Lesson: Phonological Awareness- phoneme blending



Helen Smith

Accommodating Students Packet

Describe

Children

For this study I have chosen 2 students who are ELL learners who would benefit from some more individualized instruction as they are both lacking in several areas, particularly phonemic awareness when it comes to spelling practices. Both of these students are second graders and in my homeroom this year at ICS in Bangkok, Thailand.

Josef

This is Josef’s second year at ICS. He moved from Sweden and did not speak English previous to coming to school. For the past two years he has received additional reading support through an ESL program that meets 45 minutes a day during the regular class Reading time. This means he is in with his peers, or children at low levels like himself, but does not miss all homeroom language instruction. In addition to ESL, spelling and writing are both covered daily.

Coming into my classroom Josef was reading below grade level, enough so that there had been debate about keeping him in first grade. This year has been a real break-through for him. I have seen Josef jump up 7 reading levels, and now is about to exit second grade at an above average reading level. Josef is 8 years old and very mature for his age. His listening comprehension skills have always been above average, and I’m delighted to say that his reading skills are now starting to match his listening skills.

The reason I particularly want to work with Josef is because even though his reading has improved, as well as his comprehension of the text he is reading, he still has difficulty with writing, spelling, and mixing letters. There is also still a little trouble with sounding out completely new words, especially now that he has gained confidence and speed in decoding text. The mixing of letters and spelling may be attributed to the different sounds and spelling in his native Swedish language. The parents are both fluent in English, however when at home all discussions are in Swedish. They are also teaching him Swedish as well, though there has been discussion about suspending this study until he breaks through in English, as all of his instruction is in English.

Anakin

This is Anakin’s second year at ICS as well. Previously, Anakin was enrolled in a Thai school, so ICS has been his first all English instruction experience. Anakin is an 8, almost 9, year old Thai/Chinese native of Thailand who is also part of my second grade homeroom class at ICS. On top of the challenges inherent to being an ELL student, Anakin also suffers from hyperactivity and is very easily distracted. Several of his previous teachers and current teachers suspect him of either ADD or ADHD; however the parents adamantly refuse to admit anything is wrong and will not have him tested.

As it is, Anakin has received for the past two years, additional support through ESL, just like Josef. Anakin entered into my class at a significantly lower reading level(around a 1st grader’s entrance reading ability) and throughout the year has made progress; however is still exiting second grade at a below level reading ability. He did test out of ESL this year, however was just above the cut off, and based on the decision of the ESL teacher, and relying on my own observation in the classroom, Anakin will be staying in the program for at least one more semester. This smaller group, and individualized instruction received through the ESL environment was deemed to enable him to further his education more than what he would be capable of doing in the whole class environment.

Anakin still struggles with decoding some words and his vocabulary usage in his own speech and writing is limited. He learns through mostly listening, and dislikes reading. He has trouble with spelling, probably due to a very heavy accent, as well as difficulty in writing, forgetting to use common rules he knows, such as capitals and end marks. The individualized instruction will particularly help him, as he is easily distracted during whole group instruction, and often off task, but individualized he does much better.

Environment

Within the classroom, each student is influenced by the written word in a variety of ways. Students work independently on morning work every day, read from the classroom library and various text books, write stories they work on throughout the week, and learn grammar and spelling rules. The students usually have the opportunity to work individually, as a whole class, and in small groups every day. The students also have specific procedures within the day, such as placing homework in specified baskets and class jobs that promote independence.

The specific interests of students are catered to by allowing them to choose topics of writing within a given genera, as well as giving choices for various activities, and being allowed to choose what they ultimately want to do. I also try and find teach-read-aloud books that cater to the whole class and well known interests within the classroom. Students will also often work together on a collaborative story, in small groups to complete one science project, and work as a whole class toward rewards for behavior.

I have found that my classroom procedure of a marble jar goes a long way in second grade to promote cooperation among the students. Depending on whole-class participation, good behavior in homeroom and specials classes, or various other aspects of the school day, the class earns or gets marbles taken away. I found that my students worked together very well toward this common goal. Ultimately it is my goal that each and every student feels cared for and safe within my classroom. I try and achieve this from the physically inviting environment of my classroom, to the individual attention I try and give each and every student throughout the day with individual instruction, feedback, and the listening to stories.

For my two specific students in this study, Josef and Anakin, they face more challenges than the extra student. My classroom this year consisted of all ELL students except one, with each student at a different level of language acquisition. My classroom environment changed twice during the year as well, as we gained a new student at the start of second quarter and another at the start of Christmas. As both of these students were coming from a Thai school and both quite low in English, they required more of my classroom time that others, in the end taking some time away from Josef and Anakin.

For Josef, his fear that he would be detained in second grade was a challenge he had to overcome. As there was much talk of keeping him in first grade, and Josef being aware of this, he was afraid that he would be detained in second grade because of his low reading abilities. He also struggled because he was a very critical thinker, however because the decoding aspect of reading took so much of his mental energy, he had very little left for the comprehension of the text. “Slow word reading is also debilitating because it consumes working memory and, therefore, prevents the individual from thinking about the text while reading.” (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002, p. 386) When another person read the text however, he could remember everything. The fact that his spelling and phonemic awareness was low also proved a challenge for him when asked to write anything. Josef has a strong aversion to writing because of two reasons; first spelling and phonemic awareness was very behind and he was still often using invented spelling, and secondly his letter formation and tight pencil grip soon tired him out, leaving him creating very short stories that he will add verbal descriptions to.

Anakin faced an entirely different set of problems, stemming from behavioral problems, and a low phonemic awareness. Anakin has struggled for the past two years with reading ability, and has always been a low speller and poor writer. He struggles to sit still for any extended period of time and in larger groups becomes increasingly distracted. This fact works against Anakin, as we found, after testing him that he learns mostly through listening and is very poor in his reading and comprehension abilities. It was also proven through surveys of his parent, ESL teacher (with a class of only 8) and my own survey of his behavior in a classroom of 17 that as the group grows Anakin listens and participates less and less. When he does listen, his memory is astounding; however capturing his full attention can prove difficult. He also suffers from a very strong accent, almost termed a lisp (though hard to tell on top of his Thai accent). This impairs his ability to sound out words successfully and his writing reflects these mispronounced sounds. Finally, Anakin has a hard time implementing the rules he learn in class to his actual work and words he has learned to his actual vocabulary. After focusing on the rules of capitalization and end marks all year, Anakin still only used them about half the time in his writing. His vocabulary use is also very limited, however when tested has been shown to know far more than he implements within his speech or writing.

Lesson/Intervention

I chose to work with these two students because they both had similar phonemic awareness and particularly, spelling needs. I felt that they would work well together in the small group environment, and through this instruction I would be providing the students with skills that would help them in their reading and writing. As found in the research by Troia and Graham “When children with writing difficulties have to devote substantial cognitive resources to spelling and handwriting, often with limited success, attention to writing content, organization, and style is minimized. Consequently, instructional time and effort should be allocated to boosting their spelling and handwriting accuracy and fluency.” (Troia & Graham, 2003, p. 83)

Assessments

To determine current needs in their spelling, I determined to give the students the Kottmeyer’s Diagnostic Spelling test. The information gleaned from this test allowed me to pinpoint the spelling patterns and phonemes that my students were missing when spelling their words. I also chose to give my two students Schonell’s Spelling Test that determined a student’s spelling age. This would allow me to see where the student currently stood regarding their spelling abilities, and when given as a post-test could also be used as a marker to see how much improvement happened from the lessons given in this area.

The Schonell spelling test indicated that Anakin’s spelling age was 7 years and 8 months, almost a whole year younger that he was. Josef’s test indicated that his spelling age was 7 years and 0 moths, more than 1 year and 4 months different from his current age. The Kottmeyer test then led me to the specific areas the students needed help in. Anakin was lacking in his long and short oo, short i, silent gh, t, and u sound. He also did not double his final consonant before the ing ending, change his y to i before a final ending, and lacked in knowledge of non-phonemic spellings. Josef also lacked in the long and short oo, silent gh, and t sound. He also did not recognize the vowel before r, the wh spelling, or remember to change the y to i before final endings, along with a lack of knowledge in non-phonemic spellings of words. These two children overlapped in several difficulty areas; including the long and short oo, silent gh, and t sound. They also both needed practice with changing the y to i before final endings and non-phonemic spellings.

The Kottmeyer test also showed some of the student’s strengths when it came to spelling. Both students understood the j spelling of the soft g sound, as well as different verb endings, doubling of final consonants, and the er, est endings. The students also understood the ow-ou spellings of the ou sound, the er ending, the th and sh sound, as well as compound words, something we had covered earlier in the year. These findings showed me that though the students could hear some phonemes within a word, they could not identify all the sounds, as well as misinterpretation of some sounds within a word. This also showed me that some of the spelling pattern instruction given throughout the year had made an impact, however still more instruction was needed. These spelling tests can be seen in the artifacts attached to the paper.

Lesson Planning

As both Anakin and Josef are ELL students who are at the lower end in reading and writing, I felt it important to focus on phonemic awareness. This is an area that is heavily focused on in the Michigan English Language Grade Level Content Expectations, as well as coming into focus more and more in studies done by reading experts. During the module reading of phonemic awareness, I was greatly impacted by Louisa C. Moats in her article “Teaching Decoding.” She states “Most individuals learn to decode words in print because they accumulate explicit and tacit knowledge of linguistic patterns – phonological, orthographic, and morphological.” I realized that as both Josef and Anakin are second language learners, they will not get this explicit or tacit information from home, but will need to be directly taught in the school room in order to be a fully successful reader. I particularly believed that if I allowed the students to construct these spelling patterns, instead of just teaching rules that don’t always work, Josef and Anakin would create a much deeper knowledge that would be transferable to their reading and writing outside of the lessons taught. The GCLE standards aligned nicely with this goal and more in-depth discussion about how these standards were meet is found below.

During the formulation of my lesson plans, I found the information from the Pretests to be invaluable. My goal of the whole lesson was to provide explicit instruction in the process of identifying individual phonemes, as well as spelling patterns, including any needed prefixes, endings, and unique sounds. From the Kottmeyer test I was able to identify the exact spelling patterns my students were missing, and give them explicit instruction in these areas.

Before the Kottmeyer test, my whole goal was to focus on the spelling patterns, however I realized through this pretest that my students also needed some help in phoneme identification, especially in the t, i, and various sounds of oo. This led me to a double focus of phoneme awareness and identifying spelling patterns. The phoneme awareness came in the form of sounding out a given word at the start of the lesson. During this time we would not only identify the sounds of each letter, but the phonemes as well.

I then chose to teach spelling as a language with various patterns instead of set rules to memorize, knowing all the exceptions to the rule when encountered. I was lead in this belief by Louisa C. Moats and her paper Teaching Decoding, making spelling a more lasting and meaningful experience for Josef and Anakin. I then was able to use the information I learned in the Kottmeyer test to develop various lessons of the same format that taught all the different spelling patterns Josef and Anakin were missing in their own spelling. These lessons would be in addition to the normal spelling curriculum, where these spelling patterns are often introduced and practiced, however not at such a depth as in the lessons taught to Josef and Anakin. As the silent gh, long and short oo, as well as changing y to i had already been introduced in my classroom, I realized that I needed more explicit and meaningful instruction for these two students in order for them to internalize the spelling patterns and use them in their own writing and decoding of text.

Analyze

Teaching the Lesson

The whole lesson was structured around the R.WS.02.04 standard in the Michigan English Language Grade Level Content Expectations. This standard was concerned with student’s ability to decode and recognize words through using letter sounds, onsets, rhymes, whole word chunks, word families, long and short vowels, and digraphs. This particular lesson centered on word families, what I call spelling patterns, as well as long and short vowels, represented in the multiple oo sounds. I also included some onset and rhyme practice through the manipulation and creation of new words that followed the specific spelling pattern.

The lesson was given through direct instruction, coupled by peer interaction. The direct instruction came at the beginning of the lesson, and focused on sounding out a given word, dwelling on the specific phonemes heard in a word. This was a little challenging at first for the students because this is something I did not often ask of my students. Once they understood what I wanted, the sounds not the spelling, they did much better and I was able to see if there were any missed phonemes or inappropriate pairing of an incorrect sound to a different letter. I chose this method as I was asking my students to do something I had not asked of them before. I felt it only fair that I lead the students through the lessons, and maybe if this became a regular experience, I would turn it more toward peer-mediated learning.

Once the students had the sounds down, I then gave them the list of words that followed a spelling pattern, and asked them to identify the commonality among them all. I prompted when needed, especially in the ies, ys, list, however was largely student led and a discussion went on between the two students. In the original lesson I was then going to go straight on from there to making of their own words, however I found a little more direct instruction proved helpful in the list of words. Many of the words, though common to native English speakers, were completely foreign to these ELL students, so we decoded each word, using the spelling pattern we now knew. For the oo pattern we then discussed if the word had the long o, sound or the u sound. This helped the students understand that the oo pattern represented more than one sound. For the ies, ys, pattern we discussed why each word was spelled the way it was.

Asking the students to find the common spelling pattern within the list also helped the students to meet R.MT.02.06 standard. This process asked the students and teacher to work together to identify the best strategy to use when spelling these words. On spelling patterns such as ies and ys this was a more complex pattern, requiring the students to determine when and why to use the two different types of spelling. On the short spelling test at the end of the lesson, Anakin and Josef were asked to use these strategies they learned, deciding which strategy fit which word, as well as the ability to recognize when a strategy they learned pertained to a word they were spelling.

I then asked the students to create five words of their own. This proved a little difficult at first because I had given such a long list of words that had followed the spelling pattern. The students didn’t understand the fact that they could create their own words and were not sure if they could use the word they had already saw on the list. After some discussion we decided two words from the list were fine, but the rest needed to be, either other real words, or made up words. The process of creating their own words required the students to manipulate the sounds around the specific spelling pattern, particularly oo. During these times students were prompted to create their own words by changing the onset to a rhyme, or deletion of the ending sound and adding of a new ending sound. After the first time with guided instruction, students were asked to try and do this process on their own while I watched, helping when needed. This process worked on the student’s phonemic awareness, particularly the R.WS.02.01 standard.

An incredible teaching moment came when I had the students write down the singular form of a word ending in y. I then asked the students to go back through their list and make those words into plural forms, using the ies, or ys spelling, whatever was correct for that word. I was also remiss on my assumption that the students knew what the vowels in the alphabet were. As it turned out Anakin knew the vowels, but Josef was unsure about all of them. This also became a teaching moment for me, and in the end, it Josef, through the spelling test at the end of the lesson, proved that he understood both what the vowels were, and also when to use the ies, or ys, spelling pattern.

Finding out how successful the writing of the singular word, then changing to the plural form was for the created words, I continued this through to the spelling test at the end of the lesson. This proved a much better way to identify the goals of the lesson than just asking students to write the plural format. This made the students use the spelling pattern they learned about the vowel-consonant or consonant-consonant words, allowing me to identify who really understood the pattern.

Achieving Goals

During the lessons, both Anakin and Josef showed progress towards meeting the goals of the lesson. Both of these students were able to create a list of words that followed the spelling pattern taught, as well as decode and spell words that were previously difficult for them. In their Kottmeyer Diagnostic Spelling test, both students were unable to use the spelling patterns taught while taking the test. However, at the end of the lesson, both Anakin and Josef were able to use the oo spelling pattern to spell new words. Anakin was able to spell all 10 of his words correctly, only misinterpreting the l sound as an r. (See Appendix A-3) Josef was able to use the oo spelling, correctly using the pattern to spell all but one of the words, fruit instead of foothill. The major problem Josef faced on the oo lesson was the misinterpretation of phonemes. He routinely used r in the place of l, something I am now aware of and plan to work with him on. He also used the letter b instead of p. (See Appendix J-3)

On the ies and ys lesson both Anakin and Josef showed improvement, however Josef caught on much better, where Anakin may need some more instruction in this spelling pattern. Josef correctly used the right plural form for all of his words, only misinterpreting the u for an a in the word study and studies. (See Appendix J-4) Anakin however used the incorrect plural for the word story, and was not able to spell either study or party, so did not write the plural form. (See Appendix A-4)

The spelling pattern lessons also made a long-term impact as well, as seen from the Schonell Spelling Test ages post-test. This test was given a week after the lessons were finished. For Anakin, his spelling age jumped up a whole year, from 7.0 to 8.0. This is now much closer to his actual age, just a few months away. (See Appendix A-5) For Josef, his test scores showed that he jumped up 6 months in his spelling age, from 7.8 to 8.4. (See Appendix J-5) That age is now within two months of his actual age, and even though there is less progress that Anakin, there was still significant progress made through these spelling pattern lessons.

Reflection

Change in the Lesson?

If I were to teach this lesson again, there would be several things I would like to change. First of all, the environment of the lesson was less than idea. Because the lesson was taught while students were arriving and unpacking during bellwork, the classroom was noisy and many students would come to ask me questions or check work, interrupting the students. This was especially detrimental to Anakin who is already easily distracted and never wanting to be left out of any action. Each time a student came up to me to ask a question he would stop whatever he was doing for me and try to come up with his own answer to the question asked by the student. As this interrupted his flow of consciousness, this limited the effectiveness of the lesson. If I were to have his full attention, I believe he would have been able to perform even better, especially on the ies, ys, lesson when he was not able to spell the word study and party. I think this problem may have been from a lack of concentration as I had two students at that time come up to ask me a question.

I may try the lesson during self-sustained reading, something I try to do each day for at least 10 to 15 minutes. I may also try teaching this lesson while my TA is in the classroom so I am more free to work with the individual students and not have to worry about the rest of the class, fielding questions while instructing my at risk students.

I feel that my students may respond better if they were able to manipulate something instead of thinking about words and letters in the abstract. I may try to find a set of scrabble letters or letter flash cards that my students could manipulate while working with the words, particularly when making their own words that follow the spelling pattern. This would work many parts of the brain, as well as allowing the students to work with the onsets and rhymes of a word. This would also be a motivator for my students, especially Anakin, who does much better in artistic areas, and when he can do hands-on activities.

As it was, Anakin was having a particularly difficult time thinking up new words. He was not easily able to delete and add new phonemes to the spelling pattern. I believe if he could manipulate the letters, trying different mixes, the awareness of specific phonemes, as well as addition and deletion would be more understandable for Anakin. This also may help Josef identify the correct letter for the sound he hears. As seen on his oo spelling test, Josef has several letters that he does not associate the correct sound. This may be from his Swedish background, or because he cannot hear the difference between the voiced and voiceless consonants. Within the lessons, while manipulating letters, I would have ideal teaching opportunities to model the correct pronunciation and tongue placement for voicing different letters and sounds. This may have a more lasting impact on Josef. I would also be able to correct Anakin’s mispronunciation, as he has a very heavy accent, bordering on a lisp that affects his spelling and decoding of words.

The final assessment is another area that I was less than satisfied in. When I first chose to use the Schonell Spelling Test as a pre and post-test, I did not realize that they recommended you wait at least six months between testing. Because I only had form B, I had to use the same form for both the pre and post-test. This may have skewed the results a little in the favor of the high end because the students had recently heard the words, and corrected the spelling. Having these words so fresh in their memory may have helped them achieve higher scores than they may have done with another version of this test. I found the short spelling test at the end of each lesson to be very helpful, however when I teach this lesson again, I need to find another version of the Schonell spelling test in order for the results to not be skewed.

Other Reading Concerns

Josef

From teaching Josef these spelling pattern lessons, I have learned that Josef is lacking in phoneme identification skills when it comes to spelling. He has somehow made up for this, mostly likely in increasing his sigh word vocabulary while reading, however in spelling and writing there is still a definite need. Josef has made some connections with phonemic awareness concerning his reading ability, as can been seen through his jump of seven reading levels in one year. However this phonemic awareness has not transferred into his writing and spelling.

This may stem from previous self conceptions that he does not do well in this area and writing is too hard of a subject. There is also the added difficulty of handwriting, which just compounds the writing problem. He does have very nice handwriting when he focuses, however so much energy is going into holding the pencil correctly, that it is taken away from the content and spelling of his story. I have found that giving Josef a simple pencil grip will do a lot for his handwriting, however the difficulty is having him keep track on the pencil grip.

Josef could benefit from specific phoneme instruction. This would help him understand the difference between the sounds given to Swedish letters, verses the sound given to English letters. Moats also stated “Phonemes combined in words are not what they become in isolation. Coarticulation – the folding of speech sound into one another in natural speech – makes the identity of single phonemes an abstract exercise for the learner.” (Moats, 1998, p. 7) This is an important skill to have when spelling and reading words. More explicit instruction on individual phonemes, phonemes within a spoken word, as well as the articulation and placement of the tongue when vocalizing the phonemes would prove to be a great benefit for Josef.

I also believe continuing lessons in specific spelling patterns that Josef is missing would also be beneficial in the long run. During this intervention I was only able to cover the long and short oo, as well as the ies/ys spelling patterns. Josef also showed need in the doubling of a final consonant before ing, the silent gh, and dropping the e before ing. These can all be seen on his Kottmeyer’s Diagnostic Spelling Test. (Appendix J-2)

Anakin

Anakin could also use more instruction in phonemes, though not to the extent that Josef requires. Anakin can usually identify the phonemes in a given word when prompted, however does not practice the skill when reading or writing. On weekly spelling tests he will perform very low on the pre test, however on the post test, will usually get only two or three incorrect. However, I have come to believe that is more through short-term memorization of words than any long-term understanding or spelling pattern identification. I base this off that fact that all the review words, of the 15 weekly words, 3 are review from the previous week, Anakin usually gets them all wrong. This leads me to believe that there is no lasting understanding of the spelling patterns, but just rote memorization of the list, and short-term memorization at that.

Anakin also is a very slow reader, using more energy on decoding words than comprehension. His attitude toward reading is also very poor, seeing it more as work than something enjoyable. He does enjoy looking at the pictures in the books, and when asked to silently read, this is usually what he spends his time doing instead of reading. The only time I know he is actually reading is when he is reading out loud to me, and that reading is usually taxing and slow.

I feel Anakin would best benefit from specific work on fluency, comprehension, and reading attitude. Rereading passages, especially from books that are of high interest to him, anything concerning battles, art, or U.F.O.’s would work on both his fluency as well as attitude. Peer groups may also be of more benefit to Anakin, as reading with the teacher seems like a chore or punishment, more than a privilege. A PALS approach to reading comprehension and fluency may be the most beneficial with Anakin. The ability to read passages modeled by a more advanced reader, and then summarize the passage would work toward Anakin’s fluency as well as comprehension.

Once Anakin’s fluency increases, his brain will be able to devote more time toward comprehension of the passage, then simply decoding the words. Vocabulary lessons may also work to improve Anakin’s reading comprehension. As a second language learner, Anakin is at a disadvantage; however vocabulary lessons that focus on more than just the definition, but the connections of words to images, and their representations in the multiple forms of the word would enhance his understanding of a passage. This increased vocabulary would hopefully flow to his spoken English and writing as well. I believe that once Anakin has increased in his vocabulary and comprehension of stories, so that he can read stories closer to his own grade level his writing will follow. I know that Anakin is a story teller, from all the stories he tells in class. He now just has to learn how to put those fluent stories onto paper as well.

New Techniques Used

The whole idea of teaching spelling as patterns not rules was not something I had ever thought about before reading Moats’ “Teaching Decoding.” I had never really thought about all that goes into reading a passage, but from reading her article, I was amazed at all of the things I do subconsciously while reading and writing. The fact that I grew up in a teacher’s home, my mother was a master teacher, helped me develop a love of reading, and a high vocabulary that I often take for granted and believe that everyone else is just as well equipped to tackle the written word.

Teaching internationally has helped me realize how much I took for granted, and how much I expected my students to already know when they entered my classroom. Much of this stuff was things I expected them to learn from their own home, but this does not happen when they speak a language other than English fluently at home. For this reason, the reading from the phonemic awareness module really helped me understand all the explicit instruction that needs to go into the task of reading and writing. Teaching spelling patterns and history behind the patterns and rules is just one thing that influenced me in this lesson.

I was also impressed upon to make my students active participants in constructing their own knowledge about the English language. This can be seen in my use of a list of words that follow a specific spelling pattern. I refrain from telling the students outright what the spelling pattern is, or how it works, but instead ask my students to explore these questions by looking at the similarities between the words, while asking them why they think the pattern works. This is especially useful in spelling patterns such as the ies/ys plural spellings of words ending in y.

The phoneme inclusion in the very first part of the lesson was also a result from reading the module over phonemic awareness. I knew that phoneme awareness was a crucial part of reading and writing, however I always believed that this was a skill my students would have mastered by the time they came into second grade and largely taught that way, skipping over teachable moments for phonemes because I believed all my students already knew this skill. However from teaching this lesson to two of my students, I see I was sadly mistaken, and am not wondering how many other students in my classroom would have benefitted from explicit instruction in phonemes and manipulation of words.

Overall, I feel that this class have made me a better teacher, both for the students I was able to teach this year, and the students I am yet to have next year. I have a whole list of ideas and practices that I can’t wait to incorporate into my teaching, far beyond what I have covered in this lesson. I do plan to use this spelling lesson on my very low spellers next year; however I also plan on teaching my whole class spelling patterns instead of spelling rules. I also plan on teaching more in-depth vocabulary lessons, connecting vocabulary to more than just a definition, but examples, related words, multiple meaning, and much more. I also plan on using the PALS system of peer-mediated learning to improve student’s fluency and comprehension of passages. I finally feel better equipped to teaching the daunting subject that is reading.

Lesson: Phonological Awareness—Spelling

Subject: Spelling

Grade Level: 2nd Grade (Could be used with third grade and up.)

Date: June 15, 2010

Duration: 20 minutes- during morning routine work (small group, 2 students, 1 teacher)

Lesson Objectives: In this lesson students will learn spelling techniques, through explicit instruction in consonant clusters, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs, and diphthongs.

GLCE’s:

R.WS.02.01: Students will, demonstrate phonemic awareness by the wide range of sound manipulation competencies including sound blending and deletion.

R.WS.02.04: Students will, use structural cues to recognize and decode words with long and short vowels, consonants, digraphs, and irregular vowels in isolation and in context including: letter sound, onset and rimes, whole word chunks, word families, long and short vowels, digraphs, wh, ph, irregular vowels ei, ie, ea, ue.

R.MT.02.06: Students will, determine which resources contain appropriate information for the intended task using teacher/student generated criteria.

Materials: Predetermined spelling pattern, List of words that adhere to the spelling pattern, List of 10 words for a mini spelling test (7 that adhere to the spelling pattern, 3 high frequency words). (Examples Below Appendix C & D)

Resources: Lottmeyer’s 1970 Diagnostic Spelling Test (See Appendix A); Schonell Spelling Test (See Appendix B)

Rationale/ Background: Students will work on their decoding skills, and ability to break words into phonemes, or sounds, within the word. These skills encourage students to not only become better spellers, but to be more phonemically aware, and in turn better readers and writers overall. Through the process of actively engaging the students to look for word patterns and encouraging word creations, students will have a deeper and more lasting knowledge of the patterns within the English language. As Moats stated “All of these active techniques require the learner to select, classify, and consciously manipulate sounds and letters so that more thorough word learning occurs.” (Moats, 1998, p. 7)

Opening: Before teaching any lesson, the teacher gives the “Lottmeyer’s 1970 Diagnostic Spelling Test” and the “Schonell Spelling Test” to the children who will be participating in the lessons. This pre-test will allow you to see what spelling patterns the students are routinely missing, and allowing for specific instruction in these missed patterns. At the start of the lesson, the teacher explains that the words we speak in the English language are made up of specific sounds. These sounds have patterns they follow to help guide you in spelling and word creation. The teacher then shows the student a word they may or may not have encountered before; that follows the spelling pattern the student(s) have missed on the pre-test. The student(s) and teachers then sound out the word together, identifying the specific phonemes in the word and the letters that create these phonemes. The teacher then gives a list of words that follow the spelling rule introduced in the original word and asks the student(s) to identify the pattern they see within the list of words. Together, create a rule or definition for the pattern they see, specifically discussing what the phoneme sound is, if this is used in all words with this sound, when to use the spelling pattern, and when to not use the spelling pattern.

Middle: The teacher then leads some guided practice, asking the student(s) to create a word, could be a real word or a non-word that follows the pattern introduced above. The teacher would then ask questions as to why we would use this spelling, in regards to the definition of this pattern created at the beginning of the lesson. The student(s) would then be asked to create a sentence using the spelling pattern word. Student(s) and teachers will work together for at least five words, more if needed for the particular student.

Conclusion: The teacher then has the student practice independently, creating more words that follow the prescribed spelling pattern, and encouraging them to write a sentence with these words in it. The student will then select a book from the classroom library and conduct a brief search in the book for words that follow the spelling pattern discussed. Students will do this by reading between 2-5 pages of text, depending on the type of book selected, and write down any words they find that follows the spelling pattern. Finally, the teacher will give the students a mini spelling test at the end of the lesson, containing ten words, seven that follow the spelling pattern, and three high frequency words mixed into this list. This will help the teacher assess the understanding of the rule, and allow for the students to practice this spelling pattern a little more.

Adaptations and Extensions: For students who struggle with multiple spelling patterns, this lesson can be adapted to cover each of these patterns, and taught over an extended period of time, such as two or three times a week. The spelling test can also, instead of high frequency words, have 3 review words of the previous spelling pattern taught.

Assessment: During this lesson there are several assessments that can be given to identify the spelling abilities of the students. Before the lesson, administer the Kottmeyer’s 1970 Diagnostic Spelling Test to see what spelling patterns the student does not know. Then the lesson can be centered on this specific spelling pattern. The student will also be given the Schonell Spelling Test to identify the student’s spelling age. This can be compared with the actual age of the student, as well as used as a marker for growth, as this test will be the post-test as well. At the end of the lesson there is also an informal assessment, where the student is asked to spell 10 words. This short assessment allows the teacher to see how well the student understood the spelling pattern, as well as if there needs to be more follow up work done, and even if previous spelling patterns are remembered. Finally, at the end of the intervention, a post-test is given, Schonell Spelling Test. This test will then be compared to the pre-test to see if there is any advance in spelling age, and if the spelling age is closer to the actual age of the student.

Appendix A

DIAGNOSTIC SPELLING TEST

KOTTMEYER'S 1970 DIANOSTIC SPELLING TEST

SENTENCES REVISED 11-12-94 BY ANNE PEMBERTON

(USE WITH STUDENTS READING 3RD GRADE OR ABOVE)

1. flower A rose is a flower.

2. mouth Open your mouth.

3. shoot Joe wants to shoot pool this afternoon.

4. stood We stood under the roof.

5. while We sang while we marched.

6. third My sister is in the third grade.

7. each Each student needs paper and a pencil.

8. class There are four girls in our class.

9. jump He likes to jump rope.

10. jumps George Foreman jumps rope.

11. jumped The horse jumped over the fence.

12. jumping The class is doing jumping jacks this week.

13. hit Hit the ball hard.

14. hitting John is hitting the ball.

15. bite That dog will not bite.

16. biting The strap was biting into his arm.

17. study Did you study for the test?

18. studies He studies history every night.

19. dark The sky is dark and cloudy.

20. darker As the storm came closer, the sky got darker.

21. darkest This color is the darkest in the group.

22. afternoon We will have an assembly this afternoon.

23. grandmother His grandmother lives in Ohio.

24. can't We can't go with you.

25. doesn't Mary doesn't like to play.

26. night We watched the show last night.

27. brought Jim brought his lunch to school.

28. apple An apple fell from the tree.

29. again We will come to visit again.

30. laugh Do not laugh at the other students.

31. because We cannot play because of the rain.

32. through We ran through the field.

DIAGNOSIS OF THE KOTTMEYER TEST:

OW-OU spellings of ou sound: 1 flower , 2 mouth

TH spelling: 1 mouth, 6 third

er ending: 1 flower

long and short oo: 3 shoot, 4 stood

sh sound: 3 shoot

wh spelling: 5 while

vowel-consonant-e: 5 while

vowel before r: 6 third

ch spelling: 7 each

two vowels together: 7 each

double final consonant: 8 class

c spelling of k sound: 8 class

verb endings: 10-12 jumps, jumped, jumping

j spelling of soft g sound: 10-12 jumps, jumped, jumping

double final consonant before ing: 14 hitting

dropping final e before ing: 15, 16 bite, biting

changing final y to i before ending: 17 18 study studies

er, est endings: dark, darker, darkest

compound word: 22, 23 can't doesn't

silent gh: 26 27 night brought

le ending: 28 apple

non-phonetic spelling: 29 30 31 32 again, laugh, because, through

Appendix B

Schonell Spelling Test B

see cut mat in ran

bag ten hat dad bed

leg dot pen yet hay

good till be with from

time call help week pie

boat mind sooner year dream

sight mouth large might brought

mistake pair while skate stayed

yoke island nerve join fare

iron health direct calm headache

final circus increase slippery lodge

style bargain copies guest policy

view library cushion safety patient

account earliest institution similar generous

orchestra equally individual merely enthusiastic

appreciate familiar source immediate breathe

permanent sufficient broach customary especially

materially cemetery leisure accredited fraternally

subterranean apparatus portmanteau politician miscellaneous

mortgage equipped exaggerate amateur committee

Spelling Age = no. of correctly spelt words + 5

10

e.g. Spelling Age = 25 + 5 = 7.5 years

10

* Please note that with all standardised spelling tests it is essential that there is no teaching to the test.

None of the above words should be taught in preparation for the test.

Spelling Test Procedure (Schonell)

1. Test the entire group at one time. The children should be seated sufficiently far

apart in order to prevent them from being able to copy from each other.

2. Use foolscap paper. On the top of paper should be written

a. child’s name

b. the date

c. A or B test

d. the score

3. Explain the procedure

a. words dictated by teacher/examiner and marked in groups of ten

b. a boy continues his test until he makes ten mistakes in succession

c. words to be written in a column, not across the page, with space left between groups of ten

d. each word will be given only three times

4. Giving the test

a. call out each word, starting at the top and going from left to right (i.e. 'see')

b. use the word in a sentence so that its meaning is clear (i.e. “I can see the lion.”)

c. say the word again - “see”

5. Explain you cannot tell them where they went wrong as it is a test

6. Scoring

a. keep a running total as you mark each group of ten (i.e. 10 20 26 30 32 36)

b. take the raw score (the total number of words spelt correctly)

divide by 10 and add 5

i.e. 36 + 5 years = 8.6 = 8.7 (converted to twelfths)

10

anything over a whole year must be converted to twelfths

c. write correct word besides word they have wrong.

Conversion Table Tenths Twelfths

1 1

2 2

3 4

4 5

5 6

6 7

7 8

8 10

9 11

* Please note that it is advisable to wait at least six months before testing a child again on the same test.

Appendix C

achoo

baboon

hood

wood

balloon

foot

raccoon

stool

bazooka

blood

bedroom

gloom

smooth

bookworm

boomerang

boot

booth

buffoon

root

cookbook

drool

droop

Spelling List

1. door

2. hook

3. food

4. foothill

5. gloom

6. loom

7. coop

8. love

9. just

10. much

Appendix D

puppies

skies

parties

libraries

theories

studies

bullies

ponies

spies

canaries

berries

stories

fairies

dictionaries

toys

days

donkeys

Sundays

delays

surveys

boys

valleys

armies

Spelling List

1. puppies

2. boys

3. stories

4. days

5. toys

6. studies

7. parties

8. home

9. house

10. little

Appendix A-1

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Appendix A-2

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Appendix A-3

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Appendix A-4

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Appendix A-5

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Appendix J-1

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Appendix J-2

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Appendix J-3

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Appendix J-4

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Appendix J-5

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Anakin’s Schonell Spelling Pre-Test

Anakin’s Kottmeyer Diagnostic Spelling Test

Anakin’s Student Work, Spelling Pattern oo

Anakin’s Student Work, Spelling Pattern ies/ys

Anakin’s Schonell Spelling Post-Test

Josef’s Schonell Spelling Pre-Test

Josef’s Kottmeyer Diagnostic Spelling Test

Josef’s Student Work, Spelling Pattern oo

Josef’s Student Work, Spelling Pattern ies/ys

Josef’s Schonell Spelling Post-Test

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