March 12, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of Literacy Talks, we dive into the Structured Literacy Infomap, a powerful tool designed to align educators on the principles and practices of effective literacy instruction. Hosts Stacy Hurst, Donell Pons, and Lindsay Kemeny explore how this visual framework supports professional development, bridges gaps between teacher knowledge and practice, and enhances reading and writing instruction. From phonemic awareness to morphology, syllable structure to orthographic conventions, our hosts break down key components of Structured Literacy and discuss practical strategies for integrating them into the classroom.
Whether you're a seasoned educator or just beginning your literacy journey, this episode offers valuable insights to help you navigate the road to literacy success.
Note: If you're viewing the online version of the Perspectives issue, the article referenced in this episode starts on page 32.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Narrator (00:03):
Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast for literacy
leaders and championseverywhere, brought to you by
Reading Horizons. Literacy talksis the place to discover new
ideas, trends, insights andpractical strategies for helping
all learners reach readingproficiency. Our hosts are
Stacey Hurst, a professor atSouthern Utah University and
(00:26):
Chief Academic Advisor forReading Horizons. Donell pons, a
recognized expert and advocatein literacy, dyslexia and
special education, and LindsayKemeny, an elementary classroom
teacher, author and speaker. Nowlet's talk literacy.
Stacy Hurst (00:48):
Welcome to another episode of literacy Talks. My
name is Stacy Hurst, and I'mjoined by Donnell pons and
Lindsay Kemeny. And those of youwho've been joining us this
season know that we are focusingon the perspectives on language
and literacy. 75th anniversaryissue. It's titled structured
literacy grounded in the scienceof reading. And today we are
(01:13):
going to address the overviewsection of that issue. It's that
is titled structured literacyand integrated approach to the
science of reading, lots ofreally good information. If
you're following along in yourissue, it is pages 30 through 45
so we have a lot to cover, and Ihave the privilege of leading
(01:35):
this discussion, which I alwayslove, because I get to ask
questions and hear what Donnelland Lindsay have to say. I love
it, a big part of this section.
And as you two know, of theissue is the info map, and that
is found on page 31 and BarbaraWilson is the author of this
article, and she says thisarticle is designed to
(01:56):
synthesize and summarize keypoints following the
International DyslexiaAssociation's structured
literacy info map, that's whatthey're calling it. So we will
refer to it like that. So theeducators are aligned on a
framework. So I appreciate thatthat's the mission, that we're
(02:16):
aligned. The info map provides avisual representation of
structured literacy principlesand practices. And then she
points out again that the termstructured literacy is
relatively new, but the tenantsof the approach are not and she
goes on to define it. Of course,it's all kind. It's informed by
all kinds of domains acrosslanguage and as it pertains to
(02:41):
reading and writing writtenexpression. So she also
clarifies again, which I thinkwe've done frequently, that
structured literacy is not aprogram. And then she also
states this, most importantly,teachers must have professional
learning and significant supportto provide high quality,
(03:04):
structured literacy in acomprehensive way. She suggests
that the info map can play asignificant role in teacher
training. So Donnell andLindsay, I'd be curious to know
how you think that the info mapwould enhance professional
development, and what potentialdoes it have to help bridge gaps
between teacher knowledge andpractice about the science of
(03:26):
reading?
Lindsay Kemeny (03:29):
Well, I think it can kind of serve as a roadmap
for you to look at to see, okay,do my teachers have knowledge in
all these different areas? Dothey need help and support? And
I think the key in that quoteyou just read Stacy was it was
saying they need training, butalso support, and that's huge,
and that's what's a lot oftimes, what is missing where we
(03:52):
have the professionaldevelopment, but we don't have
the follow up and the supportmaybe that we need as teachers
to do what you're asking us todo. So just, I think that's so
key. Let's remember to supportthe teachers, provide them with
the materials they need andmaybe the coaching they need,
and maybe they need somescheduling help in the
(04:13):
classroom. You know, to do thesethings. Yeah,
Donell Pons (04:17):
Lindsay, I was just, I was nodding my head
clearly, if you couldn't see medoing that because all of those
things. And then I want to addthe part where it talks about
integrated. So also, on thismap, remember these domains or
these things we're going to talkabout that are on this info map,
they're integrated, which alsomeans, again, as Lindsay was
pointing out, it's not justlearning about how to help
(04:41):
students recognize and decodewords. That's a portion. It is
also handwriting, and that canbe very involved for a lot of
students. It's also about acomposition, putting together
long that can be very involved.
So these are all the componentswe're asking teachers to be
informed on. And that's reallydriven home by looking at the.
Info map is to say it's morethan just Oh, letters and
(05:01):
sounds. That's that's a reallygood and foundational piece,
absolutely. But we're askingteachers to do a whole lot more
than that, to bring fullliteracy, the full complement of
literacy for a student, andthat, as Lindsay, you pointed
out, Stacey, we've all said itmany times, requires really good
ongoing training and support andappropriate materials the time,
all of these things. I thinkthat's important too. With the
(05:25):
info map, it shows you that,
Lindsay Kemeny (05:29):
yeah, and you just reminded me, you know, I
saw something online recentlyfrom a teacher who said, you
know, what can I share with somecolleagues? Because they're
saying that structured literacyis just about phonics. How can I
show them that it's not justabout phonics? And I responded
and said, Look at this info map,right here. You look at the info
(05:49):
map, and it's there's clearlymore than just phonics on there.
The phonemes and graphemes areone small part, and there's a
lot of other things on there,and there's clearly on their
comprehension, you know, and thethings that go into it. So,
yeah. So I think it's a, it's agreat overview of structured
literacy. And the IDA, they'rethe organization that termed
(06:13):
that coin to the term structuredliteracy,
Stacy Hurst (06:17):
yeah. And she makes a good point here, too, where
she says that the term scienceof reading and structured
literacy are notinterchangeable, and I think of
it a little bit historically,like research, which is the
science of reading right, hasalways informed practice. I
appreciate that they coined theterm structured literacy,
because what else would we callit? Right? And you think back to
(06:41):
in the last 50 years, the factthat research has always
influenced what we call ourinstruction. So we had Ken
Goodman's research that helpedinform what we called in
practice whole language, andthen we had the national reading
panel that helped us coin theterm in practice based on their
(07:01):
meta analysis of the research.
Our practice became known asbalanced literacy, and now that
we are focusing more on thescience of reading as a whole,
now it's called structuredliteracy, I think that just
makes so much sense, right? Soin this article, she goes over
the what, why, how and who, andso I thought we'd just go
(07:25):
chronologically, the what Ithink is very important. There's
a lot of information here. Soessentially, the what is the
instructional content, or thecomponents of the evidence based
instruction, and I love they usethe word often in this article
simultaneously. So writtenlanguage skills and Donnell,
(07:48):
you've already mentioned it inthis podcast, should be taught
simultaneously for both reading,for word recognition and
comprehension, and writing,which includes handwriting,
spelling and composition. Sothey're pointing out structured
literacy is comprehensive. Sowe're going to start with word
recognition and handwriting andspelling. And even in the design
(08:09):
of the info map, you can see howthey're emphasizing simultaneous
use of the two. So we start withphonemes and graphemes. So who
this will be a quiz for Donnelland Lindsay and myself
throughout the whole episode.
But we're going to start bydefining who wants to define
what phonemes and graphemes are.
Lindsay Kemeny (08:32):
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. So if I
say, er, like, that's thephoneme and the grapheme that
represents that sound, it's thespelling that represents so when
I said, er, we have E R, I r andu r are graphemes that represent
this phoneme. Er, good
Stacy Hurst (08:52):
definition.
Lindsay, a phoneme is thesmallest unit of speech, and we
are a grapheme spells a phoneme.
So you'll always have as manygraphemes in a word as you have
phonemes, right?
Lindsay Kemeny (09:05):
Oh, and I'd add a grapheme can be anywhere from
one to four letters,
Stacy Hurst (09:10):
true. And we I talked about the just today in
my class that one of my classesI taught, for example, in the
word though, we have twophonemes, and O, and the
grapheme that spells O and thatword is O, U, G, H, so four
letters can spell that onephoneme. Okay, so let's talk
(09:31):
about then we know what phonemesand graphemes are. They really
are the elements that we'reworking with in language, right,
written and spoken. So now let'stalk about phoneme awareness.
Donnell, how would you definephoneme awareness?
Donell Pons (09:45):
Well, it's the ability to be aware of and
consciously think about phonemesor individual speech sounds in
spoken words. So folks, ifyou're listening and you're
thinking, oh gosh, I'm maybe alittle rusty on these terms, is
that okay? Yes, it's perfectlyfine. My heavens and all on page
30, or is it 35 there aredefinitions of a lot of the
(10:05):
stuff we're talking about. Soagain, if this is new for some
people, and they're still kindof swimming in the definition,
hey, I know how to do this,though, don't worry, right? So
again, everybody's on a littledifferent trajectory. Maybe this
isn't new for you, or it's veryfamiliar. Some of this might be
unfamiliar, but that's okay. Andremember again, everybody can be
in a different place. So if youwant the terminology, you're
(10:26):
thinking, this is going prettyquickly for you. You're feeling
a little nervous, look at page35 in the structured literacy of
the handbook, or the manualperspective, and you can take a
look at it. We just wanted togive a little note regarding the
page number references that arementioned during conversations
of the podcast regarding theperspectives publication, it's
drawn to our attention that thepage numbers do not match
(10:48):
oftentimes. And so there aredifferences between maybe an
online version versus a printpublication. And so it would be
best just to skin the articleand see where maybe the piece is
mentioned. And so unfortunately,those numbers do not match. But,
yeah, that's phoneme awareness.
So it's that ability to be awareof and what does that mean to be
aware of and consciously thinkabout? So that's the piece where
I need to do something with it.
(11:11):
I may be aware of it, I may bedoing it all the time, but then
what can I do with it? That'sthe consciously aware part of
it, right? So we make a lot ofassumptions about kiddos. When
they're Hey there. They seem tobe just fine. They're speaking
fine. And then you start gettinginto the nitty gritty and
saying, Well, let's peel off asound or two here, and then
what's left, and what do youhear? And what, how do you
manipulate that? And that's whenyou really start to find out
(11:32):
that there can be a deficit fora student who otherwise looks
just fine, blends into aclassroom. But then when it
comes down to the nitty gritty,being able to pull that apart
and really be able to work withsounds. There might be a
challenge there. That's what wewant to get to right to help
kids with that and others.
Stacy Hurst (11:47):
And along with phoneme awareness, there are a
lot of different tasks that wecan do with that. The definition
essentially involves being ableto identify and manipulate those
sounds in language. And so as apart of manipulating them. There
are a lot of different tasksthat we can do. I love that. In
this article, she points out,and I think the infographic
(12:08):
helps illustrate this, thatblending and segmentation at the
phoneme level are the mostimportant phonemic awareness
skills, since they lead directlyto the acquisition of decoding
and encoding skills, meaningreading and spelling, right? So
(12:28):
I think that's important,because when I started teaching
and knowing about phonemicawareness, I spent a lot of time
on things like rhyming or, yeah,onset rhyme word families. Had I
known that on the phoneme level,blending and segmentation had a
more direct impact on readingand spelling, I probably would
(12:49):
have spent more time there.
There. Lindsay, what does thislook like in your classroom?
Lindsay Kemeny (12:55):
Well, we are blending and segmenting all day,
because those are the skills,you know, the critical skills
for reading and writing. And ifwe're reading and writing all
day, we're working on thosephonemic awareness skills. So,
you know, I like to start I I'mteaching first grade, I start
our phonics lessons with a quickwarm up of blending and
segmenting that usually containthe sound or phoneme. You know
(13:21):
that we're going to be focusingon that day, like today we're
practicing r a r r, and so wecan blend and segment words that
have a R R in them to just towarm up that take a few minutes.
And then, you know, in ourphonics lessons, well, when
we're doing dictation, wherewe're going to practice spelling
words with a R, R, and we'regoing to segment those sounds
(13:46):
all together orally, and thenthey're going to write them just
immediately after, and I'm goingto have them say the sounds
again as they're writing them.
So there's what are they doing?
They're stretching those soundsout in the word as they're
writing them. You know, studentsare working on blending when
they're reading. They might befine, like at this time of the
(14:09):
year, they might be fineblending. They might still
struggle a little bit,especially the beginning of the
year, first grade, we are, youknow, I'm helping them blend CVC
words. And when a student reallystruggles to blend, it's I
really like to help that studentin small group, because that's
when I can really give them themost support. And you'll see
(14:31):
that all the time. I seequestions like, well, they know
the sounds. They said app, butthen they said tip, or they said
Pat, and said it backwards, orthey said top, or they said
something completely different.
That is showing you that they'restruggling with blending. So
then I'm going to help them, andwe're going to say, and I'm
(14:53):
going to just going to cover theP at first, and I'm going to
help them blend those two soundstogether, tap. Ah, now if they
might not be able to blend thosetwo phonemes together at first,
especially if they have aweakness in this area, if they
can't, and they go and theycan't blend them, I blend for
them, and I say TA, and I havethem repeat TA, and they're
gonna hang on to that, ah, untilI unveil the last letter, tap,
(15:16):
tap, and they'll be able to dothat. And so I'm going to keep
helping them, you know, scaffoldthat until eventually I can pull
my voice back and they can blendthe first two phonemes, fine.
And then they add the third. Andthen suddenly, Oh, yay. After a
couple weeks, hey, they canblend all three of those. And
(15:36):
we're, you know, and then it'sgoing to go to the next level.
Once they're really good at CBC,we're going to add words with
blends so you can hear, youknow, words with four sounds is
going to be harder, like stop,that's going to be harder for
them to blend and segment.
You'll see kids write SOP forstop because it's hard to pull
apart those two letters thatblend together. So, yeah, does
(15:59):
that? Does that answer yourquestion? There's a little a
little a peak. I mean, this islike, this is first grade. This
is what we're doing
Stacy Hurst (16:05):
exactly. I love how you highlighted that the
connection between beingphonemically aware, you need to
be able to blend phonemes whenyou're reading. Once you connect
the the spelling to the graphthe phoneme to the grapheme, and
then you need to spell. You needto you start with segmentation,
so you can see how it would havea direct impact and how you're
(16:26):
supporting that in yourinstruction. Donnell, how does
this differ for younger versusolder learners? Not much.
Donell Pons (16:33):
I was just saying.
I've used a lot of the samestrategies. It shouldn't
surprise folks that there are alot of people who had did not
receive the instruction thatthey needed. And unfortunately,
I have worked with adults whoI'm doing exactly what Lindsay
just described, because that'swhere we need to be. That's
exactly where we need to be. AndLindsay said some really great
things that are part ofstructured literacy, as well as
she did her little demonstrationabout how she would help a
(16:54):
student. That structuredliteracy includes being direct
and systematic, and it's masteryoriented. I mean, all those
parts of teaching as well. Sonot only it's what we're
teaching, but it's how we'redoing it, right? You watching
Lindsay integrate right there,we're watching the integration
of all that, right together,talking about how I would go
about helping a student. And soI don't skip those pieces for
older students. You don't say,Oh, just because you're older,
(17:17):
you should have all of that,right? No, you don't. You don't
make assumptions either. That'sthe other piece. And so what do
youngers need? The same thingadults and vice versa? Yeah,
yeah,
Stacy Hurst (17:27):
that's really important. I like how the how on
the info map is adjacent to thewhat. So that I'm glad you
pointed out it's reallyimportant.
Lindsay Kemeny (17:36):
And I just want to pin that, because Donnell,
you brought up something wheresometimes we have, like, we
think, Oh, I, I, this is myphone like, we have a program,
and this is my phonemicawareness program done, check
the box, but the key there is noyou are integrating that
phonemic awareness throughoutthe day. So you could see how I
was describing, like, we areconnecting that phonemic
(18:00):
awareness with letters as we'redoing activities throughout the
day. So as we're writing, we'resegmenting and thinking about
those sounds as we're reading. Iwas just showing you how I would
help a student blend when theyhave the letters right there in
front of them with the book, youknow, like in small group, and
I'm helping them read thosewords. We are working on that
(18:21):
phonemic awareness. So it's it'sjust important to remember it's
not like one and done, and it'snot separate from everything
else we're doing. But, yeah, Ilove that word integrate, and
that's what we're doing. We'reintegrating it throughout the
day. Yeah. And
Stacy Hurst (18:35):
another thing that is important, I think, to know
for teachers is that Rhyming isgreat. It's a fun activity. Kids
love it, but it's not going tohave as directive an impact on
your reading and spelling, likeyou're talking about with my
students. And again, I'm in ahigher ed situation. We're
getting ready. It's thebeginning of our semester. We're
(18:55):
going to start our tutoring, andwe use the assessing reading
multiple measures book, so theyhave a phonological awareness
assessment. Part C of thatassessment is phoneme
segmentation, and that's theonly assessment I have my
students give, because the otherthing is, rhyming can come
online at any point, right? Butwe need to get to that phoneme
(19:19):
level, and if we want toaccelerate our instruction and
close gaps, that's where we needto be focusing on and like you
two have both said making thoseconnections.
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Stacy Hurst (20:26):
so next on the infographic, syllable and stress
patterns. So who wants to definea syllable? Let's start there.
Lindsay Kemeny (20:37):
A syllable is a unit of language that contains a
vowel sound,
Stacy Hurst (20:46):
exactly one vowel sound. Good job. Good job.
Donnell, what? How would youdefine a stress pattern?
Donell Pons (20:53):
And so again, for folks, this is page 36 so if
you're thinking to yourself, ohmy gosh, I'm a little bit rusty,
I don't know, go ahead and diveinto your book, and you'll be
able to see all of what we'retalking about here. So we're not
expecting to remember this or tohave ready answers, but if this
is new for you, so as Lindsaywas saying about the syllable,
(21:13):
educators teach students aboutsyllables structure. It might be
called something you know,patterns, whatever the name
you're familiar with, but that'swhat you're doing, and it's
including accent or stress, andthat's whether it's accented or
unaccented, the stress patternwithin when you're speaking or
saying those words, and that canbe important, and it's regional.
(21:33):
So let's remember this too.
There are challenges, becauseI've had many teachers in
trainings who have gone I'm notreally sure about where the word
is stressed or unstressed, andoftentimes it can be different
depending on where you live,regionally, how you speak, yeah,
Stacy Hurst (21:48):
great definition and explanation. So research
tells us that this instructionstrengthens students word
analysis ability and wordrecognition as well as their
spelling skill. So I think mybig question for both of you,
how have you seen an improvementin those things, in word
recognition and spelling,specifically as a result of
(22:11):
syllable instruction?
Lindsay Kemeny (22:16):
Well, right now, let's see. It's when we're
recording this. It's January.
I'm teaching first grade, andreally, I'm starting to focus on
syllables right now, whereasbefore, I was really just having
them blend and segmentindividual sounds. Just now, I'm
saying, hey, let's count thesyllables in a word, because we
are now reading and writingmulti syllabic words. And what
(22:39):
happens sometimes, if you don'tpay attention to this is like,
when they put, oh, let's see.
I'm trying to think of anexample, but when they're gonna
say, like, spell the wordbetter, they might just put an R
at the end. They got, might go,B, E, T, R, or, you know, maybe
(23:00):
they'll even get the TT and thenput an R. But when I start
showing them, hey, as we'regonna practice writing multi
syllabic words, which, you know,you don't need to use that term
with them, but then I can showthem better, how many syllables?
Better too. And then we'll sayfirst syllable. Bet, tell me it
(23:20):
sounds but bet then they canwrite that second syllable, er,
er, and then we're like,remember, every syllable needs a
vowel, and that can help remindthem to use that er, great.
Great
Stacy Hurst (23:35):
example. Done now,
Donell Pons (23:37):
yeah, for those older students, I, for me,
oftentimes, I call this theorder in a world of chaos. When
you start introducing, and youhave a nice way of introducing
the syllables you're gonnayou're gonna boil it down to
these, you know, General Majortypes first, because remember,
we start with things that we cantake in, and then we're going to
add later, those things that canbe a little more confusing when
(23:58):
we got mastery. This is restoredorder for adults who were just
hey, it never made a bit ofsense. And I've been struggling
the whole time. Spelling is verydifficult. Reading is very hard
for me. And you introduce thesyllables and wow, it can be a
fantastic moment for folks tosay what. There's some order to
this, what, and I'm going tolearn some of this stuff first.
What, yeah, it's the first timeto actually feel like maybe I
(24:20):
can do this.
Stacy Hurst (24:23):
I also appreciate that both of you have said that
it's important to make itcognitively manageable for them,
and I've seen students who maynot as be as confident in their
reading skills, when they get toa long word in print, it's so
much easier to break it down bysyllable and then apply it to
what they're seeing. Lindsay,were you gonna add to that? I
Lindsay Kemeny (24:45):
was, you know, we have all these different
syllable types, open, close. Youhave your vowel constant E, you
know, you have your valve teamsand your r controlled, and we
need to teach all those things.
And we had a podcast episodebefore we were talking about,
how much do we do of this? Uh,you know, breaking the syllables
and and, you remember, we playedthat little video of my son when
he was doing it. We're kind ofdiscussing how much do we need,
(25:07):
but we do need some, but we knowsome researchers, you know, I
think we talked about DevonKearns is, you know, kind of
advocates, not to rely on thosetoo much, and we talked about
how the key is flexibility andto give our students these
tools. Because sometimesstudents come to a big word and
(25:29):
they just freeze and they don'tknow what to do. And you know,
if they've been taught a processof, hey, look for the vowels.
What's in between them divide itthat kind of helps them and
makes it more manageable. And Iwas just listening to a podcast
with Louisa Moats, who said she,you know, felt like these
(25:51):
syllables are helpful, just notto go overboard. But she kind of
mentioned she thought DevonKearns was going a little
overboard, the other way so, andI just thought that was really
interesting, because we had justtalked about that where she had
said that, I'm like, oh, butit's good to know. Sometimes,
you know, I don't know. We don'thave all the answers, you know.
(26:13):
And so sometimes you do need tojust kind of take a more
balanced approached. I don'twant to use the word balance.
Stacy Hurst (26:24):
I also think there's nuance to all of this,
right? In order to be flexiblewith syllabication, you have to
have a foundational knowledge ofthose vowel sounds, and that is
always determined by the lettersthat surround those vowels, so
it's good to have that workingknowledge. Donnell, were you
going to say something else aswell? Well, it's
Donell Pons (26:46):
just those principles of structured
literacy. Again, if you'retrying to be direct and
systematic with your student andyou're helping them to be
mastery oriented, you're goingto follow your student's lead,
and you have all those skills,hopefully, that you've been
learning and being supportedwith, you'll know how to adjust
and adapt for your studentsparticular needs, staying well
within what you know is theframework of what's correct, but
you can certainly help them,yeah,
Stacy Hurst (27:08):
and once we're on the syllable level, you can't
ignore the next topic, which ismorphology or morphemes, right?
So we need to directly andexplicitly teach about those.
What is a morpheme? We knowphoneme is the smallest unit of
speech. What is a morpheme?
Donell Pons (27:28):
And again, bottom of page 36 if you're saying, Oh,
what's a morpheme? Jump to thebottom. You'll have the answer.
Morphemes are the smallest unitsof meaning, and written
morphemes are called Wordelements.
Stacy Hurst (27:41):
And I this is actually part of the article.
Now this structured literacy isnot I'm not new to it, but I
love that we can always learnsomething that will add just
enough nuance to provide theclarification we need to
accurately teach our students,right? I have always got hung up
(28:03):
on the difference between a rootand a base, always, but the way
that Barbara Wilson describesmorphemes in general, and she
uses the term base element thathelped me refine my thinking,
okay, now I can distinguish. I'ma little bit closer to mastering
that distinction, right? Andthen she does say also on page
(28:25):
36 like you pointed out, Donnellwords with more than one base
element account for more thanhalf of the vocabulary that
students encounter while readingbeyond a fourth grade level. So
that goes to show you, in theNRN game, those morphemes are
going to play a really big role,but we need to start somewhere.
(28:45):
So Lindsay, when should theteaching of morphemes begin? How
do you teach these in firstgrade?
Lindsay Kemeny (28:51):
Yeah, you can start teaching them really
young. I mean, kindergartners,when you just teach them to add
an s, you know, at the end of aword, like dog, and you add an
s, guess what? That's amorpheme. So you're starting
this from the time they're youngto say, hey, just adding this
one letter S change the meaning.
And you can show a picture ofone dog versus more than one
dog, you know, a few of them tokind of drill that in. So
(29:15):
tomorrow, in my first gradeclass, I'm going to be teaching
the ED suffix, so that's amorpheme because now that's
showing past tense. And so wecan do that right in our in our
phonics program. So yeah, wecan, you can start when they're
young.
Stacy Hurst (29:36):
Yeah, I love that.
And it when they're young. Theterm we typically use is
morphological awareness, andyou're really helping to build
that awareness. In my class,just last week, we talked about
morphemes, and we used a wordlike myocarditis. Also a benefit
of knowing morphemes is readingyour medical bills. Brought.
(29:57):
Medical reports, but we talkedabout Myo means muscle. Card
means cardio or heart, and itisis inflammation. So if you have
myocarditis, you haveinflammation of the heart
muscle, and it's reallyappealing to them. They get so
excited to learn those things ascollege students. So Donnell,
you work with students who areregularly exposed to text beyond
(30:21):
a fourth grade level. How do youaddress morphology in your
instruction? And do you havesome examples of how the impact
that it's had on reading andwriting for your students?
Donell Pons (30:35):
Yeah, I just so it's interesting. Lindsay,
you're talking about the youngerstudents, because even those
little kiddos, and I love seeinglittle kiddos light up when
they're start doing some of thisstuff, is understanding that the
base word even for somethingthat would be really exciting
for a kid, like a gift that canyou imagine, if somebody left
off the s on gift, what wouldyou get? One when you went a
(30:56):
whole lot more so yeah, kidsreally get that? Oh, well,
that's important, right? Don'twant to miss that. S and I think
Likewise, with older students,it's kind of interesting,
because their struggle,oftentimes, has meant that they
haven't had the opportunity tobe able to take some time with
(31:18):
the words, to sit with them fora minute and to say, Okay, how
does this impact? If I changethe beginning of this word, and
that's the prefix, because itcomes before, and I had this
word that meant this, and then Iadded the prefix, and now it
means this. Haven't really had awhole lot of time, because the
whole time they were just tryingto take the words apart to be
able to decode them, to readright? And never mind, was I
(31:40):
going to be able to be able tospell that. So now, when you've
restored order through thatchaos, because you're giving
them some syllables, we'vegotten to our did our sounds, we
made sure alphabetic principlewas solid and on board. And
we're all integrating thesethings, that's an opportunity. I
find it within sentences themost for my older students, it's
when we start looking at wholesentences, because now we're
getting really some really goodspelling skills down, we're
(32:01):
doing some sentences, and westart taking those sentences
apart and understanding what thewords are, what the meaning of
the words in the sentences andtheir relationship to each
other. So again, it'sintegrated, right? I'm not doing
this separately. It's allintegrated within that whole
language piece that I'm doingwith my students. And wow, the
lights start coming on with, ohmy goodness, I didn't realize.
(32:22):
And these, you know, just theimpact of changing that a little
bit, and now suddenly, okay, themeanings of that word that's
really interesting. Theopportunity, I call it
opportunity to sit with wordslike that and to be go back over
them, wow. It's powerful, reallypowerful. Haven't met a student
yet that didn't just love
Stacy Hurst (32:40):
it, and it is. It's an aspect of teaching that I
think students get reallyexcited about, because morphemes
are everywhere, really helps usunlock meaning, right? So the
next item on the what info mapis, orthographic conventions,
this is huge when you considerwe have 44 phonemes and over 250
(33:04):
ways to spell those fourphonemes in English. So let's
start again. Just start with asimple definition. So
orthographic conventions arereferring to orthography, which
is the study of the rules thatgovern written language,
including acceptable spellingcombinations. And there are some
(33:26):
examples. On page 36 they listthe convention of or the the
rule. I should call it thegeneralization in English that
we don't spell at the end of aword that follows a short vowel
sound with the J, we use D, GE.
If it's a long vowel sound,we're going to use GE. And then
we don't spell words with V atthe end of a word. So we add
(33:49):
that E as a placeholder. Thoseare some examples. In addition
to doubling rules that we justtalked about, if you're adding a
morpheme, like a suffix, thenyou need to double, in some
cases, the final consonantbefore you add the suffix. Do
either of you have I know thisis a weird question, but I have
(34:11):
mine, and I don't know if I'mjust weird or unique, but Do
either of you have a favorite,or some favorite, orthographic
conventions that you love toteach,
Lindsay Kemeny (34:27):
like, I'm all a favorite one. I guess it's fun
when you know, my students golike, I'll say English words
don't end with V. And so nowthey like to chant that whenever
they're writing, they have a V,you know? They'll be like,
English words don't end with V,and then they'll add the E, you
know. But I don't know if it'slike, I don't really have a
(34:48):
favorite spacey,
Unknown (34:50):
okay, okay,
Stacy Hurst (34:55):
different types of nerdiness, I guess I am a word
nerd. Clearly. I don't know.
Donell Pons (35:03):
You know what's interesting about this is, I
don't know if I have a favorite,but I always have to remember in
working with older students,because they'll, they'll tell me
right away, right? Oh, that'sreally nice to have that little
spelling convention. But there'sa whole lot of stuff out there
doesn't make a lot of sense tome, and they're quick to point
that out. So let's, I'm alwaysvery because I work with older
(35:25):
students, that's what I usuallyget the feedback about. It's,
it's, they are, they've alreadybeen out there in the wild, and
they're saying there's a wholelot more, and they're right. So
conventions get us so far.
However, I'm going to say itagain. It's a nice base. It
restores a lot of order whenthere had been a lot of chaos.
So that's really nice, and itgives folks a sense of stability
when they're getting their feetunder them. And again, I'm
(35:47):
working with older students whodid not have their feet under
them for so long, and they werejust expected to try to figure
it out without having theskills. And so I love that it
does provide a nice, solid base.
I'm going to acknowledge you'reright. It's not going to answer
every question, but again, orderwhere there was chaos, yeah, and
Stacy Hurst (36:11):
just because I asked the question, I'm going to
answer it. And to be fair, thecontext is is multifaceted,
right? Because I've beentraining teachers in these
orthographic conventions fordecades now, and pre service
teachers who happen to beadults. But I've also taught
this extensively with youngerstudents too, and I will say
(36:33):
that with older students welland younger students, when you
teach the C and K spelling rule,they get so excited. And most of
my younger students, my firstgraders, were going home and
sharing that with their parents,who didn't know it. And so they
got an extra amount ofexcitement about that, noticing
that spelling skill and using itin their writing and recognizing
(36:56):
and reading. I have to say, youmentioned this already. Lindsay,
the ED suffix is one of myfavorites to teach, because I
feel like that adds some insightto why we pronounce it three
different ways, right? And Ithink Donnell, you make an
excellent point that if we arejust teaching these skills in an
isolated form, see sequencematters, and if we're doing it
(37:21):
in a sequence, then you'readding that cumulative aspect of
good teaching comes into playhere. Cumulatively, things make
more and more sense, and ourstudents aren't overwhelmed and
don't shut down with this kindof instruction. So thanks for
indulging that question in thispart of the article two, Barbara
(37:47):
Wilson mentions high frequencywords. She calls out that they
need to be recognized andspelled with automaticity. I
know a whole lot of assessmentswhere we check if students can
recognize them in reading, butwe're not always assessing the
spelling of them for irregularlyspelled high frequency words. So
(38:07):
when the spelling is unexpected,given the pronunciation of a
word, she describes the heartword APPROACH. She doesn't call
it that, and she points out thattypically, only one grapheme
deviates from its most frequentpronunciation, like she gives
the example, the word the letterA, and the word what, instead of
spelling at, in that case,spells. And I'll just take this
(38:31):
opportunity to do a shamelessplug that we did an episode on
this. It actually, you guys, Idon't know if you remember, this
is our first episode ever. Yeah,I know I I had an opportunity to
go back in the the catalog andrecognize that, so I
Donell Pons (38:48):
thought you were going to say, no, no
Stacy Hurst (38:53):
words matter.
Donnell catalog that thatdiffers by one syllable, right?
So let's listen to the end ofthe word please. Okay, episode
one, season one, check it outhigh frequency words and how to
address them in instruction. Wehave talked about a lot so far,
Donnell and Lindsay about theword recognition and handwriting
(39:17):
and spelling part of the infomap, and we are going to pause
here and cover the rest thecomprehension and composition
side of the what part of theinfo map in our next episode. So
in the meantime, grab youredition and feel free to read up
on what we're going to discuss.
(39:42):
Thank you so much for theconversation we've had so far,
and we look forward to the nextone. So feel free to join us on
the next episode of literacytalks.
Narrator (39:53):
Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to
you from Reading Horizons, whereliteracy momenta. Begins visit
Reading horizons.com/literacy,talks to access episodes and
resources to support yourjourney in the science of
reading. You.
Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast for literacy
leaders and championseverywhere, brought to you by
Reading Horizons. Literacy talksis the place to discover new
ideas, trends, insights andpractical strategies for helping
all learners reach readingproficiency. Our hosts are
Stacey Hurst, a professor atSouthern Utah University and
(00:26):
Chief Academic Advisor forReading Horizons. Donell pons, a
recognized expert and advocatein literacy, dyslexia and
special education, and LindsayKemeny, an elementary classroom
teacher, author and speaker. Nowlet's talk literacy.
Stacy Hurst (00:48):
Welcome to another episode of literacy Talks. My
name is Stacy Hurst, and I'mjoined by Donnell pons and
Lindsay Kemeny. And those of youwho've been joining us this
season know that we are focusingon the perspectives on language
and literacy. 75th anniversaryissue. It's titled structured
literacy grounded in the scienceof reading. And today we are
(01:13):
going to address the overviewsection of that issue. It's that
is titled structured literacyand integrated approach to the
science of reading, lots ofreally good information. If
you're following along in yourissue, it is pages 30 through 45
so we have a lot to cover, and Ihave the privilege of leading
(01:35):
this discussion, which I alwayslove, because I get to ask
questions and hear what Donnelland Lindsay have to say. I love
it, a big part of this section.
And as you two know, of theissue is the info map, and that
is found on page 31 and BarbaraWilson is the author of this
article, and she says thisarticle is designed to
(01:56):
synthesize and summarize keypoints following the
International DyslexiaAssociation's structured
literacy info map, that's whatthey're calling it. So we will
refer to it like that. So theeducators are aligned on a
framework. So I appreciate thatthat's the mission, that we're
(02:16):
aligned. The info map provides avisual representation of
structured literacy principlesand practices. And then she
points out again that the termstructured literacy is
relatively new, but the tenantsof the approach are not and she
goes on to define it. Of course,it's all kind. It's informed by
all kinds of domains acrosslanguage and as it pertains to
(02:41):
reading and writing writtenexpression. So she also
clarifies again, which I thinkwe've done frequently, that
structured literacy is not aprogram. And then she also
states this, most importantly,teachers must have professional
learning and significant supportto provide high quality,
(03:04):
structured literacy in acomprehensive way. She suggests
that the info map can play asignificant role in teacher
training. So Donnell andLindsay, I'd be curious to know
how you think that the info mapwould enhance professional
development, and what potentialdoes it have to help bridge gaps
between teacher knowledge andpractice about the science of
(03:26):
reading?
Lindsay Kemeny (03:29):
Well, I think it can kind of serve as a roadmap
for you to look at to see, okay,do my teachers have knowledge in
all these different areas? Dothey need help and support? And
I think the key in that quoteyou just read Stacy was it was
saying they need training, butalso support, and that's huge,
and that's what's a lot oftimes, what is missing where we
(03:52):
have the professionaldevelopment, but we don't have
the follow up and the supportmaybe that we need as teachers
to do what you're asking us todo. So just, I think that's so
key. Let's remember to supportthe teachers, provide them with
the materials they need andmaybe the coaching they need,
and maybe they need somescheduling help in the
(04:13):
classroom. You know, to do thesethings. Yeah,
Donell Pons (04:17):
Lindsay, I was just, I was nodding my head
clearly, if you couldn't see medoing that because all of those
things. And then I want to addthe part where it talks about
integrated. So also, on thismap, remember these domains or
these things we're going to talkabout that are on this info map,
they're integrated, which alsomeans, again, as Lindsay was
pointing out, it's not justlearning about how to help
(04:41):
students recognize and decodewords. That's a portion. It is
also handwriting, and that canbe very involved for a lot of
students. It's also about acomposition, putting together
long that can be very involved.
So these are all the componentswe're asking teachers to be
informed on. And that's reallydriven home by looking at the.
Info map is to say it's morethan just Oh, letters and
(05:01):
sounds. That's that's a reallygood and foundational piece,
absolutely. But we're askingteachers to do a whole lot more
than that, to bring fullliteracy, the full complement of
literacy for a student, andthat, as Lindsay, you pointed
out, Stacey, we've all said itmany times, requires really good
ongoing training and support andappropriate materials the time,
all of these things. I thinkthat's important too. With the
(05:25):
info map, it shows you that,
Lindsay Kemeny (05:29):
yeah, and you just reminded me, you know, I
saw something online recentlyfrom a teacher who said, you
know, what can I share with somecolleagues? Because they're
saying that structured literacyis just about phonics. How can I
show them that it's not justabout phonics? And I responded
and said, Look at this info map,right here. You look at the info
(05:49):
map, and it's there's clearlymore than just phonics on there.
The phonemes and graphemes areone small part, and there's a
lot of other things on there,and there's clearly on their
comprehension, you know, and thethings that go into it. So,
yeah. So I think it's a, it's agreat overview of structured
literacy. And the IDA, they'rethe organization that termed
(06:13):
that coin to the term structuredliteracy,
Stacy Hurst (06:17):
yeah. And she makes a good point here, too, where
she says that the term scienceof reading and structured
literacy are notinterchangeable, and I think of
it a little bit historically,like research, which is the
science of reading right, hasalways informed practice. I
appreciate that they coined theterm structured literacy,
because what else would we callit? Right? And you think back to
(06:41):
in the last 50 years, the factthat research has always
influenced what we call ourinstruction. So we had Ken
Goodman's research that helpedinform what we called in
practice whole language, andthen we had the national reading
panel that helped us coin theterm in practice based on their
(07:01):
meta analysis of the research.
Our practice became known asbalanced literacy, and now that
we are focusing more on thescience of reading as a whole,
now it's called structuredliteracy, I think that just
makes so much sense, right? Soin this article, she goes over
the what, why, how and who, andso I thought we'd just go
(07:25):
chronologically, the what Ithink is very important. There's
a lot of information here. Soessentially, the what is the
instructional content, or thecomponents of the evidence based
instruction, and I love they usethe word often in this article
simultaneously. So writtenlanguage skills and Donnell,
(07:48):
you've already mentioned it inthis podcast, should be taught
simultaneously for both reading,for word recognition and
comprehension, and writing,which includes handwriting,
spelling and composition. Sothey're pointing out structured
literacy is comprehensive. Sowe're going to start with word
recognition and handwriting andspelling. And even in the design
(08:09):
of the info map, you can see howthey're emphasizing simultaneous
use of the two. So we start withphonemes and graphemes. So who
this will be a quiz for Donnelland Lindsay and myself
throughout the whole episode.
But we're going to start bydefining who wants to define
what phonemes and graphemes are.
Lindsay Kemeny (08:32):
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound. So if I
say, er, like, that's thephoneme and the grapheme that
represents that sound, it's thespelling that represents so when
I said, er, we have E R, I r andu r are graphemes that represent
this phoneme. Er, good
Stacy Hurst (08:52):
definition.
Lindsay, a phoneme is thesmallest unit of speech, and we
are a grapheme spells a phoneme.
So you'll always have as manygraphemes in a word as you have
phonemes, right?
Lindsay Kemeny (09:05):
Oh, and I'd add a grapheme can be anywhere from
one to four letters,
Stacy Hurst (09:10):
true. And we I talked about the just today in
my class that one of my classesI taught, for example, in the
word though, we have twophonemes, and O, and the
grapheme that spells O and thatword is O, U, G, H, so four
letters can spell that onephoneme. Okay, so let's talk
(09:31):
about then we know what phonemesand graphemes are. They really
are the elements that we'reworking with in language, right,
written and spoken. So now let'stalk about phoneme awareness.
Donnell, how would you definephoneme awareness?
Donell Pons (09:45):
Well, it's the ability to be aware of and
consciously think about phonemesor individual speech sounds in
spoken words. So folks, ifyou're listening and you're
thinking, oh gosh, I'm maybe alittle rusty on these terms, is
that okay? Yes, it's perfectlyfine. My heavens and all on page
30, or is it 35 there aredefinitions of a lot of the
(10:05):
stuff we're talking about. Soagain, if this is new for some
people, and they're still kindof swimming in the definition,
hey, I know how to do this,though, don't worry, right? So
again, everybody's on a littledifferent trajectory. Maybe this
isn't new for you, or it's veryfamiliar. Some of this might be
unfamiliar, but that's okay. Andremember again, everybody can be
in a different place. So if youwant the terminology, you're
(10:26):
thinking, this is going prettyquickly for you. You're feeling
a little nervous, look at page35 in the structured literacy of
the handbook, or the manualperspective, and you can take a
look at it. We just wanted togive a little note regarding the
page number references that arementioned during conversations
of the podcast regarding theperspectives publication, it's
drawn to our attention that thepage numbers do not match
(10:48):
oftentimes. And so there aredifferences between maybe an
online version versus a printpublication. And so it would be
best just to skin the articleand see where maybe the piece is
mentioned. And so unfortunately,those numbers do not match. But,
yeah, that's phoneme awareness.
So it's that ability to be awareof and what does that mean to be
aware of and consciously thinkabout? So that's the piece where
I need to do something with it.
(11:11):
I may be aware of it, I may bedoing it all the time, but then
what can I do with it? That'sthe consciously aware part of
it, right? So we make a lot ofassumptions about kiddos. When
they're Hey there. They seem tobe just fine. They're speaking
fine. And then you start gettinginto the nitty gritty and
saying, Well, let's peel off asound or two here, and then
what's left, and what do youhear? And what, how do you
manipulate that? And that's whenyou really start to find out
(11:32):
that there can be a deficit fora student who otherwise looks
just fine, blends into aclassroom. But then when it
comes down to the nitty gritty,being able to pull that apart
and really be able to work withsounds. There might be a
challenge there. That's what wewant to get to right to help
kids with that and others.
Stacy Hurst (11:47):
And along with phoneme awareness, there are a
lot of different tasks that wecan do with that. The definition
essentially involves being ableto identify and manipulate those
sounds in language. And so as apart of manipulating them. There
are a lot of different tasksthat we can do. I love that. In
this article, she points out,and I think the infographic
(12:08):
helps illustrate this, thatblending and segmentation at the
phoneme level are the mostimportant phonemic awareness
skills, since they lead directlyto the acquisition of decoding
and encoding skills, meaningreading and spelling, right? So
(12:28):
I think that's important,because when I started teaching
and knowing about phonemicawareness, I spent a lot of time
on things like rhyming or, yeah,onset rhyme word families. Had I
known that on the phoneme level,blending and segmentation had a
more direct impact on readingand spelling, I probably would
(12:49):
have spent more time there.
There. Lindsay, what does thislook like in your classroom?
Lindsay Kemeny (12:55):
Well, we are blending and segmenting all day,
because those are the skills,you know, the critical skills
for reading and writing. And ifwe're reading and writing all
day, we're working on thosephonemic awareness skills. So,
you know, I like to start I I'mteaching first grade, I start
our phonics lessons with a quickwarm up of blending and
segmenting that usually containthe sound or phoneme. You know
(13:21):
that we're going to be focusingon that day, like today we're
practicing r a r r, and so wecan blend and segment words that
have a R R in them to just towarm up that take a few minutes.
And then, you know, in ourphonics lessons, well, when
we're doing dictation, wherewe're going to practice spelling
words with a R, R, and we'regoing to segment those sounds
(13:46):
all together orally, and thenthey're going to write them just
immediately after, and I'm goingto have them say the sounds
again as they're writing them.
So there's what are they doing?
They're stretching those soundsout in the word as they're
writing them. You know, studentsare working on blending when
they're reading. They might befine, like at this time of the
(14:09):
year, they might be fineblending. They might still
struggle a little bit,especially the beginning of the
year, first grade, we are, youknow, I'm helping them blend CVC
words. And when a student reallystruggles to blend, it's I
really like to help that studentin small group, because that's
when I can really give them themost support. And you'll see
(14:31):
that all the time. I seequestions like, well, they know
the sounds. They said app, butthen they said tip, or they said
Pat, and said it backwards, orthey said top, or they said
something completely different.
That is showing you that they'restruggling with blending. So
then I'm going to help them, andwe're going to say, and I'm
(14:53):
going to just going to cover theP at first, and I'm going to
help them blend those two soundstogether, tap. Ah, now if they
might not be able to blend thosetwo phonemes together at first,
especially if they have aweakness in this area, if they
can't, and they go and theycan't blend them, I blend for
them, and I say TA, and I havethem repeat TA, and they're
gonna hang on to that, ah, untilI unveil the last letter, tap,
(15:16):
tap, and they'll be able to dothat. And so I'm going to keep
helping them, you know, scaffoldthat until eventually I can pull
my voice back and they can blendthe first two phonemes, fine.
And then they add the third. Andthen suddenly, Oh, yay. After a
couple weeks, hey, they canblend all three of those. And
(15:36):
we're, you know, and then it'sgoing to go to the next level.
Once they're really good at CBC,we're going to add words with
blends so you can hear, youknow, words with four sounds is
going to be harder, like stop,that's going to be harder for
them to blend and segment.
You'll see kids write SOP forstop because it's hard to pull
apart those two letters thatblend together. So, yeah, does
(15:59):
that? Does that answer yourquestion? There's a little a
little a peak. I mean, this islike, this is first grade. This
is what we're doing
Stacy Hurst (16:05):
exactly. I love how you highlighted that the
connection between beingphonemically aware, you need to
be able to blend phonemes whenyou're reading. Once you connect
the the spelling to the graphthe phoneme to the grapheme, and
then you need to spell. You needto you start with segmentation,
so you can see how it would havea direct impact and how you're
(16:26):
supporting that in yourinstruction. Donnell, how does
this differ for younger versusolder learners? Not much.
Donell Pons (16:33):
I was just saying.
I've used a lot of the samestrategies. It shouldn't
surprise folks that there are alot of people who had did not
receive the instruction thatthey needed. And unfortunately,
I have worked with adults whoI'm doing exactly what Lindsay
just described, because that'swhere we need to be. That's
exactly where we need to be. AndLindsay said some really great
things that are part ofstructured literacy, as well as
she did her little demonstrationabout how she would help a
(16:54):
student. That structuredliteracy includes being direct
and systematic, and it's masteryoriented. I mean, all those
parts of teaching as well. Sonot only it's what we're
teaching, but it's how we'redoing it, right? You watching
Lindsay integrate right there,we're watching the integration
of all that, right together,talking about how I would go
about helping a student. And soI don't skip those pieces for
older students. You don't say,Oh, just because you're older,
(17:17):
you should have all of that,right? No, you don't. You don't
make assumptions either. That'sthe other piece. And so what do
youngers need? The same thingadults and vice versa? Yeah,
yeah,
Stacy Hurst (17:27):
that's really important. I like how the how on
the info map is adjacent to thewhat. So that I'm glad you
pointed out it's reallyimportant.
Lindsay Kemeny (17:36):
And I just want to pin that, because Donnell,
you brought up something wheresometimes we have, like, we
think, Oh, I, I, this is myphone like, we have a program,
and this is my phonemicawareness program done, check
the box, but the key there is noyou are integrating that
phonemic awareness throughoutthe day. So you could see how I
was describing, like, we areconnecting that phonemic
(18:00):
awareness with letters as we'redoing activities throughout the
day. So as we're writing, we'resegmenting and thinking about
those sounds as we're reading. Iwas just showing you how I would
help a student blend when theyhave the letters right there in
front of them with the book, youknow, like in small group, and
I'm helping them read thosewords. We are working on that
(18:21):
phonemic awareness. So it's it'sjust important to remember it's
not like one and done, and it'snot separate from everything
else we're doing. But, yeah, Ilove that word integrate, and
that's what we're doing. We'reintegrating it throughout the
day. Yeah. And
Stacy Hurst (18:35):
another thing that is important, I think, to know
for teachers is that Rhyming isgreat. It's a fun activity. Kids
love it, but it's not going tohave as directive an impact on
your reading and spelling, likeyou're talking about with my
students. And again, I'm in ahigher ed situation. We're
getting ready. It's thebeginning of our semester. We're
(18:55):
going to start our tutoring, andwe use the assessing reading
multiple measures book, so theyhave a phonological awareness
assessment. Part C of thatassessment is phoneme
segmentation, and that's theonly assessment I have my
students give, because the otherthing is, rhyming can come
online at any point, right? Butwe need to get to that phoneme
(19:19):
level, and if we want toaccelerate our instruction and
close gaps, that's where we needto be focusing on and like you
two have both said making thoseconnections.
Narrator (19:31):
Interested in diving deeper into today's episode and
exploring more literacy topics,join us in the science of
reading collective, where wehost the literacy talks podcast
chat, it's the perfect place toshare insights, ask questions
and keep the conversation going.
But that's just the beginning.
(19:51):
When you join the science ofreading collective, you're
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collective dot Readinghorizons.com, join the science
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horizons.com,
Stacy Hurst (20:26):
so next on the infographic, syllable and stress
patterns. So who wants to definea syllable? Let's start there.
Lindsay Kemeny (20:37):
A syllable is a unit of language that contains a
vowel sound,
Stacy Hurst (20:46):
exactly one vowel sound. Good job. Good job.
Donnell, what? How would youdefine a stress pattern?
Donell Pons (20:53):
And so again, for folks, this is page 36 so if
you're thinking to yourself, ohmy gosh, I'm a little bit rusty,
I don't know, go ahead and diveinto your book, and you'll be
able to see all of what we'retalking about here. So we're not
expecting to remember this or tohave ready answers, but if this
is new for you, so as Lindsaywas saying about the syllable,
(21:13):
educators teach students aboutsyllables structure. It might be
called something you know,patterns, whatever the name
you're familiar with, but that'swhat you're doing, and it's
including accent or stress, andthat's whether it's accented or
unaccented, the stress patternwithin when you're speaking or
saying those words, and that canbe important, and it's regional.
(21:33):
So let's remember this too.
There are challenges, becauseI've had many teachers in
trainings who have gone I'm notreally sure about where the word
is stressed or unstressed, andoftentimes it can be different
depending on where you live,regionally, how you speak, yeah,
Stacy Hurst (21:48):
great definition and explanation. So research
tells us that this instructionstrengthens students word
analysis ability and wordrecognition as well as their
spelling skill. So I think mybig question for both of you,
how have you seen an improvementin those things, in word
recognition and spelling,specifically as a result of
(22:11):
syllable instruction?
Lindsay Kemeny (22:16):
Well, right now, let's see. It's when we're
recording this. It's January.
I'm teaching first grade, andreally, I'm starting to focus on
syllables right now, whereasbefore, I was really just having
them blend and segmentindividual sounds. Just now, I'm
saying, hey, let's count thesyllables in a word, because we
are now reading and writingmulti syllabic words. And what
(22:39):
happens sometimes, if you don'tpay attention to this is like,
when they put, oh, let's see.
I'm trying to think of anexample, but when they're gonna
say, like, spell the wordbetter, they might just put an R
at the end. They got, might go,B, E, T, R, or, you know, maybe
(23:00):
they'll even get the TT and thenput an R. But when I start
showing them, hey, as we'regonna practice writing multi
syllabic words, which, you know,you don't need to use that term
with them, but then I can showthem better, how many syllables?
Better too. And then we'll sayfirst syllable. Bet, tell me it
(23:20):
sounds but bet then they canwrite that second syllable, er,
er, and then we're like,remember, every syllable needs a
vowel, and that can help remindthem to use that er, great.
Great
Stacy Hurst (23:35):
example. Done now,
Donell Pons (23:37):
yeah, for those older students, I, for me,
oftentimes, I call this theorder in a world of chaos. When
you start introducing, and youhave a nice way of introducing
the syllables you're gonnayou're gonna boil it down to
these, you know, General Majortypes first, because remember,
we start with things that we cantake in, and then we're going to
add later, those things that canbe a little more confusing when
(23:58):
we got mastery. This is restoredorder for adults who were just
hey, it never made a bit ofsense. And I've been struggling
the whole time. Spelling is verydifficult. Reading is very hard
for me. And you introduce thesyllables and wow, it can be a
fantastic moment for folks tosay what. There's some order to
this, what, and I'm going tolearn some of this stuff first.
What, yeah, it's the first timeto actually feel like maybe I
(24:20):
can do this.
Stacy Hurst (24:23):
I also appreciate that both of you have said that
it's important to make itcognitively manageable for them,
and I've seen students who maynot as be as confident in their
reading skills, when they get toa long word in print, it's so
much easier to break it down bysyllable and then apply it to
what they're seeing. Lindsay,were you gonna add to that? I
Lindsay Kemeny (24:45):
was, you know, we have all these different
syllable types, open, close. Youhave your vowel constant E, you
know, you have your valve teamsand your r controlled, and we
need to teach all those things.
And we had a podcast episodebefore we were talking about,
how much do we do of this? Uh,you know, breaking the syllables
and and, you remember, we playedthat little video of my son when
he was doing it. We're kind ofdiscussing how much do we need,
(25:07):
but we do need some, but we knowsome researchers, you know, I
think we talked about DevonKearns is, you know, kind of
advocates, not to rely on thosetoo much, and we talked about
how the key is flexibility andto give our students these
tools. Because sometimesstudents come to a big word and
(25:29):
they just freeze and they don'tknow what to do. And you know,
if they've been taught a processof, hey, look for the vowels.
What's in between them divide itthat kind of helps them and
makes it more manageable. And Iwas just listening to a podcast
with Louisa Moats, who said she,you know, felt like these
(25:51):
syllables are helpful, just notto go overboard. But she kind of
mentioned she thought DevonKearns was going a little
overboard, the other way so, andI just thought that was really
interesting, because we had justtalked about that where she had
said that, I'm like, oh, butit's good to know. Sometimes,
you know, I don't know. We don'thave all the answers, you know.
(26:13):
And so sometimes you do need tojust kind of take a more
balanced approached. I don'twant to use the word balance.
Stacy Hurst (26:24):
I also think there's nuance to all of this,
right? In order to be flexiblewith syllabication, you have to
have a foundational knowledge ofthose vowel sounds, and that is
always determined by the lettersthat surround those vowels, so
it's good to have that workingknowledge. Donnell, were you
going to say something else aswell? Well, it's
Donell Pons (26:46):
just those principles of structured
literacy. Again, if you'retrying to be direct and
systematic with your student andyou're helping them to be
mastery oriented, you're goingto follow your student's lead,
and you have all those skills,hopefully, that you've been
learning and being supportedwith, you'll know how to adjust
and adapt for your studentsparticular needs, staying well
within what you know is theframework of what's correct, but
you can certainly help them,yeah,
Stacy Hurst (27:08):
and once we're on the syllable level, you can't
ignore the next topic, which ismorphology or morphemes, right?
So we need to directly andexplicitly teach about those.
What is a morpheme? We knowphoneme is the smallest unit of
speech. What is a morpheme?
Donell Pons (27:28):
And again, bottom of page 36 if you're saying, Oh,
what's a morpheme? Jump to thebottom. You'll have the answer.
Morphemes are the smallest unitsof meaning, and written
morphemes are called Wordelements.
Stacy Hurst (27:41):
And I this is actually part of the article.
Now this structured literacy isnot I'm not new to it, but I
love that we can always learnsomething that will add just
enough nuance to provide theclarification we need to
accurately teach our students,right? I have always got hung up
(28:03):
on the difference between a rootand a base, always, but the way
that Barbara Wilson describesmorphemes in general, and she
uses the term base element thathelped me refine my thinking,
okay, now I can distinguish. I'ma little bit closer to mastering
that distinction, right? Andthen she does say also on page
(28:25):
36 like you pointed out, Donnellwords with more than one base
element account for more thanhalf of the vocabulary that
students encounter while readingbeyond a fourth grade level. So
that goes to show you, in theNRN game, those morphemes are
going to play a really big role,but we need to start somewhere.
(28:45):
So Lindsay, when should theteaching of morphemes begin? How
do you teach these in firstgrade?
Lindsay Kemeny (28:51):
Yeah, you can start teaching them really
young. I mean, kindergartners,when you just teach them to add
an s, you know, at the end of aword, like dog, and you add an
s, guess what? That's amorpheme. So you're starting
this from the time they're youngto say, hey, just adding this
one letter S change the meaning.
And you can show a picture ofone dog versus more than one
dog, you know, a few of them tokind of drill that in. So
(29:15):
tomorrow, in my first gradeclass, I'm going to be teaching
the ED suffix, so that's amorpheme because now that's
showing past tense. And so wecan do that right in our in our
phonics program. So yeah, wecan, you can start when they're
young.
Stacy Hurst (29:36):
Yeah, I love that.
And it when they're young. Theterm we typically use is
morphological awareness, andyou're really helping to build
that awareness. In my class,just last week, we talked about
morphemes, and we used a wordlike myocarditis. Also a benefit
of knowing morphemes is readingyour medical bills. Brought.
(29:57):
Medical reports, but we talkedabout Myo means muscle. Card
means cardio or heart, and itisis inflammation. So if you have
myocarditis, you haveinflammation of the heart
muscle, and it's reallyappealing to them. They get so
excited to learn those things ascollege students. So Donnell,
you work with students who areregularly exposed to text beyond
(30:21):
a fourth grade level. How do youaddress morphology in your
instruction? And do you havesome examples of how the impact
that it's had on reading andwriting for your students?
Donell Pons (30:35):
Yeah, I just so it's interesting. Lindsay,
you're talking about the youngerstudents, because even those
little kiddos, and I love seeinglittle kiddos light up when
they're start doing some of thisstuff, is understanding that the
base word even for somethingthat would be really exciting
for a kid, like a gift that canyou imagine, if somebody left
off the s on gift, what wouldyou get? One when you went a
(30:56):
whole lot more so yeah, kidsreally get that? Oh, well,
that's important, right? Don'twant to miss that. S and I think
Likewise, with older students,it's kind of interesting,
because their struggle,oftentimes, has meant that they
haven't had the opportunity tobe able to take some time with
(31:18):
the words, to sit with them fora minute and to say, Okay, how
does this impact? If I changethe beginning of this word, and
that's the prefix, because itcomes before, and I had this
word that meant this, and then Iadded the prefix, and now it
means this. Haven't really had awhole lot of time, because the
whole time they were just tryingto take the words apart to be
able to decode them, to readright? And never mind, was I
(31:40):
going to be able to be able tospell that. So now, when you've
restored order through thatchaos, because you're giving
them some syllables, we'vegotten to our did our sounds, we
made sure alphabetic principlewas solid and on board. And
we're all integrating thesethings, that's an opportunity. I
find it within sentences themost for my older students, it's
when we start looking at wholesentences, because now we're
getting really some really goodspelling skills down, we're
(32:01):
doing some sentences, and westart taking those sentences
apart and understanding what thewords are, what the meaning of
the words in the sentences andtheir relationship to each
other. So again, it'sintegrated, right? I'm not doing
this separately. It's allintegrated within that whole
language piece that I'm doingwith my students. And wow, the
lights start coming on with, ohmy goodness, I didn't realize.
(32:22):
And these, you know, just theimpact of changing that a little
bit, and now suddenly, okay, themeanings of that word that's
really interesting. Theopportunity, I call it
opportunity to sit with wordslike that and to be go back over
them, wow. It's powerful, reallypowerful. Haven't met a student
yet that didn't just love
Stacy Hurst (32:40):
it, and it is. It's an aspect of teaching that I
think students get reallyexcited about, because morphemes
are everywhere, really helps usunlock meaning, right? So the
next item on the what info mapis, orthographic conventions,
this is huge when you considerwe have 44 phonemes and over 250
(33:04):
ways to spell those fourphonemes in English. So let's
start again. Just start with asimple definition. So
orthographic conventions arereferring to orthography, which
is the study of the rules thatgovern written language,
including acceptable spellingcombinations. And there are some
(33:26):
examples. On page 36 they listthe convention of or the the
rule. I should call it thegeneralization in English that
we don't spell at the end of aword that follows a short vowel
sound with the J, we use D, GE.
If it's a long vowel sound,we're going to use GE. And then
we don't spell words with V atthe end of a word. So we add
(33:49):
that E as a placeholder. Thoseare some examples. In addition
to doubling rules that we justtalked about, if you're adding a
morpheme, like a suffix, thenyou need to double, in some
cases, the final consonantbefore you add the suffix. Do
either of you have I know thisis a weird question, but I have
(34:11):
mine, and I don't know if I'mjust weird or unique, but Do
either of you have a favorite,or some favorite, orthographic
conventions that you love toteach,
Lindsay Kemeny (34:27):
like, I'm all a favorite one. I guess it's fun
when you know, my students golike, I'll say English words
don't end with V. And so nowthey like to chant that whenever
they're writing, they have a V,you know? They'll be like,
English words don't end with V,and then they'll add the E, you
know. But I don't know if it'slike, I don't really have a
(34:48):
favorite spacey,
Unknown (34:50):
okay, okay,
Stacy Hurst (34:55):
different types of nerdiness, I guess I am a word
nerd. Clearly. I don't know.
Donell Pons (35:03):
You know what's interesting about this is, I
don't know if I have a favorite,but I always have to remember in
working with older students,because they'll, they'll tell me
right away, right? Oh, that'sreally nice to have that little
spelling convention. But there'sa whole lot of stuff out there
doesn't make a lot of sense tome, and they're quick to point
that out. So let's, I'm alwaysvery because I work with older
(35:25):
students, that's what I usuallyget the feedback about. It's,
it's, they are, they've alreadybeen out there in the wild, and
they're saying there's a wholelot more, and they're right. So
conventions get us so far.
However, I'm going to say itagain. It's a nice base. It
restores a lot of order whenthere had been a lot of chaos.
So that's really nice, and itgives folks a sense of stability
when they're getting their feetunder them. And again, I'm
(35:47):
working with older students whodid not have their feet under
them for so long, and they werejust expected to try to figure
it out without having theskills. And so I love that it
does provide a nice, solid base.
I'm going to acknowledge you'reright. It's not going to answer
every question, but again, orderwhere there was chaos, yeah, and
Stacy Hurst (36:11):
just because I asked the question, I'm going to
answer it. And to be fair, thecontext is is multifaceted,
right? Because I've beentraining teachers in these
orthographic conventions fordecades now, and pre service
teachers who happen to beadults. But I've also taught
this extensively with youngerstudents too, and I will say
(36:33):
that with older students welland younger students, when you
teach the C and K spelling rule,they get so excited. And most of
my younger students, my firstgraders, were going home and
sharing that with their parents,who didn't know it. And so they
got an extra amount ofexcitement about that, noticing
that spelling skill and using itin their writing and recognizing
(36:56):
and reading. I have to say, youmentioned this already. Lindsay,
the ED suffix is one of myfavorites to teach, because I
feel like that adds some insightto why we pronounce it three
different ways, right? And Ithink Donnell, you make an
excellent point that if we arejust teaching these skills in an
isolated form, see sequencematters, and if we're doing it
(37:21):
in a sequence, then you'readding that cumulative aspect of
good teaching comes into playhere. Cumulatively, things make
more and more sense, and ourstudents aren't overwhelmed and
don't shut down with this kindof instruction. So thanks for
indulging that question in thispart of the article two, Barbara
(37:47):
Wilson mentions high frequencywords. She calls out that they
need to be recognized andspelled with automaticity. I
know a whole lot of assessmentswhere we check if students can
recognize them in reading, butwe're not always assessing the
spelling of them for irregularlyspelled high frequency words. So
(38:07):
when the spelling is unexpected,given the pronunciation of a
word, she describes the heartword APPROACH. She doesn't call
it that, and she points out thattypically, only one grapheme
deviates from its most frequentpronunciation, like she gives
the example, the word the letterA, and the word what, instead of
spelling at, in that case,spells. And I'll just take this
(38:31):
opportunity to do a shamelessplug that we did an episode on
this. It actually, you guys, Idon't know if you remember, this
is our first episode ever. Yeah,I know I I had an opportunity to
go back in the the catalog andrecognize that, so I
Donell Pons (38:48):
thought you were going to say, no, no
Stacy Hurst (38:53):
words matter.
Donnell catalog that thatdiffers by one syllable, right?
So let's listen to the end ofthe word please. Okay, episode
one, season one, check it outhigh frequency words and how to
address them in instruction. Wehave talked about a lot so far,
Donnell and Lindsay about theword recognition and handwriting
(39:17):
and spelling part of the infomap, and we are going to pause
here and cover the rest thecomprehension and composition
side of the what part of theinfo map in our next episode. So
in the meantime, grab youredition and feel free to read up
on what we're going to discuss.
(39:42):
Thank you so much for theconversation we've had so far,
and we look forward to the nextone. So feel free to join us on
the next episode of literacytalks.
Narrator (39:53):
Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to
you from Reading Horizons, whereliteracy momenta. Begins visit
Reading horizons.com/literacy,talks to access episodes and
resources to support yourjourney in the science of
reading. You.
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