Module 2 Content Activities (3370)

English has a deep orthography that students tend to struggle with. On the other hand, Finnish has a shallow orthography that students may have an easier time understanding. What does deep and shallow orthography mean, and how does it play a role in difficulty with beginning phonics?

A shallow orthography has connections between the letters and speech sounds that are consistent. These students do not struggle with phonics, because they can use phonetic spelling to match sounds and letters. Deep orthography has more complex connections between sounds and words, which may not always be apparent. Spellings are used in English to preserve meaning, like the words "knowledge" and "know". These students need more exposure to different rules in phonics and oddballs, like these, to promote understanding of how the phonemes and graphemes are linked.

Janna is finding the onset and rime of the word "drill". She separates the word with the rime being "dr" and the onset being "ill." Which phonics approach is she struggling with? A) Analogy Phonics Approach B) Synthetic Phonics Approach C) Initial Phonics Approach D) Medial Phonics Approach

A) Analogy Phonics Approach

Tyler is in your class. You notice that he is able to decode words above grade level, using letter-sound connections, phonological blending, and his phonological long term memory to connect new words he meets in literature to. Cole is also in your class. He is below average with his decoding and phonics skills. One day, you notice they are both reading a similar book. They come upon a word they do not know. How will Tyler's approach differ from Cole's? A) Tyler will use a phonetic approach, while Cole uses a visual approach B) Tyler will use a visual approach, while Cole uses a phonetic approach C) They will both guess at the word, because they want to finish first D) Tyler will use a visual and phonetic approach, while Cole skips the word altogether

A) Tyler will use a phonetic approach, while Cole uses a visual approach

Walter has a mastery of phonological awareness and beginning phonics abilities. However, he still struggles with his reading development. Which way BEST represents that Walter can master phonological awareness and beginning phonics, yet struggle with his reading development? A) He has not had enough time to have books read to him inside and outside the classroom, so his background knowledge is inept for reading. B) He has not mastered more complex phonics skills, automaticity with sight words, vocabulary expansion, reasoning abilities, and word knowledge (i.e. morphology) C) The teacher has not used an interest inventory and he is not interested in the books they are reading, so he is not motivated to read anything so far D) Walter's friends don't like reading, so he feels that he has to hate reading as well

B) He has not mastered more complex phonics skills, automaticity with sight words, vocabulary expansion, reasoning abilities, and word knowledge (i.e. morphology)

Ronald has been presented with a picture of a cat and a pen. He has been saying that "cat" is only one sound. He also says that "pen" is one sound. Why does Ronald think this? A) Ronald knows that "cat" and "pen" all refer to one object. He is confusing the number of sounds in a word with the number of objects being presented. B) Ronald hears the sounds blended all at once when he is speaking. Therefore, he is not distinguishing that the words are made up of different speech sounds (phonemes) C) Ronald has segmented the word incorrectly using the word level of phonological development rather than the phoneme level. He is confusing what words vs sounds mean. D) Both A and C

B) Ronald hears the sounds all at once when he is speaking. Therefore, he is not distinguishing that the words are made up of different speech sounds (phonemes).

Mrs. Barnett has been teaching her students, who are all having word recognition difficulties, how to decode irregular words. She wants you to observe the class because she does not understand why the students are struggling. After you have observed the class, you go up to Mrs. Barnett to talk. Then, she says that she is "thinking about throwing in the towel with the decoding and advanced phonemic awareness activities." What do you tell Mrs. Barnett and why? A) You tell her that is a great idea. They are not understanding the phonemic awareness exercises and should be advancing to a whole word approach. B) You tell her to stick with it. Irregular words need more letter-sound and phonemic awareness exercises than regular words because they do not follow the rules and these readers do not naturally engage in orthographic mapping like skilled readers their age. C) You tell her to move on. You think that incorporating echo reading and choral reading exercises will provide them more exposure to these words, increasing their sight vocabulary. D) You tell her to start them at the very beginning of phonemic awareness. They are not understanding the letter-sound connections of irregular words, so they need to go back to the initial sound study.

B) You tell her to stick with it. Irregular words need more letter-sound and phonemic awareness exercises than regular words because they do not follow the rules and these readers do not naturally engage in orthographic mapping like skilled readers their age.

Which interventions could be used to improve students if they are diagnostically assessed as weak readers due to word recognition difficulties in orthographic mapping?

Based on the orthographic mapping theory, students with weak reading abilities should be given intensive phonemic awareness activities, that requires an advanced level of manipulation of phonemes. They also require an intensive phonic decoding training, which can connect phonemes to more complicated grapheme combinations. This will promote sight vocabulary and phonological long term memory of word parts and words that have meaning, leading to increased fluency and comprehension of their reading. Finally, these skills need to be connected to real reading experiences, which can promote word vocabulary development and practice with word analysis. For younger students, interventions with letter-sound knowledge and phonological awareness will need to be analyzed in great detail with opportunities to apply all this new knowledge while reading. All of these interventions can and should be used with students who may be experiencing word recognition difficulties in orthographic mapping.

What is the alphabetic principle and how can a lack of development in it lead to issues in beginning phonics, word recognition, and overall reading development?

Being able to understand and apply the connection between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters) is what the alphabetic principle is. A lack of understanding between the sounds and letters in words will make it difficult for students to sound words out using the new phonics knowledge they are being taught. It will lead to their sight vocabulary development to be slowed, and less accurate and efficient word recognition. Finally, they will need to put more emphasis on decoding the words, since the student fails to have a complete understanding of the alphabetic principle. This means they will not understand what they are reading and their reading development will be slowed.

Studies show that two phonological awareness abilities result in better reading and spelling development. What are they and how are they important to reading and spelling?

Blending and segmenting are the two key areas that teachers need to address with students to continue to improve their reading and spelling growth. Blending helps the students apply their phonics concepts to match phonemes and graphemes. This helps the students to read words that were unfamiliar before. Spelling requires the students to segment the sounds they hear and match them to the appropriate graphemes.

Celia is experiencing fluency difficulties in her reading. She is reading with less automaticity than her peers, and her prosody of her reading is not apparent. What could be contributing to this issue? A) The teacher is emphasizing repeated readings, because she feels that Celia's visual memory is the problem and she needs more exposures to the word. B) Celia has a smaller sight vocabulary than her peers, because she needs to focus longer on decoding words using phonics rules rather than understanding and storing vocabulary. C) Both A and B D) Neither A nor B

C) Both A and B

Matthew is having word recognition difficulties while he is reading. On diagnostic assessments, he showed that his blending abilities are on level for his grade. What area could Matthew be struggling with that could be affecting his reading acquisition? A) Phonological synthesis abilities B) Phonological decoding abilities C) Phonological analysis abilities D) Phonological evaluation abilities

C) Phonological analysis abilities

Chase is a student in your 5th-grade classroom. While he is reading, he stops to tell you a new word he learned. As you look, you notice that you did not review that word with Chase before that reading assignment. What theory best explains why Chase was able to make that discovery? A) Word recognition by Phonics Decoding System B) Phonological Awareness Hypothesis C) Self Teaching Hypothesis D) The David Share Hypothesis

C) Self Teaching Hypothesis

James is a second-grade student in your class. He is one of your struggling readers. While reading, he has a very low rate and accuracy. He does not remember many words on sight, despite being exposed to the words many different times. You have tried to help him with parts of words and word families to help him group words. Yet, he still can't remember those meaningful word parts. You have assessed his spelling with the Qualitative Spelling Inventory. He seems to always move slowly through the test, even though they should be words that he has been exposed to a multitude of times. He also does not score well on this assessment. Which part of memory best describes what James is struggling with? A) The Semantic Lexicon B) The Syntactic Lexicon C) The Phonological Lexicon D) The Morphological Lexicon

C) The Phonological Lexicon

Marco is a Level 1 ELL in the ESOL program. He is from Quito, Ecuador. He seems to be struggling with sound-letter combinations, like c having two sounds and being used in the words "cat" and "race." Why is Marco have trouble with the phoneme-grapheme connection? A) Spanish has a more shallow orthography than English, with sounds that are consistent with their letters B) He has not read any books that have English words in them, so he has had no practice with English phonemes and graphemes. C) Marco may link English phonemes to phonemes in Spanish that are similar, which will lead him to categorize some phonemes incorrectly. D) Both A and C

D) Both A and C

Stacy is a first-grade student struggling with phonological awareness. All of the following are present or future issues she may have, EXCEPT A) difficulty rhyming words B) trouble acquiring, retaining, and applying phonics concepts C) challenges in reading and spelling, due to the sound-letter relationship D) a smaller oral vocabulary

D) a smaller oral vocabulary

Manipulating phonemes involves phonological awareness and working memory, with the reorganization of the sounds. To reduce memory demands that manipulating phonemes poses, you can use all of the following EXCEPT A) letter tiles and magnetic letters, where they can physically manipulate the sounds in the words using the appropriate letter(s) B) literacy instruction, where the teacher can use reading as a way to reinforce phonological awareness activities C) the student's name, where the teacher can emphasize sounds found in the student's name letters D) vocabulary instruction, where the sounds in vocabulary can be practiced and manipulated, through deletion, substitution, and insertion

D) vocabulary instruction, where the sounds in vocabulary can be practiced and manipulated, through deletion, substitution, and insertion

Emerson is a second-grade student. Her phonological awareness abilities are on track for the grade level she is at. Her previous teachers told me that she was on track with the developmental sequence for phonological awareness in kindergarten and first grade. Explain in detail what levels of phonological development she has mastered, when she mastered that level, and what level she could be at currently.

Emerson has mastered the following skills: rhyming, counting syllables, deleting part of a compound word, and blending/segmenting syllables. She has worked with the word level of phonological awareness in kindergarten and preschool with recognizing rhyming words and applying that knowledge to produce rhyming words. In first grade, she worked on the syllable level of phonological development. She counted syllables and was able to delete part of a compound word (i.e. take away boy in cowboy). She also was able to blend and segment syllables in words. For example, she can combine hot and dog to make hotdog. At the same time, she can separate playground to play and ground. Currently, she should be working with phonemes. She will need to practice blending phonemes to form words (/c/ /a/ /b/ makes cab), segmenting phonemes (fat means /f/ /a/ /t/), and manipulating phonemes, through deletion (slip minus /s/ is lip), insertion (lip plus /c/ at the beginning makes clip), substitution (change the /b/ in boat to /c/ to make coat), and rearranging the order (say the sounds of tip in reverse). This should not be done all at once, as it will overwhelm Emerson.

True or False, and Why: At the end of first grade, readers have developed all the phonemic awareness they will need to tackle reading excerpts.

False; Although phonological blending and segmentation have hit the end in first grade, the students need to work on harder phonemic awareness activities, like manipulation, in the later elementary grades. Advanced phonological awareness is necessary for orthographic mapping and advances in reading development. . This can be important for students with word recognition difficulties, as they are behind in their phonological development. Stopping at first grade can lead students with word recognition issues to have phonological core deficits, leading to slow rates and inaccurate reading. Serious strugglers may even fail to understand letter-sound connections and basic phonics. This can impact their comprehension development of more advanced concepts and vocabulary instruction.

True or False, and Why: All research says that phonological awareness training improves the spelling of older students with reading difficulties.

False; Some research shows that phonological awareness activities do not help the spelling of older students with disabilities, because spelling incorporates orthographic knowledge, like with spelling the word "bright." It also showed that it did not help the spelling of older students with disabilities because spelling relies on morphological knowledge (i.e. suffix changes). However, most studies say that phonological awareness helps at-risk students and older students with disabilities.

True or False, and Why: Three research-based strategies that can promote phonemic awareness abilities are teaching phoneme-grapheme connections, nursery rhymes, and initial phonics instruction.

False; The three research-based strategies that can promote phonemic awareness are reading aloud, initial phonics instruction, and teaching the phoneme-grapheme connections. Reading aloud can expose the child to the sounds and rhythm of language which can expand language skills. Initial phonics instruction helps improve the student's blending and onset-rime relations. Phoneme-grapheme connections help students to apply their reading and writing to phonemes and their graphemes.

Lisa is a student in your class. You have given her the word "pig." She seemed that she was able to decode this word. If she was not able to do this, what theory would she be struggling with? How would you help Lisa?

If Lisa struggled with the word "pig," she would be struggling with transparent words, which has a sound to letter connection for each of the sounds. For example, the /p/ is represented by the p and so on. The theory she would be struggling with is the Ehri's orthographic mapping theory. She will need opportunities to form connections between the stimulus she is learning and her long term memory. For example, she needs to be able to recognize and apply the short vowel /i/. Like I stated previously, she would need to form this connection with letter-sound instruction. She would also need an intervention in phoneme segmentation, as this will impact Lisa's ability to separate a word into its individual phonemes. Once this is accomplished, the spelling of the word will enter her phonological long term memory.

Jamie has two words that he can pronounce correctly. However, he is struggling with what they mean. These words are "bare" and "bear." He can't figure out which one means naked and which one is the animal. What area of memory is Jamie struggling with in regards to these two words and how do you know?

Jamie is struggling with the semantic and orthographic lexicon of memory. Jamie clearly understands how to say the words, which means that this entry is in his phonological lexicon correctly. However, he is mixing up the meanings of the two differently spelled words. Since he has connected no meaning to each of these words, he has a semantic issue. At the same time, Jamie is having orthographic issues. The spelling of the words is not connected to a specific meaning entry in his orthographic lexicon.

Mr. Wright tells you (the first grade teacher) about his kindergarten class. He tells you the following statement: "I teach my 5-year-olds one letter a week. The first week we start with the letter A. Then, we go through the alphabet, until we hit the letter Z." What is wrong with Mr. Wright's method of teaching letter-sound correspondences and how could that hurt all his students' developments, especially ELLs?

Mr. Wright is not working with letters that are easiest to work with. To start looking at the letter-sound connections, he needs to choose letters that make only one distinctive sound so he does not frustrate or overwhelm his students. Let's look at the first letter he will be looking at the first week of school: A. There are multiple sounds that A makes, which should be addressed multiple times in their development. There is no reason why the short vowel sound and the vowel teams that make the sound should be around the same time. This will cause his students to be confused about the letter-sound connection, and be unable to retain/apply those connections. Learning all the sounds A makes can also frustrate students, who may believe that all the letters will be this challenging to learn and don't remember which sound to correlate to which letter combination(s). Finally, A has a multitude of sounds that need to be taught. The students will not get enough practice with all the sounds that A makes, because the teacher is pushing them along at too fast a pace, so they will need to work on B next week. It also makes me question whether they will need the application of A concepts as they move on to B, or will it be completely forgotten as they move throughout the alphabet.

How does our understanding of the vast role phonological lexicon plays in reading acquisition help us to explain word recognition difficulties students may have if they are from lower SES homes compared to their more affluent peers? How does the phonological lexicon help us understand the benefits and challenges that dyslexic, hyperlexic, and ELL students have?

Our understanding that the phonological lexicon plays a large part in word acquisition, and later reading growth, helps us to understand challenges that students from low SES homes have. It also helps us to evaluate the concerns or lack thereof found in dyslexic, hyperlexic, and ELL students. Students from a low SES will not have the expansive oral vocabulary that is found in more affluent homes. Therefore, they will not be able to easily form connections between written vocabulary and oral vocabulary, which usually is used to expand their sight vocabulary and promote orthographic mapping skills. Thus, their phonological lexicons will be smaller than those of there affluent peers. The phonological lexicon also helps to point out why students are hyperlexic, which is the ability to point out words they have heard but not seen. Their phonological lexicons are large and can be used to improve reading development. ELLs have a substantially weaker semantic lexicon than the phonological lexicon. They are surrounded by a new language and culture, which will help with word recognition skills if they are taught phonological awareness and phonics explicitly. However, the meaning behind the words (semantic lexicon) will take longer to develop, so their reading comprehension will not be quick to progress. Finally, dyslexics have a phonological lexicon that supports vocabulary growth and understanding. However, they are unable to access the phonological lexicon with the phonemic awareness difficulties they are having in letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness, and phonological blending.

How do you think phonic decoding and orthographic mapping are similar and different, in regards to word recognition difficulties? What skills does each teach you to become a skilled reader?

Phonic decoding and Orthographic mapping have many similarities and differences. They both are needed to become skilled readers. Phonic decoding requires the students to sound out new words they are encountering with phonemic awareness abilities, like blending, and phonics instruction. On the other hand, orthographic mapping involves phonemic segmentation to read the text and store new vocabulary into long-term memory. They also both require a thorough understanding of letter-sound proficiency. If the student has word recognition difficulties with letter-sound correspondences, they will struggle to use phonic decoding and orthographic mapping to phonetically approach words. Rather, they may use the whole word approach to visually guess what the word might be. The final similarity is that both deal with the sounds and the phonemes found in words. Phonic decoding is used to identify new words, so they look at the word as a whole and blend the phonemes. At the same time, orthographic mapping is used to segment the phonemes to learn new vocabulary concepts, which can be put in the semantic, orthographic, and phonological lexicons of memory. Although phonic decoding is an older teaching strategy, orthographic mapping is relatively new. Orthographic mapping is connected to the phonological lexicon to promote the pronunciation of words. For both orthographic mapping and phonics decoding to fully develop, teachers need to use auditory instruction and address phonological awareness with reading.

Research states that visual memory does not play as large a role as once believed in literature development. It also states that the phonological lexicon plays a vast role in reading development with the sound-letter connection(s). Argue how this could be true, if students are transposing and reversing letters as beginning readers, poor readers, and dyslexic students.

Students who are poor, beginning, or dyslexic readers may be experiencing difficulty with transposing and reversing letters, because they lack the phonemic awareness that connects the phonemes to the grapheme combinations. Because these connections are not taught explicitly, they are not put in the students' phonological long term memory. To these readers, the letter combinations feel like rote memorization that connects in no way to sound and phonemic awareness.

Teachers use Elkonin Boxes all the time in young classrooms. How do teachers use these to enhance their students' literacy development?

Teachers use Elkonin Boxes to help all students to form connections between spoken sounds and written letters. In the beginning, the students use the Elkonin Boxes to learn about phonemes in different words. They learn how to count the number of sounds they are hearing and think about different types of sounds in words. Eventually, Elkonin Boxes can promote blending of sounds to form words.

How does the phonological skill development of a student that is not experiencing word recognition difficulties compare with their word reading development? How does that compare to a student who may be struggling with word recognition?

The phonological awareness skills align closely with the word reading development stages. These stages do not need to be mastered to start the next stage. However, as the advancement continues through a stage, mastery of the prior stage is recommended. The first stage of the phonological awareness skills is early phonological awareness, which deals closely with alliteration, rhyme, and initial sounds. Word reading development also deals with letter-sound connections, requiring the simple phonology from the phonological awareness stages to begin reading development. The next stage of the phonological skill development is the basic phonemic awareness, which requires students to be able to blend and segment sounds in words. For the word reading development, they will need these sources to be able to decode phonetically as they should. The final stage of the phonological awareness skills are advanced phonemic awareness, which masters the prior phonemic exercises and manipulation of phonemes. This is important for the final stage of word reading development, which is orthographic mapping. Students with word recognition difficulties may become stuck in the second level and never develop to orthographic mapping. Others will never master the advanced phonics needed to become skilled in the third level of reading development. This will affect comprehension and fluency of these students.

True or False, and Why: Students with phonological-core deficits tend to never reach the advanced stage of phonemic awareness. This means that they may have strong phonological abilities into adulthood, but they are never put in the phonological long-term memory, hindering fluency and comprehension development.

True; Even into adulthood, if interventions are not put into play to help phonological core issues, reading will often be slow and inaccurate. Even if they are able to decode the word, they do not store the word into long term memory, despite exposures being frequent to that word. Therefore, the sight vocabulary is low. This leads to words not being accessed in the phonological lexicon, which impacts the fluency and comprehension of present and future reading.

Neuroimaging has revealed a lot of information about the brain's activity while reading. What parts of the brain are being used as we are reading and how are they being used? How do you think that differs for students with learning differences, learning disabilities, and students from different backgrounds (i.e. ELLs, low vs high SES, etc.)?

There are many parts of the brain being used as the student is reading. The left fusiform gyrus, which overlaps the temporal and occipital lobes, is used to recognize and activate stored letter sequences of printed words. The left temporal lobe works with the fusiform gyrus to activate the spoken form of the word. The frontal lobe also works with these two to activate pronunciation of the word. Therefore, students are able to teach themselves words based on the orthographic mapping of words and their parts. Students use this knowledge and their phonics decoding ability to form connections and discover what new words they are reading. For ELL students, this may differ. Although these processes may still happen, they are not understanding what they are reading. The semantic lexicon has not latched on to the orthographic spelling of the words. Students in a low SES home will not have any connection they can form with their oral vocabularies, so it may take more exposure to teach students new vocabulary. Students with learning issues and disabilities may need more direct instruction with word parts, like word families, prefixes, and suffixes, to connect them to meaning. They will also need to put more focus on the spelling of words in order to grasp how they relate to the phonemes.

True or False, and Why: Combining Literacy Instruction with phonemic awareness activities will promote phonemic awareness growth, which can improve spelling and reading development.

True; Incorporating Phonemic Awareness activities into read alouds or other literary activities will display the application of phonemic awareness to students. It will also show how readers think about words when they are not known to them and the continuous need to learn phonemic awareness. Finally, it allows students to practice multiple phonemic awareness activities, if the students are ready.

True or False, and Why: Phonological Awareness is an umbrella term that includes the word level, syllable level, onset-rime level, and phoneme level. Phonological Awareness includes recognizing and producing rhymes; blending, segmenting, and analyzing different phonemes; as well as deleting, inserting, and manipulating sounds.

True; Phonological Awareness helps provide an oral language foundation to apply phonics knowledge to improve reading and spelling. Rhyming, phoneme manipulations, syllable study, and sound blending/segmentation are all areas of phonological awareness that need to be developed.

True or False and Why: Students will experience difficulties with reading acquisition if they do not have the components needed for phonic decoding and orthographic mapping. These components include proficient letter-sound knowledge, efficient phonological awareness, phonological blending, and phonological long term memory with vocabulary.

True; Proficient letter-sound knowledge is required in all languages, despite the consistency between the letters and sounds. Students must understand how the phonemes relate to the graphemes to be able to decode the words accurately and efficiently and comprehend what they are reading. Efficient phonological awareness involves phoneme manipulation that contributes to phonics decoding and increases with sight vocabulary. It also involves phonological awareness abilities, like rhyming, and phonics which will improve the fluency that students read, so they can focus on comprehension abilities. Students also need to be able to separate and blend words based on their analyzation of sound units to become proficient readers and sound out unknown words. Phonological blending, and a set of variability (which is the relation between spoken English to what they figure out a word is from phonics), uses context clues to determine words that may be unfamiliar. Phonological Long term memory also needs to be there for readers to be able to retrieve words and word parts they will need to understand new and old vocabulary in the reading comprehension. With all of these components, they can rely on their phonological awareness, phonics knowledge, fluency, and vocabulary, which will decrease the attention needed for decoding and increase comprehension abilities.

True or False, and Why: Students age 2-5 tend to rely on visual features or contexts to understand environmental print they are reading, despite those contexts being limited in number.

True; These students tend to need the logo or environmental surroundings to understand what the words are saying. For example, in a study, they found that the "Pepsi" Logo could only be read with the red and blue surroundings. At the same time, these students don't yet check for misspellings in the environmental print. Words, like "look," are read based on the pattern they see the words. For example, "look" has two o's that can represent two eyes.

Compare and contrast the reading problems and difficulties found in consistent and less consistent orthographies.

With both consistent and inconsistent orthographies, the reading rate of students is lower. This is because they have a lower sight vocabulary, which means they need to rely on decoding the words more than finding the words in their phonological long-term memory. In all alphabetic orthographies, difficulties in orthography can be found with reading beyond the early grades, when they need to rely on larger sight vocabulary and decoding ability to comprehend harder concepts. In less consistent languages, like English, accuracy characterizes those who are poor readers. In English, if the word can't be decoded or found in the sight vocabulary, the accuracy of the word will suffer, which will negatively affect the speed they are reading. In more consistent languages, like Spanish, reading difficulties are based on the written code and a low sight vocabulary.