Phonics Difficulties

Tyner’s Small-Group Differentiated Reading Model builds on each individual component and supports each of the other components. Each lesson of the model introduces new text for the students to read, interpret, comprehend, and synthesize. The re-reading of the text increases fluency, identification of sight words and their meanings, and comprehension

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.

The Fry Sight-Word Inventory is an informal, criterion-referenced screener which measures high-frequency word achievement. Fry 's Instant Words have been determined as the most common words used in English ranked in order of frequency. Specifically, Fry found that twenty-five words make up approximately a third of all items published, one-hundred words comprise almost half of all of the words found in publications, and three-hundred words make up approximately sixty-five percent of all written material. The first three-hundred words on Fry’s list should be mastered by the end of corresponding grade levels, and lists four through ten should be mastered between fourth and fifth grades. Each hundred words are broken down even further into twenty-five words per list, according to difficulty and frequency, and should be assessed sequentially. The goal of progress monitoring high-frequency word mastery is to increase fluency on high-frequency words in order to further automaticity within our students’ reading, which ultimately impacts overall comprehension.

The type of assessment tool that would be used to measure students’ fluency is DIEBELS Oral Reading Fluency (DORF). The target intervention for the four students is improving their reading fluency to a 2nd grade level. DORF is a standardized test that measures student performance of reading word from the grade level by being timed for 1 minute. Students are instructed to read a passage as best as they can while the teacher is monitoring how many WPM they can read accurately in 1 minute. DORF also asks students to describe what they just read to allow a more accurate *** of students level or reading and avoid students reading quickly because they know they are being timed. (**p.32-33). The selecting of DIEBELS DORF was selected based on the

The Basic Reading Skills composite measures T’Niq’s ability to read a list of words and correctly pronounce nonsense words. T’Niq’s standard score of 72 falls in the low range at the 3rd percentile, indicating that he performed the same as or above 3 percent of his same-aged peers. Based on T’Niq’s performance on this composite, it appears that he will benefit from explicit instruction on word recognition skills and phonics skills.

However, In a more complex study, Yesil-Dagli (2009) found that on average, ELL students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunch compared to those not eligible for free or reduced lunch, Hispanic ELL students compared to White ELL students, and male ELL students compared to female ELL students, read fewer words at the beginning of first grade and demonstrate a slower growth rate. This directly impacts their fluency rate in DIBELS. Paleologos and Brabham (2011) found that DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (DORF) is effective for predicting the performance of high-income students in overall reading standardized tests but not low-income students. According to their research, high-income students demonstrate higher abilities in reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in comparison to low-income students although both groups had achieved “benchmark” proficient scores in DIBELS.

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

To determine Bailey’s reading level, she was given reading assessments including the Bursuck & Damer Advanced Phonics Diagnostic assessment and a Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI-6) which includes a word identification list. The phonics assessment was given to help analyze her phonic awareness and phonics skills to determine if she had an understanding of letter/sound correlation which will affect decoding ability. The evaluation tested numerous phonics aspects including several vowel combinations, consonant diagraphs and blends, other letter combinations, contractions, inflectional endings, hard and soft ‘C’/’G’, prefixes, and suffixes. These skills help to read words that are not recognized by sight. Word identification list can also help determine the passage level to begin with. The QRI-6 analyzed other components of reading including fluency, background knowledge, skill use, and

Designing an individual intervention to increase reading fluency requires completion of assessments that will determine the child’s reading strengths and weaknesses. An inaccurate reader needs direct instruction on improving word recognition, which may include sight words and decodable words (which rules is the student not applying) at their instructional level. Once the goals have been established, in this case fluency, the intervention will begin with an introduction on fluency and word recognition.

Sight words hold such importance because they are one way to determine a student’s reading level. These words connect to the idea that, “candidates know how to determine the skill level of students through the use of meaningful indicators of reading and language arts proficiency prior to instruction, how to determine whether students are making adequate progress on skills and concepts, and how to determine the effectiveness of instruction and students' proficiency after instruction.” My understanding of this benchmark comes from the San Diego Quick Assessment we used to assess our scholars at the beginning of the three week program and again at the end. The San Diego Quick is a way to assess a student’s reading ability or level. According to the article “The Graded Word List: Quick Gauge of Reading Ability” written by Margaret La Pray and Ramon Ross, the assessment “is a graded word list, formed by drawing words randomly from basal reading glossaries and from the Thorndike list”. There are thirteen different word lists that determines a scholar’s independent reading level, instructional level, and frustration level. When I assessed the Kindergarteners, I wrote the sight words out on index cards and asked students one by one to come with me to play a game. For Kindergarten, I had to start with the pre-primer level although the directions advise an administrator to start two years below the student’s grade level

DJ’s independent level for oral reading was estimated to be below pre-primer, his instructional level was grade 2 and his frustration level was at the third grade level. Compared to DJ’s independent reading on the GWL at grade two, DJ’s independent reading level on oral passages was more than two levels lower being estimated at below pre-primer. DJ’s instructional reading on the GWL was at third grade, whereas his instructional level for oral reading fell in the second grade level. This difference suggests that DJ can read words in isolation easier than reading words in context.

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

|Dynamic Indicators |A set of procedures and measures for |DIBELS are designed to be short (one minute) fluency |

“Phonological disorders in children can result from physical or organic causes or may be functional in nature ("Phonological disorders in," 2013)”. Children with a phonological disorder may experience a higher risk for reading and writing disabilities. “If left unresolved, phonological disorders have long-term consequences that may interfere with an individual's future social, academic, and vocational well-being, largely resulting from persistent, reduced intelligibility of speech ("Phonological disorders in," 2013).”