NYSTCE Multi-Subject (Birth-2): English Language Arts

Semantics

-The meaning and interpretation of words, signs, and sentence structure

-Study within linguistics dealing with language and how we understand meaning

Nuance

Subtle differences in meaning or shades of meaning we associate with words

Consonant blend

Two consonants, such as the letters 'b' and 'l' put together to create one sound, or phoneme

Phonics

Teaching method used to help people learn to read and pronounce words by recognizing the sounds that letters and letter groups make

Morpheme

Smallest unit of grammar

Syntax

-Arrangement of words and sentences to create meaning

Prefix

A morpheme that precedes a base morpheme

Base Morpheme

Morpheme that gives a word its essential meaning

Free Morpeheme

Morpheme that can functional as a stand-alone word.

Bound Morpheme

Exclusively attached to a free morpheme for meaning. Prefixes and suffixes are the most common examples

Derivational Morphemes

-Can be either a suffix or a prefix, and they have the ability to transform either the function or the meaning of a word

-Example: adding the suffix -less to the noun meaning

Decoding (Phonics)

-Process of reading words in text

-Understand what the letters are, the sounds made by each letter and how they blend together to create words

Encoding (Phonics)

-Process of using letter/sound knowledge to write

-Necessary to recall sounds and the symbols assigned to letters to write them together to form words.

Sound-Spelling

Transcribing speech sounds into written language, whether or not the sounds are in context

Phonological Awareness

-Sense of the way letters and sounds connect to each other and operate at the word and even syllable level

-Ability to hear, recognize, and manipulate sounds in speech

Blending

-Putting sounds together in order to make a word

-Read the separate sounds of a word as one cohesive unit

Dictation

-Students listen to the teacher saying words or sentences, and they then transcribe what they hear into writing

Alphabetic Principle

-Knowledge of letter/sound relationships

Teaching the Alphabetic Principle (General Approach)

-Students first need to recognize speech at its most basic level: the individual sounds or phonemes

-After determining students are phonemically aware, including the ability to manipulate sound into segments and syllables, teach symbols for sounds (also known as letters).

-Practice new letter/sound relationships in reading, writing, manipulatives, etc.

Phonological Awareness: 2-4 Years

-Typically no phonological awareness skills until around age 2

-Earliest phonological awareness skills involve rhymes

-Between 2-3: recognize rhymes

-Between 3-4: begin to make rhymes themselves

Phonological Awareness: 4-5 Years

-Identify and count syllables in words

-Recognize and create their own onset sounds, like/b/ for 'back' and 'book'

-Segment onset sounds and blends, such as /c/ + /at/ is 'cat'

-Hear, count, and identify individual sounds in speech, phonemes, as in the word 'back' has three phonemes - /b/a/k/.

-All oral skills

Phonological Awareness: 5-6 Years

-Discriminate between words that rhyme and don't in a set. For example, in the set 'run, fun, and fat' the non-rhyming word is 'fat'.

Isolate and identify beginning and ending sounds. In the word 'fat' a child this age could say the beginning sound is /f/ and end is /t/.

-Identify an odd word in a set. In the set 'fat, cat, and cat' the different word is 'fat'.

-Blend and segment words with 3-4 phonemes. The word 'hats' would be identified with four sounds - /h/a/t/s/.

-Create a list of words that begin with the same sound, such as 'car, candle, cake, cookie, crash'.

Phonological Awareness: 6-7 Years

-Manipulate words with syllable substitutions and deletions

-Add sounds (form compound words)

-Delete and add/substitute single sounds from words

Phonological Awareness Assessments

-Rhyme awareness

-Understanding speech is comprised of individual words

-Segmenting words into chunks/syllables

-Blending chunks/syllables into words

-Identifying phonemes

-Blending onsets and rimes into words

Automaticity

Ability to recognize individual letters and words automatically

Repeated Readings

-Requiring students to read the same text multiple times; designed to improve fluency and automaticity

-Aim for a particular level of improvement both in accuracy and speed

Prosody

Pace and rhythm that is appropriate for a text

Phrase Boundaries

Slashes added to text to help students chunk bits of text/improve prosody

Morpeheme

-Smallest meaningful unit of language, making it different from a word

Inflectional Morpheme

Alters the tense of a verb or the number of a noun

Spelling Development Stages

1. Pre-communicative

2. Semi-phonetic

3. Phonetic

4. Transitional

5. Correct

Pre-Communicative Stage (Spelling Development)

-Children do not yet concretely understand writing and spelling but are aware of it

- May pretend to write and use pictures to help tell stories in books with text

-May know the alphabet in some form

-May be able to recognize letters in their names or on signs they see frequently

Semi-Phonetic Stage (Spelling Development)

-Children become aware of letters and their role in spelling

-Understand each letter represents a sound in speech and that when put together, a word can be written

-Know some phonemes, but aren't consistently putting them together to write yet

Phonetic Stage (Spelling Development)

-Children make connections between speech and spelling

-Can identify what sounds letters make and spell words using the most basic formations

-Use basic understanding of phonemes b/c they aren't aware of more complex spelling rules (inventive spelling)

Transitional Stage (Spelling Development)

-Becoming aware of more conventional rules of spelling (through instruction, reading, etc.)

-Still make many errors as they begin to attempt formal spelling rules

Letter of the Week

Alphabet lessons structure where students are introduced to and learn all about one new letter per week

Activities for Writing Letters

-Students should have extensive practice writing letters with their fingers, whiteboard, etc.

Activities for Identifying Letters

-Students should identify the letters in isolation, in words, and in sentences

-Can include games like letter basketball or letter bingo to review old letters

Learning Letter Sounds

-Students are taught letter-sound correspondences and required to repeat after the teacher

-Can include games like a letter sound hunt (teacher gives sound and students have to find items in the room that match the sound

Cues

Clues that help a student figure out what a word means

Graphic Cues

-Visual clues

-Look at the letters that make it up

-Phonics, root words, syllables, punctuation, etc.

Syntactic Cues

-Involves using structural clues to figure a word out

-Usually focused on evaluating the sentence structure

Semantic Cues

-Using meaning to figure out an unfamiliar word

Incremental Rehearsal

-Flashcard system for learning sight words

-Student is first shown a new sight word, followed by a known sight word

-A new known sight word is added to the end of the sequence after each repetition, meaning that the new sight word is repeated with each new card addition

-One the sight word is known, it can move into the "2" spot as a new word is introduced

Strategic Incremental Rehearsal

-Same as incremental rehearsal, but all words are unknown

Word Chants

-Students repeat a series of sight words multiple times in a song-like format

Copy, Cover, Compare Strategy

-Student is shown a new sight word and asked to copy or trace it

-After the word is covered, students are asked to write it from memory

Dolch Sight Words

-List of around 120 crucial sight words that make up the majority of children's literature

Importance ofTeaching Dolch Sight Words for Preschool

-Allows them to memorize words and improve literacy

-Lets students focus on harder words and comprehension

-Consists of about 40 words for preschoolers

STAR Model for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

S - Select words you want to teach

T - Teach

A - Activate (involve students in discussions and writing assignments where they use the words they were taught

R - Revisit

Tiered Vocabulary Instruction

-First Tier: basic, common conversation words

-Second Tier: specific to informational text and literature across curricula

-Third Tier: domain-specific vocabulary, particular to one content area or subject matter

Early Writing Stages

1. Random Scribbling (age 2-3)

2. Controlled Scribbling (age 3)

3. Mock Writing (age 3-4)

Letters & Words Stages of Writing

4. Writing letters (age 4)

5. Early words (age 5)

6. Words and phrases (age 6)

7. Conventional writing (age 7-8)

Independent Level

Grade level at which a child reaches 90% or greater comprehension levels when reading alone

Instructional Level

Level of understanding, both in comprehension and word recognition, that a student has when in a group setting

Frustration Level

-Level at which a student shows clear signs of frustration.

-Indicates that the material is too hard or over the student's head.

Hearing Capacity Level

-Level at which a child comprehends oral instruction

-Children often have a higher capacity to comprehend material read to them over what they have read themselves.

Phonemic Awareness

Ability to hear individual sounds in speech