The Annual Newsletter of the International Reading Association's Phonics Special Interest Group
Developing
Beginning Reading Skills in Kindergarten Children
by
Rebecca Haslemann
G.W. Hellyer School
Franklin McKinley School District
San Jose, California
Background
Since I began teaching seven years ago, the standards and expectations
for kindergarten students have been raised dramatically. In June kindergartners
now need to be able to read a level-four Developmental Reading Assessment
Book (Beaver, 1997), which is fairly predictable with numerous sight words.
In order for me to get each of my students to meet this standard, I needed
to look critically at my teaching, keep what was working, and change what
was not.
In the spring of 2002, I engaged in a pilot study with an at-risk kindergarten
student. I selected John Shefelbine and Katharine K. Newman’s Systematic
Instruction in Phoneme Awareness, Phonics and Sight Words (SIPPS) (2001)
as my instructional program. After two weeks of instruction my case study
child a) showed growth in her ability to phonemically blend and segment
phonemes, b) increased her concepts about print, and c) learned nine more
sight words. Because of my success with her, I conducted a more complete
research project, using my entire class, with a critical eye on two students:
Thyda and Miguel.
The Research to Support SIPPS
An abundance of research supports the theory that phonemic awareness is
a “prerequisite for understanding the alphabetic principle, namely
that letters stand for the sounds in spoken words” (Griffith &
Olson, 1992, p. 522), and that phonemic awareness is an early predictor
of reading achievement (Griffith & Olson, 1992; Juel, 1996; Snider,
1995; Yopp, 1992, 2000; Adams, 2001). Having a strong base in phonemic
awareness allows students to use the alphabetic principle and become more
skilled readers and writers, but phonemic awareness instruction alone
is not enough.
According to Pressley
(1998), the most salient problem in learning to read is learning to decode.
Insufficient ability to segment words and blend sounds into words poses
an insurmountable obstacle to reading and comprehending text. Pressley’s
recommendation, therefore, is to provide students with balanced literacy,
which includes systematic phonics and sight word instruction. While the
literature is clear on the need to directly teach phonemic awareness,
phonics, and sight words, recommendations for the best program to use
with kindergarten students is not as well researched.
The Intervention
I began by collecting baseline data on my two students in September 2002,
using a) the Ekwall/Shanker Reading Inventory Emergent Literacy Tests,
b) the Test of Basic Phonics and Irregular Sight Words from the SIPPS
Beginning Level manual, and c) Marie Clay’s letter identification
and writing vocabulary. I conducted the tests again, thirteen weeks later,
to see if there was improvement.
The SIPPS program has incremental and systematic daily lessons that consist
of five components: phonemic awareness, isolated phonics sounds and spellings,
sight words, a short word dictation, and a story that concentrates on
sight words and phonics patterns previously introduced. Lessons follow
the same format every day and take between 15 to 20 minutes.
Each day, I gathered my whole class on the carpet and we began the SIPPS
lesson by reading the story chart from the previous day. We practiced
phoneme position and oral blending of syllables, I introduced new sounds
for the lesson, reviewed sight words and read the new story chart. Then
we broke up into smaller groups of five to six students, and finished
the SIPPS lessons doing the word dictation and independent reading of
the story.
Results
At the beginning of my study, Thyda and Miguel both had a firm grasp on
letter knowledge and sounds as well as concepts about print (CAP). However,
they both had difficulty with phoneme segmentation and oral blending.
By the end of the thirteen weeks of SIPPS instruction, Thyda and Miguel
had improved in most areas. Both students were able to orally blend sounds
together. Miguel mastered phoneme segmentation and Thyda was saying the
sounds in the words but was not actually segmenting each sound. Thyda
learned seven new sight words and Miguel learned twenty-two. They were
both able to write more words when given the writing vocabulary assessment,
and they both started to read short vowel words.
I have seen positive results in my students’ attitudes toward reading
and an increase in their reading levels. The SIPPS model was a structured
way for me to teach phonemic awareness skills to my students while also
having them practice reading text.
Hints for other teachers
The following three modifications to the SIPPS procedures improved my
students’ success: 1) begin the SIPPS model after students have learned
some of the letter names and sounds, 2) have students read the story chart
and practice the sight words and phoneme play as a whole group instead
of in a small group, and 3) expose students to a new text every day and
give them opportunities to practice reading the familiar texts during
independent reading time.
References
Adams, M. (2001). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print.
Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press
Beaver, J. (1997). Developmental reading assessment. Glenview, IL: Celebration
Press.
Clay, M. M. (1993). An observation survey of early literacy achievement.
Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Griffith, P.L., & Olson M.W. (1992). Phonemic awareness helps beginning
readers break the code. The Reading Teacher, 45, 516-523.
Juel,
C. (1996). Phonemic Awareness: What is it? Silver Burdett Ginn, USA.
Pressley,
M. (1998). Reading instruction thatworks: The case for balanced teaching.
New York: The Guilford Press.
Shanker,
J & Ekwall, E (2000). Ekwall/Shanker reading inventory, 4th ed. Needham
Heights, MA: A Pearson Education Company.
Shefelbine,
J. & Newman, K. (2001). Systematic instruction in phoneme awareness,
phonics and sight words: Beginning level. Oakland, CA: Developmental Studies
Center.
Snider,
V. (1995). A Primer on Phonemic Awareness: What it is, why it’s important,
and how to teach it. School Psychology Review, 24, 443-455.
Yopp,
H. (1992). Developing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading
Teacher, 45, 696-703.
Yopp,
H., & Yopp, R. (2000) Supporting phonemic awareness development in
the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54, 130 – 143.