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Building Letter Knowledge andPhonological Awareness

Facilitator’s Guide

Copyright © 2006 by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.

SCHOLASTIC, BUILDING LANGUAGE FOR LITERACY, SOUND & LETTER TIME, and associated logos and designs are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.CLIFFORD and associated logos and designs are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Norman Bridwell.

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Early Literacy Seminar Series: Building Letter Knowledge and Phonological Awareness 2Copyright © 2006 by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.

TIME BLOCK3 hours

SCRIPTMATERIALS NEEDED: • Training binder with READ, REFLECT, RESPOND JOURNAL & Professional Book (Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success by W. Blevins) for participants• 5" x 8" index cards (for name plates & welcome activity)• SECP Songs and Fingerplays CD track #3, “Skidamarink” (HNR954003) or Building Language for Literacy™ “Oodles of Noodles” song from the Restaurant Unit Phase 1 (HNR9864), or Clifford® Songs and Chants Book 1 and CD, song #8, “He Loves the Sun.” (0-439-64559-X)• Sound & Letter Time™ Kits: Red Game Board and Box 1 Picture Cards (HNR981864)• ReadingLine™ Sound and Letter Kit, Workshop 3 (HQR955013)• Early Literacy from SECP My Guide (0-439-41937-9)• SECP Early Learning Kit (HRN954003)• Old magazines, scissors, tape, markers in colors (for “Make-It/Take-It” Activity)• Finished sample of “Make-It/Take-It” family involvement activity, if possible (See directions for Treasure Hunt on page 13 of this Facilitator’s Guide.)• Chart paper and black markers• Talking Points are the substance of the training. Make sure you have read all the points and understand them fully before the training begins.• Review the agenda on page 3 of the Journal so you can plan your time accordingly.

15 minutesWelcome

INTRODUCTION: Welcome and Seminar Objectives• It’s important to create a friendly and welcoming atmosphere that is comfortable and at the same time, serious and professional. The overall goal is to have participants come away having learned research-based and practical information they are excited to try with their children. They should also feel that this seminar is a place where they can share their problems and concerns and hear about what has worked well for others.



• Welcome! I’m delighted to be here today with everyone, learning and growing together through this professional seminar. My name is __________.

• Share something relevant about who you are and your background with participants.

• As early childhood professionals, we are always doing the most we can to advance our skills and knowledge to the benefit of the children we work with. That’s why seminars such as this one are so important. To help in your professional development, we are drawing upon the many years of Scholastic experience in creating child-centered, classroom-proven products and materials as well as our understanding of best practices and current research. The focus of today’s seminar is “Building Letter Knowledge and Phonological Awareness.”

• Today we will deepen our understanding of how letter knowledge and phonological awareness are foundational skills for literacy. We’ll also explore together practical and fun ways to build children’s understanding of the alphabet and the sounds of language. We’ll learn how to work these key skill lessons into the daily instruction in our classrooms.

• Take a moment to open your READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal and look through it. Inside you’ll get an overview of what we are going to accomplish today, see the formats for the activities we will be doing, practical classroom materials, and a place to record your thoughts and ideas. It is yours to take with you as you continue to advance your knowledge.

• Ask participants to turn to page 3 of the READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal and review the objectives of the day.

Welcome Activity • Just as we work to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere for our children to learn in—we as adults need that same kind of environment for our own professional growth. So let’s take a few minutes to get to know each other!

• Invite participants to share some information about themselves. Give each par- ticipant a marker and blank 5" x 8" card. Have them fold the cards in half so

READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journalpage 3

5" x 8" index cardsmarkers



they can stand, then print their names on one side and a favorite letter on the other side. Go around the room and have each person introduce themselves by saying, “My name is __________ and I teach/aide at ___________. My favorite letter is ______ because__________________________________________.”

10 minutesResearch

Research Insight• Inside on page 4 of your Journal, you’ll see some key insights from scientifically based reading research. We’ll be delving into these important ideas throughout this seminar, and you have space next to each one to jot down your own thoughts.

• You all have a wealth of knowledge based on your experience of how children become beginning readers and writers. When you connect all that you’ve observed with research—what has been summed up scientifically over many years—then the power to help children achieve literacy success is incredible!

• Use Transparency 1 to share the research quote that gives an overview of the importance of phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge. This first big idea from research really sets the stage for everything we are going to deeply explore today.

Talking Points1. There has been a tremendous amount of research and scientific evidence showing how important phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge are to children’s reading success.2. We also know that reading is a very complex process in which children need to learn how to do a lot of different things and apply different skills automatically and together.3. As children begin to learn the sounds of spoken language—phonemic awareness—and the letters of the alphabet, an exciting thing starts to happen. They begin to connect these letters and sounds, what we call phonics, and it’s like unlocking a secret code. 4. Those mysterious scribbles on the page become words that they can read— and whole wonderful words...and worlds!...are opened up to them. They


Transparency 1



will begin to get the most important skill they can master for their success in school and beyond—reading and overall literacy!5. SECP My Guide booklet Early Literacy provides a good background on these topics.

• Before moving on, give participants an opportunity to look at the first research insight and jot down any thoughts and reflections they have in their Journals.

Early Literacy Booklet

75 minutesResearch Into Practice:Making It Work5 min.

Building Children’s Phonological Awareness • Let’s begin by talking a little bit about what phonological awareness is and why it’s so important. Let’s turn to page 5 of your READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal. Discuss the definition of phonological awareness. It is also on Transparency 2.

Talking Points1. Before children can read words on the page, they need to be able to hear (to discriminate) the sounds in words and understand how the sounds work. Children who develop this skill will have an easier time learning to read and spell.2. Two terms that often get confused—because, frankly, they’re a little confusing—are phonological and phonemic awareness. Does anyone want to explain the difference? (Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness, referring to the smallest unit of words, the phonemes.) In the earliest years it’s important to focus most on overall phonological awareness, and then on phonemic awareness with your older little ones heading into kindergarten and first grade.3. Another important set of terms is onset and rime. We all work with these a lot naturally, but it’s good to understand the terms, especially as we are doing more reading of research in our professional development growth. Ask for a volunteer to explain onset and rime. (Definition is on page 5 of the Journal.)4. of your READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal is a great resource for these terms when you need them. Take a minute to look at it and list any other terms you might want to learn more about.

Transparency 2READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journalpage 5



5 min.

10 min.

• Show Transparency 3. This can also be found in the Journal on page 6.

• It’s also important to understand the process and progression of how children develop phonemic awareness. We begin by working with simple listening and rhyming skills to helping children grasp where words and sentences begin and end, all the way up the pyramid to the most difficult aspect of phonemic awareness—being able to hear separate phonemes.

• Now let’s look at the second Research Insight on page 4 of your READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal.

Talking Points1. One key message of this second research insight is that phonological awareness needs to be taught directly. And this is true not only for struggling readers, but for all students. 2. Saying it needs to be taught, though, doesn’t mean just dry “skill and drill” lessons. There is almost nothing more fun for kids than rhyming, singing, chanting, nonsense and rhyme books, word sound games, and the other kinds of activities that promote phonological awareness. We’re going to be sharing and exploring examples of these today.3. It’s also very, very crucial that in addition to teaching these skills directly and systematically, we reinforce these skills in the natural and meaningful activities that we are doing with our children. That is how the deepest learning takes place!

Phonological Awareness Activity 1• Now we are going to explore together some examples of the kinds of activities that are both fun and help children learn. Just as we do with our children, we are going to try out whole-group, small-group, and center or individual activities.

• This first activity is a whole-group one. We’re going to see if we can listen for the beginning sounds of words, attending to sounds and identifying the sound we hear represented.

Transparency 3





5 min.

10 min.

• I will say a sentence and your job will be to identify the beginning sound of each word by listening and then tell the person next to you, “I heard the beginning sound of ______________.”

• Listen with your eyes closed as I say the sentence. Are we ready?

• You will slowly say the sentence “Seven silly singers sang softly.” Then stop and say to the group: Open your eyes, turn to the person next to you, and tell him or her what beginning sound you heard.

Reflect• Ask the group to take a few seconds and reflect on why this activity is important to help develop phonological awareness.

• Ask for volunteers to share responses.

• Draw out these ideas: This activity will help children to listen critically, isolate sounds, and identify the sounds.

• Have participants turn to their Journals on page 7 and reflect on the activity, as well as think of other “silly sentences” they might use with their children.

Phonological Awareness Activity 2 (Small Group)

Research Insight• Have participants look at the third quote on page 4 of the Journal. It is also on Transparency 4. This discussion should be brief, as you want to move quickly to the small-group activity.

Talking Points 1. As we talked about before, it’s very important to reinforce your direct phonemic awareness instruction by integrating phonological awareness activities with the wonderful authentic things you already do in your classroom. 2. Reading aloud is a terrific way to build this understanding, using books that rhyme or play with language. You may wish to mention or show titles from the appropriate program, BLL or SECP, such as Miss Moo Goes to the Zoo, At the Animal Airport, Eating the Alphabet, and Pipo, the Puma.





10 min.

Children will love to chime in on the rhyme or the repeated sounds. 3. You can also follow up in small groups and use a sentence or rhyme from the book to hone in more on this skill as we are going to do in this next activity. 4. Have participants turn to page 8 of the Journal and fill in the sentence starter, “My favorite book for phonological awareness is ____________.” Have participants read their answers and record them on chart paper. Give participants a minute to copy suggestions they like into their Journals.

Activity• After reading aloud a book, you could try this activity using a sentence from the book. This is best done in a small group so you can observe and support each child.

• Divide the participants into groups. Have each group choose one person as the reader. Tell participants the reader will be reading three sentences from a card.

• Listen carefully to each sentence and signal with your fingers how many words are in each.

• Give each designated teacher a card with these sentences written on it: 1. Stop! 2. How are you today? 3. Learning about phonological awareness is fun.

Reflect• Bring the groups back together and ask: How does this activity support phonological awareness?

• Draw out the idea that this helps children (or adults) understand what a word is (word boundaries). It helps them to see how words fit together to make up sentences. By using sentences from books, they will begin to get a sense of how books are written using words.

Phonological Awareness Activity 3 (Center Activity)• Now we’re going to turn our attention to a key part of developing phonemic awareness—rhyme and wordplay.




30 min.

• Play “Skidamarink” from the SECP Songs and Fingerplays CD track #3, BLL “Oodles of Noodles” song from the Restaurant Unit Phase 1, or Clifford Songs and Chants #8, “He Loves the Sun.” Lead participants to stand up, move around, and have fun joining in the song!

• Invite volunteers to talk about how they might use the song to emphasize rhyme with their children.

• Then talk about follow-up center activities from Sound & Letter Time using pages 18–21 from the Teacher’s Guide.

Reflect• Ask participants to share some reflections about the phonological awareness activities they just explored.

• Point out: We need to keep our phonological awareness activities focused to help children really learn. But it’s just as important that they be fun, engaging, and meaningful to children. And there are so many ways we can make that happen!

• Show Transparency 5 as a summary of what has been learned and discussed. (Content is also on page 9 of the Journal.) Ask for any final comments on this part of the seminar and give participants a few minutes to record their thoughts and reflections on page 9.

Building Letter Knowledge

Research Insight• In this next part of the seminar, we’re going to talk about alphabet knowledge and why this is such an important building block for children’s reading success.

• Turn to page 4 in your Journals and let’s look together at the fourth research quote.

Sound & Letter Time: Red Game Board, Box 1 Picture Cards





Talking Points 1. To become skilled readers, children need to be able to identify the letters of the alphabet and to connect letters and letter clusters with sounds. 2. This is a key skill for them to be able to decode the words they see in print. 3. (By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to recognize all the letters of the alphabet in both upper- and lowercase.) 4. In order to reach that goal, we need to give children many varied experiences with letters in preschool and kindergarten.

5. A good resource is the Scholastic ReadingLine Sound and Letter Kit, which contains alphabet books to help develop letter recognition skills. The Scholastic Early Childhood Program also provides alphabet activities and guides on how to teach letters and sounds in the Early Learning Kit.

Activities For Every Day• There are so many interesting, creative, and fun ways to have children experience the wonder of letters! It’s important to have many planned activities as well as be on the lookout for those “teachable moments” that happen as children are doing other activities, where you can draw their attention to letters.

• Display Transparency 6 and/or have participants turn to page 10 of the Journal. Ask for a volunteer to read the suggestions for building alphabet knowledge.

• Ask participants to share: What was one of your most successful—and fun— activities for building letter knowledge? List ideas on chart paper. Give participants a minute or so to record those they would find useful in their Journals on page 10.

Alphabet Knowledge Activity• Now we’re going to do an activity together that is really enjoyable plus solidly research-based. It will help children get an awareness of the relationship between alphabet letter names and the sounds they represent. The idea is to give children a way to easily remember this connection. These letter-sound motions were created by reading expert Wiley Blevins. Here’s how they go:


Chart paper, markers



• Demonstrate the motions for letters A to F listed on page 11 of the READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal. (They are also on Transparency 7.) Be sure to model these motions slowly and give them plenty of dramatic action.

• We’re going to finish this alphabet boogie by working out our own motions for the rest of the alphabet letters.

• Decide, based on the group size, how best to divide up the remaining 20 letters (or less if time is limited). You might want to have small groups take 5 letters each, have pairs take groups of letters, or assign letters to individuals. Give the participants several minutes to think of a motion that matches the letter.

• Then have the groups demonstrate the motions they have created. Chart these on chart paper. Give participants a few moments to record them in the Journal on page 11.

Reflect• Invite participants to offer their comments on this activity. How do you think this would help children to remember the sounds that letters stand for? What are some different ways you might use this with your children?

• During the discussion, bring out this very important point: We always need to be precise in how we talk about this letter-sound connection with children. It’s important to keep emphasizing that a letter is a symbol that represents a sound—the letter itself doesn’t make a sound. Tell children that a letter stands for a sound.


Chart paper, markers

10 minutes Break

15 minutes Assessment

Assessment• Assessment is becoming more and more important to us as early childhood educators these days. In particular, assessment in phonological awareness and letter knowledge is vital to ensuring that our children are “on track” and ready for kindergarten.



• It is widely accepted that children should have a good working knowledge of at least 10 of the 26 letters of the alphabet by the time they start kindergarten. This includes knowing the letter, having some familiarity with the sound it represents, and being able to write the letter. It is also important that children can listen for rhymes, hear syllables, and begin to discriminate between sounds.

• Invite participants to weigh in on the value of phonemic awareness and letter knowledge assessments and give their opinions.

• Our assessments of these skills in children should include more formal as well as informal assessment. As with all the assessment we do in early childhood, we need to make sure we do it appropriately, in an ongoing way, and to the benefit of our children’s growth and progress.

• Show the principles for assessment on Transparency 8. Ask for volunteers to read them aloud. Who would like to read principle #1 and share with us a thought about why it is important? Continue for each principle.

• Now we’re going to take a few minutes to look at an example of a checklist you could use to assess phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge. These evaluations are on pages 12 and 13 of your READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal. They are taken from the Observation and Assessment component of the Scholastic Early Childhood Program (SECP).

• Invite participants to share their experiences and concerns about administering these assessments. Have you used similar checklists with your children? How and when? How do you use the information you have? What kinds of things can we do so that this kind of assessment doesn’t feel like a “test” to children? How can we use these evaluations to help each child advance?

Transparency 8

READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journalpages 12, 13

25 minutes Family Involvement

Research• Let’s look together at the last research quote on page 4 of your READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal.




Talking Points 1. One of the key ways that parents and families can help build their children’s literacy is by working with their “sound and letter” knowledge day-to-day. 2. We need to help families understand how to do this in a way that doesn’t seem like “more work” on top of already busy schedules, but instead feels like enjoyable family activities that can be integrated into daily routines.

• Invite participants to share any ideas that have worked successfully with the families of their children.

“Make-It/Take-It Activity”• Show finished sample, if possible. We’re going to explore together one idea that can be sent home to get families involved. The idea is to send children on a “treasure hunt” with their families to find household items that begin with a certain letter-sound.

• Set out old magazines, scissors, tape, markers, and blank paper. Directions for activity: 1. Choose a letter of the alphabet; it’s best to use a consonant with easily identi- fiable corresponding sound, such as P. 2. At the top of a piece of paper, write the heading TREASURE HUNT and “I found these things that start with P.” Underneath, tape a picture cut out from a magazine of an item starting with P, and write the name of the item next to it. 3. Then put several blank lines underneath for other items. 4. On the back of the paper, write directions for the families, such as “With your child, go on a treasure hunt! Look around the house as you do outside activities together for things that start with P. Write them down on the front of this paper. Have your child bring your treasure hunt list back to share these special finds with the class.

Treasure hunt sampleMagazines, scissors, blank paper, tape, and markers



• Invite participants to comment on this activity. What other materials might you want to send home along with the treasure hunt sheet? (For instance, a letter explaining the importance of alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness and how this activity fits in with classroom lessons and activities.)

• Suggest they also look at Scholastic.com “Firefly Reader Now, October 2004,” devoted to phonological awareness. It contains two pages of explanation, activities, and reading suggestions.

10 minutes Wrap-Up

Wrap-Up• Invite participants to return to the Research Insights on page 4 of their Journals and write down any final reflections they have.

• Point out the bibliography on page 14 of their Journals. Direct participants especially to Neuman, S.B. et al., Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children and Wolfe, P. & Nevills, P., Building the Reading Brain, PreK–3.

• Distribute copies of Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success. Because professional development is so important, we want you to have this additional resource to take with you for fostering phonological awareness and letter knowledge. This book features more than 50 activities to help children get ready for phonics. Draw particiants’ attention to pages 10–11 and review the types of phonemic awareness skills this book covers.

Closing Activity• As a final reflection, have participants stand and perform together their original “Alphabet Boogie.” Convey enthusiasm and encourage applause! Use the chart where you filled in their letter-sound motions plus Transparency 7 or READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journal, page 11.

• Have participants fill out the evaluation form (page 15), tear out the page, and have a volunteer collect them for you.

READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journalpages 4, 14

Professional Book

Transparency 7READ, REFLECT, RESPOND Journalpages 11, 15


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