Instructional Strategies for Teaching Effective

Instructional Strategies for Teaching Effective Reading Skills in Kindergarten

Personal Perspective and Rational for the Study

Research Design & Details

Personal Role

Chapter 5 Analysis and Interpretation

Instructional Strategies for Teaching Effective

Reading Skills in Kindergarten

This report represents my research as a student teacher in an early childhood program on instructional strategies for teaching effective reading skills in kindergarten. The objective of the paper is to demonstrate and note the importance of coaching students at the kindergarten level in the necessary skills needed to read proficiently or to help identify those students that will need additional assistance due to some reading problems. This study represents a two-month observation interlude coupled with information acquired through testing and other research methodologies. The report has been laid out in a chapter format that provides details of my research including a literature review of the subject. The main focus of the research was focused on three specific reading factors and the strategies needed to implement them:

Phonemic Awareness

Reading Comprehension

Word Knowledge

It is critical that kindergarten students obtain certain educationally-based or specific foundation skills that build upon their future educational needs. Like basic math concepts, the ability to read proficiently is an obvious foundations point that can dictate many other educational areas. For this reason, teachers must identify a student's need of assistance in the core reading skills as early as possible. In these times of limited educational funding and less than adequate and trained human resource levels, focusing the teaching methodologies in the right instructional directions will be necessary in order to create proficient reading levels and also to identify when early intervention is needed.

Overview

The purpose of this report was to ascertain if there was a combination of predictive measures that correlate between phonetics, comprehension and word knowledge in regard to reading skills that could be used by teachers at the kindergarten level to increase the reading abilities of their students. The research was limited to only forty two kindergarten students from two classrooms over a period of two months. Some specific things observed and detailed include letter identification, phonological awareness, reading tests and vocabulary consistency. Reading achievement was measured from the beginning of the two-month period to the end of the two-month period with concerns regarding a student's comprehension, fluency, sight-word recognition, and phonemic pronunciation.

Personal Perspective and Rational

Despite the obvious challenges inherent in this limited research sample, the research in this work could in fact be used on a larger scale. With assistance from a professional research organization for example, this research on a larger sample or scale could be used to demonstrate specific teaching methodologies at the kindergarten level for teachers who need to receive detailed reading related teaching skills including a focus on Phonemic Awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge. These are areas that can ensure that a student obtains all the necessary reading skills that are required for advanced study in later grade levels.

The study could also be shown to demonstrate the negative, that is, if Phonemic Awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge factors are not properly taught and a student therefore misses these aspects, then a student will be at unique disadvantage in future educational pursuits due to the lack of ability to perform the essential basics of reading.

Research Questions

The younger a child is able to read and read well, the earlier that child can take advantage of the life long learning process. In addition, reading skills carry forward into all aspects of the educational system so the child in earnest can excel at all levels of school. The associated research questions that this report aims to answer are related to instructional strategies for teaching effective reading skills at the kindergarten level.

By demonstrating that students at the kindergarten level who receive detailed training in Phonemic Awareness, Reading Comprehension and Word Knowledge, this report will show that students that receive good training in these areas will do better at reading at their current level or they will be easily identified as students that are in need of additional assistance due to some possible problem.

Although it is not in the realm of this research, students who read well at the kindergarten level will do better as readers at future educational levels. The kindergarten teachers who excel at providing the necessary skills of Phonemic Awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge will also be able to better identify students who may have potential reading problems based on these skill sets.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

Introduction

The quality of a child's education begins at a very early age. Children who tend to excel throughout their education lives usually begin building a solid foundation while they are young. Statistics show that the younger a child learns to read the more his or her skills will progress throughout their life. Particularly important for early readers are the skill sets associated to Phonemic awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge. Each of these factors focuses on a child's level of reading ability that can be measured and has been studied for many years. Kindergarten teachers who work on a child's Phonemic awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge builds on a proven methodology that will pay huge dividends in the child's educational future.

Phonemic Awareness

For many years there have been efforts to single out the importance of phonemic awareness for beginning readers. Phonemic Awareness is an awareness of an individual reader's ability with phonemes or the more acceptable term that includes the earlier stages of rhyme and syllable awareness. "Various terms have been employed as synonyms, such as phonological awareness, acoustic awareness, phonetic awareness, auditory analysis, sound categorisation, phonemic segmentation, phonological sensitivity, and phonemic analysis." (Hempenstall, 1997)

These definitions of phonemic awareness all acknowledge the fact that the topic encompasses a wide range of skills and levels of understanding. The important thing to note is that phonemic awareness is a focus on the structures of words rather than their actual meanings. "To understand that the written word is composed of graphemes that correspond to phonemes (the alphabetic principle), beginning readers must first have some understanding that words are composed of sounds (phonemic awareness) rather than their conceiving of each word as a single indivisible sound stream." (Hempenstall, 1997)

Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand or comprehend the information that was read. The ability to comprehend will have a profound effect on the readers ability to understand information from a text or provide the ability to enjoy scenese described in the written word.

Teachers should teach at levels based on the skills of thir individual student as opposed to using a cookie cutter methodolgy for one size fits all. Students at later levels are taught to read this way in order to enhance comprehandsion. "Adjust your reading style to fit the difficulty level of the material." (Franz, 2004) Not all students will comprehend at the same level.

There are a number of reasons why an individual may have difficulty comprehending information that was read so levels of comprehension provide an early indicator for potential problems in a child's reading ability. For example, if a student suffers from a specific reading disability such as dyslexia, it is far more important to catch the diagnosis early on in a students educational career so that viable solutions can be instigated or that any necessary treatments can begin as soon as possible.

In addition, there is direct coorelation in a student's abiltiy to comprhend and the development of a sound cognitive and memory related skill set. When students engage in reading comprehension they get take a meaningful unit of text and their working memory should attempt to interpret this information. This process is key to the proper maturation of a child's intelectual ability.

Word Knowledge

A student's abiltiy to grasp the meanings of words is an obvious building block to successful reading. Teachers will have a definete influence on the words students learn. The words are in a sense building blocks to more advanced word knowledge so it is important to chose specific vocabulary builders that enhance future reading. If a particualr student, for example, is slow at learning the same words as the rest of the class, that could be an indicator of some potentail reading problem.

Word knowledge is a key ingredient for comprhension and memory so building this aspect of reading enhnaces other phases of childhood development. Also,-word knoweldge helps confidence in regard to a level of speed a child can read because a student is less likely to need to reread segments. Word knowledge therefoere has a direct coorelation to slow and laborious reading which takes away from reading comprehension.

Summary

In summary, it is important to build a solid reading foundation while children are young because children who read well excel throughout their education lives. It is clear that the younger a child learns to read the more that child will progress in school and in life. It is essential that at the kindergarten level, teachers should focus on the skill sets of Phonemic awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge so that students will become better readers. These factors develop a child's level of ability that is measurable and it will pay huge dividends in the child's educational future.

Chapter 3 Methodology

Introduction

The research focused on assessing kindergarten level reading skills and providing insights into the instructional strategies for teaching effective reading skills. The methodology used was to incorporate picture books, vocabulary instruction, phonic instruction, and visual cues for linguistic processing in order to build phonological awareness skills, comprehension and vocabulary.

The research helped gain insights into a kindergartener's ability to use Phonemic awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge which made it easier to identify children who were struggling with tasks required in reading.

Research Design and Details

For letter identification measures, students were measured in an un-timed test where each student had to read a lower-case alphabet letter on an individual card over the course of the two months and then having to say the letter out loud each time. Over the course of the study, students were given one on one help or peer help with letters they had trouble with so over the two-month period, every student eventually learned how to say each letter of the alphabet.

The Phonemic Awareness was taught and measured by using sound matching. "Awareness at the level of the phoneme has particular significance for the acquisition of reading because of its role in the development of the alphabetic principle - that the written word is simply a means of codifying the sound properties of the spoken word. In order to decode the written word, the child needs to appreciate the logic of the writing system and, as a prerequisite, the logic of oral word production." (Hempenstall, 1997)

Therefore, a series of questions were asked of the students over the time of the research such as: What is the first sound you hear in the word bat; dog; eat or house? The children were instructed on this skill set until they had a solid grasp or these types of phonemic strategies. Comprehension was measured through an analysis of the students' ability to retell a story in their own words. Word knowledge was focused on the words that would be covered in the final reading test.

Personal Role

In regard to personal advancement and the knowledge that many teachers today may not have the necessary skills needed to teach Phonemic awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge, this researcher made a consorted effort to become proficient in this area. A unique skill set is needed for kindergarten teachers who wish to gain a semblance of proficiency in phonemic awareness so as to be able to put this skill set to use.

So as not to assume that the two kindergarten teachers involved had the necessary understanding regarding Phonemic awareness, reading comprehension and word knowledge, we did our literature review and also utilized the "Hooked on Phonics" software and video educational program.

As a result of this research, the two class teachers and I created a solid foundation in our own phonemic awareness. We each made the effort to gain the related skills to help train students in the sound structure of words, reading comprehension and vocabulary word knowledge.

Chapter 4 Study

Forty-two kindergarten students from two classes of the same school participated in the study for a two-month period. Twenty-two were male; twenty female. Twenty four students were of European-American descent, sixteen students or approximately (38%) were African-American and only two children had English as a second language. Both of these students had Spanish as their first language. The school is in a rural setting and the study took place in a primary education building with pre-K through second grade students are enrolled and the area's socioeconomic status had only four children eligible for federal lunch assistance. In other words, the educational and economic status of the community was middleclass.

The purpose of the research was to ascertain if there is a combination of predictive measures that correlate between phonetics, comprehension and word knowledge. If there was, could these skills be taught to students and then used to increase the ability to read at the educational reading skills level.

If so, what was the best way to teach these skills in order to increase a classes' ability to read. Specific details of the study focused on first observing student's ability in letter identification, phonological awareness, reading tests and vocabulary consistency. When deficiencies were noted, one on one and peer training was then provided to help build confidence in a particular skill set. Reading achievement was measured from the beginning of the two-month period to the end of the two-month period with concerns regarding a student's comprehension, fluency, sight-word recognition, and phonemic pronunciation.

It is important to acknowledge the limitations of the study. Most importantly, the sample size was relatively small (42), but the ethnic diversity was acceptable. An additional limitation was the overall length of time of the study which was very short (2 months).