Question

What are some instructional strategies specific concepts of print and phonemic awareness to teach new literacy concepts that include the IWY (I do, We do, you do) method in your research.

Answer 1

Before, looking at some instructional strategies specific concepts of print and phonemic awareness, let’s briefly look into the IWY (I do, we do, you do) method for a better understanding.

The gradual release of responsibility (also known as I do, we do, you do) is a teaching strategy that includes demonstration, prompt, and practice. At the beginning of a lesson or when new material is being introduced, the teacher has a prominent role in the delivery of the content. This is the “I do” phase. But as the student acquires the new information and skills, the responsibility of learning shifts from teacher-directed instruction to student processing activities. In the “We do” phase of learning, the teacher continues to model, question, prompt and cue students; but as student move into the “You do” phases, they rely more on themselves and less on the teacher to complete the learning task.

I Do- In the first step the teacher models the appropriate way of performing the skills included in the new concept being taught. For e.g. making a paper boat. The teacher shows step by step, the procedure to make a paper boat.

We Do- After the teacher models the correct way to understand or perform the new concept being taught, they partner with the students and work through some examples together. For e.g. in this phase the teacher and student make the paper boat together.

You Do- This step is where students demonstrate their initial level of understanding of the new concept being taught through independent practice. For e.g. this is where the student makes the paper boat on his own.

Hope this explains the IWY concept. Now let’s look at some of the instructional strategies for Phonemic Awareness.

Phonemic awareness is an understanding of phonemes and how they work together to create words. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can be differentiated in a word. For instance, in the word “cat,” the phonemes are the “c” sound, the “short a” sound, and the “t” sound. A child who possesses phonemic awareness can segment sounds in words (for example, pronounce just the first sound heard in the word cat) and blend strings of isolated sounds together to form recognizable word forms. Students must also be able to complete phonemic awareness tasks such as the following:

• Phoneme isolation: Isolate phonemes; for example, “Tell me the first sound in cat.”
• Phoneme identity: Recognize common sounds in different words; for example, “Tell me the same sound in rug, rat, and roll.”
• Phoneme categorization: Identify the word with the odd sound in a sequence; for example, “Which word does not belong in sat, sag, rug?”
• Phoneme blending: Combine separate sounds to form a word; for example, [b-a-t] for bat.
• Phoneme segmentation: Break out the word into separate sounds; for example, “What are the sounds in bag?”

Below are helpful methods for teaching phonemic awareness.

1-Show printed material to the child and talk about the sounds and structure of the words: the greatest impact on phonemic awareness is achieved when there is interaction with print, along with paying specific attention to phonemes, sound/word structure. Seeing the words, hearing the sounds, and studying the structure with a coach (parent, teachers, etc.) allows them to make the connection between what they see and hear, a crucial skill for reading.

2-Play letter games/phoneme substitution games: Take turns thinking of a word. Have the adult and child work together to say each sound in the word. Write down the word (adult or child) and say each sound individually pointing to the letter(s) that make that sound, using the I do, we do, you do technique. Or, pick a word and take turns switching the first sound in the word to see how it changes the word or switch the last sound to see how it changes the word and sound (e.g., turn cat into bat or pop into pod).

3-Use auditory, visual, tactile (touch), and kinaesthetic (movement) representations of sounds to teach phonemic awareness: For instance, auditory cues are in play when children are asked to clap the number of syllables they hear in a spoken word. (Let’s clap the sounds in cat!) Or you could use visual/tactile cues like blocks or chips to represent each sound in a word (e.g., writing each sound or letter on each chip and seeing how you could manipulate the chips to change the words or letters). How about making letters out or play-doh and using those letters to create words, switch sounds around, etc.). Kinaesthetic cues are used when children jump as they repeat sounds, say a rhyming word, say each sound in a word. Leverage the IWY technique here as well.

What are Concepts of Print?

Concepts of print can be viewed as basic knowledge about how print in general, and books work and offers the basic understandings of reading. It can be viewed as the foundation to reading and writing. Concepts of print teach children at an early age how to orient themselves in terms of reading.

Concepts of print include:

• Reading from left to right.
• Reading from top to bottom.
• The fact that letters and words convey a message.
• Print is what we read.
• The "return sweep", to move from one line to the next.
• Every book has a front, back, and an author

There are many different instructional strategies for teaching students about the concepts of print. They include:

• Interactive read aloud
• Talking about parts of the book
• Talk about the author

This allows for the book to become more interesting and interactive.

Some more instructional strategies that leverage the IWY technique are:

1. Make references to words, spaces, letters, lines of print, left to right, top to bottom, direction of print, in big books that you have read and as you model writing.

2. Use environmental print to make references to words, spaces, letters and lines of print.

3. Develop the concept of “left to right” by sticking a green dot on the left-hand top corner of the child’s desk to act as a reminder.

4. Provide opportunities for paired reading. Ask an older student to read while a younger child follows along with his/her finger.

5. Count the words in a line of print or clap for each word spoken to help develop the children’s concept of a word.

6. Use name cards, nursery rhymes, room item labels, etc., to help children recognize words that are important to them.

7. Use a variety of incidental activities to develop the concept of letter, e.g., play with letter cars, magnetic letters, plastic letters and alphabet games. Demonstrate and discuss that letters go together to make words.

8. Display an alphabet chart and talk about letters in other contexts, making sure the children can see that a letter is different from a word.

9. Model the use of conventions such as full stops, questions, pauses, etc., in context while modelling reading and writing.

10. Have student’s highlight (specific) punctuation after you teach them via the I do we do you do technique.

Hope the aforementioned is free of any ambiguity and is useful to you.

Thanks