Standard 2: Reading Foundations

Students will develop foundational skills for future reading success by working with sounds, letters, and text.

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS: Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize, think about, and manipulate sounds in spoken language without using text. 

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will begin to distinguish initial sounds in spoken words.
• Students will begin to distinguish ending sounds in spoken words.

• Teachers explain that the initial/beginning sound is the first sound you hear when you say a word.

• Teachers model by exaggerating initial sounds, beginning with letters that have continuant sounds. *Continuant sounds can be produced for long periods of time.  Some examples of letters with continuant sounds are f,l,m,n,s,v,z.

• Teachers read texts that use alliteration and point out same sound words to students.

• Teachers use children’s names and names of familiar objects or actions to show alliteration. Example:  Tom table, Peter pencil, Katie kicks, Jack jumps.

• Teachers give students opportunities to interact with initial sounds through word games and activities.

• Teachers monitor and provide feedback to ensure students correctly isolate initial sounds in spoken words.

• Teachers explain the that words have beginning, ending, and middle sounds.

• Teachers model by exaggerating final sounds (during initial instruction) begin with letters that have continuant sounds. *Continuant sounds can be produced for long periods of time.  Some examples of letters with continuant sounds are f,l,m,n,s,v,z.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to interact with ending sounds through word games and activities.  

• Teachers monitor and provide feedback to ensure students correctly isolate final sounds in spoken words.

Resources

Teacher Insights 

The 44* Phonemes of the English Language (PDF)

TPRI:  Alliteration Sort (PDF)

Florida Center for Reading Research:  Pre-K Activities (webpage)

Florida Center for Reading Research:  Alliteration Activities (PDF) 

Hand Motions for Teaching Phonological Awareness (PDF) 

• Using hand motions or manipulatives can help students identify sounds. 

• The ability to focus on beginning sounds of words is an early step in sound or phoneme segmentation.  

• Students first learn to identify and match words that begin with the same sounds, then begin to develop the ability to produce words that begin with the same sound.  

• Phonological Awareness continuums identify final sounds as more difficult to isolate and identify than beginning sounds. However, beginning and final sounds are easier than medial sounds to isolate and identify.

• Student learning can be scaffolded by beginning with words containing two sounds (e.g., my, no)  and gradually increasing to words containing three sounds (e.g., cat, sit) as the students become more proficient. 

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.