Northern Adelaide RegionAboriginal Early Years Research

Project 2011 Stephen Graham

Closing the Gap for Aboriginal

Students

The language of power is white Anglo-Saxon middle class English

OR Standard Australian English (SAE)

It’s not better, not right but it is what it is – the

language of power!

Yes, there is a large group of people here!

“Big mob of fellas ere”

Contextual understanding is

essential and needs to be explicitly taught.(We talk about home language and school

language with our students)

“Phonological Awareness”

“Concepts of Print”

So where do we start with our

Aboriginal students?

Most babies don’t walk before they crawl, most children don’t learn to read

before they have an automatic understanding of the Concepts of Print.

Concepts of Print (25 of them)

It all begins here!

Directionality

Concepts of BookConcepts of Text

(word/letter)

Mechanics

Concepts of PrintDo you know what they are?

Many students may come to school with these skills if they have a rich

language environment at home or they have been immersed in a language based play program at preschool…

You need to assess your students to ascertain what skills they have and where the gaps are, this can be

done through Guided Reading sessions!

What is my learning intention for the kids

who are drawing with chalk outside?

What is my learning intention for the kids

who are dressing up? What is my learning

intention for the kids playing games on the computer?

Play based programs must always have a

learning intention…Do the children know what it is?

Teachers often move too quickly from aural work to phonics – representation

of sound into symbol (writing).Order – syllables, rhyme, hearing

beginning, final, then middle sounds, manipulation of sounds …

Phonological Awareness

The child’s ability to hear and

manipulate sounds!

Phonological Awareness Continuum

Remember Aboriginal students have particular difficulty with soft sounds…

t, d, f, s, b, h, p, k, g, th, shThe reason for this is related to the high

incidence of a condition known as ‘conductive hearing loss.’ One in three Aboriginal students

suffer from this condition.

Phonological Awareness

The child’s ability to hear and

manipulate sounds!

Syllables• Segmenting words into syllables (clapping,

touching blocks, taking steps)• Determining the number of syllables• Blending syllables to form words

- Use pictures as cues- Words only

Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness

Rhyme• Recognition – does ‘hat’ rhyme with ‘mat?’• Matching (3 pictures/words, find the 2 that

rhyme)• Oddity (3 pictures/words, find the 2 that

don’t rhyme)• Production/generation (Tell me the words

that rhyme with pot – nonsense or real)

Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness

Analysis (phoneme isolation within words)• Beginning – alliteration, detection/recognition,

matching, oddity, production/generation;• Final – detection/recognition, matching, oddity,

production/generation;• Middle – detection/recognition, matching, oddity,

production/generation;

Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness

Analysis (phoneme segmentation of words)• Recognition of phonemes in a word (e.g. clapping

phonemes)• Determining the number of phonemes in a word• Introduction of consonant blends• Listen to phonemes and blend to create words• Say phonemes and blend to create words

Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness

Phoneme – smallest unit of sound.

Manipulation (assumes competence in analysis & blending of sounds)• Sound deletion – say ‘sunshine’ without the shine• Initial position sound• Final position sound• Within an initial consonant blend• First sound & then second sound (e.g. say ‘clap’

without the /c/ sound. Say ‘clap’ without the /l/ sound• Within the final consonant blend (e.g. say ‘bend’

without the /d/ sound. Say ‘bend’ without the /n/ sound

Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness

Manipulation • Sound addition – say ‘sun’ and add ‘shine’ - sunshine• Initial position sound – art, say ‘art’ and add a /p/ at

the beginning• Final position sound – far, say ‘far’ with a /m/ at the

end• Within an initial consonant blend – lap, say ‘lap’ with a

/c/ at the beginning• Within the final consonant blend – car, say ‘car’ with

a /t/ sound at the end.

Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness

Manipulation • Tracking sound changes– grapheme representation• Identification of changes at the initial, final and medial

position• Production of changes at the initial, final and medial

position• Generate new words increasing in number of

phonemes

Hierarchy of Phonological Awareness

Which text type do I start with?

“Descriptive”Description has a role in

each text type so students must have this skill first.

9 Major Types of

Texts

Description!Recount!

Exposition!Narrative!

Discussion!Procedure!

Explanation!Information

Report!

Response!

Explicit Teaching in Description From Concrete to Abstract

Description - begin with familiar contexts

Level 1 & 2 books Description

Why do I need to provide visual cues?

Aboriginal students respond well to visual cues…they help

with setting the scene, building the field, contextual

understanding.

Scaffold work with

Visual Cues

For Example:

Unit of work onFairy Tales

Research shows that phonological awareness is the greatest indicator

of success in reading and writing.

Success Indicator

To be a balanced reader students need to be able to:

DecodeRead with Fluency & Phrasing

and Comprehend a wide range of texts.

Balanced Reader

decodefluency

&phrasing

comprehension

wide range of texts

Balanced Reader at Every Level of Reading

93% of work in secondary schools is based on factual texts.

Use a picture book of interest to the child. The text must contain at least 4 events. Teacher reads

the text continually from beginning to end whilst the child

looks at the book and listens

Comprehension(Oral Retell)

“Now I want you to tell me what happened in the story.” If

necessary, say: “Can you tell me more?” OR “Can you tell me

more about that?”(child does not have access to text during retell)

Comprehension(Oral Retell)

Scored Retell1. Child establishes the context of the narrative (where the story took

place).

2. Child identifies the complication of the narrative.

3. Child identifies the major characters in the narrative by their correct names.If the child makes no attempt, make a note and do not continue.

4. Child gives only one event.

5. Child identifies 2-4 of the events in a logical consequence.

6. Child identifies 4 or more of the events in a logical consequence.

7. Child gives a variety of conjunctions or time connectives to place the events in order.

8. Child kept consistent tense throughout the retell.(either present or past is acceptable but must be consistent)

Scored RetellTeacher selects a page from the text and shows it to the child. The page should have clear illustrations of one of the character. Ask the child to describe the character.

1. Child cannot describe the character and may just offer its name(e.g. the big bad wolf)

2. Child offers a limited description of the character.

3. Child describes the character fully.

Select a page from the text where the illustration clearly shows a major event in the narrative. Ask the child to tell you what is happening here.

4. Child offers no response.

5. Child offers a limited explanation with no linking to previous or following events.

6. Child gives a clear explanation linking the event to what came before and what happened next.

Have fun discussing the powerpoint with fellow early childhood educators…

Concepts of Print

Explicit Teaching

Phonological Awareness

Concepts of Print Comprehension