5 Essential Components

Phonemic awareness is the understanding or insight that a word is made up of a series of discrete (separate) sounds (Blevins, 2006). Phonemic awareness is important to reading success because it helps students learn how to distinguish individual sounds, or phonemes, within words. In my classroom, I will model and teach phonemic awareness using chips, sand boxes, and other methods. I will assess phonemic awareness through my students’ writings. When children write, they produce many of the skills important to reading.

Phonics is the understanding that sounds and letters have a relationship. It is the link between what we say and what we can read and write (Palapiano, 2010). I will teach phonics through my ‘working with words’ segment during the day. This will last approximately 30 minutes of the class time. On Day 1, I will introduce the words and explain how each word works using segmenting, blending, and other methods. I will then enter the words in a word chart. On Day 2, I will use a white board and magnetic tiles to build the phonics pattern words. On Day 3, I will do a word sort to get children to visually analyze the words. When they see the part, they say the part. On Day 4, we will build and write high frequency words using white boards and markers. On Day 5, I will then see if students can apply what I have been teaching. I will assess then using a total of 10 spelling words, 5 of which will be sight words and 5 other words that follow the same pattern.

According to learningrx.com, reading fluency is the power to read quickly and accurately. The more fluent a reader, the more he or she automatically groups and recognizes words. Fluent readers are accomplished at oral reading, which is displayed by smooth and natural expression. Reading fluency is important because it provides a connection between word recognition and reading comprehension. Since fluent readers don’t have to concentrate on decoding the actual words, they can focus their attention on what the text actually means. I will model and teach reading fluency by reading to my students daily. I will provide them with a diverse variety of reading selections. I will assess fluency by using rubrics, times passages, and teacher monitored independent reading.

Phonological awareness is a term that is associated with and includes phonemic awareness, phonics, phonemes, and phonetics (Reutzel and Cooter, 2005). Phonological awareness is important because it lays the foundation for reading. My activities would involve work with rhymes, words, syllables, onsets, and rimes. In my class, I will implement music, singing, and poetry to make teaching this subject fun and enjoyable. Phonological awareness assessment will taken individually and frequently throughout the year. Students can be assessed by seeing if they recognize rhymes, phonemic blends, phonemic segmentation, beginning sounds, and ending sounds. Flashcards, chips, and smartboards could be used for these assessments in place of worksheets.

The alphabetic principle is the knowledge that a specific letter or letter combinations represent each of the speech sounds, or phonemes (Blevins, 2006). In my classroom, I will teach the alphabetic principle using chips, the smartboard, environmental print, and other print. I will assess the alphabetic principle by using flash cards and by allowing students to match letters and sounds. I will say the letter or sound and ask the student to identify the sound it makes and vice versa.