Oral Language

Oral Language is 

• how we use spoken words to express our knowledge, ideas, and feelings. 

Oral Language  is important because it allows

• development of phonological and phonemic awareness.
• student’s to recognize thousands more words for comprehension.
• expressing ideas and describing experiences. 

Oral Language can be developed by  

• providing opportunities for adult to child conversations and child to child conversations..
• asking questions, keeping the conversations going with explanations and comments.
• reading with  student’s  daily and discussing the vocabulary and illustrations for new ideas and content.

Oral Language instruction is most effective when 

• students have sentence starters for partner talk.  
• discussion is a part of the learning and paired with reading and writing.
• students participate in large group discussion formats and smaller collaborative discussion groups. 

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is

• the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds, phonemes, in spoken words. 

Phonemic awareness is important because it

• improves children’s word reading and reading comprehension.

•  helps children learn to spell.

Phonemic awareness can be developed by

• identifying phonemes (individual letter sound).

• categorizing phonemes. 

• blend phonemes to form words.

• segment words into phonemes.

• delete or add phonemes to form new words. 

• substitute phonemes to make new words.

Phonemic awareness practice is most effective when

• children are taught to manipulate phonemes by using the letters of the alphabet.

• instruction focuses on only one or two rather than several types of phoneme manipulation.

Phonics

Phonics instruction

• helps children learn the relationships between the written letters and the spoken sounds.

Phonics instruction is important because

• it leads to an understanding of the alphabetic principle – the systematic and predictable relationships between letters and sounds.

Phonics instruction is effective when it provides

• systematic instruction —the instructional plan includes a carefully selected set of letter-sound relationships that are organized into a logical sequence.
• explicit instruction—the instructional plan provides teachers with precise directions and routines for the teaching of these relationships.

• ample practice opportunities for children to apply what they are learning.
•  activities include practice with 
  • letter and sounds
  • individual word reading
  • sentences
  • paragraphs
  • stories

Vocabulary

Vocabulary refers to

• the words we must know to communicate effectively.
  • oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or that we recognize when listening.
  • reading vocabulary refers to words we recognize or use in print.

Vocabulary is important because

• beginning readers use their oral vocabulary to make sense of the words they see in print.
• readers must know what most of the words mean before they can understand what they are reading.

Vocabulary can be developed two ways

• indirectly – when students engage daily in oral language, listen to adults read to them, and read extensively on their own.
• directly – when students are explicitly taught both individual words and word-learning strategies.

Fluency

Fluency

• is the ability to read text with appropriate rate, accuracy and expression.

Fluency is important because

• frees the cognitive load sounding out words. 
• moves the cognition to understanding reading (comprehension).

Fluency can be developed by

• modeling reading.
• repeated readings to improve accuracy and rate.
• reading using expression.

Monitoring progress in fluency

• motivates student progress with fluency.
• useful for evaluating instruction.

Text comprehension is important because

• comprehension is the ultimate goal for reading.

Text comprehension is

• purposeful.

• active.

Text comprehension can be developed

• by teaching comprehension strategies.

Text comprehension strategies can be taught through

• explicit instruction.

• discussion.

Writing

Writing

• is a process that can incorporate a student’s knowledge of phonics, vocabulary, and text comprehension. 
• includes practice in  opinion, informational, narrative.

Writing instruction is important because

• applies the literacy skill of reading and speaking.  
• it is present in all disciplines.
• demonstrates critical thinking. 
• allows for feedback between readers and writers.

Effective writing instruction provides instruction in 

• grammar and conventions.
• direct instruction on the craft of the writing (how to write an introduction, conclusion, cite evidence etc.).
• text structure e.g., opinion, informational, narrative.