Fluency: Requires students to be able to read a sentence at an efficient rate with correct pausing and expression used to match the text to spoken words.
Topic Two Glossary Terms
During this week, we are required to explain key skills students should be mastering in each of the reading foundational skills areas in Grades K-3 and how to meet the challenges that students may present with reading challenges.
Sight word recognition: The ability for students to view the same word multiple times and then be able to recognize how the word sounds visually without having to chunk each letter or syllable.
Print concepts: The ability for a student to recognize the features and function of how printed text is read and read the words in the order they appear.
Decoding: The action of taking words into individual chunks to understand the letter and sound relationships to correctly pronounce words when sounds are blended together.
Reading Toolkit Part 2: Word Recognition
Kindergarten
Summary of Key Skills:
Students will recognize the text flows from left to right and up to down. Understand the purpose of spacing between words.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Reading long strings of words without the correct use of spacing. Place of spacing in incorrect places including the middle of words when reading. Reading words out of the correct order.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Use of finger to help students stay on track of words. Read to students for them to have a visual of modeling reading print (Texas Education Agency, 2002). Highlight capital letters and punctuation.
Print Concepts
Grade 1
Summary of Key Skills:
Demonstrate an understanding of the formation of sentences (first word, capitalization and ending with punctuation).
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
When asked to read the student reads words out of order within each sentence. Lack of using punctuation in text to assist with breaks in reading.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Teachers can read along with students to help show the purpose that punctuation plays. (Texas Education Agency, 2002). Breaking sentences into individual words to show the flow of each sentence in the reading.
Grade 2
Summary of Key Skills:
Students will be able to recognize the placement of punctuation and the importance of paragraphs.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Students continue to read through paragraphs without pausing. Students struggle with describing events from the reading. Show an inconsistency with pausing and recognizing the purpose of breaks in between sentences.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Students can begin to number paragraphs with their teacher to better recognize when one ends and practice placing punctuation to separate parts of sentences through partner activities and games.
Grade 3
Summary of Key Skills:
Students can recognize and identify the topic sentence and its purpose of each paragraph. Student can use punctuation at the advanced level (paragraph indentation, commas between two independent clauses, and apostrophes for possession).
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Student lacks in putting commas between a long sentence. Incorrect or no use of apostrophes to show ownership and contractions. Student struggles to locate the beginning and ending of paragraphs.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Teachers can practice with students by having them write their names with apostrophes to help with recognition. Students can work together by reading aloud to each other to identify topic sentences and other features of paragraphs (Texas Education Agency, 2002).
Kindergarten
Summary of Key Skills:
Recognize and produce words that rhyme and count, pronounce and blend one-word syllables
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Shows difficulty with rhyming words with similar endings and difficulty blending one-word syllables after being broken down.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Addition of pictures to help visualize words. Engagement through rhyming activities and games. Practice clapping syllables and individual letter sounds (Chard & Dickson, 1999).
Phonological Awareness
Grade 1
Summary of Key Skills:
Separation and blending of one syllable words. Decode two-syllable words by breaking the words down into each syllable.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Difficulties in breaking down syllables and blending to create two-syllable words. Issues blending the onset and ending of words.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Engagement strategies to practice blending syllables (clapping, jumping and tapping) (Chard & Dickson, 1999). Separating both onset and rimes of words to assist in blending them together.
Grade 2
Summary of Key Skills:
Distinguish long and short vowels when reading one-syllable words. Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Student guesses on whether each word has long or short vowels. Struggles to identify the two syllables in words and struggles to clap single syllable words.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
One way to help students verbalize their short vowels is by using hand gestures to represent the word. Teachers can work on one-word syllable clapping separately and then combine to help with the blending of syllables.
Grade 3
Summary of Key Skills:
Decode multisyllable words including two-syllable and beyond. Blending of grade level vocabulary presents a significant struggle.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Struggles to decode complex sound patterns and shows difficulty in being able to take sounds of words and blend them together.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Provide students with a graphic that includes the relationship between letter combinations and their sound. Multisensory learning when providing students with multi-syllable words that they can engage with to learn.
Kindergarten
Summary of Key Skills:
Recognize and make the sound of all upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Cannot match letters to their sound and shows a preference of pictures compared to reading.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Incorporate multisensory activities that focus on the sounds that individual letters make. Matching games that have students visually matching letters to their sound. Chunking individual letters using Elkonin sound boxes (U.S. Department of Education, 2016).
Phonics and Word Recognition
Grade 1
Summary of Key Skills:
Recognize grade level irregularly spelled words. Decode grade level words and understanding of vowel placement and sounds.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Confusion with letters that sound similar. Struggles to match multiple phonemes sounds together to form grade level vocabulary. Failure to recognize words with similar spelling.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Have students start with letters that can be held for long periods (f, m, and s) as these letters can be easier to formulate (U.S. Department of Education, 2016).
Grade 2
Summary of Key Skills:
Identify words with inconsistent but common spelling while recognizing and reading age-appropriate words with similar spelling.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Student struggles to recognize common phonics patterns in similar looking words. Replacement or subtraction of letters within grade level vocabulary rather than saying the word as written.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Teachers can help students by reviewing common spelling words to apply to new vocabulary words. Another technique that can be used is
Grade 3
Summary of Key Skills:
Identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and derivational suffixes.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Finds difficulty in taking multisyllable words and breaking them down into individual phonics. Increased difficulty when asked to sound out and define unfamiliar vocabulary.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Students can tap or clap and use Elkonin Boxes to separate and blend each letter and syllable together (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Teacher can promote students to using context clues when the face unfamiliar words along with providing unfamiliar words prior to reading to help with blending and recognition.
Kindergarten
Summary of Key Skills:
Reading kindergarten level text with purpose and understanding while showing emotion and tone clearly.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Takes additional time to sound out familiar words and frequent pausing with increase in misread words in text.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Model fluency reading through teacher readings and audiobooks (Chard & Osborn, 1999). Read with students to provide support and feedback. Create a system of books that increases in complexity as students grow their skills.
Fluency
Grade 1
Summary of Key Skills:
Understand grade level text. Read multiple texts at an efficient rate with minor errors in expression and accuracy while self-correcting.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Frequent stops in reading to sound out simple words. Lack of comprehension due to sounding out each word being the focus. Skipping or guessing on words that appear unfamiliar.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Students should be provided with familiar stories to assist in understanding and provided more difficult words in advance to promote literacy and eliminate skipping of words in text (Chard & Osborn, 1999).
Grade 2
Summary of Key Skills:
Use context of text to correct mistakes. Show sufficient reading accuracy to support reading comprehension.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Struggles to answer questions focused specifically on the student’s ability to retell the story. Difficulty showing emotion and natural flow when reading the text.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Provide students with information about texts prior to reading to increase emotional understanding. Provide students with opportunities to retell stories in different formats rather than just reading and writing,
Grade 3
Summary of Key Skills:
Introduction of poetry where students read at the appropriate rate with the correct expression and tone.
Signs of Struggle to Master Key Skills:
Lack of expression and tone when reading text with emotions. Reads poems and other pieces of literature the same despite the tone differences.
Action Steps to Support Mastery of Key Skills:
Include visual representations of poetry to help students to recognize the emotions being shown in text. Model for students showing how different poems can display different emotions compared to other texts.
References
Chard, J., D., & Dickson, V., S. (1999). Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness/articles/phonological-awareness-instructional-and
Chard, J., D., & Osborn, J. (1999). Phonics and Word Recognition Instruction in Early Reading Programs: Guidelines for Children with Reading Disabilities. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/phonics-and-decoding/articles/phonics-and-word-recognition-instruction-early-reading
Moats, L., & Tolman, C. (2009). Why Phonological Awareness Is Important for Reading and Spelling. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/early-literacy-development/articles/why-phonological-awareness-important-reading-and
National Institute for Literacy. (2007) Key Literacy Component: Decoding. All About Adolescent Literacy. https://www.adlit.org/topics/phonics-word-study-decoding/key-literacy-component-decoding
Reading Rockets. (n.d.). Self-Esteem and Reading Difficulties. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/helping-all-readers/why-some-kids-struggle/self-esteem
Texas Education Agency. (2002). Print Awareness: An Introduction. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/print-awareness/articles/print-awareness-introduction
Valencia, S. (2014, June 27). When High School Students Struggle with Textbook Reading. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/students-struggle-with-textbook-reading-sheila-valencia
U.S. Department of Education. (2016, July). Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade. Institute of Education Sciences. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/practiceGuide/wwc_foundationalreading_040717.pdf