Teacher Talk Tuesday: Dr. Titzer Would Not Approve This Message

Hi all.

So, it's Teacher Talk Tuesday, which means I have to work my brain and squint and try real hard to come up with something to say that makes me sound smart and knowledgeable.  This is something that's becoming harder and harder to do, as my brain gets mushier with every episode of Dora and every game of Candy Land.
Up until this afternoon, I thought I had this week covered: a couple of days ago J and I were playing a game of Pick Up Stix that turned into a game of discovering which letters we could make with straight lines.  I was all set to write a whole post on turning everyday things into teachable moments, but this afternoon I went to recreate the whole scenario and record it for you guys, only to have J decide to play dumb.
Is that too mean to say?  Is it okay that I'm saying that my son played dumb?  Cuz he did.  I can't think of another adjective.  I was all, "Let's make A's!" and he was like, "Okay." And then he'd let me run tape for 2 minutes while he messed around and made a house or something, and I peppered the silence with lame comments like "J, is that the top of your A?"  And he'd say, "No.  It's a roof."  And I'd say, "Can you make an A out of your roof?"  And he'd give me the silent treatment again.

Teachable Moment Lesson #1:  You get one shot at them, and after that there is no going back.

So I made another video with him later that was much more successful.  This one is about Phonemic Awareness.  Do you guys know what that is?  A lot of people confuse it with Phonics, but they are 2 separate concepts.  When I was teaching, I often wished that I could pull all my parents in and teach them the importance of phonemic awareness because it's such an important key to reading success. Studies have proven that a lack of phonemic awareness is a prominent characteristic of a struggling reader.   Most Kindergarten report cards have a whole section on it- when a child shows proficiency in this section, then that teacher knows that he/she is ready for 1st grade.

So what is phonemic awareness and how is it different from phonics?

I usually explain phonemic awareness as being the ability to play with language.  It's the ability to manipulate sounds that we hear in words.  Most kids naturally do that anyway- they make up  nonsense words, or they'll purposefully add or omit sounds in words.  Most of this is done under the pretext of being silly- but it's also a cognitive ability that their brain is developing.  They're listening to the sounds of our language independent of their meanings and learning to play with them.  That's also why songs like Raffi's Willaby Wallaby Woo or The Name Game song are so popular with kids.  We adults may hate them, but our kids are developing cognitively while they're listening and singing along.

Once a child has a good grasp on phonemic awareness- the sounds of language, then you can teach them phonics- the relationship of those sounds to written language.  The two work together- not independently, but phonemic awareness must be understood first.  That's why I joke that Dr. Titzer from Your Baby Can Read wouldn't approve this message.   From what I've seen, those babies are recognizing the letters as symbols (not as sounds) and understanding the word meanings (which technically, yes, is reading) BUT if you asked those babies, "What word would you make if you took away the 'h' sound in 'hat' and replaced it with the 'm' sound?", they wouldn't be able to tell you because a) they haven't learned how to talk (duh) and b) they've only learned to recognize the symbols, not the sounds associated with them.

Are you with me or am I boring the heck out of you with all this phonemic/phonic/symbols/cognitive stuff?  Here's the nitty gritty of what you need to know:

1.  phonemic awareness is a pre-reading skill
2.  it's the ability to manipulate sounds in our language
3.  it's really important
4.  Dr. Titzer is a lame-o.

Kidding on that last one.  I know next to nothing about Dr. Titzer.  And I'm assuming that he eventually teaches those Baby Geniuses phonics, since at some point in their little lives they're going to come across a word that they'll need to sound out- hard to do without phonemic awareness.  Or they learn it on their own- which a lot of kids just do naturally.  I'm guessing that kids master phonemic awareness somewhere between 3 and 8.  That's a pretty big gap, and if you're kid is going to public school, they'll need to have it mastered between 5 and 6.  So here's some things you can work on with them to help them along: word rhyming and rhythm, segmenting words, blending words, identifying beginning and ending sounds, and syllabication.

Below is the video I made of J showing me his current level of phonemic awareness.  He's got a ways to go, but I was impressed with what he showed me.  You'll notice that I don't correct him- that's because I was trying to keep the video short and because I know we have time to work on this stuff.  PA doesn't happen overnight- it's a long process.  There's lots of games you could play- like the sounds in the word game (to the tune of Wheels on the Bus, in case my warbling isn't clear).  Or, for those of you interested in learning more, there's a really great book called Phonemic Awareness: Playing With Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading Skills.  I'm pretty sure that every Kindergarten and Preschool teacher I know owns this book.  It's 125 pages filled with games and reproducibles.  Mine is falling apart, but any of you who know me in real life are welcome to it.

K- here's the vid of J in his Batman PJ's showing me his super hero reading skills:


Untitled from Tacy Cauthron on Vimeo.


See?  Any parent can do this stuff.  And when you do do it, call your kid out on saying "gun" instead of "sun".  I didn't catch that the first time I watched the vid.

Little stinker.

Anyway, hope this was helpful to those of you with little pre-readers running around.  I'm going to go have a glass of wine, watch "Glee", and get my brain back to mush mode.

That's its preferred state nowadays.

You all have a good night.