Spotlight on Letter Identification and Letter-Sound Relationship Tasks

... a guest blog post by Erin Sebele

What is it?
Letter Identification instruction includes teaching the name, characteristics, and formation of the 26 uppercase and lowercase symbols used in the English language

Letter-Sound Correspondences are the relationships between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes). This starting point highlights the connections between the sounds in words and the letters that are used to represent these sounds. Knowledge of sound-letter relationships means knowing, for example, that the /f/ sound is represented by the letter f.

Why is it used?
The goal of teaching letter identification is to ensure that students are able to recognize and name letter shapes, as well as discriminate among them before they are faced with the task of learning the letters’ sounds. After having learnt letter identification, students can begin to build their knowledge of letter sounds and their corresponding symbols.

How can it be used?
Explicit instruction in letter recognition, practice printing the letters of the alphabet and exposure to letters in print are all essential practices when teaching letter identification. Teachers need to assess students to see which letters students can name and write and to determine their rate of fluency with letter name.

Planning for instruction requires an understanding of challenges a student faces as they attempt to recognize and name letters. A person’s visual system analyzes each letter based on its horizontal, vertical or diagonal line segments. It is important for teachers to “think aloud” when describing letter shapes and features to students.

For example: Capital F touches the head, belt and foot line. It is made of three straight lines and one that goes up and down and two that go side to side. The vertical line is longer than the horizontal lines. It starts at the headline and goes straight down through the belt line and ends at the foot line. The first horizontal line touches the vertical line at the head, then goes straight out the right. The second horizontal line touches the vertical line at the belt, then goes straight out to the right.

How can it be adapted?

• Implementation of other phonics programs, such as: Jolly Phonics, Letterland to demonstrate and support letter identification and letter-sound relationships.
• Complete activities such as: rainbow letters, font sort, pipe cleaner letters, sticks and curves, body letters, fish for letters, alphabet scavenger hunt to support and strengthen letter identification.

How can you apply the information for your Balanced Reading program?

• See student’s strengths and needs to form needs-based language groups.
• Be sure to begin the systematic and explicit phonics instruction early, usually in grade one.
• Help students understand the purpose of phonics by engaging them in reading and writing activities that require them to apply the phonics information they’ve been taught.

How can you use this information to communicate with students?

• Descriptive feedback
• Language groups for specific needs, particularly about certain letters

How can you use this information to communicate with parents?

• Give the appropriate language to use at home to practice printing
• Encourage their child to write and spell notes, emails, letters using sounds that they know
• Consider using computer software that focuses on developing phonics and emergent literacy skills

A Sample Template
Letter Identification Test

Websites Consulted
50 Incredible Alphabet Activities
Letter Identification Assessment
Letter Identification
Word Decoding and Phonics

Spotlight on Reading Conferences

... a guest blog post by Kristyn Sullivan.

What is it?
Reading conferences are planned talks or discussions with students about their reading. Teacher will make an anecdotal record of the discussion and next steps.

Why is it used?
The purpose of reading conferences for students:

• to be able to read or discuss what they are reading
• build a love of reading
• set goals for his or her reading

The purpose of reading conferences for teachers:

• to be able to offer feedback and suggestions for improvement
• help the student to success appropriate reading material
• observe or discuss students’ reading; note strengths and weaknesses and engagement
• encourage a love of reading
• help students to set goals
• plan future instruction

How can it be used?
Conferences can be used daily. The teacher can set up a time during an independent work period to conference with 2 or 3 students individually per day.

Conferences should be modeled at the beginning of the year so the students know what to expect during one.

How it can be adapted?
Reading conferences can be adapted for students using the following strategies:

• Simplified vocabulary
• Visual aids
• Drawing pictures
• Could have another student sit in to translate the student's ideas

How can you apply the information for your Balanced Reading program?

• Insight is gained into student’s interests and attitudes towards reading, which will help to build a classroom library engaging to all students.
• Observations taken during reading instructions based on the strategies students have used to read, will help to guide future lessons and areas of focus.
• Observations taken regarding comprehension will help to build future lessons, success criteria and activities around areas of needs.
• Assessment data taken during conferences will helps to determine the focus for future lessons, shared or guided reading sessions.
• Importantly, the anecdotal comments will help to effectively group students for smaller or guided reading sessions.

How can you use this information to communicate with students?
This information can be communicated to students through descriptive feedback, future conferences, as well as through future lessons.

How can you use this information to communicate with parents?
This information could be communicated with parents during interviews, or other meetings. This information could be reflected in a “how to help” pamphlet that could be sent home to parents with tips on helping their children practice their reading skills and comprehension at home. 

A Sample Template 
Reading Conference Anecdotal Notes

Spotlight on Retelling of Texts

What is it?

Retelling of text is a type of response activity used after reading in which the student restates the main ideas in a story or text to demonstrate their understanding.

Why is it used?

Teachers ask their students to retell a story or text to give them an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the story or the information in the text.

How it can be used?

The teacher can use retelling of texts to determine whether the student is able to:

• Point out the main idea or message.
• Retell the important events of a story in sequence.
•  Retell the important ideas of an information book.
• Describe the setting.
• Describe the characters.
• Use connecting words.
• Make connections (text to self, text to text, text to world).

How it can be adapted?

Ideas for adapting retelling based on students’ learning needs:

• Model retelling during read-alouds and shared reading and the invite the students to participate.
• Provide prompts or props for the retell, such as charts, frameworks, picture sequences, story maps, semantic webs, mind maps.
• Suggest creative ways for students to retell stories, such as dramatic retelling with props or puppets or illustrations. This offers opportunities to integrate the arts into your lessons.
• Include retelling of texts in your guided reading lessons and reading conferences, and provide verbal prompts if needed (What happened first? What happened next? What happened in the end?).

How can you apply the information for your Balanced Reading program?

If you determine that students are having difficulty with any aspect of retelling, you can incorporate instruction and practice into your reading program as needed.

• Modeled/Shared Reading: Engage the students in a read-aloud or shared reading and then fill in a graphic organizer together using lots of think-aloud to demonstrate the process of retelling a story in sequence and providing all the juicy details needed.
• Guided Reading: Create opportunities for discussion and practice of retell. Provide images for students to arrange in the correct sequence, or ask them to use sticky notes to flag the main parts of the sequence right in the book.
• Independent Reading: Once you have modeled how to use them, provide appropriate graphic organizers for students to use for practice. Use reading conferences to assess their retelling skills.

How can you use this information to communicate to students?

As you observe your students practicing their retells, you can make notes about who needs extra help or practice with this skill and who owns the skill. This enables you to plan future whole class lessons or to group students for extra guided instruction or practice as needed. When providing extra guidance to students, knowing what they need drives the prompts you will use when encouraging them to improve their retells. 

How can you use this information to communicate with parents?

• Encourage parents to model storytelling and retelling of family histories (especially if the family culture has rich oral traditions). 
• Encourage parents of ELLs to practice retelling in their heritage language because the skills and knowledge developed in the first language transfer to the student’s development of English.
• Send instructions home to parents for use after they read with their children. This could include prompts for retelling the story.

A Sample Template

The Retell a Story/Retell an Information Book graphic organizer can be used by students as they practice retelling what they have read. This template can also be used at any stage of your balanced reading program, such as, a template for a whole class discussion, a guided reading tool, or a record for a reading conference that focuses on retelling.