NCFL Literacy Now

LitNotes is a new series on Literacy Now. In these posts, you’ll find material designed to support family literacy staff in the delivery of Parent and PACT Time in their programs. Today’s LitNotes focuses on Phonemic Awareness.

Research
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear or notice individual sounds (phonemes) in a spoken word and to identify and manipulate those sounds. Examples of these tasks: What is the first sound in pill? (/p/) What is flute without the /f/? (lute) Phonemic awareness is the most difficult level of phonological awareness and is required for developing decoding (phonics) skills.

“Phonemic awareness is a subcategory of phonological awareness” (Put Reading First, 2001, p.3). Phonological awareness refers to the sounds of words and includes being aware of rhymes, words within sentences, syllables within words, beginning and ending sounds of words, and sounds within syllables and words.

Research indicates that adult nonreaders have almost no phonemic awareness (Kruidenier, 2002). Beginning and even intermediate Adult Basic Education readers may have phonemic awareness difficulties and benefit from direct instruction to build phonemic awareness. A phonics curriculum includes phonemic awareness practice. The most useful phonemic awareness tasks for assessment and instruction (Kruidenier, 2002) include:
• Phoneme segmenting: breaking each word apart and saying each sound in order [How many phonemes are there in "rat?" (three: /r/ /a/ /t/)]
• Phoneme blending: being able to hear the individual sounds in a word and combine them [What word is /t/ /i/ /p/? (tip)]

Strategies
Brief practice using real and nonsense words could benefit those who are weak in phonemic awareness. However, before beginning this kind of practice, it is important to be certain the learner is able to complete simpler phonological awareness tasks.

For a free sample activity “Recognizing the /s/ sound,” click here to download a copy of Applying Research in Reading Instruction for Adults (McShane, 2005). The activity and “tips in a nutshell” are on page 39.

Resources
Songs That Build Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic Awareness in Beginning Reading
How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities

*These tips were originally created by NCFL for Kentucky Adult Education’s LitNotes series.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

District parents learning English make great strides
Eighty family literacy program “graduates” celebrated their achievements last night at Orem Junior High School in Orem, Utah. Program participant Octavio Gil said, “I think you’ve done something very good giving us classes and orientation about how to help our children. I believe that our community needs to learn English for our benefit and that of our kids, who are also the future of America.” Congratulations to the program and the participants for a successful first year! Story from the Daily Herald.

Setting the stage for a lifetime in love with language
Here’s a story that reminds us why we love being a part of the literacy field! From the National Post (and thanks to Jen Robinson for the link).

The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About
Twitter is everywhere these days. To help sort through it all, Larry Ferlazzo has put together a helpful list of resources. Oh, and I’m twittering at NCFLMeg (when I can remember to post…)

LitNotes is a new series on Literacy Now. In these posts, you’ll find material designed to support family literacy staff in the delivery of Parent and PACT Time in their programs. Today’s LitNotes focuses on Phonics.

First, a phonics quiz:
Which of the following statements are true about Phonics?
A. Phonics is a word-attack skill
B. Phonics is sounding out difficult words using the letters in the word
C. Phonics is a widely used method for teaching decoding of words
D. Phonics uses 26 letters used to symbolize 41 English speech sounds
E. Phonics is the pairing of a sound with the letter or letters (graphemes) that represent that sound

If you chose all of the above, you are correct!

Research
Phonics is all of these things as well as a research building block for learning how to read. Phonics is a teaching strategy that makes the connections between letters and sounds. Phonics helps the learner to read words independently and accurately. For new readers, learning to read involves time spent trying to figure out what each written word says. One strategy that supports phonics instruction is decoding.

Decoding (breaking the code) is a word identification skill that involves matching letters to the sounds they make so that printed words can be recognized. Decoding is important because the reader must be able to identify words rapidly enough that the meaning can be understood. When a reader plods along too slowly, struggling to “get the words off the page,” comprehension suffers.

In Applying Research in Reading Instruction for Adults: First Steps for Teachers (2005), author Susan McShane shares that adult beginning readers need a structured curriculum; explicit, systematic phonics instruction is most effective for these learners. Intermediate readers whose decoding skills are less than automatic might benefit from phonics review and practice which may lead to more accurate word identification and as a result increased speed and fluency.

Strategies
• Try word families (also known as word patterns or phonograms). They are fun to work with and easy to remember. They are predictable (ash, cash, trash, thrash).
• Create a family word wall with common patterns. When encountering a new word, learners look for a pattern they have seen before. This requires no memorization of rules!

Resources
“Understand Phonics” by Wiley Blevins
“Word Families” (37 most common phonograms and words they make up)
“The Use of Phonograms in Reading Instruction”

*These tips were originally created by NCFL for Kentucky Adult Education’s LitNotes series.

PBS Kids Series Helps Kids in Low-Income Families Read
“PBS Kids series Super WHY? is helping kids read, particularly those in low-income families. That’s according to studies conducted by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and Florida State University’s Center for Reading Research for PBS in conjunction with the Department of Education’s Ready To Learn grant program (RTL).” From Broadcast Newsroom.

Rap Boosting Kids’ Learning
The after-school program Rap to Roots is teaching Denver school children to use rap to boost academics. From The Denver Post.

Video: 21st Century Schools
Thanks to Angela Maiers for the link to this short video on why schools “shouldn’t see themselves as the sole provider [of education] but as something that coordinates and brokers learning from a whole range of sources.”

Newseum
Thanks to iLearn Technology for this link and a summary of this site: Front pages of newspapers from around the U.S. are displayed on a map. Scroll over the map and the front page of the newspaper pops up. Click on a different country to display newspapers from around the world.

LitNotes is a new series on Literacy Now. In these posts, you’ll find material designed to support family literacy staff in the delivery of Parent and PACT Time in their programs. Today’s LitNotes focuses on Fluency.

Research
Developing fluency is an important step in becoming a good reader. Fluency is the ability to read accurately with appropriate speed and expression. A fluent reader sounds good, is easy to listen to, and reads with enough expression to help the listener understand and enjoy what is being read. Just as learning to play the piano in rhythm and at the right tempo takes practice, learning to read with the right speed and expression also takes practice. A fluent reader is able to recognize words automatically, sees phrases when reading, and does not have to concentrate on sounding out words.

Strategies
How can we help students develop fluency? Research suggests:
1. Providing guided repeated oral reading
2. Choosing material for the reader that is not too difficult
3. Reading aloud often and with expression
4. Giving the reader time to read aloud using:
- Echo reading
- Choral reading
- Taped readings
- Readers’ Theatre
- Paired or partner reading
- Timed readings
- Repeated reading
5. Providing guidance that takes the form of assistance and correction, modeling and reading together. For more detail and description on these techniques, download the fluency section of Put Reading First by clicking here, or visit NIFL’s website for an html version.

Resources
Practice: Practical Ideas for Parents
What is Guided Oral Reading?
Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read

*These tips were originally created by NCFL for Kentucky Adult Education’s LitNotes series.

Last month, Literacy Now announced that Better World Books, one of our outstanding champions and supporters in family literacy, was nominated for the prestigious BusinessWeek Social Enterprise Award. We are delighted to report that Better World Books finished in first place in the competition - all of the voters out there picked Better World Books as the best among 25 outstanding companies nationwide!

This is very meaningful recognition for Better World Books. It’s a third-party endorsement for their business model which supports literacy through cash contributions everyday.

Here’s a quote from David Murphy, CEO of Better World Books and active NCFL champion:

“The recognition we have received from BusinessWeek as the top social enterprise is truly special in that it derives from our grass root support. We are both humbled and honored by the confidence our many supporters have placed in us. On their behalf, and for all of our employees, customers, stakeholders and those whom we serve in our work to promote and support literacy, we pledge our continued efforts to make this a better world…one book at a time.”

Thanks for your votes and support of Better World Books!

Families important to literacy skills
Find out how New Carlisle’s Right to Read Week is creating excitement about literacy and learning.

MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge!
Clear your calendar June 5-7 for the MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge. The idea is to spend as much time reading as you can, then write a short blog post about what you read. Prizes will be awarded! Learn more at MotherReader or Jen Robinson’s Book Page.

Drowning in Social Media? - Just Breathe!
Angela Maiers offers some help to all of us who are overwhelmed by all the blogs, wikis, tweets and twitters.

Children’s Book Week
May 11-17 is Children’s Book Week, sponsored by our friends at The UPS Store and their Toys for Tots Literacy Program. Visit the site to order a poster or find official events in your area.

LitNotes is a new series on Literacy Now. In these posts, you’ll find material designed to support family literacy staff in the delivery of Parent and PACT Time in their programs. Today’s LitNotes focuses on Vocabulary.

Research
Research has found that explicit vocabulary instruction and access to written and spoken vocabulary supports the development of strong reading skills for learners of all ages. Vocabulary instruction helps learners to expand the number of words they know. It also assists them in developing more knowledge and understanding of the words they already know. An expansive vocabulary gives learners confidence to interact with others as well as opens the door for them to explore new learning opportunities. Building vocabulary begins with effective vocabulary instruction. Vocabulary instruction can be direct or indirect.

• Direct -teaching words and word learning strategies
• Indirect -students learning new words through their own reading and environment

Strategies
Ten Effective Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary:
1. Select unfamiliar words from the text students will be reading and teach their meaning.
2. Teach word-learning strategies like prefixes, suffixes, and using context clues.
3. Act out, sing, draw or demonstrate word meanings so students can use their senses to help remember new words.
4. Find ways to use new words or new meanings of words in daily class instruction and student conversations.
5. Plan vocabulary activities that challenge students to find ways to use new words.
6. Use the dictionary to teach vocabulary. Keep a variety of dictionaries available in the classroom.
7. Teach students how to use dictionaries.
8. Encourage students to keep a personal word dictionary.
9. Build on what students know and encourage them to guess and hypothesize about new words.
10. Have fun with words!

Resources
- Dr. Labush’s Links to Learning-Words with multiple meanings
- Read Write Think-K12 Vocabulary Instruction
- National Institute for Literacy-free resources for teaching reading

*These tips were originally created by NCFL for Kentucky Adult Education’s LitNotes series.

Imagínense Libros: Celebrating Latino Children’s Literature, Literacy, and Libraries
Terry at the Reading Tub featured a link to the blog Imaginense Libros: Celebrating Latino Children’s Literature, Literacy and Libraries, “a virtual evaluation collection of Latino children’s and young adult literature designed to help librarians, educators, and parents choose high-quality books authentically representing the Latino cultures.”

Using Twitter in and out of the Classroom
Literacy is Priceless features a post this week about using Twitter in the classroom.

Audio: Author Makes Famous Poems Fun For Kids
To close out National Poetry Month, listen to this interview with Karen Jo Shapiro, who has “taken the rhythms of famous poems and turned them into poetic parodies for children.” From NPR.

In the upcoming issue of Education Week, guest columnist Ellen Balleisen issues a challenge to Education Secretary Arne Duncan. This ESL teacher in New York wants the U.S. education system to look beyond the K-12 classrooms to early childhood education as well as adult education - in essence to family literacy.

We hope he heeds this challenge and are encouraged by his past actions that he will. Secretary Duncan is no stranger to the philosophy that education is most successful when multiple generations are engaged.

He oversaw the implementation of the Toyota Family Literacy Program while superintendent of Chicago Public Schools and experienced the power of family literacy firsthand — the power that helped lift Gisela out of daily struggles with domestic violence and a language barrier that prohibited her from functioning in her own community. Gisela and her son are now both excelling with their computer work, and her son is teaching the rest of the family how to speak Mandarin Chinese.

But this success story doesn’t come without a price tag. Ellen is right: Early childhood and adult education initiatives are underfunded. That’s where the research and expertise of the National Center for Family Literacy can help Secretary Duncan if he takes on this important challenge. There are many ways to improve these programs in a cost-effective manner.

Research and pilot programs across the nation have helped NCFL create materials that have been proven to be most effective for families. For example, our 2008 study found that adult literacy results can improve as much as one grade level gain for an average of every 10 hours to 13 hours of instruction. Personalized instruction, additional teacher training and diagnostic assessments of the adult participants are the key components to producing strong results.

NCFL also has created innovative learning materials for ESL families. One example is a series of foto novelas, a new learning tool that taps into graphic novel and comic book formats.

We are eager to help find solutions to the challenges of bolstering family literacy at the local, state and federal level through research, pilot programs and testimony before legislative bodies. But we need appointed and elected leaders to elevate the cause - for the sake of all education.

To read Ellen’s commentary, click here or check out the print edition on Wednesday. She does an excellent job of moving the discussion forward on this important issue.