Reading Part 1 - Module 1 Notes
Great Teaching Video
● You will be in a school your whole life
● The interpretor between publishers and the students - you know the students best and
what they are learning
● Everything is being done with intention and purpose
Introduction - Discussion Post
Hello everyone! My name is Alexa Prosolowski and I am currently teaching in the Thames
Valley District School Board. I just got hired to a 1.0 contract for teaching Grade 7/8 at the end
of June. Last year I taught the same grade in an LTO at the same school as well. Before coming
to London in 2020, I traveled to teach in England as well as Australia where I was a math
teacher to middle schoolers. I absolutely love math and have dedicated a long time to learning
how to teach it the best but I found this year that my language program was not up to the same
stuff as my math program was. So I decided to take this summer to improve my language
program and this seemed like a great first step.
As a grade 7 and 8 teacher, I normally have a lot of expectations that my students will
understand what they are reading as they are older but this year I had to teach comprehension
as a huge unit because even though my students could read the words they didn’t understand
the meaning. I would love to use this course as a great first step to overhaul my language
program with the new curriculum this summer.
Discussion Post Success Criteria:
Speaking of
Reading Article Aboriginal
Education in Ontario: What Are We Learning?
● Bring in the culture of FNMI
peoples helps with the success
of school and attitude toward
school
● All students gain success
from interacting in various
cultures
● Positive attitude toward
school is how students
continue to come and get
educated especially as they get
older
● Keeping children coming to
school should be a top priority asking them what they need to
come to school
What is Literacy? Discussion Post
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Reading is a process involving specific skills that need to be taught and learned
These neural pathways for reading are built through systematic and explicit instruction
and strengthened through repeated practice.
Students develop oral language proficiency by listening and speaking (including through
experiences with other languages), which lays a solid foundation for reading
Strong reading comprehension occurs when students derive meaning from oral
language and combine it with fluency in reading words and texts
Knowing how language is structured is key to developing early reading skills.\
Strong reading comprehension is only achieved through language comprehension and
decoding, not one or the other in isolation.
● After decoding a word and word
parts sufficiently and often, the internal
representation of the precise sequence
of letters is stored in long-term memory
and linked with the word’s
pronunciation and meaning. At this
point, students can recognize the word
automatically as a “sight word,” without
using a decoding strategy.
● With repeated practice, young
students build up an ever-growing
bank of sight words and sight letter combinations. This automatic recognition of words
leads to more fluent and proficient reading
Strong foundational knowledge and skills in both oral and written language are
necessary to support more complex skills such as critical thinking and problem solving.
Learning to communicate by using language with clarity and precision, and in a variety of
media and modes, will help students to thrive in the world beyond school and to become
lifelong learners.
The systematic teaching of foundational knowledge and skills is critically important. It
requires focused and dedicated time and must follow a carefully planned sequence for
introducing specific concepts, knowledge, and skills.
Research has repeatedly demonstrated that strong oral communication skills are critical
for academic and vocational success as well as social-emotional well-being. Oral
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communication is a complex set of skills that includes both oral language (i.e., listening
comprehension and speaking) and non-verbal communication (e.g., body language,
facial expression, gestures).
Strong reading comprehension occurs when students derive meaning from oral
language and combine it with fluency in reading words and texts. Oral language
continues to impact reading proficiency as students progress through school and build a
growing vocabulary.
a strong foundation in both reading and writing, and emphasizes teaching these two
different skills in an interdependent way, so that one skill reinforces and strengthens the
other.
Successful and confident language learners share the following characteristics:
○ They display accuracy and automaticity in foundational language skills.
○ They understand deeply as they listen, read, and view and speak, write, and
represent, effectively and with confidence.
○ They make meaningful connections between themselves, the texts they
encounter, and the world around them.
○ They think critically about the texts they read and create.
○ They understand that all texts have a specific point of view that must be
recognized, questioned, assessed, and evaluated.
○ They acknowledge the cultural and social impact of texts and appreciate their
aesthetic power.
○ They use language to interact and connect with individuals and communities, for
personal growth and for active participation as global citizens.
○ They recognize that language learning is a necessary, reflective, and lifeenhancing process.
○ They use cognitive strategies to learn from complex texts.
○ They are motivated and purposeful in their learning, including learning related to
their goals.
The knowledge and skills described in the four strands are interdependent and
complementary.
Becoming skilled at understanding, using, and creating texts in many different forms is
necessary for students to succeed in the modern world.
paying_attention_literacy.pdf
Choose a specific grade to focus on. How would you define literacy to the students in the grade
you have chosen? Why would you tell them literacy is important? Be mindful of the age group
your explanation is for … (e.g., a Grade 2 definition and explanation would be very different than
the definition and explanation of literacy you share with a Grade 10 class). Share your response
with your classmates.
Defining Literacy to a Grade 7 student:
Reading is not something that we as human beings just know. Reading is something that needs
to be taught and needs to be practiced over and over again. Growing up we are constantly
listening to everything around us and then we start to speak and this lays the groundwork for
learning how to read. Oral communication is how we put meaning to the words we read
because of the context we have from speaking and listening. Think about the word “ball” people around you told you that a round object that you kick or throw is called a ball. So when
you finally read the word - you understand the meaning. As we grow up we start to learn more
complex words and vocabulary. As we start to recognize more and more words, we become
proficient readers. Oral communication and reading play a huge role together in becoming a
literate individual.
Literacy is important because the skills we gain through literacy (such as reading and writing)
help with more complex skills like critical thinking and problem solving. These skills we gain
from literacy help you in everyday life (even in social situations) by giving you an understanding
of verbal communication (listening skills) and non-verbal cues (facial expressions and body
language). Literacy is also important as it helps you understand the world around you through
making connections, asking questions, and interacting with other cultures. Learning how to
understand and interact in the world all begins at learning literacy skills.
The Reading Strand - Reflection
What is one take-away that you have after reading the new curriculum? Have you ever read this
section of the curriculum before? Reflect on whether reading the curriculum section on reading
is helpful to you as a teacher?
● There is more of an emphasis on non-verbal communication skills now
● More specific about explicit instruction of vocabulary and the make up of words
● More specific about various types of reading comprehension strategies
● Emphasis on creating text (with cursive and keyboarding skills now included)
● Reading the key changes was helpful as it really helped me understand how different
items are taking more precedence over previous things in the curriculum
● Also helped me understand how Media Literacy is now weaving throughout instead of in
just one strand
Right To Read Report - Discussion Post
Useful Definitions
Alphabetic Principle: Is the understanding that there is a relationship between written letters
and sound.
Concepts of Print: Concepts related to the way language is conveyed in print. Print concepts
include directionality (English language text is read from left to right and from top to bottom), the
difference between letters and words (letters are symbols that represent sounds; words are
made up of letters; there are spaces between words), the use of capitalization and punctuation,
and the common characteristics of books (title, author, front/back).
Decode: To see a written word, to assign a phoneme to each of its graphemes, and to smoothly
blend those phonemes (left to right) to form a complete pronunciation. This is also known as
"sounding out" a word. If the word is then recognized by the child, because it’s in his or her
spoken (or listening) vocabulary, this process is known as reading.
Encode: To hear a spoken word, to segment (or separate) it into all its constituent phonemes,
and to assign a grapheme to each of those phonemes. This process is known as spelling.
Decoding and encoding are opposite processes. Blending and segmenting are opposite ways of
dealing with phonemes.
Graphemes: a letter (or a group of letters) that symbolize a single phoneme. Nearly all
graphemes consist of one or two letters.
For any given word, the number of phonemes and graphemes are equal.
Onsets: The consonant or consonants that occur before a vowel in a syllable (e.g., the g in gain,
the fr in fright).
Orthographic Mapping: use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect)
the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings)
Orthographic Mapping automatically creates sight words.
Phoneme: the most elemental unit of sound in a given language (usually designated by slash
marks). For example, /a/ (lowercase) is the first sound you can hear in the word APPLE (before
you close your mouth to articulate the P sound). The sound /A/ (uppercase) is the first sound
you can hear in APRIL (long A). The words CAT, SHED, CHEAP, and TAUGHT (for example)
have three phonemes each, despite the fact that they have 3, 4, 5, and 6 letters respectively:
CAT = /k/ + /a/ + /t/
SHED = /sh/ + /e/ + /d/ (lowercase /e/ = short E)
CHEAP = /ch/ + /E/ + /p/ (uppercase /E/ = long E)
TAUGHT = /t/ + /aw/ + /t/
Phonemic Awareness: To become conscious of phonemes in speech. Most illiterate children
(and adults) are unconscious of phonemes. Blending and segmenting are the key phonemic
awareness skills.
The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes (the smallest units of spoken language)
in spoken words.
Phonics: Instruction that teaches children the relationships between the letters (graphemes) of
written language and the individual sounds (phonemes) of spoken language.
Phonological Awareness
The ability to focus on and manipulate units of language, including phonemes and larger spoken
units such as syllables and words.
Phonological awareness activities can also involve rhymes, onsets, and rimes.
Rime: The part of a syllable that contains the vowel and all that follows it (e.g., -one in bone and
tone). A rime is smaller than a
syllable but larger than a phoneme.
Sight Word: a written word that is recognized at a glance. A written word which no longer needs
to be identified by decoding (sounding out).
Sources: https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/sight-words-orthographic-mapping-and-selfteaching
https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/the-role-of-orthographic-mapping-in-learning-toread/#:~:text=Orthographic%20mapping%20is%20the%20process,a%20word%20(the%20spelli
ngs).
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/alphabeticprinciple#:~:text=The%20alphabetic%20principle%20is%20the,the%20sounds%20of%20spoke
n%20language.
Please include the following:
- Brief summary
- New learning
- Inspiration -- what are you inspired to try? What are you looking forward to implement or
continue to implement?
- Lingering wonderings and implementation supports -- what do you still question? What do you
require in order to implement some of the recommendations?
Summary:
● The goal of reading is to understand and make meaning from what is read.
● The evidence is clear that good reading comprehension requires being able to read
words accurately and quickly, or automatically.
● It also requires good oral language comprehension, including strong vocabulary and
background knowledge.
● Decades of multidisciplinary research has shown that the best way to teach all students
to read words is through direct, explicit, systematic instruction in foundational wordreading skills.
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Beginning in Kindergarten, this includes explicit instruction in phonemic awareness,
From about Grade 2, explicit instruction focuses on more advanced knowledge and
skills, such as increased study of word structures and patterns
Tier 1 is the core curriculum that all students receive in the classroom. Meeting the right
to read requires high-quality tier 1 classroom instruction using an evidence-based,
scientifically researched core curriculum. This would meet the needs of about 80 to 90%
of students.
Teachers make a difference in the success of their students when they hold a
fundamental belief that all children can learn to read and when they have the skills and
determination to make it happen.
Many leading reports have stressed the importance of teachers being equipped with the
skills and knowledge to deliver evidence-based reading instruction, including that
needed for teaching foundational word reading skills.
So, for students to understand what they read, they must learn to decode, to turn written
words into the corresponding spoken word.
When a student must put a lot of time, effort and attention into reading words, it
interferes with the flow of language in the text and uses up mental resources making it
harder to understand what is read.
Balanced literacy or comprehensive balanced literacy approaches, cueing systems and
other whole language beliefs and practices are not supported by the science of reading.
When schools fail to teach students how to read words accurately and fluently, students
will find it more difficult to understand and make meaning from what they read. They will
be at greater risk of future academic difficulties and other negative consequences.
Future and current teachers are generally not taught how skilled reading develops,
including the importance of strong early word-reading skills for future reading fluency
and reading comprehension.
Teachers do not adequately learn how to teach phonemic awareness, phonics and
decoding, and word-reading efficiency.
They must seek out this knowledge elsewhere, often by spending their own time and
money on research, resources and private training programs.
However, this should not be left to the discretion of individual boards, and professional
development should be consistent across the province.
Summary:
● The goal of reading is to understand what is being read and this is done through good
oral language communication, a strong vocabulary and background knowledge.
● The best way to teach reading is through direct, explicit, and systematic instruction
which begins with phonemic awareness and then progresses to the study of word
patterns and structures
● Teachers make the most impact when they believe all their students will successfully
read
● Many teachers do not have the knowledge or skills required to teach the science of
reading effectively in their classroom because of a lack of professional development
from the province and their individual boards.
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When a student must put a lot of time, effort and attention into reading words, it
interferes with the flow of language in the text and uses up mental resources making it
harder to understand what is read.
When school fails to teach students how to read words accurately and fluently, this has
negative consequences for other academic subjects and after their schooling career
ends
New Learning:
● Balanced literacy and cueing that the province used to teach is not based in the science
of reading
● Teaching direct, explicit, systematic instruction is how students effectively learn to read
● Oral communication and reading are directly connected
● Teachers do not have effective education on how to teach these skills and there is no
professional development beyond what they decide to do themselves
Inspiration:
● I will be changing my daily language lesson to include more direct and explicit instruction
about vocabulary now that I understand why it is so important to reading comprehension
Wonderings:
● Why did Ontario ever go to a Balanced Literacy approach when it was not based in the
Science of Reading?
● Now that the curriculum has officially changed to support the science of reading, will
teachers receive more professional development on it?