A Study to Determine if Phonics Will Help Third Grade Students to Increase Their Reading Ability
Beverly Smith
Thomas University
A Study to Determine if Phonics Will Help Third Grade Students to Increase Their Reading Ability
Beverly Smith
September 24, 2015
Abstract
The inability to read is a problem that plagues public schools. Many students enter the third grade reading on a lexile level lower than what is required to be successful. Some students will be one or two grade levels below the current grade. The students simply cannot keep up with the demands of the current grade because of the lack of ability to read. There is a great need to reach students who struggle with reading. The purpose of this study is to determine if phonics will help third grade students to improve their reading ability. The study will include seven students in a third grade intervention room. The students will be taught phonics for a six week period. At the beginning of the study the students will be given the San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability as a pretest to determine the reading level. At the end of the six week period the students will be given the same test as a posttest to determine progress. Progress will be shown if the students have moved up in reading levels.
Introduction
Year after year, teachers observe students who enter into their classroom without the ability to read. The inability to read effects every area of a student’s education. The
In this article, Moats provides an overview of the whole language reading instruction approach as well as a critique of the approach, its shortcomings in literacy based on scientific studies, how and why it is still pervasive in classrooms today, and how educators can fix the situation. First, Moats presents the reader with the background of the phonics instruction versus whole language instruction “reading wars” debate which led many educators to try to synthesize the two different types of language instruction under what she refers to as “balanced literacy”. Whole language is literacy approach that deemphasizes phonics in favor of meaning; advocates of this approach believe that literacy is similar to natural language acquisition therefore children can acquire skills through exposure to print and teaching modeling without explicit phonics instruction.
he most fundamental responsibility of schools is teaching students to read. Indeed, the future success of all students hinges upon their ability to become proficient readers. Recent scientific studies have allowed us to understand more than ever before how literacy develops, why some children have difficulty, and what constitutes best instructional practice. Scientists now estimate that fully 95 percent of all children can be taught to read. Yet, in spite of all our knowledge, statistics reveal an alarming prevalence of struggling and poor readers that is not limited to any one segment of society:
Phonemic awareness is a vital role in literacy instruction. Many schools and districts adopt a commercially published basal reading program and it becomes the cornerstone of their instruction ( (David Chard, n.d.). We also know that through investigation and research it has shown us that word-recognition instruction and instruction in oral language skills related to word recognition were inadequately represented. (David Chard, n.d.) The same researchers have found that the reading passages that students are reading didn’t relate to the words they were learning. In order for students to read at grade level or above a supplemental program should be implemented. I have found that at my school we are lacking a phonics program that will reach different students abilities and make them successful in reading. My goal for this paper is to show my district that using a supplemental phonics program aside from our basal phonics program will prove beneficial to strategic readers who fall below grade level.
Phonics will start to be taught in nursery or reception and a child will not be able to learn to read without proper understanding of phonics.
Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information which is essential in being a productive member of society. If and when a student missed an opportunity to learn the skills necessary for reading, it’s has a profound impact on their lives. As educators we realize that teaching all children to read requires that every child receive excellent reading instruction. We are also aware that children, who are struggling with reading must receive
Gross (2010) state that children should systematically be taught to read through phonics and not by memorising “whole words”; by the late 1970’s teachers were no longer fond of that approach as it was not working because children were still struggling to read, it was dull and repetitive and new words were introduced at a
The contrasting perspectives of the two passages, “CliffsTestPrep” by Jerry Bobrow (2006) and “The Place of Phonics in Learning to Read and Write” by Marie Emmitt (2013), address the issue of the importance of phonemic awareness in reading and writing scores. Bobrow believes that phonemic awareness is important to understand since it affects reading scores. Emmitt however, argues that there is no evidence that phonemic awareness has a major impact on reading achievement.
’51. Having considered a wide range of evidence, the review has concluded that the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming and much strengthened by a systematic approach’ (Rose, 2006, p20). To further his proposal Rose (2006) proclaimed that the teaching of systematic phonics should be enhanced and active by the age of five; It can be evidence through practice that children as young as five can define the terminology for a phoneme and a grapheme, due to the position phonics has within the English curriculum. There is also a world-wide debate on the various ways educational practitioners can most effectively implement phonics in their practice states Dombey (2010). Due to the impact of the Rose Review, it could be suggested that the value of systematic phonics had increased, meaning that primary teachers have to be confident in their ability to teach and support pupils in their reading and spelling through the use of phonological
For this assignment, I will first briefly discuss the value of early reading pre-school and the stages of reading. After that I will critically evaluate the history of introducing synthetic phonics reading in primary schools in England. Furthermore, I will investigate the developments and issues which have been brought about the different teaching strategies used in schools and using teaching synthetic phonics in early years to teach first reading.
There are different aspects to phonics that should be taken into account by teachers. The first is how important phonics is to children. It is said that “both phonics and fluency need to be taught, practiced, and nurtured in the earliest stages of reading instruction and provided to students at
The two common methods of teaching reading that are used around the world are phonic and whole langue. Both phonic and whole language are two approaches to teaching children in the classroom. However, the ongoing debate over the best method to teach children to read focuses in those methods. There are many good arguments on its side, but never one of them has enough evidence to persuade people that one is a better one than the other. Indeed, the phonic-based reading instruction is a method that help young children to read and spell words. For pros of phonics, children can use the systematic approach to decode unfamiliar words. Also, for them phonic is formulaic. One the basic are learned, it is easy to read a variety of literature. However,
There have been many debates over which literacy instruction produces the most favorable outcomes in terms of test scores. During the 1960’s, teachers favored the phonics approach in helping students become literate because they believed that it made the most
How did you learn to read? Most of us do not put much thought into this question, but learning to read is a difficult task. According to Cervetti and Hiebert, the National Reading Panel identified five essential components that a teacher should use during reading instruction, which gives the student the highest chance of being an effective reader (2015, p. 548). These five essential components are also called five pillars of reading instruction. They are Phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. This paper will describe each of the five pillars, how they are related, the benefits, as well as give some effective methods of teaching phonics and phonemic awareness. It will continue by addressing the relationship between reading assessment and instruction and end by identifying ways to address the needs and different learning styles of a student. This paper will start by looking at a definition of phonics and phonemic awareness, then move onto the role that each play in learning to read, how they are related, the benefits and effective methods of teaching both.
Swanson et al. (2011) conducted a meta-analysis, A Synthesis of Read-Aloud Interventions on Early Reading Outcomes Among Preschool Through Third Graders at Risk for Reading Difficulties, to determine which interventions were the most useful for preschoolers to third graders who were at risk for reading difficulties. Their research examined the effects of five read-aloud interventions, which included: dialogic reading, repeated reading, limited questioning, computer assisted, and extended vocabulary (pg. 261).
When data from students who had average accuracy and fluency scores, but lower comprehension scores were compared to data from those with similar accuracy and fluency but average comprehension, the consistent differences were found to be lower oral language and vocabulary skills in the poor comprehenders upon entry into formal schooling. (Nation, Cocksey, Taylor & Bishop) Thousands of dollars each year are spent on intervention, trying to improve the reading of children that show delays. When one reads, the clear goal is comprehension of what is read. Without communication of ideas between the author and reader, decoding texts is pointless. Most intervention programs are focused on phonics and word decoding. Oral language interventions concurrent with vocabulary and comprehension tasks at age eight have been shown to lead to significant improvements in reading comprehension. (Nation, et al., 2010). Reading comprehension is not merely a product of being able to decode words and sentences. How we teach children to process and integrate the ideas found in text can have a large impact on their ability to function in a world of ever expanding knowledge and information.