Alphabetic Principle

1. Alphabetic Principle EDRD 6600

2. Alphabetic Principle • Alphabetic Understanding: Words are composed of letters that represent sounds. • Phonological Recoding: Using systematic relationships between letters and phonemes (letter-sound correspondence) to retrieve the pronunciation of an unknown printed string or to spell words. • Regular word reading • Irregular word reading • Advanced word analysis

3. Definitions • Alphabetic Awareness: Knowledge of letters of the alphabet coupled with the understanding that the alphabet represents the sounds of spoken language and the correspondence of spoken sounds to written language. • Alphabetic Understanding: Understanding that the left-to-right spellings of printed words represent their phonemes from first to last. • Decodable Text: Text in which the majority of words can be identified using their most common sounds.

4. Definitions Cont. • Decoding: The process of using letter-sound correspondences to recognize words. • Grapheme: the individual letter or sequence of written symbols (e.g., a, b, c,) and the multi-letter units (e.g., ch, sh, th) that are used to represent a single phoneme. • Irregular Word: A word that cannot be decoded because either the sounds of the letters are unique to that word or the student has not yet learned the letter-sound correspondences in the word.

5. Regular Word Reading • Beginning decoding • Read from left to right, simple, unfamiliar regular words • Generate the sounds for all letters • Blend sounds into recognizable words • Beginning spelling • Translate speech to print using phonemic awareness and knowledge of letter-sounds

6. Importance of Word Reading • Our language is alphabetic • Decoding is an essential and primary means of recognizing words • There are simply too many words in the English language to rely on memorization as a primary word identification strategy

7. Importance of Word Reading in Text • A primary goal of beginning reading instruction is to prepare students to read text fluently so that they are able to construct meaning as the read.

8. Irregular Words • Do Not introduce irregular words until students can reliably decode words at a rate of one letter-sound per second. • Initially, introduce one word every several lessons, then one each second or third lesson • Irregular words require systematic review. New words should appear in word-list exercises for several days, then appear in either or both passages and word-list exercises. .

9. Advanced Word Analysis • Knowledge of advanced word analysis skills is essential if students are to progress in their knowledge of the alphabetic writing system and gain the ability to read fluently and broadly.

10. Advanced Word Analysis • Letter Combination: A group of consecutive letters that represents a particular sound(s) in the majority of words in which it appears. • VCe Pattern Word: Word pattern in which a single vowel is followed by a consonant, which, in turn, is followed by a final e (e.g., lake, stripe, and smile).

11. Letter-Sound Correspondence • Example: Teacher points to letter m on the board. “The sound of this letter is /mmmmmm/. Tell me the sound of this letter.” • Conspicuous Strategies: Teacher actions should make the task explicit. Use consistent and brief wording.

12. Mediated Scaffolding Separate auditorily and visually similar letters Introduce some continuous sounds early Introduce letters that can be used to build many words Introduce lower case letters first unless upper case letters are similar in configuration Strategic Integration – Simple Before Complex Once students can identify the sound of the letter on 2 successive trials, include the new letter-sound correspondence with 6-8 other letter sounds When students can identify 4-6 letter-sound correspondences in 2 seconds each, include these letters in single-syllable, CVC, decodable words Review Cumulatively and Judiciously Use a distributed review cycle to build retention: NKNKKNNKKKKN N = new sound; K = known sound Example (r= new sound; m, s, t, I, f, a = known sounds): r m r s t r r i f a m r

13. Sounding Out Words • Example: Teacher points to the word map on the board, touches under each sound as the students sound it out, and slashes finger under the word as students say it fast. “Sound it out.” (/mmmmmmmmaaaaaap/) “Say it fast. “ (map) • Conspicuous Strategies: • Students orally produce each sound in a word and sustain that sound as they progress to the next. • Students must be taught to put those sounds together to make a whole word • Students sound out the letter-sound correspondences “in their head” or silently and then produce the whole word.

14. Mediated Scaffolding: For students to learn and apply knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and use that knowledge to reliably decode words, words must be carefully selected for both the letters in the words and the complexity of the words. • Letters in words for initial sounding-out instruction should: • consist of continuous sounds as these sounds can be prolonged in the voice stream • be ones students know Words in sounding-out practice and instruction should: • Progress from short vowel-consonant and CVC (2-3 letter) words in which letters represent their most common sounds to longer words (4-5 – phoneme words) in which letters represent their most common sound

15. Not contain consonant blends (e.g., /st/, /tr/, /pl/) until students are proficient with CVC configurations • Begin with continuous sounds in early exercises to facilitate blending. Stop sounds may be used in final positions of words. • Represent vocabulary and concepts in which students are familiar. Judicious Review • Prior to reading the words, review the letter-sound correspondences that have been recently introduced or are problematic for learners • As you progress to each new phase of word reading (sounding out>saying whole word>sounding out the word in your head), students may need a reminder of the procedure • Once students learn a number of word types (e.g., CVC with continuous, CVCC with continuous, CVC with stop), include examples of all taught word types in the list • Keep word lists to a manageable length (6-8 words per list)

16. Reading Connected Text Accurately and Fluently • Instructional Design Considerations • A primary goal of beginning reading instruction is to prepare learners to read passages in order to communicate that print has purpose and meaning • Once students can accurately decode CVC and VC word types, these words should be introduced in short, highly controlled passages • Do Not assume that learners will automatically transfer from reading words correctly in lists to reading words in passages.

17. Conspicuous Strategies – 2 components • First component: teacher provides direct wording for students to “figure out the word, say the sounds in the word to yourself.” This component generally lasts 1-2 weeks. • Second component of transitioning to passage reading involves a modified prompt where teachers give a direction at the beginning of the passage.For example, the teacher says, “Figure of the first word” and then asks students to read the word. Note the prompting to say the sounds is eliminated. • A final technique is to increase the pace of word reading. In initial passage reading exercises, allow 3 seconds of “think time” per word. As students become proficient (I.e., reading the passage with no error), reduce the think time to 2 seconds and later to 1.5 seconds.

18. Mediated Scaffolding • Ensure students can read the words in lists at a rate of one word per 3 seconds • Include only words students can decode in passages • Include repeated opportunities to read passages to develop accuracy and fluency • Make clear the connections between sounding out the words in lists and reading those words in passages • Progress form the highly prompted sight reading strategy to the less-prompted strategy • Reduce the time for sight reading words from 3 seconds to 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds

19. Tasks Illustrating Alphabetic Understanding • Letter-sound associations: What is the sound of this letter? • Soundblending: Blend the sounds of these letters to make the word /mmmmmaaannn/. • Segmenting: What sounds do you hear in this word? • Manipulating letter-sound correspondences in words: What word would you have if you change the /n/ in /nap/? • Reading pseudowords What is this word, mip? • Word identification: What is this word, map?

20. Considerations for Selecting Materials • Letter-Sounds • Separate auditorily and/or visually similar letters (e.g., e/i, d/b) • Introduce some continuous sounds early (e.g., /m/, /s/) • Teach the sounds of letters that can be used to build many words (e.g., m, s, a, t). • Introduce lower case letters first unless upper case letters are similar in configuaration (e.g., similar: S, s, U, u, W, w; Dissimilar: R, r, T, t, F, f)

21. Acceptable Sequence for Introducing Letters a m t s i f d r o g l h u c b n k v e w j p y T L M F D I N A R H G B x q z J E Q

22. Features of Letter-Sound Correspondence Instruction • Are easily confused sounds separated over several lessons? (d/b/p, e/i, m/n) • Are letter-sounds that occur in a large number of words introduced early in the sequence? • Is the rate of letter-sound correspondence introduction manageable for the learner but adequate to allow multiple words to be made within 2-3 weeks? • Does the sequence include a few short vowels early to allow students to build words? • Does the sequence begin with several continuous sounds.

23. What I Expect Students in Kindergarten to Demonstrate • Letter-Sound Correspondence • Identifies the letter when someone produces the corresponding sound • Says the most common sound associated with individual letters • Decoding • Blends the sounds of individual letters to read one-syllable, short-vowel, decodable words (e.g., sun; map) • Sight-Word Reading • Recognizes some words by sight including a few common, high-frequency words (e.g., a, the, I , my, you, of, is are)

24. What I Expect Students in First Grade to Demonstrate • Letter-Sound and Letter-Combination Knowledge • Produces the sounds associated with all individual letters fluently (e.g., 1 letter-sound per second) • Produces the sounds that correspond to frequently used letter combinations (e.g., sh, er, th) • Decoding • Decodes words with consonant blends (e.g., mask, slip, play) • Decodes words with letter combinations accurately (diagraphs: fish, bath, chin; common letter combinations: book, farm, toy)

25. Decoding in First Grade Cont. • Uses knowledge of individual letter-sound correspondences and letter-combinations to read regular monosyllabic words fluently (e.g., mask, skip, play, fish, them, chin, at a rate of one word every 1 to 1.5 seconds) • Reads words with common words parts (e.g., ing,all,ike) Sight Word Reading Increases knowledge of common sight words and reads them automatically (e.g., have, would, there, said)

26. What I Expect Students in Second Grade to Demonstrate • Letter-Sound Knowledge • Produces the sounds that correspond to frequently used dipthongs ou, oy, and digraphs sh, th, ea • Decoding and Word Recognition • Uses knowledge of advanced phonic elements (e.g., digraphs and dipthongs), special vowel spelling, and word endings to recognize words • Reads compound words, contractions, possessives, and words with inflectional endings • Uses word context (semantics: Does it make sense?) and order in the sentence (syntax: Does it sound right?) • Reads multisyllabic words (2-3 syllables) using syllabication and word structure (e.g., base/root word, prefixes, and suffixes) in word recognition • Sight Word Reading: Increases the # words read accurately and quickly