Early Reading

• Language acquisition involves learning a language, with language skills building upon basic linguistic concepts.

Sounds of Human Language

• Phonemes are the smallest individual sounds in a word.
• Phonetics studies the sounds of human speech.
• Phonology focuses on the systematic organization of sounds in languages.
• Phonics examines the relationship between symbols and sounds.

Construction of Language

• Morphology studies the forms of words, including prefixes, roots, and suffixes with each individual meaningful part called morphemes.
• Morphemes are sound combinations with meaning in speech or writing that cannot be divided into smaller grammatical parts.
• Orthography covers the conventions for proper spelling in a language.
• Syntax defines rules for constructing words into phrases, clauses, and sentences.
• Semantics studies word or symbol meaning.
• Pragmatics studies language in use, focusing on appropriate language use.
• Segmentation involves recognizing boundaries between words, syllables, or phonemes.
• Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a word and should not be confused with Phonemes, which are the smallest individual sounds in a word.

Teaching Basic Linguistic Concepts

• Oral language is the foundation of literacy development.
• Early vocabulary relates to reading comprehension in later grades, with vocabulary size predicting reading comprehension.
• Teachers enhance literacy by focusing on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

Phonemic Awareness

• Phonemic awareness involves recognizing individual phonemes in a word.
• It is used so students can hear and manipulate phonemes into new words.
• Teachers can use rhymes, phoneme emphasis, and spelling activities.
• Teachers should focus on specific sounds for an extended period and show how it is used in multiple words or situations.

Phonics

• Phonics uses phoneme knowledge to read and write new words.
• It is used to decode words and identify sound components.
• Students recognize that sounds correspond to letters/letter combinations.
• Phonics instruction teaches how to decode a word's spelling and unknown words using previous knowledge.

Fluency

• Fluency allows reading with speed, accuracy, and inflection.
• Good readers can encounter new words without difficulty and read with expression.
• Improving fluency involves demonstrating good fluency through oral reading of passages repeatedly.

Vocabulary

• Vocabulary encompasses the words a person knows and understands which range from oral and written.
• Teachers can improve vocabulary and reading comprehension by practicing phonics and defining words in context rather than through lists.
• It's important for Vocabulary to be taught in use, using words students will encounter naturally and topical vocabulary they can use.

Reading Comprehension

• Reading comprehension involves understanding a text's meaning.
• It builds upon vocabulary, decoding skills, and understanding the author's purpose and connections to the text.
• Successful comprehension relates a new text to personal experiences.
• Activities like asking questions, using graphic organizers, and summarizing aid comprehension.

Phonological Awareness

• Phonological awareness includes the ability to hear words, syllables, and sounds.
• It involves understanding words can be broken into parts, and that words are made up of phonemes, or sounds of speech.
• Phonemic awareness is a subcategory of phonological awareness.

Levels of Phonological Awareness

• Rhyme awareness is the ability to hear when words rhyme or sound the same at the end.
• Alliteration is the ability to identify when words have the same first sound.
• Word awareness means knowing individual words make up a sentence.
• Syllable awareness involves hearing individual units with vowel sounds that make up a word.
• Onset-rime production involves hearing the sounds or sounds before the vowel in a syllable as the onset, and the vowel sound and everything after it as the rime.

Phoneme Awareness

• Phoneme awareness involves hearing and using individual units of sounds, or phonemes.
• Phoneme isolation is separating a single sound in a position of a word.
• Initial Isolation involves the ability to isolate the first sound /j/ in jet
• Final Isolation involves the ability to isolate the last sound /t/ in jet
• Medial Isolation involves the ability to isolate the middle sound /e/in jet
• Phoneme blending involves blending individual sounds to make a word like /j/ /e/ /t/ makes jet.
• Phoneme segmentation involves breaking down a word into separate sounds like jet is made from /j/ /e/ /t/.
• Phoneme addition involves adding one phoneme to a word like Jet with /s/ at the end sounds like jets.
• Phoneme deletion involves removing a phoneme from a word like jet without the /j/ sounds like et.
• Phoneme substitution involves replacing a phoneme in a word with another where changing the /j/ in jet to /s/ sounds like set.
• Phoneme addition, deletion, and substitution are forms of phoneme manipulation.

Importance of Phonological Awareness on Literacy

• Phonological awareness enables manipulation of spoken language sounds.
• Phonemic awareness (identifying individual sounds) helps readers decode words.
• Phonological awareness instruction helps all students learn to read and spell.

Teaching Phonological/Phonemic Awareness

• Phonological/phonemic awareness is a predictor of reading success.
• Most children need explicit instruction to develop these skills.
• Deficiencies in these skills can hinder learning to read.
• A balanced curriculum includes phonological awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Alphabetic Knowledge

• Alphabetic knowledge is the ability to recognize, name, and form letters.
• It is developed through alphabet books, hands-on items, and singing.
• Forming letters in sand/rice, playdough, or tracing activities helps.
• Students must know both uppercase and lowercase forms.

Alphabetic Principle

• The alphabetic principle links speech sounds (phonemes) to letters (graphemes).
• It requires direct instruction, practice, and exposure through texts.
• Students should recite a letter's sound as they work with it.
• Introduce letters systematically, starting with single-sound letters common in simple words.

Stages of Word Recognition

• Assessing word recognition involves having students read words without context.
• Students progress through stages as they acquire alphabetic knowledge.
• Early childhood teachers must identify stages for effective instruction of:

Pre-Alphabetic Stage

• At this stage, students lack alphabetic system knowledge.
• Recognition is based on memorization, needing direct instruction on letter/sound relationships.
• Predictable, repetitive texts and familiar nursery rhymes are useful.

Partial-Alphabetic Stage

• At this stage, students have some alphabetic knowledge, using it with context clues.
• Repetitive text with one or two-word variations is beneficial.

Full-Alphabetic Stage

• At this stage, students fully understand the alphabetic system and can decode letter-by-letter.
• Sight word knowledge also increases.
• Books with simple syllable patterns reinforce decoding.

Consolidated-Alphabetic Stage

• At this stage, students read using memorized letter chunks, affixes, and syllables.
• Sight word knowledge expands, improving fluency.
• Books with multi-syllable words are appropriate.

Automatic Stage

• At this stage, students no longer consciously decode most words, however they are able to fall back on their various decoding strategies and context clues to decipher the word's pronunciation and/or meaning.
• They read fluently, focusing on the text's meaning.

Teaching Spelling

• Teachers should understand grade-level spelling expectations.
• Instruction should emphasize orthographic knowledge and its relationship with decoding, and encoding to support literacy.
• Explicit instruction in standard orthographic rules is essential.

Skills Taught through Meaningful Writing Experiences

• Recognizing etymology enhances spelling and vocabulary.
• Prefix/suffix knowledge aids decoding and spelling.
• Differentiating homophones improves spelling and reading comprehension.
• Appropriate contraction use reinforces word form understanding.
• Recognizing commonly confused words benefits writing and reading.
• Teaching spelling patterns (like dropping silent e) reinforces orthographic rules.
• Reinforcing phonics through spelling supports decoding/encoding simultaneously.
• Applying spelling stages (Precommunicative to Conventional) guides writing tasks.
• Integrating decoding/encoding strengthens literacy skills.

Identifying the Spelling Stage

• Identify student's spelling stage to determine instructional strategy from:
• Precommunicative
• focusing on tracing and copying letter forms
• participating in coloring activities involving specific letters
• Semiphonetic
• continuing to practice phoneme identification
• engaging in matching words with like spellings
• Phonetic
• grouping words based on similar spellings or syllable sounds
• being introduced to common spelling patterns
• Transitional
• identifying spelling patterns in one- and two-syllable words
• creating various forms of the same word (catch, catcher, catching)
• proofreading writing for spelling errors
• Conventional
• focusing on identifying spelling patterns in multisyllabic words
• learning common Greek and Latin roots
• creating word maps with definitions and variations
• recognizing spelling patterns through reinforcement
• ensuring accuracy in proofreading
• expanding vocabulary through the study of word origins and complex word forms

Applying Knowledge of Reciprocity

• Analyzing spellings reveals phonics knowledge gaps.
• Spelling instruction should develop accuracy and reinforce phonics.

Enhancing Spelling Skills

• Word webs/families reinforce spelling patterns.
• Rhyming activities develop phonemic awareness.
• Identifying roots, prefixes, suffixes builds vocabulary/spelling.
• Word building manipulates word parts.
• Phonological/alphabet games reinforce spelling.
• Word walls aid daily practice.
• Multisensory techniques strengthen orthographic memory.
• Daily drills reinforce word recognition/spelling accuracy.
• Explicit spelling rule instruction supports decoding/encoding.

Process of Learning - Spelling

• Spelling development moves through stages with invented spelling.

Stages of Spelling Development

• Precommunicative spelling uses random letters without letter-sound knowledge.
• Semiphonetic spelling shows some letter-sound correspondence like single letters representing whole words.
• Phonetic spelling represents every sound heard in a word.
• Transitional spelling incorporates word structure and visual word representations.
• Conventional spelling applies letter-sound relationships, rules, and morphology.
• A child's progress through the stages of spelling development is gradual

Process of Literacy Development

• Literacy development includes reading, writing, and oral language skills.
• It includes alphabetic knowledge/principle, phonological awareness, decoding, reading comprehension, and meaningful writing.

Stages of Literacy Skill Development

• Emergent stage: children understand written language has meaning and sends messages.
• Early/beginning stage: readers understand reading should make sense from pictures and print.
• Early fluent/fluent/proficient stage: readers recognize many words and apply skills to figure out unfamiliar words.

Teaching Oral Language

• Oral language and reading skills are interconnected.
• Oral language skills translate to written skills.
• The Language Experience Approach (LEA) connects oral language to writing and reading skills.
• Oral language skills support reading and writing skills