Intervention Specialist
As a special education teacher, you are well aware of psychological, social, and economic consequences of reading failure. You are concerned that a number of children are not learning to read as well as they should in the regular classroom. Over the past few years, you have seen the number of referrals increase. You feel that there are things that the classroom teacher can do to help prevent some of the reading difficulties that occur. You joined the task force to find out how to best assist the classroom teacher in preventing reading disabilities.
Your Task
Highlight the questions below. Select Copy from the Edit Menu. Open a Word Processing document, and then choose Paste from the Edit Menu. As you read, look for the answers the questions below. Record your answers on your word processing document.
What is Phonemic Awareness?
What strategies must be in place for successful intervention? (See article by Marilyn Adams.)
What are some activities that you would recommend that teachers use in their classroom?
Print your answers and share the results of your investigation with your group.
Resources
- Summary of the International Reading Association's position on Phonemic Awareness.
- Beginning Reading and Phonological Awareness for Students with Learning Disabilities
- Building A Powerful Reading Program: From Research to Practice--scroll down to Research Highlights, Key Research findings About Phonemic Awareness, the section by Marilyn Adams, and Recommendations for Schools and Classrooms
- Phonemic Awareness Assessment Tools
- How Now Brown Cow: Phoneme Awareness Activities for Collaborative Classrooms contains a number of activities to develop phonemic awareness
Project
Meet with members of your group and share the results of your investigations. Develop a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes and sythesizes the findings of all members of the group. Be sure to address the following points:
- Define Phonemic Awareness
- Explain why it is important
- Describe how it affects reading instruction in early primary classrooms
- Identify the tasks/abilities associated with Phonemic Awareness
- Describe how to assess Phonemic Awareness
- Suggest activities for parents and teachers to use to develop Phonemic Awareness in children