1. Supporting Phonemic
Awareness in the Classroom
Final Project Template

2. Final Project Directions
As a final project, you will develop plans for teaching phonemic awareness in your
classroom, including plans for assessment procedures, analysis, and activities. This
final project template will also include one example of a phonemic awareness
assessment and analysis on a student.
Your plans should incorporate at least one of the technology tools explored in this
course and include details for other types of phonemic awareness strengthening
activities.
Complete this template as the course progresses. This template is due to your
facilitator at the end of Session Six. At that time, your facilitator will review your final
project and provide feedback for you in the Notes section.

3. Part I: General Information
(Session One)
GRADE:
Forty-six year old adult dyslexic student
LESSON BLOCK LENGTH:
50 minutes
Is Phonemic Awareness currently being addressed in your classroom? If so, how? If you are not currently teaching in a classroom, please
fill out this template as if you are teaching in the classroom of your choice.
Sessions with my student have been one-to one. He generally comes in the evening. We have been working on phonemic awareness in
order to help him decode and spell.

4. Part II: Phonemic Awareness
(Session One)
Reflect on one of the readings from this session. Some guiding questions could be: Why is phonemic awareness an important step in
learning to read? Do you currently assess student’s phonemic awareness? If not, what are the early indicators that allow you to identify if a
student is at risk of reading difficulty?
The most important statement of the readings in this session, relating to my student came from the SEDL article, “The Importance of
Phonemic Awareness in Learning to Read”. “Reading is dependent on two major cognitive capacities – the first is comprehension, the 2nd is
decoding, the ability to derive a word’s phonological representation…Language is a tacit process, takes place without conscious attention…
however, learning to decode, is a conscious understanding of the phonological units underlying the spoken word is critical”.
I used the TOWRE (Test of Word Reading Efficiency) and the TWS (Test of Written Spelling) to assess my student. As I expected, he did
spell phonetically, often with errors in the short vowel sounds. In reading, he had more difficulty with 2 or more syllable words. I didn’t time
him, as the protocol calls for, since I did want him to read as many of the words he could on the list. His difficulty lay in not knowing how to
syllabicate nor understanding the syllable types.
His understanding of phonological units was important and was going to be the starting point for our sessions. “The best early predictor of
reading difficulty in kindergarten or first grade is the inability to segment words and syllables into constituent sound units (phonemic
awareness” Lyon, 1995
In his case, he really never had a solid foundation in syllabication from the start.

5. Part III: Linguistic Components
(Session Two)
From the Yopp article, which activities look promising and intriguing? Which ones might be easiest to incorporate into your current
curriculum? Which activities, before assessing your students, do you think would benefit your classroom most?
The most important comment in the Yopp article that related to my experience with my student was this: Phonological awareness can be
placed into the larger context of metalinguistic awareness, like metacognition…it refers to one’s awareness and control over one’s
language in general and is the ability to focus attention on language, independent of meaning”. Since he could read to some degree,
his major difficulty lay in decoding multisyllabic words and in spelling. Since he is an adult, and very discouraged, I described what we
were about to do as “putting him on the fast track” by teaching him the 6 syllable types. He also has very slow working memory and
processing speed, so the instruction had to be very repetitive and hands on. The multisensory approach worked best for his learning
style. I had lots of game boards I made and baggies with lots of words, or syllables that he had to match to the syllable type. Once he
remembered all the syllable types, I could write multisyllabic nonsense words on paper and he would apply the strategy he needed
and give the reason why.

6. Part IV: Audio Recording Practice
(Session Two)
Share your URL to your practice audio recording here:
Reflect on this practice. How do you imagine audio recordings will help you teach and your students learn about phonemic awareness?
I used my cell phone to introduce the idea as to how my student could read and listen to himself privately. My student has generally been
very discouraged, but this will be a way for him to hear his progress and I think that should help his self-esteem.

7. Part V: Student Assessment
(Session Three)
Which assessment will you be using on your student?
I started with the TOWRE (Test of Reading Word Efficiency) and TWS (Test of Written Spelling) when we first started. I started working with
him before this class started, so the timing was wonderful since I could also use the older student “sound Segmentation” assessment.
Later, I will be using another form of the TOWRE and the TWS and the Yopp-Singer segmentation assessment
Insert the URL of your audio-recorded assessment with a student here.

8. Part VI: Analysis
(Session Three)
After completing an assessment on a student or small child, you will reflect on their scores using the appropriate worksheet.
 What stands out to you most?
 From his spelling on the TWS, I could see that he had difficulty discriminating vowel sounds and there were many gaps in the long
vowel sounds as well. He spelled Collar as callor, bicycle as bicilkel, fountain as fontown. On the TOWRE, he read huge as “hug”,
swollen as swallow, mediate as meditate, initiate as intent for a few of his errors. He had a great deal of difficulty with dipthongs, and
vowel sounds in general, segmenting the words phonetically.
 Reflect on the areas of student strength. The assessments were very difficult for him and he said that this was “totally demoralizing”,
however, he was committed to working on his disability.
 Reflect on the areas of student weakness. Another area of weakness was his lack of a method to decode multisyllabic words and
didn’t really understand the concept of syllables. He would take a guess at a word based on the initial few phonemes.

9. Part VII: Strategies
(Session Four)
Include strategies you will use in your classroom here.
 Products and Performances
 Questions relevant to your lesson
 Instructional Strategies
 Specific Skills to be developed
My situation has been somewhat unique as I am not teaching in a classroom setting, not with a student who can’t read at all. I’m working
with an adult who is reading on a very low level, whose goal is to improve enough in order to be able to fill out job applications or
create business plans, and be able to spell correctly. To foster his self esteem, I told him that we would be working on a more
accelerated “fast track”. It’s very important to help him fell better about himself and keep him motivated.
By teaching him syllable types, and long and short vowel sounds and open and closed syllables in a consistent structured method, he now
has a tool he can use to decode one syllable words. His reading has already improved as he practices decoding words based on the
rules and the syllable types.. Grouping words into categories has been helpful for him. I’ve introduced parts of speech since he didn’t
know what those were. This was a good time to teach him nouns, adjectives and adverbs, as they tied into also learning about
prefixes and suffixes. Again, the game format was a hit. He could choose words to use appropriately in sentences. I used the same
words for dictation for short sentences. I found a site for adult Mad Libs as review. (FYI – be careful when you look for those)! His
homework included activities where he had to add words to lists that he could classify as belonging to open, closed, short, long or
silent/e/ syllables. We played multisensory games having him pull words or nonsense words from a bag that he had to match to the
syllable type.

10. Part VII: Strategies, cont.
(Session Four)
Include strategies you will use in your classroom here.
 Activities and procedures
 Extensions and modifications
 Materials and resources needed
 Websites used
 References (copyright needed?)
Working with an adult is very similar to working with a child. Phonemic Awareness is key, but the starting point of instruction is different.
Orton Gillingham methods work just as well. There is still a sequence as to what should be introduced first and so on. Even though I
introduced the concept of the 6 syllable types, along with that, I also taught short and long vowel sounds, silent “e”, “r- controlled
sounds”. We worked on prefixes and suffixes, roots and parts of speech. We are still moving in the same continuum and will be
working on dipthongs next..
I provided my student with lists of common prefixes and suffixes, parts of speech, and root words, from the Purdue University website for
teaching English. My student needs the visuals since he has weak visual and auditory memory skills, therefore, I provided the Childs
Spelling System rules for him to refer back to. “spelling it Right” is wonderful website that he can use when online. Unfortunately, he
doesn’t have a computer, so any technology related activities were done during our sessions. I used Cinchcast for him to hear himself
read. In order to peak his interest in reading, I chose books of interest to him. He likes to cook and has the goal of opening a food
franchise, so we started with one of the Barefoot Contessa’s books, read part of “The Hot Zone” (about the ebola virus) and now about
the Great Barrier Reef.

11. Part VIII: Common Core Standards
(Session Four)
Please list all relevant Common Core Standards here, as well as any relevant Massachusetts Proposed Additional Standards.
Since my student is an adult, our current common core goals have been expanded and are specific to phonemic awareness skills. Since he
doesn’t remember how he was taught to read, it may be possible that the “whole language” methodology was used. He doesn’t
remember having learned any phonics rules and he dislikes reading, so he doesn’t read. He has never been diagnosed as having a
learning disability or as needing extra help in school. He has a 10 year old child who is diagnosed as dyslexic who is on an IEP. He is
currently questioning whether he has ADD since he feels that he can’t concentrate and zones out when people are talking to him.

12. Part IX: Technology
(Session Five)
Include technology strategies you will use in your classroom here, noting also your access to computers and other required hardware. You
may also consider using your newfound podcasting skills in a creative way to help students with phonemic awareness.
Using technology with my student is confined to when I work with him. He is enjoying the activities that I plan for him. I’ve suggested that he
use his phone to record himself reading and then listen to himself to try to pick up on his accuracy or rate and that we can listen to
together later.
There are many resources on line that we have accessed in class allowed me to print out worksheets for him to do at home.
Some of the web sites I used include: www.funenglishgames.com, http://www.vocabulary.com , http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster2
www.lessonplanet.com

13. Part X: Reflection
(Session Six)
Include technology strategies you will use in your classroom here, noting also your access to computers and other required hardware. You
may also consider using your newfound podcasting skills in a creative way to help students with phonemic awareness.
Since technology has become more of the mainstream and a bigger part of classroom education, children as young as two are exposed and
are less phobic of it than adults. I have been recommending links for parents to access for free and participate with their children at
home that help in many academic areas.
I learned about cinchcast and slideshare which will help me in the future. Even though my adult student doesn’t have access to a computer,
he does have a cell phone that he will be able to use to record himself. I certainly will be able to incorporate podcasting in the future
when I have a student working on fluency or decoding.

14. Graduate Credit Work