Phonemic Awareness

Before the Thanksgiving Break, I attended a DCPS workshop on Phonemic Awareness. It was actually a pretty good workshop that I found useful and wanted to share.

--Now, before I get into the strategies and tools that were given, I have to slightly digress on a related topic. I signed up for this workshop because I knew that I needed some re-certification hours. To cut a long story short, I had all kinds of issues with obtaining my certification; I had re-cert hours but they ended up not counting, so I accidentally wasted a year getting no hours. I figured it wasn't a big deal. How many hours could I possibly need for re-certification? 30? 60? NO. 90 HOURS in 5 years! I almost fell to the floor. Without taking a graduate class (and spending moo-lah), that's nearly impossible for me to do, especially since I only have 4 years, and the DCPS professional development workshops are only 2-3 hours. Yeesh. I'm going to be spending a lot of afternoons in workshops.--

OK, back to the topic at hand. This workshop was really interesting, because a lot of the teachers that were attending taught higher level elementary, middle or high school. Most of these teachers were a bit in the dark about how to teach reading, since most of that happens in the younger years. Unfortunately, a lot of older children really need help with the basics even as they get older. I was sooo pleased to see that the Montessori curriculum follows exactly what all of the current research is recommending. Maria was just so ahead of her time!

So, for those who are Montessorians, phonemic awareness is basically the idea that words are made up of sounds. Generally, we teach this through sound games. This workshop gave me some ideas of sound game extensions. So, here are my recommendations and steps for phonemic awareness with some new suggestions all in the Montessori realm.

Sound Games
Sound games can start on the first day of school for a 2 or 3 year old! Start by taking sound game objects and emphasize the first sound. "This is an apple. Let's listen to the first sound that you hear when I say the word, apple. Aaaaaple. Aaaaple. A- A- A Apple. Aaaah is the first sound that I hear when I say apple."

Once the child has mastery of the first sound, move on to the last sound.

Finally, work on the middle sound.

*I had a conversation with My Boys Teacher about the sequencing of sound games and sandpaper letters that I think would be helpful here. Once the child has mastered the first sound, sound games and sandpaper letters can overlap. At least, that is what I tend to do. If anyone has any other suggestions feel free to put it in the comments*

I SPY
During circle time, I like to do a lot of "I Spy" and I always recommend it for parents to play at home because it's SO easy and can be done anywhere! "I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the sound..."

New Suggestions/Extensions
"Finger Spelling"
This technique could be used after the child is familiar with all of the sounds. I find that some children have difficulty hearing all of the sounds in a word, particularly if it is a long word. Sometimes I will see this difficulty rise when the child is working with the moveable alphabet. In this case, I tend to go back to my sound objects. This exercise could easily be worked with sound objects.

With your non-dominant hand, raise a finger as you sound out each sound of a word. For example, Ladder. L (from left to right, raise one finger) A (next finger) D (next finger) R (next finger). Invite the child to sound out an object. (For a challenge, try to to pick one with more than three sounds!) I practiced this today with some of my five year olds who are having difficulty blending four letter words in reading. It was neat to see the connections that they made as they distinguished between words that had three sounds and four sounds.

"Which Objects Which Sounds"
OK, I'll be honest, this is something that I do on occasion, and I totally just made that name up. I use this children who are having difficulty "hearing" words when they begin reading. In other words, for the child who says "c-a-t" over and over again, without hearing CAT.

Take three sound objects. "I'm going to sound out one of these objects. Which one is it? fff-oh--ks." Repeat with many objects. I also invite the child to sound out objects so I can guess. I've had success with this game in the past, but it really isn't necessary for every child.

"Addition/Deletion Games"
Again, this is a fun game for second or third year students. This tends to be the age where children can find some humor in what they are learning. I tried this with my third years today, and once they got it, they thought it was fun. This is something that I might add into a circle-time game for older children.

In this game, take a sound away from a word to create or new one, or add a sound to create a new one. For example, "What do you get if you put a "s" in front of the word "mile"?" Watch tiny faces mouth out s-mile, smmmile, SMILE! Another example, "What do you get if you take away "f" from "feast". Pause. Pause. EAST!

Well, I hope that these suggestions give you some new ideas for freshening up your sound games. Phonemic awareness (ie- sound games) is an incredibly important component of reading. Even more important is that each child learns and grows differently. I think it's great to have an arsenal of strategies that can be used individually as needed. I don't think that it's necessary to play every sound game ever created, but it sure helps to have an idea when you need it!

Don't Start

Dear Mice,

Please don't start messing with me. I can see you're getting braver in my classroom. Don't think I didn't notice that you went digging in my plants.


Or that you chewed a whole straight through my folder of Native American pictures. Apparently, you don't like laminate. I'll keep that in mind.


Let's remember that this is MY classroom. Not yours. Don't mess.

Thank you,

Miss Montessori

Cards and Counters

In the same week, I read this post from The Moveable Alphabet and found that quite a few of my numbers in cards and counters were cracked or snapped. I have a child who has decided to "test the durability" of many of my (expensive!) Nienhuis materials this year. I'm not 100% sure who the culprit is, but I have a pretty good idea. Why is that boys are always the ones who like to "test" things. Once I received a large, plastic comb in my Christmas stocking that had the word "unbreakable" printed on it. My brother immediately grabbed it out of my hands and started bending it in half, trying to break it. Alas, I digress.

Back to the topic at hand. I decided to re-make my numbers. I got some numbers/letters stickers from JoAnn and stuck them to some red papers. I chose these colors because it matches so well with the rest of my set. I was lucky enough to inherit the best bowl/tray combo for Cards and Counters. I don't know if this was once a set sold somewhere, but I love it! The aforementioned post really reminded me that the little touches we add to our materials add to the beauty of the classroom and attractiveness of the materials. It's so easy to forget!
It's tough to tell in this picture, but the tray is gold (in color, not material - obviously) with birds on it. The bowl for the number is a wooden black and red bird - with gold imbellishment! Very interesting to look at it. The bowl is also black and red and holds my counters, which are small bells. I can't tell you how well these little bells work for this. In my previous classroom, I had the Nienhuis red circular counters. These were constantly getting lost (or put in pockets), were slippery to pick up and were even thrown across the room like frisbees a few times. The bells are interesting, small enough to fit in the hand of a child (all 10) and still make it easy to see the pattern of odd/even. Best of all, they don't really jingle because little (and big) fingers mute the sound. They are a great substitute for the traditional counters while being a bit more interesting!

Vegetable Soup!

If you guessed good ol' fashioned vegetable soup, you're right!

On Wednesday, we will have our annual Thanksgiving Feast. Parents have been asked to bring in ready-to-serve items, and the children's contribution is this vegetable soup.

It couldn't be easier to make.

Ingredients:
Carrots
Celery
Corn
Potatos
(Or any vegetable you want!)
2 boxes of vegetable stock

Let the children cut up the vegetables. Carrots and celery are the easiest to put into practical life. We didn't have the luxury of using real corn, so we just added from a can. I usually save the the potatos to be cut by the afternoon children, because those are the hardest to cut.

Throw everything in a crockpot and voilà! Tomorrow we will enjoy the smells of our soup as it cooks all day long. Yummy.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Mmmmm

Can you guess what we're making?

A little celery...




Some carrots...





You'll have to wait and see!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The IMPACT of Evaluations

A little while ago, I was observed by my principal under the new IMPACT evaluation system. For those who are not in the DCPS system, let me catch you up. Our evaluation system has been completely overhauled this year. Our administrator will observe the classroom three times, and a Master Educator will observe twice. These observations are guided by a rubric, which will produce a score (out of 4 - 4 being the highest). At the end of the year, the scores are averaged with a couple of other factors and you have your final score.

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of this evaluation system. A rubric provides a very clear picture of what is expected from the teacher. If the administrator is accurate, their scores should also reflect what they see. I don't even think the rubric is all that horrible for traditional teachers.

Here's the problem: the rubric is for TRADITIONAL classrooms. There is no exception for Montessori, or any other specialized program for that matter. I had to explain or justify a lot of what I do in the classroom to make it fit into the rubric for my administrator. However, there are two areas of the rubric for which I received a low score and I think its total crap.

"Teach 1" requires teachers to state the objective, refer back to the objective at key points in the lesson, and refer to prior knowledge. (There are probably a couple of other things under there, but I don't have the booklet in front of me) Now, any Montessori teacher worth her salt knows that MANY of the lessons in primary are supposed to be SILENT. Furthermore, if you are giving a lesson that is the first among a series, there really is no prior knowledge. In my observation, I gave a lesson on the Pink Tower. This is the first lesson within sensorial that would introduce the visual discretion of dimension. Because I didn't say something like "can you think of things that are different sizes" (which doesn't even make sense for this lesson), I received a low score. I don't even blame the administration, because, in all honesty,they are just as bound to this rubric for their jobs as I am to mine.

Overall, I'm OK with the score that I got. However, this really brings to light larger issues. First, this evaluation system is supposed to guide teachers toward excellence. Well, if the rubric has nothing to do with how I'm trained, it does me NO good. All I've learned from this rubric is that I need to put on a show when someone comes in to observe me. It certainly doesn't make me a better Montessori teacher. Second, if specialized programs are put into a public school system, authenticity ought to be of utmost importance. If I were to truly follow everything on that rubric, I wouldn't be doing Montessori according to my training.

There is a silver lining, though. I've voiced my concerns to my administrator as well as to the higher-ups. A recent meeting was held with Master Educators and teachers of specialized programs to address these concerns. Apparently, this rubric is under revision (as a whole) and there may even be modifications, for specific programs such as Montessori. The fact that this is even being considered makes me incredibly happy. I just hope that these revision will actually be made, and that, for the time being, specialized programs really are reviewed with open minds.

Phonogram Alphabets

Quick post before the children come down the hall... Any suggestions on where I can get a good, but cheap, set of phonogram alphabets? For those who are wondering, these are two sets of print alphabets in two different colors. In other words, one set is all blue (no color change for vowels) and the other set is all red (or whatever color). Ooh, here they come. Gotta go!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone