1. Conquer the Code: Sounds, Symbols, and Syllables

2. Reading . . . an extraordinary ability, peculiarly human and yet
distinctly unnatural.
Dr. Sally Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003

3. Literacy . . .
Begins at birth,
and
is a lifelong process!

4. Unfortunately,
Children are not born with this insight, nor does it develop naturally without instruction.
Reid Lyon, 1997, NICHD

5. In today’s world,
learning to read well is a key to the future success of our children. Not only is reading fluently and with comprehension by third grade a legislated priority, it is an ethical and professional imperative.
(Wolfe and Nevills, 2004)

6. In fact, teaching reading is Rocket Science!
(See Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science: What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and Be Able to Do by Louisa C. Moats, AFT, June 1999)

7. Research Practice
National Research Council: Committee on National Research Council: Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998)
National Research Council - Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children’s Reading Success (1999)
National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read (2000)
Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read (2001)
Scientific Research in Education (2002)

8. Reading and the Brain
“If we provide intervention at an early age, then we can improve reading fluency and facilitate the development of the neural systems that underlie skilled reading.”
(Sally and Bennett Shaywitz,
Educational Leadership, March 2004, p. 10)

9. Language Components Receptive Expressive Oral Listening Speaking
Written Reading Writing

10. “The Big Five” Phonemic Awareness Phonics Vocabulary Fluency
Text Comprehension

11. Reading Components and the “Big Five”
Means
DECODING
Phonemic Awareness
Phonics
End
COMPREHENSION
Vocabulary
Text Comprehension
Fluency

12. Lesson Plan Format Preread Schema Read it Story grammar
Reread it Fluency
Discuss it Vocabulary
React to it Comprehension
Code it Alphabetic code
Apply it Practice
Transfer it Generalization

13. Read with “HuGs”
uniting
Holistic & Graphophonic
strategies

14. Reading is the union of (Holistic) (Graphophonic) Pre-read it Code it:
Comprehension Decoding
(Holistic) (Graphophonic)
Pre-read it Code it:
Read it Hear it
Reread it See it
Discuss it Associate it
React to it Expand it

15. Code it: Alphabetic Code
Hear it
See it
Associate it
Expand it
Phonological: sound
Print: symbol
Sound/symbol
Structural analysis

16. Conquer the Code: Sounds, Symbols, and Syllables
Phonological Awareness
Phonemic Awareness
Symbols
Print Awareness
Alphabet knowledge
Syllables
Vowel Patterns
Syllabication

17. Oral Language Listening and Speaking Literacy Events
“Grand Conversations”
Phonological Awareness: sensitivity to the sounds of language

18. Phonology: Sounds Phonological awareness Phonemic awareness
44 phonemes (speech sounds)
Oral / auditory
Related to reading and writing

19. How many sounds? in the word box in the word enough
in the word precious

20. 44 Sounds of the English Language
Vowels (10)
/ă/ /ā/
/ĕ/ /ē/
/ĭ/ /ī/
/ŏ/ /ō/
/ŭ/ /ū/
Consonants (18)
/b/ /j/ /s/
/k/ /l/ /t/
/d/ /m/ /v/
/f/ /n/ /w/
/g/ /p/ /y/
/h/ /r/ /z/

21. 44 Sounds of the English Language
Vowel Diphthongs (2)
/ou/
/oi/
Vowel Variants (3)
/au/
/oo/ (moon)
/oo/ (book)
Schwa (1)
/ə/
Consonant Digraphs(7)
/sh/ /ch/ /wh/
/th/ /th/ /zh/
/ng/
r-controlled (3)
/ar/ /or/ /er/

22. Phonological Awareness
“Funnel – ogical” awareness
Sensitivity to the sounds of language
words, syllables, and sounds
Includes phonemic awareness
Necessary for understanding the alphabetic principle and how sounds match print

23. Phonological Awareness
Word awareness
Rhyming words
Syllable awareness
Alliteration
Onset-rime
Phonemic segmentation and blending
Phonemic manipulation

24. Phonological Activities
Clapping, standing, using body motions
Manipulatives, e.g., linking blocks, puzzles, objects, chips or tokens
Pictures, books, posters
Music and rhyme
“Feel it in your mouth!”
Elkonin (sound) boxes

25. Written Language Reading and writing Print awareness
Reading: decoding + comprehension
Sound – symbol connection [phonics]
Writing: spelling, handwriting, written expression [writing process]

26. Orthography: Symbols Alphabet (26 letters) Represent speech sounds
Written / visual
Spelling patterns

27. Print Awareness Concepts of Print Alphabet Knowledge Book concepts
One-to-one correspondence
Directionality
Alphabet Knowledge
Recognition
Identification
Formation

28. How do children develop print awareness?
Read alouds
Shared reading
Print rich environment
Big Books, little books, lots of books
Hearing poems, nursery rhymes
Seeing charts, signs, lists, “Morning Message” and “Sign in”

29. Alphabet Activities Sort plastic or magnetic letters
Use letter cards with the ABC song
Match environmental print labels to alphabet letter cards
Locate target letter by using highlighter tape
Write letters in the air, using large muscle movements
Write letters in shaving cream, sand, or
rice trays
“News of the Day” in kindergarten
HighScope
automaticity

30. Pre-Phonics Phonological Awareness Print Awareness Oral Sounds Visual
Symbols

31. Phonics
“refers to instructional practices that emphasize how spellings are related to speech sounds in systematic ways.”
(Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998)

32. What is the Alphabetic Principle?
the systematic and predictable relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language
the way print matches speech
the relationship between phonology and orthography
also known as the alphabetic code

33. Why learn the Alphabetic Code?
It provides the understanding for the internal structure of words.
It helps children recognize familiar words and decode new words.
It connects reading and writing.
It enables children to read with fluency and comprehension.

34. Phonics Structural Analysis Synthetic Phonics
Part to whole
Analytic Phonics
Whole to part
Word families (rimes)
Vowel Patterns
6 Syllable types
85-88% regularity
Structural Analysis
Root words, prefixes & suffixes
Compound words
Contractions
Syllabication

35. Color-Code Vowels a e i o u -y -w Digraphs sh ch th wh ph Blends bl-
cr-
st-
-nd
-mp
etc.

36. Orthography: Syllables
Six basic syllable types
85 – 88% of English language
Vowel Patterns (syllable types)
Structure of our language
Alphabetic code

37. Vowel Patterns Regular Reliable Research-based Effective Efficient
Easy to use

38. Vowel Pattern Chart Closed Open Silent e Bossy r 2 Vowels C+le
Talkers Whiners
C+le

39. Vowel Pattern Chart Closed cat fish bub- Open me go ta- Silent e ride
cape
hope
Bossy r
car
girl
tur-
2 Vowels
Talkers Whiners
boat boy
meat clown
C+le
ta - ble
bub - ble
tur - tle

40. sand best print shop lunch
Vowel Patterns
Closed:
A word or syllable that contains only one vowel followed by one or more consonants;
the vowel is short.
“One lonely vowel squished in the middle,
says its special sound just a little.”
sat bed fin top gum
sand best print shop lunch
at Ed in on up

41. Vowel Patterns
Open:
A word or syllable that ends with one vowel; the vowel is long.
“If one vowel at the end is free, it pops way up and says its name to me.”
me she hi go flu fly

42. Vowel Patterns Silent e [Magic e]:
A word or syllable that ends in e, containing one consonant before the final e and one vowel before that consonant; the vowel is long.
“The magic e is quiet, but it has a claim to fame;
it makes the vowel before it say its real name.”
The magic e is so powerful, it gives all its strength to the other vowel so that it can say its real name.
make Steve ride hope cube

43. Vowel Patterns Bossy r [r-controlled]:
A word or syllable containing a vowel followed by r; the vowel sound is altered by the r.
The letter r is so bossy, it tells the vowel that it can’t say its real name (long vowel) or its special sound (short vowel), but must say the r sound (as in car, for, her).
car her girl for curl

44. Vowel Patterns Double Vowel Talkers: [vowel digraphs]
A word or syllable containing two adjacent vowels; the first one is long.
“When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and says its name.”
rain day see meat pie
boat toe slow suit blue

45. Vowel Patterns Double Vowel Whiners :[diphthongs and variants]
A word or syllable that contains two adjacent vowels; the vowels say neither a long or short vowel sound, but rather a very different sound.
Sometimes when two vowels are next to each other, they make a funny whining sound, like when you fall down and say “ow,” “aw,” “oy,” and get a “boo-boo.”
fault saw foil boy loud cow moon new book

46. Vowel Patterns C+le: [consonant + le]
This syllable ends with “le” preceded by a consonant, and occurs in two-syllable words.
When a word ends with a consonant and “le,” the “le” grabs the consonant before it, and the word breaks into two parts right before that consonant.
bub–ble ca–ble ea–gle poo–dle pur-ple

47. Vowel Pattern “Prediction Power” The prediction power of the patterns ranges from 77 to 89%, each of which is much better than predictions on the basis of chance alone. Teaching children vowel patterns can make a difference in their fluency and comprehension (May, 2002).
Closed
86 – 89%
Open
77%
Silent e
81%
Bossy r
2 Vowels
Talkers Whiners
C+le

48. Irregular / “Memory” Words
About 12 – 15% of English words do not conform to the regular patterns
Can be taught through context, repetition, multisensory techniques, and learning games, e.g., Word Wall activities, VAAKT (associative word cards), BINGO

49. Structural Analysis Root words and affixes Compound words Contractions
Syllabication

50. Root Words and Affixes Prefix Root Suffix un friend ly re heat ed
in spect or
Color-highlight or draw a box around affixes (prefix = green; suffix = red)
Make charts for similar affixes

51. Compound Words Begin with whole word, e.g., doghouse Segment and blend
Use fists, puzzles, linking blocks
Make lists of compound words
Use color-coding (doghouse)
Practice deletion (say doghouse without dog)

52. Contractions
Compare “long” and “short” forms, e.g., do not (long – 2 words)
don’t (short – contraction)
Highlight apostrophe (use elbow macaroni) and deleted letter/s in red
Use a rubberband to show long and shortened forms (same meaning)
Make lists of contractions from stories

53. Syllabication Patterns
C+le turtle tur – tle
VC/CV rabbit rab – bit
V/CV tiger ti – ger
VC/V camel cam – el
V/V lion li - on

54. Strategy for Syllabication
“Spot and dot” the vowels
Connect the dots
Look at the number of consonants between the vowels
If 2 – break between the consonants
If 1 – break before the consonant; if it doesn’t sound right, move over one letter

55. Apply and Transfer
Provide many opportunities to use these skills and strategies, both in isolation and in connected text
Fiction and non-fiction
Poetry and songs
Decodable text
Learning games and activities

56. Why? When students have the MEANS to conquer the code,
they will reach the GOAL, and
master the meaning!

57. The End Remember . . . Teach a child to read, Give a gift for life!!
Thank you for your
kind attention!
Happy Teaching!

58. Websites of Interest www.aft.org American Federation of Teachers
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Education World
Florida Center for Reading Research
Florida Branch - IDA
International Dyslexia Association
National Institute for Literacy
National Reading Panel
International Reading Association
Reading Rockets