Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words in Reading Acquisition

Introduction

In one consolidated school district, there is a failure to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals, mostly in the content area of English Language Arts (ELA) on state-mandated tests. Unfortunately, that failure is not unique to any particular school district. Many school districts across the country fail to meet AYP. Because of that, programs including SIPPS and DIBELS have been introduced in various school districts in an effort to help students learn to perform better and to determine how students rank in their reading comprehension and readiness to read.

These programs have also been introduced in an effort to help teachers, many of whom are underpaid and overworked. In rural school districts there are more problems in schools because there are fewer efforts made by parents to help their children get an education. Since education is not always seen as being important, it is difficult for teachers to help children who come to school completely unprepared. Money is often a concern in these rural areas, and some children will not have any school supplies because their parents cannot afford them. Other students will not have supplies because parents do not place enough importance on education to purchase them. Many parents in these rural communities do not have a high school education or higher, and they do not see a reason for their children to pursue one when their lives will often involve rural, physical labor that does not require academic skill.

Because there are so many concerns in school districts where children are not making their AYP goals, something must be done. Adding new and innovative ways to teach children to read is a good start, but how effective is it? First, one must explore what the main problems are where the teaching of children is concerned. What are teachers facing, and how do they cope with the lack of interest in education and the lack of funds needed to help children? Is the No Child Left Behind Act doing what it should to help teachers, or is it one more hurdle they must face? Reading is a skill that must be taught early, and it is very hard for a child to catch up with peers once he or she falls far behind. Because of that, it is vital that children receive help sooner rather than later.

Student learning is vital to the success of those students in the future (Macmillan, 2002). While that is true overall, there are some highly significant areas where teachers have to be highly qualified and students have to make progress that is acceptable based on established standards. One such area is language literacy and the assessment of that literacy (Macmillan, 2002). When one assesses the ability of students and how well they are reading, both children and parents should get involved to help those who are struggling. Unfortunately, many parents leave everything up to the schools, and sometimes the schools are not able to do it all. When the schools fail because the children did not make AYP on their tests, it is often the teachers who are blamed (Macmillan, 2002).

Student Learning and Early Literacy Assessment

The way that a child is assessed can sometimes allow children to slip through the cracks at various stages of education (Rappolt-Schlichtmann, Ayoub, & Gravel, 2009). Many children learn to read at a very young age, but for children who do not learn those skills, education can be complex, difficult, and frustrating. In other words, many children's problems are not recognized until the child is already significantly behind his or her peers. At that point it becomes much more difficult for the child to catch up in terms of reading level. While schools, teachers, and the majority of parents agree that teaching children to read is highly important, some children still miss out on this most important skill (Rappolt-Schlichtmann, Ayoub, & Gravel, 2009).

There is a window of opportunity for children who are learning to read (Gillon, 2000). If a teacher does not reach children during that time and they do not learn how to read properly, it can be almost impossible to work hard enough at a later date to reach a level that could otherwise have been attained (Immordino-Yang, 2009). Children can and do learn to read at a later age — even adults who are illiterate can learn to read. Unfortunately, a child who needs to progress through schooling and obtain an education can have a much more difficult time overall if he or she has not learned to read properly at the developmentally appropriate age for reading comprehension (Moustafa & Maldonado-Colon, 1999).

Children who display an interest in reading or pre-reading should be tested and encouraged (Moustafa & Maldonado-Colon, 1999). By determining whether these children are ready to start reading, a teacher can offer them what they need to learn at a pace that will help them comprehend as much as possible within that critical window of time. Children are generally good at gauging when they are ready to do something, and testing children early for reading ability and comprehension can also pinpoint students who are struggling for some reason (Walton, 2003).

By identifying these students, they can receive the help they need as early as possible. Children who slip through the cracks and are not helped at an early age will continue to fall behind as they get older, since their reading skills will not be on par with those of other children in their classroom or age group (Walton, 2003). Even pre-reading skills are important — they are a relatively good indicator of how much interest a child has in learning to read and whether a child has the basic conceptual understanding necessary to begin reading and comprehending (Griffith & Olson, 1992; Walton, 2003).

There are several different procedures used for testing, and they all align with both reading and pre-reading skills. Ideas about when these tests should be administered and which ones should be used differ greatly among experts, researchers, and teachers (Solano-Flores & Trumbull, 2003). Some tests include areas that other tests leave out, fostering concern that some instruments miss important elements while others focus on areas of less consequence. For this reason, studies are conducted to determine which testing method is better and what kinds of learning programs are the best choice for children once they have been tested. Both testing and learning programs are highly valuable for helping teachers and students work together on language literacy and reading comprehension (Sodoro, Allinder, & Rankin-Erickson, 2002; Solano-Flores & Trumbull, 2003).

In order to determine how students should be learning and what kinds of programs should be used to teach literacy, it is first necessary to determine where children rank in their readiness to learn, their language literacy, and their reading comprehension (Anthony et al., 2002). Educational materials such as SIPPS help students learn phonetics and sight words, teaching students to read through multiple levels of progression. Programs used to help students read are often introduced after testing has determined that help is needed. One of the best tests currently in use for reading and language literacy is the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) test.

Discussing this test as a basis for how reading assessment works is important, because it provides insight into how students are learning and the criteria by which they are evaluated. Many studies have examined DIBELS testing and how well it succeeds in measuring student reading levels. There are 10 specific components on the test, which looks for both reading readiness and reading problems (Tollefson, 2001). In other words, the test not only makes an effort to determine if the child is ready to read, but is structured to catch problems early. If problems are caught early, a program like SIPPS can help a student get caught up before it becomes virtually impossible to reach the same level as his or her peers.

Each individual area is measured, and then an average is taken of all the skills tested (Tollefson, 2001). A student is asked to demonstrate each skill, and by so doing all the areas work together to show whether a student has an overall reading problem, a problem in only a specific area, or no reading problems at all (Tollefson, 2001). Each skill demonstrated by the student is a specific indicator of future reading competence, comprehension, and performance. Among other areas of consideration, the test examines phonetic awareness and the ability to pair symbols with sounds. It also determines whether a child knows letters by name and can clearly indicate that knowledge (Tollefson, 2001).

During kindergarten, every skill set on the test has been proven to be a strong predictor of whether the child will perform well or poorly in literacy at a later date (Tollefson, 2001). Being able to name and describe pictures and retell a story are also used in reading tests as good predictors of literacy ability. Both the phonetic and alphabetic abilities of each child are carefully tested, because both areas contain skills that are highly necessary for reading later in life (Tollefson, 2001). There are concepts in both the alphabetic and phonetic sections that examine how students identify sounds, words, and letters. The ability to rhyme and blend words and letters properly should also be considered in testing children for reading comprehension, as these skills give much insight into correct pronunciation and understanding (Tollefson, 2001).

The majority of the skills that DIBELS and other tests examine are targeted at beginning readers. However, the tests are still sensitive to different skill levels and changes that take place within those levels. When the same kinds of tests are given to first graders instead of kindergarteners, significant improvements are observed (Tollefson, 2001). That indicates that children who read much better than average in kindergarten will stand out, just as students who do not read as well will also be noticed. This gives teachers a chance to help struggling students, and when students with problems are identified early they can get the help they need to be more successful in reading and language literacy. The distinction between skill levels is part of what makes tests like DIBELS so valuable when determining the early literacy skills that children possess (Tollefson, 2001).

By measuring academic readiness through a curriculum-based platform, reading assessment tests can help to show strengths and weaknesses based on specific literacy skills and abilities (Tollefson, 2001). These tests not only show how well a student reads, but how well a student performs a specific task that is crucial to reading. Students may be strong in some areas and weak in others, and by targeting those specific areas of difficulty early and providing help, those students may ultimately become excellent and prolific readers (Yopp & Yopp, 2000; Tollefson, 2001; Zifcak, 1981). Clearing up one area where they were experiencing difficulty is often enough to help them move forward.

Currently, when children are screened early for reading problems, one of the main areas tested is whether they know how letters sound (Phillips, Clancy-Menchetti, & Lonigan, 2008). This is an indication of whether they will be able to determine the meaning and sound of written words. Two tests — the Metropolitan Readiness Test and the McCarthy Scale for Children's Abilities — also examine children's ability to phonetically pronounce words. An examiner says words to a child, who then breaks them down phonetically. How well the child does this and how many words the child gets correct affects the grade on the test and the examiner's assessment of how well that child will read in the future (Phillips, Clancy-Menchetti, & Lonigan, 2008).

How long the student takes to respond and how many answers the student can produce correctly in one minute are both computed by the examiner. Based on a student's grade level, there is a standard number that a student should be able to get correct in that length of time. Many schools use the DIBELS test as the gold standard for this information, but it is by far not the only test used to assess students' language literacy and predict future reading ability. Some schools use other means of testing their students (Phillips, Clancy-Menchetti, & Lonigan, 2008). In addition to the tests already mentioned, schools may also use instruments such as the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised, the Texas Primary Reading Inventory, the Test of Oral Reading Fluency, and the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey.

Naturally, other tests can also be utilized to determine how well a child reads. The tests listed above are among the most popular and most often used in public school districts around the United States. The difficulty with the majority of these tests is that they only measure whether the child is able to read and not how well the child is able to pronounce letters or rhyme and blend phonetic characters together (Phillips, Clancy-Menchetti, & Lonigan, 2008). When a child's pre-reading abilities are considered, these abilities deserve more careful study. All factors should be carefully addressed when assessing a child's full reading potential, so that any child who has trouble reading — or may have trouble in the future — can receive much-needed help at the earliest possible point (Phillips, Clancy-Menchetti, & Lonigan, 2008).