Phonemic Awareness and you!

1. Phonemic Awareness and you! Miyagi May Meeting While we are waiting to begin, please introduce yourself to your neighbors. Thanks! The Goals of this Workshop: • To awaken the participants latent phonemic awareness. • To provide a working definition of phonics, phonemic awareness, and other related terminology. • To provide the foundation of ideas and techniques that can be used in the classroom. Presented By: Nick Lange (nick.lange@gmail.com)

2. About Nick’s brand of Phonics When I say practical phonics, I mean practical in the sense that we try to pack the most value in for the student as possible. The benefits for students should include: Better Reading Skills Better Spelling Skills Better Pronunciation Skills Better Listening Skills

3. So what are we really doing? • Through teaching our students the relationship between the sounds of spoken English and written English, we are helping them make the journey towards working within the English sound system. • The result of this journey is that we develop students with confidence. Even if they make mistakes, they won’t be afraid to try again.

4. So what exactly is phonics? • Phonics is a general teaching method to help students create connections between English sounds (phonemes) and the written language. • It is not something that can be memorized. • Every student will make the required connections at different speeds, the only job we have as reading peers (teachers) is to show them HOW to make those connections.

5. But please realize… All over the world people debate the best way to teach reading to young learners. Unfortunately, as ALTs we get the shaft because we have to work within the system. The way I do things isn’t the only way to teach phonemic awareness, it’s just the way I’ve done things so far. YMMV. Don’t be afraid to adapt things to your environment or try new things.

6. The Crucial Point for LTs Every successful reader possesses phonemic awareness! (Including you!) Even if you weren’t taught to read using phonics, you still possess the phonemic power to aid your students – you just have to find it.

7. Phonemic Awareness (cont) Floccinaucinihilipilification As your brain is busy trying to decode this word, it’s applying rules that you subconsciously posses. Our first goal number one is (to try) to bring some of those rules to your conscious mind.

8. Task 1 (5 Minutes) I’m throwing you in front of your students. I want your students to learn to read/speak the following words. Please devise a way to: 1.) Break the words into recognizable pieces 2.) Practice reading the pieces in a way that promotes reader independence and that builds confidence in the reader. Invent Tennis Player Until Understand Thinking Station Elation Last Elementary Sick Pack Vacation

9. One way to do things… A Elementary School Level

10. JHS Ideas 1 Junior High School Level (Part 1)

11. Notes Learning the rule is only 10% of the battle Applying the rule is where the majority of the work needs to be done with students. It’s important to guide the students towards – but not give the students – answers.

12. Back… to the theory! Fun Facts relating to “Phonics” • About 84% of English words are phonetically regular. • 37% of words can be spelled with phonics rules that relate groups of letters to one sound. • There are 44 phonemes (sounds) in English. • Applying phonetic-rules produces pronunciation that native speakers will recognize. Overlaying Japanese phonemes over those of English produces unrecognizable speech. • EFL learners whose own language is idiographic (e.g. Japanese, Chinese) naturally apply whole-world recognition first before trying to decode words (SLA); therefore, explicit intervention is required on the part of the teacher for students.

13. What about irregular pronunciations? • “In text, the irregularly pronounced 16% of words appear 80% of the time. “ (excerpted from Phonics from A to Z by Wiley Blevins; Scholastic, 1998)

14. Every successful reader possesses phonemic awareness! Your smart kids will begin to make the connections themselves… It’s the kids who don’t that you need to worry about! What happens if you can’t intervene in time to help your students? Sources: SEDL Myths of Reading

15. The Matthews Effect “What the Matthew Effect tells us, then, is that early intervention is much more effective than later intervention or remediation.  In the early grades, the gap that separates the children who are at risk for reading failure and the children who are likely to be successful readers is quite small.  With effective early intervention, research has shown that virtually every child can learn to read. Without early intervention, children are swept along their respective paths by the Matthew Effect until they reach an age where the odds of the struggling readers ever developing literacy skills are depressingly small. “ “Research indicates that past the 4th grade, literacy intervention and remediation programs are only successful with about 13% of struggling readers.“ Sources: balancedreading.com Keith Stanovich - Progress in Understanding Reading

16. Nick’s Results • <insert case study *cough*bragging*cough* here> But in all honesty, anything that makes your students lives easier will be welcomed by your students.

17. Please think about… • What times in your classes can phonics be used? • What prevents you from using phonics in your classes? Since we don’t have time, I’ll leave this as “homework”

18. When should phonics be used? • As often as possible BUT It’s best to keep the amount of time spent on reading minimal but often. Five to ten minutes per class. Or else 暇臭くなる Your kids will get BORED silly.

19. A bit unexpected but… “What this means, then, is that when possible, decoding skills should be taught in whatever language the child is most comfortable with. Once a child develops an understanding of the function and mechanics of text, and gains some proficiency with decoding in one language, then transferring those skills to a second language is fairly easy. At that point, text can actually facilitate second language acquisition, and bi-literate children actually have considerable advantages over children who only read one language (Durgunoglu, Arino-Marti, and Mir, 1993).    “ From: http://www.balancedreading.com/secondlang.html

20. Why is phonics necessary? • “Reading fluency improves reading comprehension. Since children are no longer struggling with decoding words, they can devote their full attention (their mental energies) to making meaning from the text. As the vocabulary and concept demands increase in text, children need to be able to devote more of their attention to making meaning from text, and increasingly less attention to decoding. If children have to devote too much time to decoding words, their reading will be slow and labored. This will result in comprehension difficulties. “ (excerpted from Phonics from A to Z by Wiley Blevins; Scholastic, 1998)

21. So you want to create a phonics program at your school? • Issues facing the LT • Lack of face time • Things progressing without us (i.e. whether or not it’s in the order we prefer, the alphabet is going to be dumped on our kids) • Lack of cooperation • Did I miss anything?

22. Introducing the Alphabet • Letterland • Let’s Go English • Active Phonics Association of a physical action, image, or song with individual letters can help struggling learners.

23. Notes Part 2 • When designing your curriculum, try to stick to letter-clusters / readings that will frequently appear for the students. • Remember KISS (Keep It Simple Silly!) • Actually it’s Keep It Simple Stupid (but… that doesn’t really matter)

24. Small Steps(A suggested method of progression) • Short Vowels Introduction • Short vowels and consonants (ab, at, bab, rat) • Digraphs (ch, sh, th, wh) [chat, ship, thick, whap] • Consonant Blends (r-blends, s-blends, l-blends) • Long vowels with a final e (pine, fine, mine) • Long vowels in general • Variant vowels (oo, au, aw) and dipthongs (ou, ow, oi, oy) • Silent letters, inflectional endings (-ed, -s, -ing)

25. Short Vowels (and consonants!) • Short vowels are, by their nature, short. • Japanese students will have difficulties learning to control their air flow to produce short vowels, you can try explaining or just drilling them till they “get it” • Before moving onto each vowel sound, walk through the entire series of consonant sounds with your kids. • i.e. Bat, Cat, Dat, Fat, Gat, Hat, Jat, Kat, etc.. • A dial-a-phonic wheel can help, (although I prefer the chalkboard myself) • Remember K.I.S.S.

26. Behold the mighty digraph and all that it entails! • Ch, Th, Sh, Ch, Wh • Practice connecting the Digraphs to English patterns (i.e. short vowels) that your students can already read. • Th and Wh are particularly problematic for Japanese learners (more on that later)

27. In the mix with Consonants • Blending consonants (Br/Tr/Cr) etc • Once again, stick to chaining to patterns that the kids have down. • Listen closely for students chaining the wrong sounds together. • i.e. Br => Bu-ru vs Buru vs Br

28. Hanging out with E • It’s time to shatter your students world and introduce the rule that when the final letter is “e”, the vowel before it magically becomes “long”. • Personally I use a macron to indicate a long vowel vs a dipsy-doo for a short vowel. • This is a big step for the students and requires *LOTS* of practice. • Calling it a “Super E” might be a good idea.

29. Longs vowels and beyond… • Introduction of long vowels are, of course, important; however, by this point you might want to consider introducing them in the order they occur in the text book.

30. 2nd & 3rd year strategies • Destinations for JHS / ES • Syllable Awareness • Students aware of the rhythm of English will see their spelling increase as well! • Connected Speech • Reading guides • The brain is a giant pattern detector and is much better at decoding new words that contain frequently occurring patterns.

31. P-P-P-Pronunciation! • Because we are studying the sounds of English, pronunciation practice comes part and parcel • I like to compare and contrast Katakana vs English sounds to make sure they are listening • Trouble Sounds: th, wh, n/m, sh/s, ch, “r” • I’m a pronunciation Nazi – not on accuracy but on attempting to make the right sound

32. Spelling and Phonics

33. Frequency! • After the initial introduction lessons, phonics should only occupy a small part of class time. • Phonics should be taught/drilled a lot. • Once you are past the basics, stay close to the words from the book when studying words.

34. It makes you think… (maybe…) • How much energy do your students exert when reading? • Do you think if reading was easier for your lower ability students, that they would participate more in class? • Is it possible to rehabilitate your lower ability students? 5 Minutes

35. Not more thinking! Is a native speaker required for in a phonics-based-curriculum? Can you train your JTE to operate in your absence? Will they do it right?

36. Baby steps… Despite the fact that your students are going to have many sight words shoved down their throat thanks to New Horizon and whacky JTEs you can still help your students. I recommend anything by Dr. Seuss, which uses lots of rhyming.

37. An alternative approach to in class reading • Have the students individually try to read the passage by themselves silently first, underlining words they can’t read. • Have the students read by themselves FIRST, to get a feeling of how the passage might be read. Sound out words they don’t know together. • Finally, read the passage together in class. The students will be paying attention to the words they underlined in their book in particular without intervention from the teacher.

38. Reading Evaluation Techniques • The key to preventing students from falling behind is frequent assessment. • The abecedarian

39. Bonus Points • Phonemic Awareness promoting activities • Remember the goal is to promote independent, confident readers • Don’t forget your graded readers!

40. ES Notes • Reading can absolutely be taught in Elementary School – many of your Eikaiwa kids can already read many sight words. • Books that are written by Dr. Seuss are great for ES.

41. SHS Notes • Promoting Syllable awareness at the SHS level can help your students spelling and pronunciation. • Try clapping out the syllables together.

42. To Summarize: • Phonics Benefits for Students (生徒には利益は。。。) • Improved confidence （自信は増進すること） • A deeper understanding of English　（英語を深くわかること） • • Improved decoding speed, reading speed, and comprehension speed (解読速さも読む速さも読解速さもよくなる） • Which leads toそれにしったら影響は… : • More energy for Speaking（話すことには元気さは増進すること） • More interest in English （英語の興味は増進すること） • The ability to comprehend long English Passages (長い英文章の理解ができるというものです) • The ability to take tests faster　（試験の受ける速さを増進すること） • The benefits for the Teacher/ALT (ALTにもJTEにも利益は。。。) • Higher Student Confidence • A higher percentage of students actively involved in English class through all three years of JHS(三年間ずつの参加してる生徒のパーセントはあげること) • Higher test scores（試験の結果はあげること） • More time for focusing on other areas of English. （他の英語の課題に集中すること） • All for the price of: • 5-10 minutes of class time once every 1-2 weeks. That’s it*. How can you say no? * Plus a few lessons for introduction.

43. Questions? Complaints? • If there is anything you would like to know more about, or would like clarified, please talk to me after the workshop. • Or please e-mail me at nick.lange@gmail.com • Don’t forget to fill out the evaluations! Oh wait… we’re not done yet!

44. More Student Fun