We often had struggling readers in first grade who came to us with very limited pre-reading skills (concepts of print, phonological awareness, etc.). Our curriculum did not address their needs adequately, so the first grade team worked together with the speech and language therapist to come up with some interventions. This is what it looked like in my classroom:
At the beginning of the year, I grouped students into Guided Reading Groups based on their DIBELS scores and a brief running record (if applicable). I also used the Phonological Awareness Inventory (PAI) developed by my district (based on the Phonemic Awareness Hierarchy of Skills found below). Once I had my groups, I had a pretty good idea of who had the ability to begin guided reading and who needed work on pre-reading skills, specifically phonemic awareness. I used the PAI to determine where to start with the latter students.
Phonemic Awareness Hierarchy of Skills
1. Identifying Words in a Sentence (clap one time for each word in a sentence)
2. Identifying Syllables (clap one time for each syllable)
3. Identifying/recognizing Compound Words
4. Identifying Rhymes
5. Generating Rhymes
6. Blending (I say c-a-t, student can tell me “cat”)
7. Segmenting (I ask what are the sounds in cat, and student can tell me “c-a-t”
8. Phoneme Isolation (What is the first, middle, or end, sound you hear in “cat”)
9. Identifying letter sounds (What sound does this letter make?)
I created tabs for each of the above skills in a 3-ring binder, and then organized activities behind each tab, using ideas from the resources listed below.
Resources:
Auditory Processing Activities. Copyright 1991 by ECL Publications. www.eclpublications.com.
Irresistible Sound-matching sheets and Lessons That Build Phonemic Awareness, by J. Wagstaff. Copyright 2001 by Scholastic.
Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum, by Marilyn Jager Adams, Barbara R. Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, and Terri Beeler. Copyright 1998 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
The Phonological Awareness Kit: Primary, by Carolyn Robertson and Wanda Salter. Copyright 1995 by Linguisystems. http://www.linguisystems.com/itemdetail.php?id=28#
Word Identification Strategies: Phonics from a New Perspective, by Barbara J. Fox. Copyright 2000 by Prentice Hall.
Each time I met with a group of students (2-5 in each group), I would spend no more than 10 minutes on 2 or 3 phonemic awareness activities. They were presented as “games” and done at a quick pace. I took brief notes (30 sec) after we finished. If I still had their attention after 10 minutes, we would do some work with a few sight words, work on concepts of print, or write a simple book together. The next day we would review the phonemic awareness activities from the day before, and if each student had mastered the skill, we would move on. If not, we would try other activities related to the same skill.
After nine months of focused work on phonemic awareness, collaboration with para-educators and special education teachers (in addition to regular classroom teaching), we could see much growth in each student! Those students who were especially motivated and had involved parents made even more progress. We saw several students excel in second grade, and a few that exited the special education program after another year of work. This was amazing, considering they were far behind their peers at the beginning of first grade.
Additional Notes:
It was not unusual to spend several months on Blending or Segmenting activities.
We didn't get stuck on the rhyming sections. Rhyming is not the only indicator of reading readiness, so after I introduced it and worked with it, we moved on.
I did not wait until the last step of the hierarchy to introduce phonics. Often, my para-ed would work on letter identification using flashcards and matching or BINGO games. We also worked on sight words throughout the year and created pattern books so the children were “reading” even as they worked on their pre-reading development.
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