making words is an activity in which students are individually given letters that they use to make words under the guidance of the teacher. Students make 12-15 words beginning with 2 letter words and continuing up until all of the letters have been utilized. The words are then sorted according to patterns and used to generalize spelling /decoding patterns. Provides students with sheets of paper with sets of empty squares. One square for one phoneme, two squares for two phoneme words and three squares for three phoneme words. A picture card is placed above the squares and the teacher says the word. The child repeats the word and they each move a marker one at a time at the bottom of the paper to the empty squares for each phoneme. The teacher says, "I spy something in the classroom that starts the same as _______" All matching answers may be accepted. A troll puppet says, "One children whose names start with ____ may cross the bridge." The troll says the names of all of the beginning sounds of the names of the children in the class. You can also play the game with ending and middle sounds.

Learning Objective
Students will learn to manipulate beginning, medial, and ending sounds and their corresponding letters in order to construct new words dictated by the teacher. Students will identify individual phonemes and segment words by sound.

Research Base
Research suggests that invented spelling and decoding are mirror like processes that make use of a common set of phonological knowledge. Word building activities which provide more explicit guidance (Making Words) are more likely to help children develop increased phonemic awareness skills than unguided invented spelling. Research suggests that utilizing manipulatives with phonemic awareness provides necessary knowledge of the skill. It is also recommended that teachers start with small sets of sounds by teaching them one at a time.

References
Cunningham, Patricia (1992) Making Words: enhancing the invented spelling decoding connection

Say It and Move It

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

I Spy

Students will be able to identify beginning phonemes.

It is recommended that teachers start with small sets of sounds by teaching them one at a time. It is recommended that teachers start with small sets of sounds by teaching them one at a time.

Troll at the Bridge

Troll Talk

Students will be able to identify beginning (middle and/or end) phonemes and will be able to do partial segmentation. Teacher tells the students a story about a troll who Students will be able to likes to give presents. The child must guess what blend individual the present is. When the teacher/troll segments the phonemes into words. name of the present such as /d/ /o/ /l/, the student must blend the sounds together. For more experienced students, segment the consonant blends.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing. Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing. Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

Research shows that blending is one of the most important skills as children learn to decode unfamiliar words.

 Katie Owen Strategy Handbook Phonics

Instructional Activity

Summary Description

Learning Objective
The students will be able to fully analyze words and make comparisons to other words.

Research Base
When students are guided through the following process with teacher modeling and support, they soon learn to replicate the process by themselves.

References
Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

Talk-to- Students are given a word and complete the Yourself Chart following chart using this word: 1. The word is __________. 2. Stretch the word. I hear ______ sounds. 3. I see _______ letters because _____________. 4. The spelling pattern is _________. 5. This is what I know about the vowel ___________. 6. Another word on the word wall like ________ is _________. 7. They are alike because __________. Making Words Children are given a set of six to eight letters that are used to be combined to make different words.

Sounds to Words

A teacher will say a letter of a word and the sound. Then the students will write the letter and say the sound. As a class, everyone comes up with words that begin with that sound.

Ready-Set- Show

Word Sorts

Students get four key word cards on their desk. A teacher says a word that has either the same beginning, middle or end as one of the key words. Then the teacher says "Ready-Set-Show" and the student has to show the word. Students are given a set of words with either two to three categories and are asked to sort them. Examples of categories are: initial sounds, digraphs, ending sounds, blends, and vowel patterns.

Students will be able to listen to sounds and combine sounds in order to make a word. Students will be able to identify and write singular, alphabetic sounds. Students can identify the beginning sounds in words. This provides students with practice in phonemic segmentation and sound-letter matching. The student is able to identify similarities in words and sort words based on these similarities.

The students begin to notice that small changes make a difference.

This is an explicit activity children are told the letter-sound correspondence. They do not have to discover it by themselves.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing. Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

Research says that the advantage of the technique is that every student is involved with each match. This helps children pay attention to patterns and variations.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing. Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

 Katie Owen Strategy Handbook Fluency

Instructional Activity
Repeated Reading

Summary Description
Students practice reading passages aloud multiple times.

Learning Objective
By practicing, students gain speed and comfort. By gaining comfort, students can improve expression. In a way this is like repeated reading; students are getting extra practice. When students act like their characters they must include expression. They are able to hear it once and then read it themselves. This is extra practice. This is practice for speed and accuracy in their reading.

Research Base
With an opportunity for the student to perfect performance, and with teacher review of the miscues, fluency increases and word recognition errors decrease. Rehearsals give a legitimate reason to reread texts and practice fluency. Because there are not costumes or props, students have to focus on expression to become the character.

References
Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing. Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

Reader's Theater

Students practice reading a short script several times and then perform the script for an audience.

Echo Reading

The teacher reads a sentence or paragraph and the students repeat what is read.

The teacher provides a model for both accuracy and fluency.

Choral Reading

Students try to read at the same speed as other students with accuracy.

The teacher and students that are at a higher level set an appropriate pace and model phrasing.

Books on Tape Students are able to hear what is being read to them Students are able to Books on tape give a good example of and follow along. listen and follow along proper fluency through modeling. with reading. This is extra practice. They can also read aloud with the tape.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing. Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing. Johns, Jerry & Lenski, Susan (1997) Improving Reading: A Handbook of Strategies

 Katie Owen Strategy Handbook Vocabulary

Instructional Activity
Word Splash

Summary Description

Learning Objective
Students are able to connect information about words and their meaning to the text. Students are able to make reasonable predictions based on the story.

Research Base
Research says that the most successful methods use richness of context, active engagement, a large number of exposures and a variety of responses and techniques.

References
Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

There are five to ten words on a piece of paper. A student chooses any word and then offers a sentence or definition. The teacher expands the example steering it towards the story/context that it will be used in. Then the students can predict the story based on vocabulary words. Concept Wheel A vocabulary word is placed in one quarter of a circle. The teacher asks, "What words come to mind when you think of _____?" Students contribute to a list that the teacher writes on the board. Finally, the teacher gives a definition, and in the remaining three sections the students will find three words that will help them remember the vocabulary word. Story Chain Students are presented with a list of words in the order in which they appear in the story. The words are defined and illustrated, used in context, or any other useful way. Students are then asked to predict words that may be in the story and eventually tell a story using the given words in order. Zip Cloze Put a story on an overhead transparency, blocking out some words.

3 This provides multiple exposures, active participation and a variety of context and connections.

Research says that the most successful methods use richness of context, active engagement, a large number of exposures and a variety of responses and techniques.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

The words are used in a meaningful and inventive context. When the story is finally read, the students have worked on vocabulary and prediction which both enrich comprehension.

Linking vocabulary with reading is a strong strategy because new words are encountered in meaningful context.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

This can be used with young students who are just learning

Students need to be consciously aware of vocabulary strategies.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading &

 Students use the strategies they know to guess the missing words. When the word is guess, the tape that covers the word is zipped off. Students can compare their choice with the authors. A word wall is a display of high frequency words above and below the alphabet used in primary grades. But the idea can be adapted for vocabulary words. Word wall provide a growing list of vocabulary words that can be visible throughout the year. Extra credit points are given to students who use words from the word wall appropriately in their daily assignments. about vocabulary strategies. Writing.

Word Walls

Students are able to use vocabulary in context every day.

Between 10 to 24 exposures may be required before we gain comprehensive knowledge of a word.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

 Katie Owen Strategy Handbook Comprehension

Instructional Activity
Anticipation Guide

Summary Description
Prior to reading, students are given five statements and they are to indicate whether the statement is true or false. Then they read the story to find if their prediction was correct. Students are meant to work in pairs in order to generate discussion and activate prior knowledge. The students are given a passage and the first and the first and last sentence are intact. Every eighth word is omitted and students are to guess the word that will complete the blank. All answers that make sense are to be accepted. Young readers can start by retelling a story that they have just heard.

Learning Objective
Students will be able to activate prior knowledge to motivate students to read with a purpose. Students will then be better able to make connections to the text.

Research Base
This alerts students to the facts in an upcoming reading selection. Children need to develop the strategy of searching their own schemas when encountering new material. Students then probe their experiences to help make connections. It is an excellent way to practice fix-up strategies using syntactic and semantic cues.

References
Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

Cloze Exercise

Students can check to make sure that sentences make sense. Students must consider syntax as well.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

Summarizing

The objective is to improve comprehension, a sense of story structure, and oral language.

Story Mapping

Ask students to identify the elements of a story. It can be taught with modeling, guided practice and independent practice with a series of stories. It can look like an outline or a graphic organizer (the triangle-rectangle-circle form, for example).

The objective is to understand the elements in a story and the organizational pattern it helps students comprehend the structure.

Research says that instruction and practice in summarizing improves not only summarization, but also the overall comprehension of content. Research indicates that identifying structure helps students notice all of the elements of a story. Also, it has been said that the most useful function of story maps may be to help students develop adequate summaries.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.

 Bag of Trash The teacher brings in a "bag of trash." It is said that the trash belongs to a neighbor of the teacher's who has never been seen. Students are to go through the trash and make inferences about the people that live in the house. They must include the evidence from the bag and what they know about the object in their explanation. Student are able to use background knowledge and information presented to them in order to draw conclusions and make inferences. Students need to be explicitly taught what an inference is and that readers are supposed to make inferences while reading. Burns, Bonnie (2006) How to Teach Balanced Reading & Writing.