How can I quickly form skill-based kindergarten and first grade groups for beginning reading instruction?

The first step in forming small skill groups is to assess phoneme awareness skills and sound letter knowledge. There are many good commercial criterion referenced phoneme awareness measures [such as The Phonological Awareness Profile1 ]. Teachers can also informally assess phoneme awareness through rhyming games and segmentation activities.

Rhyming Assessment: Children do not have to know the term "rhyme" in order to understand rhyming activites. Begin with whole group activities where "rhyming" or "words that sound the same at the end" are introduced. Play with nursery rhymes and other verses, helping the children fill in the blanks. For example,

Jack and Jill went up the h_______

The eensey, weensy, spider crept up the water spout
Out came the rain and washed the spider ou________

See ya, later
Alli-ga____

After a while
Croc-a-d_____

After the children have had some exposure to whole group rhyming activities, meet with each one individually to play some rhyming games. Start with identification activities:

Do "dog" and "hog" end the same?

Do "kite" and "cook" end the same? etc.

Then move to recognition activities:

I am going to say three words; tell me the ones that end the same: cat hat dog
ship boot sip
frog rode toad

If the children can do the identification and recognition tasks, ask them to produce rhymes with and without semantic clues. For example, with semantic clues:

I'm thinking of a word that rhymes with "kite" and "height," and it means "when you go to bed.

Without semantic clues:

What words do you know that rhyme or end the same as "sad?"


Segmentation Assessment: Phoneme segmentation is the ability to divide words orally. Begin with compound words. For example:

Say "hot dog." Now say it again without the "dog."
Say 'tea pot." Now say it again without the "tea."

If the children can segment compound words, ask them to strip away the initial sound. For example:

Say "time." Now say it again without the "/t/" [the sound of t, not "tee"].
Say "gate." Now say it again without the "/g/" [the sound, not "gee"].

If they can strip away the initial sound, ask them to strip away the ending sound. For example:

Say "goat." Now say it again without the "/t/" [sound].
Say "mean." Now say it again without the "/n/" [sound].

The students' phoneme awareness can be charted with a code that indicates mastery [+], beginning [check] , and not yet learned [-]. For example:


The children will most likely divide into three broad categories:
1. able to rhyme and segment
2. beginning to rhyme and segment
3. need to be taught to rhyme and segment

The first group can move on to sound/letter tasks with no further phoneme awareness training. The second group will need additional practice while they are learning the sounds associated with the letters. The third group will need intensive instruction while they are being introduced to the concept of sounds associated with the letters.

Letter/Sound Assessment: The children's knowledge of the sounds associated with the letters can be assessed at the same time as their phoneme awareness skills are measured. Start with the consonants that are most frequently used in English, present each on an individual card, and ask the children the sound that the letter makes and a word that begins with the sound. If the children confuse the terms "name" and "sound," rephrase the question. For example, "Yes that is an 'es,' but what sound does an 'es' make. What word begins with that sound?"


If a child is able to give five or more consonant sounds, have a brief diagnostic blending lesson using only three letter words with "short a" in the middle. For example:

After printing "cat" ask, "Can you read this word?"
While printing "mat" ask, "If I change the beginning sound to /m/, what would the word be?"

While printing "mad," ask, "If I change the ending sound to /d/, what would the word be?"

If the child can blend with "short a," try substitutions with "short i." Continue with these sorts of substitutions as far as the child is able to be successful.

Again the children will probably divide into three or four general groups:

Good letter/sound knowledge and able to blend sounds into words with different short vowel sounds.

Good letter/sound knowledge and a beginning ability to blend.

Good letter/sound knowledge and unable to blend.

Limited letter/sound knowledge.

As with the phonemic awareness groups, these general groups will help define the activities and materials that you will use for beginning reading instruction.

My students know the individual sounds quite well, but they can't blend them together to make a recognizable word. What should I try next?

Blending "pure" sounds: Blending the sounds together is certainly a difficult hurdle for many beginning readers. First, you should make sure that they are making "pure" sounds without additional sounds attached. When they see

sat

they should say the first sound as "s" and not "suh." It sometimes is useful to use the image of the index and middle fingers making a scissors motion in front of their mouths as they say the sound and "cut it off quickly."

Phoneme Awareness: Second, keep doing phoneme awareness activities, especially the ones where you say the word very slowly and the children figure out what you are saying. These are the "Troll Talk" activities in Phonemic Awareness in Young Children by Adams et. al. The children can also practice "being the teacher" and say a word slowly for the others to decipher.

Blending Two Sounds: Third, the children often do better blending just two sounds together and then adding the last sound. For example, they would blend the /s/ and /a/ together to make "sa--" and then add the /t/. They could practice with the "sa--" family making "sat," "sad," "Sam," and "sap." This practice works best when the beginning sound is "sustained" -- that is a sound that the children can drag out for a long time without changing it. The sustained sounds are:

f l m n r s v z

The best practice is with "stopped" sounds on the end. Useful stopped sounds are:

b d t g p

The children can practice reading both real words and nonsense syllables and then sort them into the two categories. Here are some useful real words:

Remember not to use words like "saw" or "mar" because "aw" and "ar" have different "a" sounds.

References:

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children
Marilyn Adams, et.al.
Paul H Brookes Publishing Co. 1998
(available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble)

Reading Readiness
Newhaus Educational Center
1991