Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Training

Donna Forcier

Lincoln Akerman School

April 1, 2009

Introduction

Some Reasons Students Can’t Read:• Brain injury, premature birth, or other medical

issues.• Genetics/familial background in correlation with

learning Disabilities.• Foreign Language – English as a Second

Language.

Why do we Read?

• For a complete understanding (gestalt) of all that we read, be it of information or for pleasure.

The Gestalt- the “Big Picture”

Copyright © Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes.

Diagnostic Planning of Interventions for Students who Struggle to Read

• Test and identify weaknesses.• Decide, create, and implement a multi-sensory

phonemic awareness or other applicable program.

• Track data of student’s progress.• Adjust student’s programming as necessary.

Some Intervention Program for Students who Struggle to Read Successfully

• O.G. Orton Gillingham (fore-father of all other remedial reading program).

• Phonemic Awareness – LiPS ( Lindamood Phonemic Sequencing Program –formerly the A.D.D. or in-depth Auditory Discrimination Depth Perception)

Continuation…

• Wilson Reading System (Barbara Wilson- much brain research, ready made lessons in a sequential order through levels 1-12).

• Fundations- (Wilson Remedial Program for youngsters K-2).

• Many other remedial reading programs, i.e. Reading Recovery, Title One…

GOAL

Each programs’ goal is to retrain the brain in one or all of the following areas to:

• obtain phonemic awareness (sound awareness) • teach phonics –spelling/reading-decoding rules.

• encourage understanding

These tasks encourage remediation of reading and/or comprehension skills; therefore they improving the student’s overall gestalt of what has been read.

Some Interesting Facts

• Brain had to evolve to learn symbols. Early humans read only pictures on cave walls. That evolved as humans did to include other symbols, i.e. Hieroglyphics.

• Dyslexia-word blindness. Discovered and recorded by a German ophthalmologist in 1887.

• We must learn 26 individual letters and the sounds they present. We use them daily in many different combinations to communicate –read, write, speak, spell.

• Center in the brain responsible for reading .

Resources:

• Gestalt of Reading triad and overlapping Venn Diagrams • Fundations• Lindamood-Bell• Orton Gillingham Society• Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-

Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level• by Sally Md Shaywitz • Visualize and Verbalize Nanci Bell• Wilson Reading System

CLOVER

Syllable Type example• closed cat• le puzzle• open hi, me, go• vowel team dream• e magic e rake• r controlled star