Laying the Foundations
One teacher's journey
I pledged to run 100km over the month of March to help raise awareness about dyslexia through the Code Read Network. I didn’t think it would be too difficult- I’d throw my red cap on and rock up to a few parkruns along with my normal morning runs. I didn’t realise how busy the month of March would get. I also didn’t factor in the week I took off because I was sick. When I woke up on the morning of the 28th I had only completed 69km. My longest run for the month has only been 7km. I was overwhelmed with the number of kilometres I had left to run and was tempted to let the challenge quietly slip away. Why did I need to add extra stress to my life when I was already busy enough? For too many students this is the reality they face when confronted with the reading. They feel stressed and overwhelmed. It can be much easier for them to find excuses to avoid having to read. This is particularly true for many children with dyslexia. “Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.” About 20% of the population are estimated to have learning difficulties and 80% of diagnosed learning disorders are assessed as having a reading disorder (or dyslexia). This means that in almost every classroom across Australia there is at least one child with dyslexia. As a graduate teacher I thought dyslexia was a bit like a unicorn: it didn’t exist. I was taught that when students didn’t learn to read it was perhaps due to the child's a lack of interest, laziness, or maybe the parents weren’t reading to them enough. In short: it was everyone’s fault except the teachers. I now know that this perception was not only naïve, it was damaging to students and their families. Dyslexia is nobody’s fault. If a child needs to use a wheelchair, we don’t blame the child or their family. Likewise we ensure that they have access to ramps. We need to make sure that we have similar provisions for students with learning disabilities. Ignoring dyslexia is a fault in many educational institutions. We need to identify students who possibly have dyslexia and provide them with the instruction and intervention that they need. When I look at my 5-year-old students at the start of the year, I have very little idea who amongst them may have dyslexia. The good news is that the initial literacy instruction that children with dyslexia need is beneficial to all children. Ensuring quality teaching of systematic and synthetic phonics not only supports students with dyslexia, it lays a solid foundation for all our students. This morning I completed my third run in four days. Each run was over 10km and completed in the dark before sunrise. It seemed a fitting end to a challenge that raises awareness of students who are too often kept in the dark. Let’s make it possible for them to see the sunrise. Want to know more? Check out AUSPELD and find your state branch for support. The CODE READ Network does some great advocacy. Learning Difficulties Australia is an association of teachers and other professionals dedicated to supporting students with learning difficulties. The Victorian Department of Education and Training has a helpful Learning Difficulties Information Guide for Literacy. Below is a video I recently made for the families of my students about the early stages of phonics that may be useful.
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Recently two graduate teachers confided in me their feelings of guilt over using pre-prepared materials in their classrooms. They both really enjoyed teaching these programs, their students are doing some wonderful learning, and they are not wasting time creating something that already exists. Their guilt emerged because they have been led to believe that teachers need to create the content for their students’ unique needs. While catering for our students’ needs is a crucial aspect often education, we can easily forget that the ways that we learn are generally very similar. "Teaching is interesting because learners are so different; it’s only possible because they are so similar.” When I go to the doctor, I don't expect them to create the medicine. When I order a meal, I don't expect the chef to have grown the ingredients in their own garden. And when I go to the mechanic, they will order a part rather than make it themselves. So why do we expect all teachers to do the dual tasks of creating a curriculum and teaching the curriculum? Don't get me wrong: it is important that teachers have the knowledge to create curriculum. It is a waste of time for thousands of teachers to be creating similar curricula in parallel. It is an unreasonable expectation that all teachers are able to produce programs of exceptional quality from scratch. If you mention that your school uses a program*, you are likely to hear the phrase "programs don't teach students, teachers teach students." There seems to be an adverse reaction anytime someone mentions that they use a program within education. This is a little bit strange given that program is defined as "a set of related measures or activities with a particular long-term aim". That definition could just about sit next to the word school. Why are people hesitant about using the term program when discussing what they do in their classroom? It is possible that it is because the term program is often synonymous with commercial program. I know I used to hold to the myth that commercial programs were something to avoid in educating our children. However, I now realise that some commercial programs can benefit schools. P= Price A key reason educators give for avoiding commercial programs is that somebody profits from them. There is an understandable scepticism about anyone making a profit from the education of our children. Of course, we need to be wary and avoid any snake-oil salespeople. However, when you look at the actual costs of many good programs you might be surprised. The actual cost is often not much more than the materials would cost. The real question we should be asking is "what is the price of creating our own programs?" When we start to add up the late nights that teachers spend creating, printing and laminating our resources, we start to see the real cost of expecting every school to come up with unique programs. This cost is so significant that 'workload' has become the prime issue in schools in many juridictions including Victoria. The cost of creating your own program is often much more expensive than purchasing one. R= Ready to Roll One key advantage of using an appropriate commercial program is that they are often packaged to be easily implementable. This means that we have more time for planning other learning experiences. It also means that we are able to focus on how we deliver the program, rather than creating what we need to deliver. Recently we implemented a new spelling program. After an initial half-day session our staff were ready to start teaching with the program. There wasn't much for them to create, to print, or laminate. Instead they could shift their focus to reflecting on what worked in each lesson and how to fine-tune their practice to improve the learning of their students. O= Organised A commercial program organises the learning. A good commercial program organises the learning well. A good teacher can organise learning well too, but good teachers also have a myriad of extra responsibilities that keep creeping in the way. It takes time to sequence learning. It takes a lot of time to sequence learning well. Teachers often don't have that time. It also takes expertise to sequence learning well. Many teachers are experts, but it is difficult to be an expert in every area that we are expected to teach. A good program is well sequenced. The skills students learn are built on each lesson and this continues throughout the multiple years of the program. There is consistency between classes and the material that students are learning is delivered in a cohesive way. With a well-sequenced program the teaching is organised and the learning is also better consolidated. G= Graduates When I was a graduate teacher, I was provided with a folder of photocopied literacy worksheets for each week of the term. From this I was expected to craft a complete term of reading and writing learning. I was also busy working out how to manage student behaviours, communicate with parents, juggle teaching in an art room as we awaited new buildings, teach maths, science, history, do yard duties, participate in staff meetings… Phew! I am exhausted just remembering this experience. It's little wonder that so many teachers leave the profession in the first few years. We are losing people who have the potential to be amazing educators because they are not well-supported. One way that we can support them is to provide them with quality-teaching materials. Why was there an expectation that I could turn the folder of photocopied material into a curriculum of anything near the quality of the experienced teacher next door? I am not pretending that even with a quality program I would have been as good as those with more experience. But I think I would have been able to focus more on what really matters: my students' learning. I also think that I would have spent fewer weekends planning and preparing. Graduate teachers need to stand on the shoulders of the giants who have worked before them in education. This may be the experienced mentor next door, but we should also leverage the experience of those external to our school. Many programs have been created by experts who have worked tirelessly on them. Let's not ignore this expertise. R= Research I would love for more people to see what is happening in my classroom. This blog is partly an attempt to document my teaching so that others can learn from it (and I can learn from others). I want to know more about what makes teaching effective. This is tricky to discern when there are so many factors in a classroom. Is it the way I greet students? Is it how I frame questions? Is it the way that I manage behaviour? Is it the culture of participation that I build? Is it the explicit teaching? Is it a sense of wonder in my students? There are so many moving parts in one single classroom that it is difficult to work out what elements are essential for effective learning. However, if a number of different classes are implementing a particular program and all are achieving similar results, then the program is likely to be a factor. In this instance we can begin to examine the program, rather than trying to consider all of the aspects of all the different classes. Many commercial programs claim to be 'research-based'. We need to scrutinise these claims so that we can continue to learn what contributes to effective teaching and learning. A= Artistry A funny thing happened when I started to use a commercial program in my classroom. I became a better teacher. I no longer wasted countless hours planning. My teaching became more targeted. I was able to pay closer attention to my students. Instead of trying to create an entire unit, I was focused on small tweaks that made significant impact on my students' learning. In short, I was work on the art of teaching because the program dealt with the science of teaching. Another myth is that programs turn teachers into automatons. This couldn't be further from the truth in my experience. I have had the privilege of observing many teachers. Even if they are delivering the same program, their artistry always shines through. M= Miracles Another line that does the rounds when programs get mentioned is "there’s no such thing as a silver bullet.” You will get no argument from me. Teaching is complex and to pretend otherwise devalues teaching as a profession. We don’t need to complicate it further and to dismiss programs because somebody else created them. A program is not a silver bullet. Despite many programs being ‘ready-to-roll’ this does not equate to a ‘plug and play’ situation where anybody with a heartbeat could do the work of a teacher. Teachers often work miracles. Let’s employ every tool that we have at our disposal so that we can make more miracles happen. S= Students' Success The most important aspect of determining whether to use a program comes down to the very reason schools exist: our students. Their success should be the factor that sways whether a program is appropriate. If you do not use any commercial programs and your students are achieving wonderful success: congratulations! Thank you for taking the time to read this post and keep doing what you are doing. Many of us are not in this position and believe that there is room to improve our students’ learning outcomes. Perhaps someone has already done the hard work of creating a program that meets the particular long-term aims you are striving for. Perhaps a program that is suitable for your situation exists. Not all commercial programs are created equal. Some are much better than others. And some are definitely not worth investing in. However, to habitually dismiss the use of all commercial programs increases teachers’ workloads, and potentially disadvantages our students. "Everything works somewhere; nothing works everywhere." *I have deliberately used the US spelling program instead of the proper 'programme' because I thought 8 points were enough for my (oh-so-witty) acrostic. In my last post I mentioned that I have been teaching my students about phonemic awareness. First up, a confession: once upon a time I believed that the terms 'phonemic awareness' and 'phonics' were interchangeable. They are not. However they are strongly related and children benefit when our literacy instruction explicitly teaches both of these essential skills. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in speech. It is this ability that allows us to segment the phonemes in 'cat' (/k/ /a/ /t/) or 'boat' (/b/ /ō/ /t/). Through phonemic awareness instruction we can teach students to segment, blend, isolate, and manipulate the phonemes that make up words. Phonics is about linking the phonemes (or sounds) within spoken language to the graphemes (or letters) that we use in our written language. Clearly, if students have a strong grounding in phonemic awareness, then they will be better able to link these phonemes to graphemes. This should result in a stronger base for students to build their literacy learning on. So there is not really an argument about whether phonemic awareness should be taught to our students. However, there is plenty of debate about how much phonemic awareness instruction students need and what exactly this should look like. In one camp there are those that claim that phonemic awareness could be done in the dark. I, for one, would prefer to leave the lights on, and not just so I can see the smiles on my students' faces. It is important to keep the end goal in mind: I want my students to be proficient readers. Phonemic awareness is important, but it is not sufficient. Therefore my students are best served if I can ensure quality instruction in phonemic awareness while introducing graphemes as early as possible. Coincidentally, today I received an email from a popular commercially available phonemic awareness program stating that they have adapted their program to have "greater phoneme/grapheme connections". At the start of our foundation year, a lot of our phonemic awareness instruction is done without graphemes (and could theoretically be completed blindfolded). However, as soon as I start introducing grapheme-phoneme correspondences I begin incorporating them into our phonemic awareness activities. I might ask students to :
This led me to the query below: I agree with 33.8% and think that they should remain as separate phonemes. Let me explain why. Last year, I noticed that my students were accurately writing many words. There was a bit of confusion about which grapheme to use when representing the /k/ sound in monosyllabic words (sock, stick, pack, etc.). You may have noticed a pattern already. I taught this pattern to my students. My students were pretty quick to let me know about a missing gap.
Words like 'six', 'max' or 'fox' started causing issues. I realised that any time I came across the letter 'x' I was teaching the /k/ and /s/ phonemes as one unit. This makes some sense because they are represented by one grapheme in these words. However to a 5-year-old child they are clearly two distinct phonemes. Asking them to segment the words 'socks' and 'fox' should result in identifying the same number of phonemes. I was inadvertently overcomplicating the task because of the additional knowledge I have. This is exactly the gap that exists between the knowledge of novices and experts that I try to avoid. This year I have been clearer in my expectations. If I want students to segment a word into phonemes, then I need to hold myself to the same standard and recognise individual phonemes. It was my 5-year-old students' 21st day of school yesterday. It was a joyful experience as EVERY child was forming words and accurately decoding them. In the midst of all the activity, my teaching assistant turned to me and said "I've actually got goosebumps!" It was a magical moment building on what is becoming a firm foundation. Some of my students had some knowledge about letters and the sounds that they represent. But many had very little knowledge on day one. So how did that beautiful moment happen yesterday? Simply, I taught them the skills they need to begin to unlock the code of written language. Please note that what I am outlining here focuses on my decoding instruction. This takes up part of our literacy block, but is by no means the entirety. I have also spent lots of time reading rich texts, teaching nursery rhymes, developing our oral language. Step 1: Phonemic Awareness Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in speech. It is useful to check whether students can hear and say sounds accurately so that they can transfer this to their reading and writing. Over the last 21 days we have practised our phonemic awareness skills. We have been isolating phonemes along with blending and segmenting words. I have found that teaching these orally helps us when we introduce grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs). While there is an argument that 'phonemic awareness can be done in the dark', I am discovering that linking these activities to the GPCs enhances students abilities in phonemic awareness, their decoding AND their encoding. Step 2: Teach Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences On my students' fifth day of school I started introducing them to GPCs. In their second week they learnt 's' represents /s/, 'a' represents /a/, and 't' represents /t/. I teach the sound it often represents and how to write the grapheme. We have revised these GPCs daily ever since. We practise writing and saying these GPCs regularly. By the end of the week my class had mastered these GPCs. I have now also introduced:
I would have liked to have introduced a few more GPCs, but given the extended absences of students who have to isolate due to covid, I have slowed the pace slightly. I don't want students to be overwhelmed when they return to school. Step 3: Sound it Out Once my students know their first few GPCs we start blending them into words. The process I follow is that I show them vc and cvc words with the GPCs that they have mastered. I then model how to move from left to right, sounding it out as I go. Students then join in, and I make sure that they are saying the sounds that they can see*. Then it's the students' turn to do it independently. Something to watch is that students are not stopping in between the sounds. This would make the next step harder. When I choose the cvc words, I start with ones that have a consonant that you can hold (s, m, n) as it is easier for students to blend these without stopping in between the sounds. You can show the word by writing it, using magnetic letters, using cards, or however else you can imagine. *Yes I know that you technically can't see a sound, but this is the phrase I use to quickly provide feedback to 5-year-olds. Step 4: Say it Fast Once students can accurately say the PGCs in a word, the next step is to read it as a word. I make sure that for their first few words I model it first. Once we 'say it fast', I ask "What word?" and watch in amazement as my students realise that they just read a word! Helping students begin to crack the code of reading is one of those moments that I wish I could bottle. No wonder my teaching assistant had goosebumps! A few students may struggle, especially if they are stopping between the sounds. I provide them with a whisper phone and this often helps them to hear the sounds that they are saying. At this stage I am also teaching a lot of new vocabulary. This is because I am limited in the words I am asking students to read by their knowledge of PGCs. A bonus is that my students now know that 'sap' is the liquid inside trees, 'nip' is a pinch, and a 'nit' is a bug that itches hair. Step 5: Chop it Hopefully you can see the link between phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. I have isolated phonemes and linked these to graphemes. Then I have taught how to blend our GPCs. On Friday we were segmenting GPCs and forming words. We said each word and then 'chopped it' into phonemes (I have heard others use the phrase 'robot talk'). My students then made each word, with an incredibly high level of accuracy. I didn't want students' ability to write the letters get in the way of their ability to form words so we used cards. These stand up so I can easily monitor and provide feedback (although it means I am reading the word backwards). What will happen next?
This process can seem painstakingly slow. Listening to students labouriously sound out every word on a page, then say it fast, then re-reading the sentence takes a lot of time and patience. However it is exactly what many students need in order to ensure that they can all read. I have learnt to embrace this meticulous, methodical approach as I have seen that students thrive from laying a strong foundation for their reading success. |
I'm JamesI am a father of two (8 & 5), married to a future Early Childhood Educator. Archives
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