beginning reading writing teks talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--beginning reading and writing. The student develops word structure knowledge through phonological awareness, print concepts, phonics, and morphology to communicate, decode, and spell.

Provide an alphabet chart for students. Showing only a few letters at a time, say a letter sound and have them point to the letter that represents that sound. Record student responses on a checklist that contains every letter of the alphabet.

The common sound is the most prevalent sound each letter makes. For vowels, this includes the short vowel sound.

For letters C and G, the hard sound (e.g., the /g/ in gate is hard) is the common sound.
Phonetic knowledge is the understanding of sound-symbol relationships and spelling patterns.

Research

1. Block, K. & Duke, N. (2015). Preschool through grade 3: Letter names can cause confusion and other things to know about letter-sound relationships. Young Children, 70(1), 84–81. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2015/letter-sound-relationships

Summary: Block and Duke "present ten essential understandings about English orthography and examples of how this knowledge can help teachers appropriately support preschool and primary grade children's literacy development."

2. What Works Clearinghouse. (n.d.). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade: practice guide summary. Washington, DC: Institute of Education Science. Retrieved from https://buildingrti.utexas.org/sites/default/files/booklets/wwc_foundationalreading_070516.pdf

Summary: This practice guide provides four recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Each recommendation includes implementation steps and solutions for common obstacles. The recommendations also summarize and rate supporting evidence. This guide is geared towards teachers, administrators, and other educators who want to improve their students’ foundational reading skills

3. Baker, S. K., Santiago, R. T., Masser, J., Nelson, N. J., & Turtura, J. (2018). The Alphabetic Principle: From Phonological Awareness to Reading Words. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from https://improvingliteracy.org/brief/alphabetic-principle-phonological-awareness-reading-words

Summary: The alphabetic principle is a critical skill that involves connecting letters with their sounds to read and write. Learning and applying the alphabetic principle takes time and is difficult for most children. Explicit phonics instruction and extensive practice are important when teaching children to learn the alphabetic principle.

4. Baker, S. K., Beattie, T., Nelson, N. J., & Turtura, J. (2018). How We Learn to Read: The Critical Role of Phonological Awareness. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from https://improvingliteracy.org/brief/how-we-learn-read-critical-role-phonological-awareness

Summary: Phonological awareness involves being able to recognize and manipulate the sounds within words. This skill is a foundation for understanding the alphabetic principle and reading success. There are several ways to effectively teach phonological awareness to prepare early readers, including: 1) teaching students to recognize and manipulate the sounds of speech, 2) teaching students letter-sound relations, and 3) teaching students to manipulate letter-sounds in print using word-building activities.