Reading Readiness

Skills and Activities

ANALIZA C. ALMAZAN
Master Teacher – II
Davao del Sur Division
Malalag Central Elementary School
Malalag District
September 2014
 Reading readiness is the child’s non-
reading stage. It is not yet the teaching of
reading. Hence, it is the period of readying
the children to read.
As the child enters grade one, he/she
must be exposed to different activities that
will develop his skills in auditory, visual,
alphabet and concepts or vocabularies. These
skills could help the child to be ready to
learn to read.

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 The readiness activities must be given
the greatest emphasis before beginning
formal reading instruction. Failure to provide
varied activities would mean a total failure in
developing completely the basic skills for
reading. This failure would result to
children’s low performance in any scholastic
activities.

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 What is Phonological Awareness?

 The ability to hear and manipulate the

sound structure of language. This is an
encompassing term that involves working
with the sounds of language at the word,
syllable, and phoneme (sound) level.

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It is the ability of the child to interpret
sounds heard. It involves what a child does
when his ear receives an auditory message
and how the central nervous system puts
meaning to that message.

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 Good auditory skills enable children to
distinguish between different pitches, volumes,
rhythms and sources of sounds and words,
which among others, significant benefits for
learning to read.
Therefore, teachers should be aware that
children need to learn that sound has meaning
and every sound heard gives a meaningful signal
that calls for their response.

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Auditory
Perception’s
Activities and
Strategies
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 It is a mental ability of storing and
retrieving information heard in the brain. This
skill is central to learning and thinking.
It is necessary for the teachers to have
knowledge that lack of auditory memory can
result in serious consequences that can affect
the students’ social and communication
abilities, and stem directly from the inability to
process all of the sound inputs that the ears
and the brain are faced with.

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 Children’s better grasp of the auditory
memory helps them develop the skill in
identifying likeness and differences of sounds
they hear.

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Auditory
Memory’s
Activities and
Strategies
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 It is the ability to identify and distinguish
between different sounds. It enables the child to
tell whether two words are alike or different and
to describe the similarities and differences of
the sound being heard.
Auditory discrimination skills have been
linked to the skills in listening, reading and
spelling. Teachers should be guided that if a
child does not master the discrimination skill
well he may tend to “mishear” words.

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Auditory
Discrimination’s
Activities and
Strategies
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 Early Reading Development

 Phonological Awareness

Analiza C. Almazan, MAEd-ELT

Master Teacher – II
Malalag Central ES
 What the Research Says About
Phonological Awareness (PA)

 The best early predictor of reading difficulty in

kindergarten or first grade is the inability to
segment words and syllables into constituent
sound units (phonemic awareness) (Lyon, 1995).

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 What the Research Says About PA

 The ability to hear and manipulate phonemes plays a

causal role in the acquisition of beginning reading
skills (Smith, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1998).
 There is considerable evidence that the primary
difference between good and poor readers lies in the
good reader’s phonological processing ability.
 The effects of training phonological awareness and
learning to read are mutually supportive.

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Phonological Awareness Development Continuum

 Word comparison
 Rhyming
 Sentence segmentation
 Syllable segmentation & blending
 Onset-rime blending and segmentation
 Blending & segmenting individual phonemes
 Phoneme deletion & manipulation

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Levels of Linguistic Units

Sentences: The sun shone brightly.

Word: sun
Syllables: sun, sun-shine, sun-ny
Onset-rime: /s/ /un/; /s/ /unshine/, /s/ /unny/
Phoneme: /s/ /u/ /n/; /s/ /u/ /n/ /sh/ /i/ /ne/

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Word & Sound Comparison Examples

 I’ll say two words, tell me if they are same or different

(sun, sun; tan, ran; fit, bit)
 I’ll say two sounds, tell me if they are the same or
different (/m/, /s/; /f/, /f/; /r/, /r/; /k/ ,/l/)

 I’ll say three words, tell me the one that is different

(sun, hat, sun; fat, fat, hat)

 I’ll say three sounds, tell me the one that is different

(/s/, /s/, /m/; /l/, /t/, /t/)

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Sentence Segmentation Examples

I’ll clap the parts in this sentence:
The (clap) boy(clap) went(clap) home(clap).
I’ll tap the parts in this sentence:
She (tap) likes(tap) fat(tap) brown(tap) dogs(tap).
I’ll move a marker for each word.
Say a 3-5 word sentence and move a marker as you
say each word.

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Syllable Segmentation Examples

 I’ll clap the parts in “football”:

Foot (clap) ball (clap)

 I’ll tap the parts in these words:

ba(tap) by(tap)
snow(tap)
di-no-saur (tap after each syllable)

 I’ll hold up 1 finger for each part in these words:

big (hold up 1 finger)
ba-na-na (hold up 1 finger as you say each syllable)

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Onset-Rime Blending & Segmenting Examples

Segmenting Words
Blending Sounds

Teacher Student Teacher Student

Says: Says: Says: Says:
r-un run run r-un

f-ast fast fast f-ast

swim sw-im
sw-im swim
spl-ash splash splash spl-ash

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Phoneme Level Blending & Segmenting Examples

Blending Segmenting
I’ll say the sounds, you I’ll say the word, you tell
tell me the whole word. me the sounds in the
/f/ /a/ /n/ - fan word.
/s/ /i/ /t/ - sit Fan - /f/ /a/ /n/
/s/ /l/ /e/ /d/ - sled Sit - /s/ /i/ /t/
/t/ /r/ /ee/ - tree Sled - /s/ /l/ /e/ /d/
/c/ /r/ /a/ /sh/ - crash Tree - /t/ /r/ /ee/
Crash - /c/ /r/ /a/ /sh/

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 What Skills Does PA Include?

Phoneme Level Deletion & Substitution Examples

Substitution
Deletion  Say cat. Change the first
 Say cat. Now say sound in cat to /s/. What’s
cat without the /c/. the new word?
 Say fan. Now say  Say fan. Change the /n/ to
fan without the /n/. /t/. What’s the new word?
 Say sick. Change the /i/ to
/o/. What’s the new word?

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 Sequencing Suggestions to Enhance
Student Learning
Research indicates that materials that follow the
following principles enhance learning for all
students:
1. Progress from easier activities to more difficult
(rhyming, sound matching, blending, segmenting, etc.).
2. Schedule more instructional time on segmenting then
other skills.
3. Start with larger linguistic units (i.e., words and
syllables) and proceed to smaller linguistic units (i.e.,
phonemes).
4. Begin with short words (2-3 phonemes: at, mud, run).
(Smith, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 1998)
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 Sequencing Suggestions to Enhance
Student Learning (cont.)
5. Focus first on initial (sat), then final (sat), and lastly the
medial sound (sat) in words.
6. Introduce continuous sounds (e.g., m, r, s) before stop
sounds (t, b, k).

(Smith, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 1998)

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Example Continuous Sounds

Words that begin with continuous

sounds are easier to blend.

• f
• n
• s
• r • v
• l • z
• sh
• all vowels
• m
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 Example Stop Sounds

• t • b
• p • c
• k • j
• g • x
• d
• ch
• h Words that begin with stop sounds
are difficult to use in blending
activities.

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Enhancing the Lesson

Simmons, Harn, & Kame'enui © 2003 28

 Examples of assessment questions

 Word:
 How many words are in this sentence? "I
am happy."
 (Correct response: 3)

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 Examples of assessment questions

 Rhyme
 Do these words rhyme?
 "Big, Fig"
 (Correct response: Yes)
 What about "Key, Tree?"
 (Correct response: Yes)

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 Examples of assessment questions

 Syllable blending:
 I am going to say a word in parts. Listen:
o…pen. What word did I say?
 (Correct response: open)

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 Examples of assessment questions

 Syllable segmentation:
 Can you tell me the two word parts in
"open?"
 (Correct response: o…pen)

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 Examples of assessment questions

 Syllable deletion:
 Say "open" without the "-pen."
(Correct response: o)

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 Examples of assessment questions

 Onset-rime:
 What word do these sounds make?
 /s/ – /ee/
 (Correct response: see)
 How about /h/ – /op/?
 (Correct response: hop)

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Question:

Why Phonological
Awareness Important?

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 Because...

 Phonological awareness is important

because it is a basis for reading.
 Children begin to read by listening to
others read aloud,
 then recognizing sounds in words,
 sounding words out for themselves,
 recognizing familiar words, and so on.

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 Because...

 By engaging in word play, children learn

to recognize patterns among words and
use this knowledge to read and build
words.

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God bless
us all!
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