Category: Reading & Literacy

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Developing Literature Circles For Your Classroom

Groups of learners  meet to read and discuss the book they have selected. They often create and assign particular roles within the group like summarizer or discussion director.

Literature circles can be your class’s best friend when it comes to fostering not only reading but talking about literature as well. A literature circle is when you put learners into small groups and have each group read a different text. Once the content is read, the learners who read the same text get together to discuss various facets of the content.

When you are constructing literature circles, there are several things that you need to figure out. One of the big questions is what texts should you use?  The good news is you can really use any kind of content you would like, including:

  • Poems
  • Short stories
  • Fictional novels
  • Informational articles or novels

You can use any kind of content that you would like. You just want to be sure that there is some kind of connection between all of the texts. The common ground can be anything, including:

  • The author
  • A theme
  •  Symbols
  • Figurative Language
  • Making Connections
  • Character Study
  • Hero’s Journey
  • Plot Development

By having a facet that is the same, you can create various types of literature circles. When you have various  types of literature circles, you can focus your lessons on that “type”.

What Do I Teach When Using Literature Circles?

There are ideas you can teach while you are doing literature circles in your class. No matter what, you should always teach plot structure because comprehending and being able to recognize various points of the plot is good for comprehension. Teaching plot structure is essential for all prose literature; there are some specifics you can teach with each category.

If you are teaching a fictional text, it’s essential to talk about making connections. Making connections deepens the learners’ comprehension of the subject matter, and it may get them interested in reading the texts other groups are reading. This connection can be anything from the theme to the characters.

Another essential idea to teach when reading fictional texts as well as poetry is symbolism and figurative language. If you are focusing additional on informational texts, you can teach learners about the types of nonfiction and what the purpose for each one is.

How Do I Group My Learners?

When you have decided what texts you should use in your literature circles, you can begin focusing on grouping your learners together. There are several ways that you can group your learners. You can allow your learners to vote on what text they want to read. Another way is for you to assign learners based on personality types, interests, and ability.

How you decide to group your learners should depend on the personalities in your class. You should use your best judgment and regroup if needed for the next literature circle. An additional facet to believe about when constructing your groups is by meeting times.

When Should Learners Read?

What kind of content you read should depend on when you read. The best way to ensure learners are getting reading time is to set 10-15 minutes of time to the side to read each school day. If your learners can read longer than that, you can allow them to read for up to 25 minutes. Learners can also read when they complete an assignment early. 

How Do I Assess Learners’ Work?

When we have learners read, we want them to comprehend the content as well as the literary concepts. It  would be overwhelming to have reading questions for every chapter to assess their comprehension, so I would use quizzes throughout the content. The quizzes should be scheduled, so learners are motivated to meet their reading goals as well. A reading objective is how far they should have read by a certain date.

Another way to assess learners is by the literary ideas you are teaching. A group poster, or  another form of assessment that shows the literary ideas in use can be a good way to assess your learners.

What If It Doesn’t Work?

If you use a literature circle in your class and it doesn’t provide chemistry within groupings, the text is the incorrect level, or learners not focusing, it’s okay. If your groupings don’t work, reassess the strategies you used and try a different plan. You should also reflect on all the reasons why the groups didn’t work and see what you can do to fix the problem. Another problem that may occur is using texts that are incompatible with the reading level of your learners. Reflection and reassessment is a good way to fix this issue. We may believe our learners are ready; they may be distracted by working in a group with peers. Explicit teaching on how to read and discuss literature can solve a lot of issues.

The Big Question: Why Select Literature Circles?

Literature circles are a good way to get learners reading together. When learners are reading in small groups, they take on a role within their group, which makes them additional likely to read. When we feel essential, we tend to do our best work. One reason literature circles are amazing is lesson planning. When you are using literature circles, there should be a central idea that each text used has. This lends itself to the teaching of literary devices, text structures, and more! By having your curriculum mapped out, learners can work on these skills in a smaller group, which leads to a deeper comprehension.

There are many ways to teach literature in your class.  Literature circles create a deeper comprehension of not only a text but how to use literary devices to a reader’s advantage. You can help create readers by developing literature circles in your class today.

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Reading Process: The Bottom-Up Theory

Learning how to read is a vital skill that students learn in their early childhood education. This skill sets the foundation for academic success. There are many ways to approach the reading process, and teachers rely on numerous reading theories.

Children in kindergarten to third grade are in the learning to read phase. From the fourth grade onwards, children are reading to learn. For students to successfully move through middle and high school, they must have a solid reading foundation.

An effective way to ensure students have the needed reading skills is for educators to know whether students are below, on, or above their age group level. Additionally, teachers must know three more levels per student: frustration, instructional, and independent reading level.

Bottom-Up Theory

While there are many theories about how to teach reading, some have more success than others. One of those is the bottom-up approach.

This theory involves a step-by-step method of teaching proficiency of reading components that allow the student to become literate. This theory involves explicit and direct instruction in a building-block approach using the 5 components of reading during early childhood education.

The term “bottom-up” applies directly to how this reading process works. Early literacy’s primary focus is to develop the basic, foundational skills needed for mastery of reading. 

Reading activities in the bottom-up theory include students learning to read from the bottom (foundation) up to concepts like phonics and phonemic awareness. This means that children are first taught the basics to build a solid foundation and are then advanced to learning vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

5 Reading Components

The whole process of reading has five central components. For students to develop their literacy skills properly, these concepts must be acquired:

Phonics

Understanding the sounds that correspond with the letters of the alphabet, including short and long vowels. It also involves connecting the idea that letters correspond with sounds and those sounds make words.

Phonemic Awareness

Understanding the sounds that letter combinations have, including syllables, complete words, and consonant blends.

Vocabulary 

The understanding of the meaning of words and how to use them appropriately and adequately in sentences.

Fluency

The capacity to read with the proper expression and speed, without errors. A fluent reader can read in the same manner as they speak.

Comprehension

The capacity to recall characters, events, and the main concept of the passage or story once read, understanding what has been read correctly.

Concluding Thoughts

The bottom-up theory is used widely worldwide due to the sequential approach it has. It recognizes that reading is a developmental process best learned from the bottom foundation up, growing in complexity as a student’s reading and understanding proficiency is developed.

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A Guide to Teaching Phonics

Teachers and parents alike should work together to facilitate a child’s learning, especially during the child’s early development years. In this guide, I will share some vital information on how to effectively teach phonics.

Phonics: What are they?

To put it simply: phonics has to do with teaching students about the alphabet and how it works. After a child memorizes the alphabet, the next step is to learn how to read. Phonics is the method of teaching the awareness and understanding of how letters, when put together, form words.

Reading and writing are milestones that have to be developed through time, and it starts in early childhood. Phonics helps bridge the gap between reading and writing. Mastery of both skills will help children become good readers and writers.

Once students develop phonemic awareness (the awareness of the relationship between letters and the words they form), they will learn how to read faster and more fluently.

How to Teach Phonics: The Three Stages

  1. Pre-phonics Stage: 

Children should master a few skills before being taught phonics. These skills are listening, sound reproduction, and sequencing. Listening skills can be developed by playing games such as Simon Says. Sound reproduction can be developed by having the child mimic a sound you make while paying attention to the shape of the mouth when they make the sound themselves. Sequencing has to do with following the order of letter sounds in each word. Mastering these skills will facilitate their learning.

  • Sounds and Actions

Use actions and sounds that can be associated with letter sounds to help students remember them. For example, when teaching students the sound of the letter “b,” teachers can do the act of dribbling a ball. There are many simple sounds and movements that teachers and parents could use. 

  • Letter and Sounds

At this stage, students have to be taught the difference between letter sounds and names. Some letters can have more than one sound. This can be taught through stories and flashcards that show that the same letter can be used differently. For example, show a flashcard of the word “cat “and “ceiling.” When teaching these to children, teachers should try to speak slowly and sound out the letters 

Teaching Strategies

Teaching phonics is exceptionally detail-oriented and plan-intensive. Children do not have the longest attention span, so it’s best to plan your lessons to maximize the learning opportunity.

  1. Keep phonics lessons under 20 minutes long.
  2. Devote 10-15 minutes to phonics every day. To help children develop the habit and practice of reading, it is better to maintain short but consistent sessions. This will help them build a routine that they can bring with them as they get older.
  3. When teaching a class, maintain a good pace to cover all required topics. To help students who are falling behind, you may opt to revisit lessons. Keep lessons interesting by using various learning materials like games, flashcards, and outdoor activities. There are apps and tools that students can use to learn.
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Miscue Analysis For Diagnosing Reading Difficulties

Researchers all over the world make use of what is called a miscue analysis to diagnose reading difficulties. If this term sounds completely foreign, you have come to the right place. 

In this article, we will be discussing what a miscue analysis is and how it is used. More so, we will mention a few miscues to look out for during an analysis and how to perform one of these assessments. 

What Is A Miscue Analysis?

In short, a miscue analysis involves a running record that is used to identify difficulties faced by students when they read. This running record helps to distinguish reading rate and accuracy. On top of this, it can be used to identify various reading behaviors that may require support. 

Teachers often use a miscue analysis when trying to obtain information about a student’s reading skills. If a child is weak in a particular area, the teacher will pick up on it during the miscue analysis. 

The Miscues To Look For During A Miscue Analysis

There are various miscues to look out for during a miscue analysis:

  • Correction – the student will make an error when reading and quickly correct their mistake to make sense of the sentence. 
  • Insertion – the student adds a new word to the sentence while reading out loud. 
  • Omission – the student will omit a word while reading out loud. This often changes the meaning of the sentence.
  • Repetition – the student will repeat a particular word or even a portion of the text.
  • Reversal – the student will reverse a portion of the text or rearrange a few words. 
  • Substitution – the student says a different word to the one in the text. 

Performing A Miscue Analysis

Experts suggest that teachers perform a miscue analysis every 6 to 8 weeks. This is done to monitor any progress made by the student during their reading development journey. Understanding the miscues and progress made by the student will help when deciding how your lessons should look in the future. 

When designing and planning a miscue analysis, there are a few essential things to keep in mind:

  • Use unfamiliar text. If you tell the student which text will be used during the analysis, they may simply memorize the entire thing beforehand. This defeats the whole point of the analysis. 
  • Find a quiet place to perform the analysis. If the child gets distracted during the analysis, they may make miscues that don’t accurately represent their reading ability. 

Concluding Thoughts

A miscue analysis is often used to monitor and track students’ progress when it comes to their reading. The miscues include corrections, insertions, repetitions, omissions, and substitutions. When performing a miscue analysis, it is vital that the room is free from any distractions and that an unfamiliar text is used.

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4 Useful Strategies to Improve Phoneme Manipulation

Phoneme manipulation is the ability to add and remove sounds in words. This is an essential skill because it lets readers assess alternative spellings that represent several sounds rather than just one. 

We’re going to look at a few simple – but useful – strategies to improve your students’ phoneme manipulation. They will help teach students a helpful skill that can aid in their comprehension and writing skills. Read on for more. 

Sound Removal

Adding or removing sounds in words is a necessary skill because, as we said in the intro, it allows students to test alternatives to words in their spelling and reading. Many students that struggle to hear sounds in words will also struggle with sound removal at first. 

In the sound removal activity, students will practice pronouncing words by removing a few of the sounds. For younger students who have not practiced this technique much, you should remove the initial sound in words. 

For example, have your students pronounce a word without its first sound. You can start with the basic CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words – for instance, say ‘cat’ without the ‘c,’ or ‘van’ without the ‘v.’

If your students are older, you can use words with 4 or 5 sounds – CCVCC, CVCC, CVCCC, CCCVC, etc. For instance, say ‘plump’ without the ‘p.’ You can continue removing sounds at either the middle or the end of the word. 

Change the Sound

This is a great activity to do if you have 5 minutes to spare and can also be an excellent way to end or start a literacy session. Your students’ age will determine how many sounds you have in a word, but we’ll use words with four sounds for the sake of this example. 

Write a word on the board, like ‘tram.’ Then, underline or circle one of that word’s sounds, choose a student to change that sound to form a new word, and write the new word down. 

In the new word, highlight a sound to be changed, and repeat the process until all of your students have answered. If a student cannot think of a real word, a nonsense word will do just fine, so long as the spelling combination is a plausible one and something you’d see in English. 

Sound Substitution

You can build on the first activity by having your students change the sounds in a word to form a new word. Have them write a word of your choosing down, and change it to another word of your choosing. 

For example, have your students write the word ‘sat,’ and have them change it to ‘mat.’ You may also want to discuss with them which sound they are changing – is it the first, second, or third sound? It’s essential that only one sound is being changed at a time in this activity. 

Fun Sound Games

This is an excellent activity for younger students. To start, pick a category, like names, animals, or colors. 

Then, pick one thing from that category, like a tiger. Have your students change the word’s first sound to make silly new words, like ‘piger,’ ‘diger,’ and so on. 

Concluding Thoughts

Phoneme manipulation is an important skill to teach your students at a young age, so be sure to practice it regularly.

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A Guide to Classifications Of Rhyme

Rhyme is defined as a repetition of similar sounds in several words. It is a relatively common device often used in various forms of poetry, particularly at the ends of lines, and it is required in formal verse. 

Perfect rhyme is the most well-known and widely-used form of rhyming. In perfect rhyme, the stressed syllables in words and all syllables that follow will share sounds, such as ‘stencil’ and ‘pencil.’ We’ll be looking at how different rhymes are classified throughout this article. Read on to learn more.

Rhymes Classified By Unstressed & Stressed Syllables

Perfect and imperfect rhymes are two vital rhyme forms that are defined by where the rhyme falls relative to the stressed syllable in each word and the sounds they share. 

Perfect rhymes include words whose stressed syllables share identical sounds, as do all subsequent sounds to the stressed syllable. ‘Despair’ and ‘compare’ are perfect rhymes, as both of their stressed final syllables have identical sounds. ‘Thunder’ and ‘plunder’ are perfect rhymes as well, as their stressed first syllables and the syllable after have common sounds. 

Imperfect rhymes consist of words that rhyme one word’s stressed syllable with another word’s unstressed syllable. For instance, ‘frown’ and ‘uptown,’ or ‘ring’ and ‘painting.’ 

Rhymes Classified By Sound

This method of classification pays less attention to the stressed syllables and more on the sound. 

Assonance, while often defined as a separate figure of speech, can be defined as a rhyme type consisting of the repetition of similar or the same vowel sounds. For instance, ‘sound’ and ‘wow,’ or ‘booth’ and ‘roof.’

Alliteration is also generally considered a figure of speech, but it can also be defined as a rhyming method. It involves repeating the same sounds, whether vowel or consonant, at either the beginning of words or their stressed syllables. ‘Sally sells seashells by the seashore.’ 

Consonance is similar to resonance and is once again often described as a figure of speech. In the context of rhyme, it involves the repetition of similar or identical consonant sounds, like ‘file’ and ‘half.’ 

These are just a few of the many different rhyme classifications. We recommend consulting this article for a more in-depth look. 

Rhyme Scheme

In formal verse, ending rhymes generally follow a pattern of repetition known as a rhyme scheme. These are described with letters of the alphabet so that each line of verse that corresponds to a particular rhyme type in the poem is assigned a letter, starting with ‘A.’ 

For example: 

Bid me to weep, and I will weep (A)

While I have eyes to see (B)

And having none, yet I will keep (A)

A heart to weep for thee (B)

While all poems in formal verse follow one rhyme scheme or another, certain types of poetry have a set rhyme scheme, like the villanelle or sonnet. Poets who wish to write these kinds of poems must match the rhyme scheme of those types, or they cannot be classified as those types. 

Concluding Thoughts

Writers use rhyme to make language sound more thoughtfully composed and beautiful, as though it were music. It can be a great way to elevate one’s writing. It is also a useful tool for conveying messages and imagery in a pleasing, playful way.

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Understanding Letter Recognition and It’s Role in Preliteracy

Understanding Letter Recognition and Its Role in Preliteracy

Letter recognition is the capacity to call out a letter shown or pick out a letter in a group of letters. Recognition of letters is a foundational part of learning how to read. Without it, kids struggle to learn letter sounds and recognizing words. Children who cannot identify letters and name them with their sounds have difficulty learning how to read.

What is Letter Recognition?

Letter identification is the ability to name letters, find characteristics specific to the said letter, and letter formation of all 26 uppercase and lowercase letter symbols used in the English language. That’s 52 letters in total. Letter identification includes being able to differentiate between distinct letters and their shapes and should be taught before, or at the very least, in conjunction with letter sounds.

This means that letter identification skills are essential and should not be passed over for letter-sound practice! Children need to know letter names and letter sounds to ease learning how to read.

Why Letter Recognition is Essential

Many reading skills are regularly assessed as predictors of reading success. Letter identification ranks among the top predictors. Upon entering school, kids come with a range of skills and an even wider range of alphabetic knowledge. For instance, they may have experience with the alphabet by singing the alphabet song. Other kindergarteners can spell their names or identify environmental print.

To have true fluency in letter identification, kids must find letters and say their names in and outside of context. It’s not the only accuracy but also automaticity, that is, being accurate and fast simultaneously, which leads to later reading success.

Research has also shown that learning letters and playing with letters often leads to an interest in their sounds and reading. Most letter names share an auditory link with their sounds, thus efficiently doing double duty. It helps bridge the gap between phonemic awareness and letter identification to other phonics skills.

Teach Lettering Recognition to Preschoolers

There are a couple of essential strategies to utilize when teaching letter identification in preschool.

  • Instruction in letter naming
  • Sorting activities to recognize letter shapes
  • Letter creation and formation
  • Exposure to letters in several text formats
  • Fluency practice in letter identification
  • Fluency and accuracy assessments

When planning letter identification activities in the preschool class, keep in mind the following.

  • Preschool kids have a wide range of skills and capabilities.
  • Preschool kids may not all be ready to learn letter names simultaneously and never remain at the same rate as their peers.
  • Leverage visuals, like alphabet cards and beginning sound cards.
  • Practice “think aloud” strategies, which means to talk out loud about the things you want your kids to know and notice about each letter.

Letter Sequence Does Not Have to Be Taught in Alphabetical Order

There are guidelines to follow when determining a teaching sequence for teaching letter identification. Keep in mind that the suggestions below refer only to the letter naming and letter identification, not teaching sound-spellings.

Necessary Skills for Learning Letter Recognition

Even before letter identification, there are a few other skills that should be taught. Teach visual discrimination. This helps kids learn to find differences among lines and shapes. Visual discrimination can be taught in isolation and in “what’s different” or “what’s the same” activities.

Practice visual discrimination in the alphabet by sorting letters based on shape. Straight lines, versus curved. Tall letters versus short, etc. Letters versus numbers and symbols.

More on Teaching the Recognition of Letters

Teach high-frequency letters first. This means that it’s not necessary to teach letters in alphabetical order. Letters with higher frequency will have more meaning and allow kids to practice letter identification skills in various text contexts.

Separate letters that are visually confusing. For instance, if your preschooler struggles with the letters G and O, don’t teach them at the same time. Once letters have been learned in isolation, provide sorting activities for additional comparison and practice.

If a preschooler has a mature pencil grasp, teach letter formation in conjunction with letter identification. When possible, teach letters that are simpler to print, often those with straight lines, before more complex letters.