Page 22 - ABCTE Study Guide_Neat

Rereading is another effective strategy in smoothing out students' decoding process, as well as
helping them build fluency. Younger students will usually want to read and reread, and teachers can
use this tendency to correct mistakes, build fluency, and increase comprehension skills.

Question

Which of the following is characteristic of successful readers?

A They have a modest repertoire of sight words.

B They consider pretty much every letter in a word when they decode.

C They have mastered only a few phoneme-to-letter relationships.

D They’re not yet comfortable manipulating phonemes.

Answer

Choice B is the correct response. You’ll recall that letter-sound relationships are no problem for our
successful readers, so they have learned that they can decode many words they encounter just by
sounding out and blending the phonemes represented by the letters in the word.

What can I do to turn my students into happy readers?

Here’s a scenario: You’ve assessed your students’ reading habits and have identified one or more
kids who aren’t yet comfortable manipulating phonemes. It might be tempting to continue at the pace
of your middle group, but doing so will widen and perpetuate the nascent divergence we just talked
about. Instead, you’ll need to conduct small-group lessons with your struggling readers in which you
deal with phonemic awareness. How?

First, recognize that—even though this is phonemic awareness—this is something you can teach and
that your students can learn. Rhyme and alliteration are, developmentally speaking, usually the most
accessible to young children. For pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students, a number of daily
activities that incorporate songs, poems, finger plays, nursery rhymes, tongue twisters, and stories in
anticipatable rhyme provide opportunities for explicit instruction in rhyme and alliteration.

During such activities, draw students’ attention to words that have the same ending sounds (rhymes)
and words with the same beginning sounds (alliteration). Incorporate those skills throughout the day
by asking students what words rhyme with new words you’ve learned, or with new students’ names,
etc. Similarly, ask students to identify something in the cafeteria that begins with the /t/ sound, such
as table, turkey, trays, etc.

Question

Which of the following statements is true about phonemic awareness?

A Since it only applies to preschool children, there’s no need to assess phonemic
awareness in first-grade students.

B Phonemic awareness is a natural function of a kid’s development; it is not the type of