Phonological Awarenessand Teaching English as a

Second Language

Linda SiegelUniversity of British Columbia

Vancouver, CANADA

Special Thanks to:

• Suk Han Lee and colleagues at the EMB• EMB• Mei Lan Au• Alice Lai• Nonie Lesaux, Orly Lipka, Rose Vukovic• Chinese Rhenish Church Hong Kong Synod• Hong Kong Institute of Education• Ian Smythe

Aims of this presentation

• To understand the role of phonological awareness in the development of English speaking, reading and writing

• To understand the English language learning of ESL speakers

• To understand how to develop English language skills in ESL speakers

Inspiration for the ideas

English Immersion in Xian

– Also Beijing, Lanzhou, Guangzhou, Shanghai

North Vancouver Canada – ESL teaching

Hong Kong EMB Project

How Is Language Learned?

• A child’s first language is learned by listening and speaking.

• Reading and writing comes much later after there is a good oral language foundation.

• Children speak first in single words and then in short sentences.

• Children learn nouns, adjectives, and verbs first. Grammar comes later.

Good Language Education

• Listening and speaking are stressed to help develop comprehension and reading skills.

• Conversation and oral language skills, not dictation, are important.

Principles

• Listening skills are about the ability to extract meaning from a string of words.

• Reading is about extracting meaning from a series of written words.

Principles

• You cannot extract meaning from spoken language unless you understand the meaning of words.

• Understanding of sounds precedes understanding of the written word.

Terminology

• Phonological Awareness – the ability to break down speech into smaller segments

• Phoneme – the smallest unit of sound

• Phonics – a method of teaching reading that emphasizes the association of sounds with letters

Terminology

• Phonological awareness training – teaching the sound structure of words– Auditory training

• Phonics training – teaching the connection between sounds and letters– Training with print

Teaching English

1. It is important to first develop oral language skills.

2. Phonological awareness skills should be taught orally without print.

3. Phonological awareness training helps children learn vocabulary and reading skills.

Danger of teaching writing early

1. They will learn English like they learn to write Chinese – as a series of keystrokes. This limits the size of the vocabulary.

2. They can never develop fluent and accurate reading.

3. They will have trouble with talking to people and writing good English.

North Vancouver Study

Aims of the Vancouver Study

• Identify children at risk for literacy difficulties

• Provide an appropriate intervention

• Assess the effectiveness of the intervention

Longitudinal Study• Screening at age 5 when

children enter school• Tested every year on

reading, spelling, arithmetic, language and memory skills

• Results at grade 6 – age 12

Longitudinal Sample

• All the children in the North Vancouver School District

• 30 schools• Varying SES levels• 20% English as a Second

Language (ESL)

• Arabic• Armenian• Bulgarian• Cantonese• Croatian• Czech• Dutch• Farsi

• Japanese• Korean• Kurdish• Mandarin• Norwegian• Polish• Punjabi• Romanian

Languages In The Study

FinnishFrenchGermanGreekHindiHungarianIndonesianItalian

RussianSerbianSlovakSpanishSwedishTagalogTamilTurkish

normales

L1 English ESL

Kindergarten

Dyslexic

Normal

Dyslexic

Normal

Grade 6

L1 English ESL

KINDERGARTEN SCREENING

•LETTER IDENTIFICATION

•MEMORY

•PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING

•SYNTAX

•SPELLING

Letter Identification

c r m k b w os y t a u d qx l g e z n jp h v i f

Phonological Processing

the

and

sit

when

book

anacampersote

mithridatism

qualtagh

ucalegon

groak

Phonological Awareness

• Ability to break speech down into smaller units

words syllables phonemes

Syllable Identification

Rhyme Identification

Phoneme Identification

Working Memory

Sentence RepetitionSentences are spoken orally to the child and

the child is required to repeat them exactly.

Examples.Drink milk.I like ice cream.The boy and girl are walking to school.The girl who is very tall is playing

basketball.

Oral Cloze

• child’s name

• mom

• dad

• cat

• I

• no

SIMPLE SPELLING

LAUNCH INTO READING SUCCESS

• RHYME DETECTION• INITIAL SOUNDS • SEGMENTATION• BLENDING• SOUND DISCRIMINATION

Other Important Abilities

• Vocabulary – understanding and producing the meanings of words

• Syntax – understanding the basic grammar of the language– Differences between Chinese and English

• Verb tenses• Plurals • Articles

LITERACY ACTIVITIESLISTENING TO STORIES

ACTING OUT STORIES

SINGING SONGS

LETTER OF THE WEEK

LETTER COOKIES

0

10

2030

40

50

6070

80

90W

RA

Tre

ad

ing

WJ

wo

rdid

en

tifi

ca

tio

n

WJ

wo

rda

tta

ck

Me

an

pe

rce

nti

le

English normalreader

ESL normalreader

English RD

ESL RD

Grade 6

MEASURES OF READING

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Stanford reading comprehension

Me

an

pe

rce

nti

le

English normalreader

ESL normalreader

English RD

ESL RD

Grade 6

READING COMPREHENSION

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

WRAT3 Spelling

Mea

n P

erce

nti

le

Englishnormal reader

ESL normalreader

English RD

ESL RD

Grade 6

SPELLING

Englishnormal reader

ESL normalreader

English RD

ESL RD

Grade 5

Phoneme Deletion

SES & Reading

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

K-97 K-98 Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3

SES & Spelling

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

K-97 K-98 Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3

Conclusions

• It is possible to identify children at risk for reading disabilities in kindergarten.

• It is possible to provide a classroom based intervention to bring these children to at least average levels of reading.

• Children learning English as a second language can perform at native speaker levels and bilingualism may be an advantage.

Hong Kong EMB Project

Primary 1

AIMS OF THE PROJECT

• Improve English oral language skills of P1 children in Hong Kong– Vocabulary and Grammar

• Train phonological awareness skills

• Improve reading skills

Hong Kong Study

• Experimental group received phonological awareness training

• Control group - same SES

• All government schools – mostly low SES

Study Design

• Experimental and Control Schools

• Pretest Fall 2002

• Intervention for Experimental Schools 2002-2003

• Post-test Summer 2003

Components• Only English is used in the

classroom• Build up vocabulary & ability to

follow English instructions • Use of games, story-telling, etc. to

provide rich English language environment

INITIAL PHONEME DELETION

Pre-test Post-test

Experimental

Control

WORD READING

Post - test

Experimental

Control

PSEUDOWORD READING

POST-TEST

expcontrol

PICTURE NAMING

POST-TEST

expcontrol

Oral Cloze

• Tony _______ a happy boy.

• I eat oranges _____bananas.

• There are some books_____the bag.

• I have two_____.

ORAL CLOZE

Pre-test Post-test

Experimental

Control

First Steps in English

Dr. Alice Lai

Prof. Linda Siegel

Dr. Ian Smythe

Project funded by the QEF

Conclusions

• Phonological awareness training improves reading, vocabulary, and syntactic skills

• Phonological awareness training can be implemented in the classroom

• ESL students benefit from PA training

Grade 5 Spelling

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Pe

rce

nti

le

A

Kindergarten

SYNTACTIC AWARENESS

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Ora

l Clz

e m

ea

n s

co

re

Grade 5

SYNTACTIC AWARENESS

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Ora

l Clo

ze (

11)

Phonological Awarenessand Teaching English as a

Second Language

Linda SiegelUniversity of British Columbia

Vancouver, CANADA