phonemic awareness Archives - EBL Coaching

What is the Science of Reading?

olha.syrbu — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 13:46:52 +0000

Originally published on the Macaroni KID website

What is the Science of Reading?

Reading is one of the most important skills for academic success and it is a skill that doesn’t come naturally. It must be taught to children directly and explicitly. What is the best way to teach reading? The consensus has changed over the years, with various thoughts and opinions on the matter. However, the science of reading includes decades of research that has identified the most effective approach for teaching children to read, which includes five components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Let’s examine each component:

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice and manipulate sounds in words. It includes identifying individual sounds, blending sounds to form words, removing sounds within words, and otherwise manipulating sounds. Phonemic awareness is a key foundation to reading, and it can be explicitly taught to children.

You can help develop your child’s phonemic awareness skills with sound and word games that you can play at home. For example, give your child two words, like cup and cat, and ask them to tell you the first sound they hear in both words. You can also work on ending sounds by presenting two words like sat and mit and ask them to tell you the final sound they hear in the words. Then focus on middle sounds by asking them what the middle sound is that they hear in cup, sit, and leg.

You can also work on blending, another component of phonemic awareness, by giving your child three sounds, like /m/, /a/ and /t/ and asking them what word is formed if they blend those sounds together. Additionally, try working on rhyming by asking them which words rhyme with bat, cut, peg, and so on.

If your child continues to struggle with phonemic awareness, you may want to consider multi-sensory tutoring for this skill, since it is crucial for reading success.

Phonics

Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds. The science of reading tells us that teaching phonics directly, explicitly, and systematically is key to effective reading instruction. The Orton Gillingham method is an example of this type of systematic, direct approach to teaching phonics.

Children can start by learning individual letters, including the short vowels, and their corresponding sounds – then work on blending those sounds to form words. After practice and repetition with these letters and sounds, they can move onto learning how to read words containing blends, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs, silent e patterns, r-controlled patterns, multi-syllabic words, and so on, all following a structured, sequential approach.

If your child struggles with phonics, they may benefit from Orton Gillingham tutoring to further develop this important skill.

Read more about Orton-Gillingham tutoring at

https://eblcoaching.com/what-is-orton-gillingham-tutoring/

Fluency

Reading fluency involves reading with appropriate speed, accuracy, and expression. Fluent reading is important for comprehending the material a student is reading. Try this choral reading strategy to help your child develop stronger reading fluency skills:

Select a passage slightly below your child’s reading level.
Have them read the passage aloud to you one time as a cold read.
You read the same passage aloud to your child to model good reading fluency.
Your child reads the passage aloud with you and tries to keep up with your pace.
Your child reads the passage again as a final read. Compliment them on any improvement you note in their fluency!

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is an understanding of the meaning of words. It is an important skill in being able to comprehend material that one reads.

To help develop your child’s vocabulary skills, try integrating vocabulary work into your daily life. If you are grocery shopping with your child, for instance, use words like receipt, groceries, and discount, and explain to them what each term means. You can do the same when driving, watching a sports game, or setting up a bank account. Any excursion can include an opportunity for vocabulary development! Your child may also benefit from explicit tutoring in vocabulary if they continue to struggle with this skill.

Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is the ability to process what one is reading. It involves all of the above skills combined: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and vocabulary.

To help develop your child’s comprehension skills at home, ask them questions when you read to them. Instead of just reading a book and closing it when you are finished, ask questions as you read about the characters, story, and plot. You can even ask higher level comprehension questions involving making predictions and drawing conclusions. For example, as you read your child a book, ask questions like, “Why do you think that character was happy?”, “Why did he seem sad?”, or “What do you think might happen next in the story?”

The science of reading has identified the most effective way to teach children how to read, which includes the five elements described above. Help your child develop these skills at home, and if they continue to struggle, you may want to consider an Orton-Gillingham tutor or multi-sensory tutoring in any of the areas above. With stronger reading skills, your child will be well on their way to school success.

Read more about the science of reading at

https://tntp.org/blog/what-is-the-science-of-reading-and-why-does-it-matter/

The post What is the Science of Reading? appeared first on EBL Coaching.

How Can Orton Gillingham Tutoring in NYC Help my Child?

Rick Gamboa — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 16:42:56 +0000

Orton-Gillingham tutors can help your child thrive in school. With this methodology, Orton-Gillingham tutors integrate multisensory tools, such as colored sand, magnetic tiles, and shaving cream when working with your child to develop stronger reading and writing skills.

Orton-Gillingham tutors typically start by assessing your child’s reading and spelling skills. Your child may struggle to decode single-syllable words such as cat, mug, or log, or might struggle to read and spell more complex multisyllabic words, such as rainbow or carpet. Orton-Gillingham tutors should always individualize the Orton-Gillingham tutoring based on the needs of each student.

The Orton-Gillingham method is a research-based, multisensory technique that helps students develop stronger reading and spelling skills. A sample lesson that Orton-Gillingham tutors may use for a student struggling with foundational reading skills may be as follows: the Orton-Gillingham tutor may teach sound/letter relationships starting with groups of four consonants and one short vowel. They may say to the student, for instance, while holding up a flash card, “This is the letter t, like table, it makes the sound /t/.” The Orton-Gillingham tutor would hold up the card with the letter on the front, then flip it around to show the key picture of a table, and then turn it back around to say the sound. The student would then repeat the letter name/key picture/sound back to the Orton-Gillingham tutor. Next, the Orton-Gillingham tutor would demonstrate sand writing. They might take out a tray of sand and write the letter t in it, saying aloud “down and across.” The Orton-Gillingham tutor would then ask the student to trace the letter t in the sand three times or more, while saying the lingo for forming the letter out loud. The Orton-Gillingham tutor might then move onto sky writing, where, using gross motor muscles, they would write the letter t in the sky, saying “down and across”. The student would then do the same sky writing exercise. Next, the Orton-Gillingham tutor might have the student do exercises in a workbook practicing this letter, and later work on blending sounds to form basic words using flash cards and possibly magnetic tiles or whiteboards.

For students who have difficulty with longer, multisyllabic words, Orton-Gillingham tutors might teach students how to break down longer words into syllables in order to accurately decode them. For instance, Orton-Gillingham tutors might teach students compound words, which is when two small words are combined to form one big word. They might learn to break down words with endings, such as -est, -ed, -ing, or -ful. They may also learn about rabbit words; when two consonants come between two vowels, the student should split the word between the consonants in the VC/CV pattern. Orton-Gillingham tutors may also teach students camel words; when a consonant comes between two vowels, the student should split the word after the first consonant if the vowel is short. Orton-Gillingham tutors may teach students about tiger words; when a consonant comes between two vowels, they should split the word after the vowel if the vowel is long.

Orton-Gillingham tutors may also teach students spelling rules. For example, the floss rule dictates that if a one syllable word ends with an f, l, or s, the student should double the last letter. They may also teach the ck/k rule, which is if a word ends with the sound /k/, the student should use ck if the sound comes right after a short vowel. Otherwise, they should use use k. The tch/ch rule tell us that if a word ends with the sound /ch/, the student should use tch if the sound comes right after a short vowel. Otherwise, they should use ch. The dge/ge rule tells us that if a word ends with the sound /j/, the student should use dge if the sound comes right after a short vowel. Otherwise, they should use ge. Orton-Gillingham tutors can also teach students the doubling rule, which is if a one syllable word ends with one consonant and has one vowel before it, the student should double the last letter when adding a suffix that begins with a vowel. Finally, Orton-Gillingham tutors can teach students the silent e rule, which is if a word ends in a silent e, they should drop the e when adding a suffix that begins with a vowel. They should keep the e when adding a suffix that begins with a consonant

Orton-Gillingham tutors can help students build stronger phonemic awareness skills, which sets a strong foundation for reading. They can also use a multisensory approach to teach students how to effectively read and spell words containing consonants and short vowels, blends, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs, silent e patterns, multi-syllabic word patterns, roots, and prefixes.

Orton-Gillingham tutors can truly help your child feel confident and successful in school.

Learn more about Orton Gillingham tutoring at Orton Gillingham Tutors NYC and NJ - EBL Coaching

Read more about the Flags and Stars Orton Gillingham workbook at: Workbook series designed to build independent study skills (eblcoaching.com)

The post How Can Orton Gillingham Tutoring in NYC Help my Child? appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Top Reading Apps That Make Learning Fun for Kids

emily_levy — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 18:37:57 +0000

Some children enjoy turning the pages of a traditional book or scouring the newspaper for the latest sports news or comics. Yet others find pleasure from playing, swiping, tapping, and interacting with iPads and other devices. One of the beautiful things about living in such a technology-centered world is that these two activities continue to fuse together. Rather than giving your child the black-and-white option of traditional versus tech, why not infuse both by engaging them in fun, colorful, engaging apps for building their reading skills? Here are some of my favorites:

Montessori Crosswords

This app helps students develop their decoding, spelling, and writing skills by teaching them to build words with different phonics patterns. Students start by building basic CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, then move into words with blends, digraphs, silent e, vowel teams, and other combinations. Students are initially given a picture (like “bag” or “kid”) and are asked to drag letters from the alphabet at the bottom of the screen to spell the word displayed. Later, students spell words following specific phonics patterns in the form of crosswords. Students can also choose themes for the activities, like animals, food, clothes, etc.

Short Vowel Word Study

This is a great app for reinforcing basic word decoding at a Kindergarten/1st grade level. The app contains three main sections: word families, short vowels, and longer words. The first game is “Sort It,” where the child must sort a word into its proper vowel category; i, u, or a. In the “Find It” game‎, the child must find the “oddball” word that doesn’t belong in the same vowel family, and drag it to the bottom of the screen. The “Spell It” game reinforces spelling by displaying an image (like hat) and the child must drag letters to spell the word. The “Write It” game teaches students to trace and then independently write words. Other related fun and engaging reading games are also integrated into this app.

SuperWhy!

This app is a great one for building reading, spelling, writing, and phonemic awareness skills. It includes four games, each led by a different character: Alpha Pig, Princess Pesto, Wonder Red, and Super Why. In the Alpha Pig game, students find letters on a path to form different words. ‎In the Princess Pesto game, students practice writing letters to form words that are modeled first by Princess Pesto’s magic wand. In Wonder Red’s game, students identify rhyming words, and in Super Why’s game, students build their reading comprehension skills by identifying words that complete sentences in a given story.

Interactive Storybooks

For a wide selection of interactive, digital story books,MeeGenius is a great app that provides access to more than 700 children’s e-books for children up to age 8, which are accessible on iOS, Android, Windows 8, Amazon, Nook, and online.

Through the Princess and the Pea interactive story app, students either practice reading the Princess and the Pea or listen as the story is read aloud to them, reinforcing auditory comprehension, auditory processing, and listening skills. They can also play interactive games related to the story that are contained within the app, such as matching pictures, completing puzzles, and filling in missing items to complete a picture, all of which reinforce early learning skills.

Nursery Rhymes with Story Time

For younger children (ages 5 and younger), this app is great for building phonemic awareness and early reading skills. The app presents classic rhymes, such as Humpty Dumpty, Three Blind Mice, Jack and Jill, and others, in an interactive, playful format. While listening to the rhymes, children can “play” with the images. For example, when listening to Jack and Jill, children can drag a bucket of water up a well and watch flying fish and bubbles burst out of the water. The interactive illustrations make listening to rhymes and building core phonemic awareness skills great fun for children.

Encourage your child to use these apps and watch the colorful illustrations, energetic animations, and bursting colors turn reading into sheer excitement and joy.

Dr. Emily Levy is the founder of EBL Coaching, a tutoring program that specializes in one-on-one home and on-site instruction for students in grades preK-12 in NYC and NJ. She is also the author of Strategies for Study Success, a study skills workbooks series emphasizing test taking, note taking, reading comprehension, writing, and summarizing strategies, and the Flags and Stars Orton Gillingham student workbook series. These workbooks are currently used at schools nationwide.

The post Top Reading Apps That Make Learning Fun for Kids appeared first on EBL Coaching.

The 5 Best Reading Apps for Kids

emily_levy — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:01:09 +0000

Many of us find ourselves sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office or in the lounge of an airport, looking for activities to do with our children. Rather than having them grab your phone or iPad and play with mindless, non-educational games, why not reinforce their reading development with some great reading-specific apps? Five of my favorites are described below.

Princess and the Pea (and other interactive storybooks)

In this app, students either practice reading the Princess and the Pea or listen as the story is read aloud to them, reinforcing auditory comprehension, auditory processing, and listening skills. They can also play interactive games related to the story that are contained within the app, such as matching pictures, completing puzzles, and filling in missing items to complete a picture, all of which reinforce early learning skills.

This app is free and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Short Vowel Word Study

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Montessori Crosswords

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Nursery Rhymes with Story Time

This app is free and available on iTunes –> Click Here

SuperWhy!

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

The post The 5 Best Reading Apps for Kids appeared first on EBL Coaching.

How to Build Your Child’s Pre-Reading Skills

emily_levy — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:47:49 +0000

For those of you with children who are in pre-Kindergarten or Kindergarten, phonemic awareness is a key skill you should emphasize for future reading success. Phonemic awareness is defined as the ability to manipulate sounds in words. For example, ask your child what the word “sat” says without the sound /s/ or see if he or she can figure out what word is created when you combine “pen” and “guin.” These are examples of phonemic awareness exercises.

According to research, phonemic awareness is considered to be one of the key predictors to reading success and an important element in reading development. Some exercises you can do at home to help your child develop phonemic awareness skills are as follows:

Rhyming

Rhyming is another form of phonemic awareness and a skill that you can work on at home. Read your child stories that rhyme, such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? or Jamberry. You can also have your child anticipate rhyming words in poems or stories. For instance, you might read, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? I see a red bird looking at ,” and have your child say “me.” You might want to try helping your child create his or her own rhyming story or poem for further practice.

You can integrate physical activity while also building phonemic awareness by playing a “rhyming” ball game. Throw a ball to your child while saying out loud a sentence. When your child catches the ball he or she must say aloud a sentence that rhymes. For instance, you might say while throwing the ball, “I see so many trees!” When your child catches the ball he or she says a phrase like, “I see so many fleas!” Your child throws the ball back to you (or another player) and the rhyming continues. Learn more about this at Early Reading Tips – EBL Coaching.

Awareness of Words and Sentences

You can help your child develop awareness of phrases and sentences by teaching him or her what a sentence is (a group of words that tells a complete thought). Then dictate several different phrases and sentences and ask which ones are phrases and which are sentences – a great game to play in the car! You can write out sentences on a white board or on large flash cards and ask your child to count the number of words in the sentences. You can also set out a series of blocks and ask him or her to display a single block to represent each word in a sentence that you dictate. For instance, if you dictate the sentence “The brown cow is at the barn,” your child would take out 7 blocks to represent the 7 words in the sentence. Learn more about building your child’s reading readiness skills at How to Boost Your Child’s Reading Readiness Skills – EBL Coaching.

Each of these exercises will help strengthen your child’s phonemic awareness skills and develop strong reading skills in the future. Have fun, and your child won’t even realize how much he or she is learning!

Other Related Blogs:

Building Your Child’s Reading Fluency Skills

Building Basic Reading Skills

The post How to Build Your Child’s Pre-Reading Skills appeared first on EBL Coaching.