phonological awareness and reading difficultiesstephaniehattonteachingportfolio.weebly.com/... ·...

Presented by Stephanie HattonSTUDENT TEACHER

(speech-LANGUAGE pathologist)

MURDOCH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION STUDENT

Reading and spelling difficulties: Dyslexia risk factors, identification

and remedial action

Abstract: Numerous reports, inquiries and research projects have resulted in recommendations emphasising the need for evidence based teaching of early and pre-literacy skills. Early oral language, vocabulary development and phonological awareness are linked to later literacy (reading and writing) success. This presentation will revise current research in this area and provide information on identifying and responding to children with literacy difficulties.

Friday, 10 October 14

Outline of presentation:

Revision of phonological awareness The link between phonological awareness and reading

and spelling difficulties Reading and spelling difficulties explained (including

dyslexia) Strategies and remedial action for reading and

spelling difficulties.


Regardless of the reasons that place a child atrisk, the BEST prevention of future reading problems is

to establish a solid preschool foundation of literacy skills and attitudes that enable a child to begin formal schooling on a par with classmates.

-Catherine Snow, 1999


Early Literacy Skills

Research on the preschool predictors of future reading ability consistently indicates that language and early literacy skills are very predictive of later school achievement.


Foundations for Literacy

Oral Language / Vocabulary Development

Phonemic Awareness

Letter Identification

Print Awareness

Listening Comprehension


Oral Language & Literacy

There is a great deal of evidence linking reading disabilities to spoken language disorders.

The evidence suggests that children who are slow to acquire speech and language skills are at

significant risk for problems in reading.

Marc E. Fey, Ph. D.University of Kansas Medical Centre


The Importance of Vocabulary

Words are the tools we use to access our background knowledge, express ideas, and learn about new concepts

Students’ word knowledge is strongly linked to academic success

Word knowledge is crucial to reading comprehension, and determines (in part) how well students will be able to comprehend the texts they read in the upper primary, secondary school, and beyond



Reading comprehension obviously requires more than recognising words and recognising their meaning. However without sufficient vocabulary knowledge, comprehension becomes impossible

Poor readers often lack adequate vocabulary and consequently fail to gain meaning from what they read. This reduces their desire to read and means they do not encounter unknown words often enough to learn.



This situation contributes to what is referred to as the “Matthew effect”, that is, the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer”

Good readers read more, become even better readers, and learn more words

Poor readers read less, become poorer readers and learn fewer words

Research suggests that the vocabulary problems of students who enter school with poor or limited vocabularies only worsen over time


Factors Affecting Language and Vocabulary Development- Parental Impact

Features of parental language input - e.g.. Word expansion, questioning

Language input in different social contexts e.g. Book reading, games

Parents’ speech content - e.g. Parental responsiveness

Other parental Behaviours - eg highly responsive and reciprocal style.


Oral Language

Oral language skills are the foundation of the written language system and literacy

Humans have an innate gift for figuring out the rules of language

Most children learn the rules of their language at an early age through us, and over time, without formal instruction


Oral Language

Oral language, the complex system that relates sounds to meanings, is made up of four components

By the time most children enter school they can use language well

Phonology

Pragmatics

Syntax Semantics


Components of Oral Language

Phonology – the way the sounds of the language operate

Semantics – the ways that language conveys meaning Pragmatics – the way people achieve their goals using

language (language social skills) Syntax – (grammar) – study of rules, or “patterned

relationships” that govern the way words in a sentence come together


Oral Language

In addition we develop an increasing awareness of:

Morphology – the way words are formed and are related to each other

Lexicon – or vocabulary – stored information about the meanings and pronunciation of words


Language Development

Vocabulary size continues to increase with schooling and beyond. It is estimated that the average student acquires around seven words per day (2, 700 – 3,00 words per year) during primary and secondary school – or at least the become aware of seven words per day

Nagy & Anderson (1984) estimate vocabulary size at 88,000 different words of which a typically high school student might know about half upon graduation.


Foundations for Literacy

Oral Language / Vocabulary Development

Phonological Awareness

Letter Identification

Print Awareness

Listening Comprehension


Review: phonological awareness

Refers to “an individual’s awareness of the sound structure, or phonological structure, of a spoken word” (Gillon, 2004).

An oral language “multilevel skill of breaking down words into smaller unit” (Gillon, 2004).


Phonological Awareness

A vast body of research conducted in a range of different languages has demonstrated a strong relationship between phonological awareness and later literacy development.

Phoneme (speech sound) awareness is considered to be the best single predictor of later reading performance (more accurate than intelligence, vocabulary knowledge, and socioeconomic status). Phonemic awareness skills examples:

Say ‘cat’, now say ‘cat’ without the /c/ sound (phoneme manipulation) Tell me the sounds you hear in ‘bait’ : /b/ /ai/ /t/ (phoneme segmentation) Push these sounds together to make a word: /s/+ /p/ + /l/+ /a/ + /sh/ =

splash


Levels of phonological awareness

“basket”

“bas”

“b”(onset)

“b”(consonant)

“as”(rime unit)

“a”(vowel)

“s”(consonant)

“ket”

“k”(onset)

“et”(rime unit)

Word level Syllable level Onset-rime level Sound/phoneme level (phonemic awareness)


Reading and writing difficulties: a phonological deficit hypothesis

“Dyslexia is a developmental language disorder whose defining characteristic is difficulty in phonological processing... A prominent characteristic of the disorder in school aged children is difficulties learning to decode and spell printed words.” (Catts & Kamhi, 1999, p. 63-64)

‘phonological processing’ : difficulties understanding the sound structure of spoken words and holding the sound structure information in their short term memory.


Phonological Awareness and Dyslexia

Research points overwhelmingly to a phonological awareness deficit being the principle factor underlying literacy difficulties.


Dyslexia: Definition

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling (SPELD)

Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in

phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed.

Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities.


Dyslexia: Definition (cont.)

It is best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and there are no clear cut-off points.

A good indication of the severity and persistence of

dyslexic difficulties can be gained by examining how the individual responds or has responded to well-founded intervention.


Making the link!

Speech development

Literacy successPhonological awareness


How early do we target PA?

Speech impairments are strongly linked to later literacy (spelling and reading) difficulties (Gillon, 2002; Lewis, Freebairn, & Taylor, 2000)

Research conducted on 3-4 year olds with speech impairments focused on PA intervention with two goals: To increase speech intelligibility (how well they are

understood) Reduce the chance of literacy difficulties in the school years

The results found PA intervention (particularly at the single sound/ phoneme level) is associated with increased speech intelligibility and successful early reading and spelling experiences (Gillon, 2005).


Dyslexia and Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness deficits restrict children’s word recognition development by limiting their use of phonological decoding and orthographic analogy strategies

It is therefore critical that intervention for children with a reading disorder, or at risk of having a reading disorder, should focus on resolving phonological deficits


What makes a successful reader?

To become successful readers, children must master the following critical skills:

Phonological awareness Automatic and accurate letter naming Letter sounds association Word reading accuracy and fluency Passage reading fluency and comprehension


Beginning to read

When confronted with a word, a beginning reader can either: Recognise the word from context OR Recode the string of letters in terms of their respective sounds

or phonemes.

Sight reading and guessing from context are strategies commonly associated with poor readers.

Why? The spoken lexicon is far bigger than the words that can be recognised by sight or reliably guessed from the context. We cannot just rely on sight word knowledge, because even as adult, we need to be able to use DECODABLE skills to read words we have not encountered before. Das, Parrila, Papadopoulos (2000)


The decoding process

1.The letters have to be recognised and differentiated from their visually confusing neighbours (e.g. b-d, g-q-p).

2.The letters have to be recognised and differentiated from their phonetically confusing neighbours (e.g. /g/-/k/, /b/-/p/, /t/-/d/).

3.All phonemes must be stored in the working memory in their exact order of presentation.

4.The entire set of phonemes in working memory has to be blended together to form a phonological representation of the whole word.

Das, Parrila, Papadopoulos (2000)


Identifying Children at Risk

Children who don’t learn to read by year 3 have a less than 25% chance of catching up.

The best solution to the problem of reading failure is to focus on early identification and prevention of reading difficulties

For many children, problems can be remediated at the pre-primary and first grade levels that take about 30-45 minutes per day



How should phonological awareness be

assessed?

Sound comparison tasks (can they hear the difference between /b/ and /p/)

Phoneme segmentation tasks Phoneme blending skills Phoneme manipulation skills



Measuring phonological and phonemic awareness

The Phonological Awareness Test (Roberston & Slater, 1995)

Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test (SPAT) (I use this as part of a thorough literacy decoding assessment- e.g. with Educheck).

Middleton Early Language Screener (MELS)


Remediation/action for the dyslexic child

Daily reading and spelling practise focussing on: Structured spelling lessons based on sound/grapheme patterns (e.g.

Synthetic Phonics) Speed-reading of decodable single words AND non-words (e.g. plem,

sterth). Increase in word complexity- e.g. CVC, CCVC, CVCC, short vowels --> long vowels.

Phonological awareness activities: blending, segmenting, phoneme deletion, phoneme manipulation, phoneme addition.

Reading comprehension: passage reading, check for understanding, rephrasing key points.

Speed-reading/ of sight words. This does not rely on their decoding skills as it is more a visual memory strategy but will assist with their reading fluency and reading confidence.

Remedial reading/spelling programs- e.g. MultiLit (trained administrator), Alpha-t0-Omega etc.


Strategies for the dyslexic child in the classroom

Outline what is going to be taught in the lesson, and then summarise what has been learnt (information is more likely to go from short term memory to long term memory).

Make sure that messages and day-to-day classroom activities are written down AND told verbally

Make a daily check list for the pupil to refer to each evening. Encourage a daily routine to help develop the child’s own self-reliance and responsibilities.


Strategies for the dyslexic child in the classroom continued.

More time should be allocated for completion of work Use different colour markers on the board or underline key

words if presenting a lot of written information. Alternative ways of recording should be looked at, such as

Typing on computer/iPAD (particularly for older years) Recording lessons that can be written up at a later stage

(older years) Written record of the pupil’s verbal account (useful for

early years) Voice activated software.


More information and resources

Dyslexia SPELD Foundation- information, resources for purchase, professional development opportunities, Dyslexia assessment information http://dsf.net.au

Florida Reading Research Centre- free resources for different grades focussing on phonological awareness and comprehension activities. http://www.fcrr.org

University of Canterbury: Journal articles and information on classroom strategies to promote phonological awareness and literacy success. Free PA resources based on Gail Gillon research http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/people/gillon/

resources.shtml


http://dsf.net.au

http://dsf.net.au

http://www.fcrr.org

http://www.fcrr.org

http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/people/gillon/resources.shtml




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