In this month’s Introduction, we defined fluency as a student’s ability to read text quickly and accurately. The activities from last week’s Teacher’s Corner support fluency by building students’ sight word vocabulary so that they can read more quickly and efficiently. This week’s Teacher’s Corner presents an activity that can help students apply phonics skills and develop sight word vocabulary. Development in both of these skills can help improve students’ reading fluency.

THE DAILY MESSAGE

Time: 5-10 minutes daily/each class meeting

Goals: To help build students’ knowledge of sight words. To help students segment words into sounds and blend sounds into words while reading a meaningful message.

Materials: a place to write a short note that will be visible to all students in the class, whether on the board, on chart paper, or in an electronic document

Preparation:

1. Consider sounds and letters that your students already know or have been studying recently. It would be helpful to include words in the daily message that contain letters and sounds they have studied most recently. Doing so provides additional reinforcement.
2. Plan and write the message before your students arrive. If you have multiple classes, you may need to write a specific message to each group. This activity can be used with students of any age.
3. Begin your message with a greeting. This can be formal, such as “Dear Class,” or more casual, like “Hi, Kids!” Varying the way you greet students is another opportunity to teach different types of vocabulary and expressions.
4. Include a few sentences that will be interesting to the class. Tell about something you did that morning or what you are excited about for today. If you have students who are very new to English, you may choose to write only a few sentences to begin with. Messages can grow longer as students gain more English. The message is an opportunity to include words with specific sounds or letters (see the examples for ideas).
5. It is fun and engaging to end your letter with a question that can prompt discussion. To respond to your questions, students will practice reading the message and then practice using vocabulary and forming sentences in their answers.

End the message with a closing. As noted with the greeting in Step 3, the closing can vary and provides another opportunity to include different vocabulary and ways of saying goodbye.

Example Messages:

Procedure:

1. You can choose to have the message on display as students enter the classroom, or wait until they are settled and then share it with them.
2. Read the message aloud to students once or twice. Then, using your hand or a pointer, track the text as the class reads it out loud together. For additional practice, you can have students read it again in pairs and then have each partner take a turn reading it to the other.
3. If you included a question at the end of the message, allow students a chance to share their answers. Again, this can be done with a partner or small group, or you can call on individual students to share ideas.
4. You can even create a list or chart of student responses to your question and read them together if time permits. This will give students even more exposure to written language.
5. Provide opportunities for students to interact with the message by finding targeted letters or words. You can have students come up to the board to find things by pointing, circling, or highlighting. Students can also make notations in an electronic document by changing colors or underlining. For instance, in Example 1 from the table above, students could come up and circle a letter c in the text until all of them are located. In Example 2, students could locate sight words such as before, been, from, etc. In Example 3, students could look for words with the scr- spelling pattern.
6. Repeat this activity each day or class meeting with a new message to provide students with more practice.

1. The daily message can also be used to start a dialogue journal with students. Dialogue journals are ongoing written messages back and forth between two people, in this case between a student and a teacher. For this extension, each student would need a notebook. Once you have displayed your message and followed the steps outlined in the procedure above, you can have students write you a response. They can respond to the question from your message or even write you a whole message. Students can use your message as a model for their own. After they write their messages, you would write a quick reply to each student in his or her notebook. This journal extension can be repeated daily or done only a few times per week, depending on what is best for your students. For more information about using dialogue journals, take a look at the English Teaching Forum article called The Dialogue Journal: A Tool for Building Better Writers.
2. When students feel more confident and have more English skills, you can involve them in reading and writing the daily message. A student helper can be in charge of reading the message and leading the discussion to answer the question. Eventually, you can assign each student a date to write and share his or her own message to the class.

Students of all ages and levels really enjoy this daily message activity. It is a great warm-up at the beginning of class and helps build relationships, especially if students are given a chance to write their own messages. The message provides an opportunity to reinforce beginner students’ phonics knowledge, sight word vocabulary, reading fluency, and basic literacy skills while being fun and engaging. Next week’s Teacher’s Corner will focus on helping students develop literacy skills through activities that support comprehension in beginning readers.

In the introduction for this month’s Teacher’s Corner, we defined phonemic awareness as a student’s ability to understand that words are made up of sounds. Phonics was described as understanding the relationship between sounds in a word and the letters used to spell it. This week in the Teacher’s Corner, we will present an easy daily activity that can help beginners develop skills in both of these foundational areas of early literacy.

One important distinction to make is that phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. Activities that support phonemic awareness do not require that students see the words. Most phonemic awareness activities are done by simply listening and speaking. On the other hand, phonics requires that students associate letter sounds with the written form of a letter. The phonics component of this activity is added at the end under Extensions.

MOVE AND SAY

Time: 5-10 minutes daily

Goals

• To help students identify, count, and manipulate sounds in words.
• To help students segment words into sounds and blend sounds into words.

Materials

• Small re-sealable plastic bags
• Tokens for students: small objects such as pebbles, paper clips, cotton balls, beans, or coins
• Tokens for the teacher: magnets or paper squares taped to the board for modeling
• Phonemic awareness word lists (there are many free lists that can be found online)
• If students need visual support in segmenting sounds, a printed grid for each student (Appendix A), masking tape, or another way of creating a grid (see Step 3 in Preparation)

Preparation

1. Read through the procedure to understand the activity and to identify what materials you will want to use.
2. It is helpful for students to practice phonemic awareness activities daily, so consider making students a small kit that can be stored in individual desks or in a specific place in the classroom. Each student will need a plastic bag with 5 tokens. Tokens can be any small object such as cotton balls, pebbles, beans, coins, etc. As students progress to learning words with more than 5 sounds or phonemes, you can add more tokens to each bag.
3. If visual support is helpful to students, you can print copies of Appendix A or use masking tape to create a grid on each student’s table or desk. Grids can also be drawn on individual white boards or chalkboards. This activity can also be completed without using a grid at all.
4. Be sure you have a list of words (printed or easily accessible on the computer) that are ready to call out to students. Only the teacher needs a copy, not the students.
5. Arrange your teacher tokens (magnets or paper squares with tape) in a group on the board.

Procedure

1. Ensure that each student has a set of tokens and (if desired) a visual grid for the activity.
2. Tell students that they are going to work on hearing the sounds in words and that you will show them what to do. If it is helpful, you can draw a grid on the board as a model. Place your tokens above the grid in a cluster.
3. Say “The word I am going to start with is bat. I hear three sounds, /b/ /a/ /t/, in that word. I am going to move one token for each sound I hear.”
4. Using your tokens on the board, model by saying the sound /b/ and moving one token down into the first box of the grid. Say /a/ and move another token down into the second square. Say /t/ and move a token into the third square.
5. Tap your finger under each token and repeat the individual sounds, /b/ /a/ /t/. Then, sweep your finger across the bottom of the grid from left to right and blend the sounds together to say the word bat.
6. Tell students they will now do the same thing with you using a new word. Again, students can have a grid for the activity, but it is not necessary. They can also simply move their tokens on their desks or tables.
7. Say the word map. Tell students “Now, move one token on your table for each sound you hear. Let’s try it together.” Model moving tokens on the board as you and the students say /m/ /a/ /p/.
8. Tap your finger below each token and say the individual sounds again. Have students do this with you. Then, have students sweep their fingers across the bottom of their grids from left to right and blend the sounds together to say map.
9. Answer any questions students have. Repeat this activity with new words from the list, monitoring students and stopping to clarify as needed.
10. Once students have mastered the procedure, the class should be able to do the following:
    
    1. Teacher calls out a word from the list.
    2. Students repeat the word.
    3. Students segment the word into individual sounds and move a token for each sound.
    4. Students tap fingers under each token and repeat the sounds.
    5. Students sweep finger below the tokens, left to right, and blend the sounds to say the word.
11. Complete this activity in class for about 5 minutes using words from the list you have chosen. It is OK to repeat some words, but don’t use the same words every time because you want students to make progress. As students become more comfortable with the activity, use more complicated skills and words (see Variations below).

Variations/Extensions

1. Once students understand the procedures for this activity, you can introduce more complicated words with a greater number of sounds. Add more tokens to students’ kits and more boxes to their grids.
2. Sound manipulation: When students are comfortable using the objects to segment words into sounds, you can add an additional activity: sound manipulation. Manipulating sounds in words is also an important early literacy skill. Follow the procedure outlined above in Step 10. After students slide their finger under the objects to blend the sounds into a word, have them pause and change a sound. For instance, if the first word was bat, you might say “Now change bat to bag.” Students then have to listen for the sound that has changed; in this case, /t/ has changed to /g/. Have students physically remove the token for the /t/ sound and replace it with a new token for /g/. Then, students repeat Steps 10.d and 10.e for the new sounds and word. This variation can be completed for any sound within the word. For example, starting with bat, you could ask students to change it to bag, big, rig, rag, rat, etc. Many of the free word lists online offer sound manipulation activities as well.
3. Phonics extension: Using Appendix B, have students complete the procedures above using the first grid on top. Say a word, have students repeat it, and then segment the sounds using tokens in the grid. Then, have students tap each token, say the sound, and write the corresponding letter in the grid on the bottom to practice spelling words. The grid can be laminated or placed in a sheet protector so students can write on it with a dry erase marker and use it many times. This will help students develop phonics skills.
4. Reading and spelling extension: After completing this activity many times, students should begin to transfer this procedure to their own reading and writing. When reading, a student should begin to segment unknown words into sounds and then try to blend the sounds together to read. When writing, a student should be able to segment a word they want to write into sounds and then write the letter(s) for each sound they hear. It is helpful if you model doing this in your own reading and writing when teaching students.

Becoming literate depends on two very basic foundational skills. First, it requires the ability to hear and identify sounds in words. Second, students need to understand that certain letters correspond to specific sounds when a word is written.

There are many great resources online for helping students begin to associate sounds with letters and letter combinations in English. Displaying a set of phonics cards with picture cues in the classroom, and frequently using these cards, is a great way to build phonic and phonemic awareness. Letter sounds should be introduced and practiced gradually using word lists, sorting activities, and spelling games. A daily drill of sounds that students have learned is also very helpful. For free, printable, research-based activities, check out the Florida Center for Reading Research Student Center Activities.

The activity shared this week will help build students’ awareness of sounds, how to manipulate them, and how those sounds correspond to written letters. Next week, we’ll take a look at how to help students build sight word recognition.

Appendix A: Single Grid for Move and Say

appendixa.jpg

This, session "We Like to Move It! Hands-on Language Learning with Mobile Devices," introduces mobile language learning activities that require no internet connection. Instead, language learners are encouraged to take pictures, record audio, make a movie, and partner with peers to enhance all four skills - reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

The beginning of any great new career starts with an interview. In the United States, the job interview is a chance for a company to see how the skills and personality of an applicant will fit their workplace. For many English learners, the American-style interview can be an unfamiliar experience because job applicants are expected to talk about themselves and their skills. This requires a vocabulary filled with strong adjectives and the linguistic competence to share plenty of details about personal qualities and experiences.

In this week’s Teacher’s Corner, students will experience job interviews while practicing strong adjectives that will make them the perfect job candidate!

LEVEL

Intermediate to Advanced

LANGUAGE FOCUS

Speaking (primary focus); listening (secondary focus)

GOALS

Students will:

• Use adjectives to describe themselves and their experiences
• Practice speaking and listening through a job interview question-and-answer format

MATERIALS

• Teacher: computer, speakers, projector, whiteboard or chalkboard
• Students: notebook, pencil, paper

PREPARATION

1. Read through all the materials carefully.
2. Print a class set of the adjectives in Appendix 1. There are 20 adjectives in the set; larger classes may need two copies, and in smaller classes, you may want to choose which adjectives to include and which to set aside. Cut out the adjectives before class.
3. Print enough copies of the interview questions in Appendix 2 for each student in the class.
4. Have one sheet of blank paper for each student in the class. Students will use the paper to write down the name of their company.

PART ONE: ADJECTIVE MATCHING

In this week’s Teacher’s Corner, students will practice using adjectives that can help them be more exact and assertive during a job interview. This lesson begins with a matching activity to learn vocabulary before students write and answer questions in a practice interview.

1. Begin by dividing the class into two groups of equal number. Give half the students the strong adjective cards, and give the other half the weak adjective cards.
2. Next, have the students mingle and look at one another’s cards. When two students think they have a match, have them stand together to form a pair. As students make correct pairs, write their strong/weak adjective combinations on the board. Writing the adjectives on the board will help students during Part Two of this activity.
3. Once all the students have matched cards, review their answers as a class. If a pair of students is incorrectly matched, have them return to mingling until they make a correct match.
   
   1. Note: If students do not know all the words, that is okay. Just encourage them to make a guess based on what they know. During this warm-up, the goal is for students to think about this new vocabulary as a group.

PART TWO: JOB PREPARATION

1. Once again, divide the class into two groups: Group A and Group B. Have each group sit on opposite sides of the room.
2. Have the students get out a notebook and a pencil or pen.
3. For Group A, give each student a blank sheet of paper. Have these students think of a company – this can be a real company, a sports team, or a local business they would like to represent – and tell them to write the name of the company on the sheet of paper and place it on their desks.
4. Next, give each student in Group A a copy of the interview questions in Appendix 2. Have them read through the questions and prepare to ask interviewees the questions.
5. While Group A reviews their interview questions, instruct Group B to prepare to interview for a job. To do so, they should use the adjectives from the warm-up activity. Encourage students to think about the following questions:
   
   1. What strengths and skills do I have?
   2. What education and experience do I have that make me a strong applicant?
   3. What adjectives best describe me?
   4. What kind(s) of jobs would I like to have?
6. Once all the students have had time to prepare, have Group B stand up and move around the room to see the companies and work opportunities that Group A have made available. If a student is interested in a company, have him or her sit down with a student from Group A and have an interview.
   
   1. Note: If several students are interested in the same company, have them take turns. In the meantime, encourage them to sit down with another company for an interview while they wait; it is always important to get extra interview practice!
7. Once all the students in Group B have had a chance to have an interview, have the groups switch roles and repeat the process again from Step 1.

APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW ADJECTIVES

APPENDIX 2: ADJECTIVE REVIEW

You are interviewing people for a new position at your company. Below are common questions asked during an interview. Use them to find the best candidate for the job. As the applicant answers your questions, be sure to write notes in your notebook.

1. What information can you tell me about yourself?
2. Why did you choose this field for your career?
3. How would you describe yourself?
4. What are your best strengths?
5. What would you like to improve about yourself?
6. What is the most important thing you are looking for in a job?
7. What are your career goals?
8. Do you like to work in teams, or do you prefer to work alone?
9. Why do you want to work for our company?
10. Do you have any questions for me?