The Literacy Big 5

Phonemic Awareness Instruction

• Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about and work with individual sounds in spoken words.
• Students being able to identify what letter a group of words begin with.
• Students being able to identify the beginning, middle and ending sound of a word.
• Students being able to blend separate sounds into a word.
• Students being able to segment a word into separate sounds.

Interesting facts I learned

• Teaching our students to blend sounds helps them learn to read.
• Teaching our students to segment sounds helps them learn to spell.
• It is important to teach them how to make new words by changing the beginning or ending sound of that word.
• It is important for our students to be able to categorize words by beginning or ending sounds.

Phonics Instruction

• Is the relationship between the letters and sounds.

Interesting facts I learned

• This is most successful when introduced in kindergarten or first grade.
• Systematic phonics instruction by itself is not enough to improve overall reading and spelling performance.

Fluency Instruction

• is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly.

Interesting facts I learned

• Students must reread the same text at least 4 times to reach a certain level of fluency.
• Students should practice rereading orally text that is easy for them to increase fluency.

Vocabulary Instruction

• Vocabulary is words we need to know in order to communicate effectivly.

Interesting facts I learned

• Indirect vocabulary is learned from listening to the people around them.
• Direct vocabulary is learned when they are taught.
• It is important to teach vocabulary throughout the entire day and in each subject.
• Don't try to cover every word they do not know. It will overwhelm them.

Text Comprehension Instruction

• Is the reason for reading. This is understanding what you are reading.

Interesting facts I learned

• It is important to identify what they understand and what they do not understand.
• It is important to help your students picture what they are reading.
• Use graphic organizers to help them organize their thoughts.