section 3: emergent reader plan - haas center for public service · 2016-03-07 · section 3:...

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Revised 9/09 Ⓒ Connie Juel, Stanford University

Section 1: Tutoring Goals

Section 2: Assessment

Section 3: Emergent Reader Plan Section 4: Alphabetic Reader Plan

Section 5: Early Reader Plan

Section 6: Appendix

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Recognizing the Emergent Reader

The Emergent stage is a time when students mimic good readers as they experiment

with the forms and functions of print. Emergent readers are busy learning about the

foundational elements of literacy, such as directionality, the distinctive features of print,

concept of word/spacing, and how all of these properties correlate with oral language to

produce meaning. “Pretend reading,” memorization of texts, “pretend writing,” and

invented spelling are characteristic of Emergent readers. Within this stage, young

readers are learning to recognize letters and form them correctly, as well as make

connections between letters and sounds. Though their understanding of the

relationship between print and oral language is limited at this point, Emergent readers

are developing enormous insights into the world of language and literacy, and it has

been said that the Emergent stage lies at the threshold of a lifetime of learning about

written language. Emergent writers may draw pictures to represent text, compose

strings of random letters, or represent a word with one letter corresponding to the initial

sound. Typically, the Emergent reader encountered by a Ravenswood Reads tutor is a

kindergarten student. Given the demographics of the schools and the communities in

which we work, it is likely that Emergent readers may also be English Language

Learners (ELL). The writing samples below show what a student’s writing might look

like at the beginning, middle, and end of the Emergent stage.

Early Emergent Middle Emergent Late Emergent

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

1 2. 3. 4. 5.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

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If your student’s spelling assessment looks similar to the samples above, he is in the

Emergent Stage of spelling. He did not spell any words correctly in Set One of the

spelling assessment. In the Early Emergent Stage, students still do not understand

what letters are. These students probably scored low on their Letter Identification and

did not score any points on their Letter Sounds assessment. Students in this stage

need to learn that print is written from left to right. They also need to know what letters

are and the names and sounds of the letters.

Middle Emergent spellers may know some letters and may be able to spell their names.

They understand that letters are written to form words that can be read, but they don’t

yet understand that letters in words correspond to the sounds of speech. They may or

may not know that letters represent sounds, and they may not know the difference

between a letter and a word. As a result, they did not spell any words correctly in Set

One of the spelling assessment. These students need to extend their knowledge of

letter names and sounds. They also need to learn that each word is made with a

specific, constant set of letters. Use the Letter Identification and Letter Sounds

assessments to guide you in choosing letters to learn.

Spellers in the Late Emergent Stage understand that letters make sounds, and that

writing words requires listening for the sounds in speech and writing down the

corresponding letters. These students may or may not know how to separate words with

spaces, but they are able to listen for sounds in words and write what they hear. Often,

they write the most salient sound in the word, usually the first or last sound. The letters

they choose are not always correct but may be “close” in the way they are made in the

mouth (i.e. “d” for “t” to spell pet, above). Use the Letter Identification and Letter Sounds

assessments to guide you in choosing letters to learn.

The Emergent reader period is a time of great changes, but they don’t happen quickly.

It is quite difficult to go from laboriously learning to print your own name, as Diane is

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doing in her otherwise pretend writing below, to starting to know how to write some

words and beginning to understand our alphabetic writing system, as Kevin is doing.

Diane’s writing

Kevin’s writing

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Tutor Tip: If you find that you consistently avoid or run out of time for the same lesson segment across tutoring sessions, talk to a Ravenswood Reads staff member for advice on time management and lesson planning strategies. We’re here to help!

Emergent Reader Lesson Plan: An Overview

There are four parts to the Ravenswood Reads Emergent Reader Tutoring Plan:

Revisiting Familiar Texts, Word Study, New Reading/Sharing a Book, and Communication. The sections that follow will provide you with information and

activities for planning each part of the lesson.

Part Purpose Time Revisiting Familiar Texts

• Feel like a reader 5 minutes

Word Study • Introduce letter/sound correspondences • Build familiarity with high frequency words

5-10 minutes

New Reading

• Develop decoding and comprehension • Develop oral language and comprehension • Lay the foundation for the development of

narrative • Provide a language model • Help students fall in love with books

5-10 minutes

Communication

• Develop oral language skills • Make the reading-writing connection • Develop early writing skills • Develop comprehension • Provide a language model

5–10 minutes

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Tutor Tip: The goal at this stage is for your student to

develop book knowledge and familiarity with concepts of print, rather than to sound out individual words.

Revisiting Familiar Texts Each session will begin with revisiting 2–3 books from those in the “reading rotation”

developed during previous sessions with your student. Revisiting Familiar Texts should

comprise approximately 5 minutes of the tutoring session. During this portion of the

tutoring session, have your student tell why she likes the book(s) you are revisiting.

Share some reason you like the book(s) too. Be enthused ! Review the book as

needed and then read it together, letting your child read on her own when possible. As

an Emergent reader, your student may not be able to read the book alone and you will

"choral read," that is, read the book along with your student. As you read together,

remind your student to point to the words. Praise your student for her efforts! Make

note of any strengths and challenges she displays during the rereading activity. If your

student has difficulty with a portion of the text, model reading this section correctly while

pointing to the text. Ask your student to repeat what you have modeled. As

appropriate, draw the student’s attention to the picture, letter, etc. that created the

challenge. Keep a running list of all of the books your student has read. Show this list

to your student each time a new book is added and share your excitement about the

progress your student is making.

Although it may be appropriate to simply guide the student in reading the book, you may

also select specific objectives for your student during this section of the lesson plan.

For example, you may have him pay attention to:

• Letters/letter sounds in the book

• High-frequency words

• If your student is at the very beginning stages of reading, your goal may be for

the student to practice pointing to words as you take the lead with reading.

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When the student has read a book 2–3 times, you can remove it from your Revisiting

Familiar Texts rotation. You may also remove a book if a student does not like a

particular book, or if he finds the text too easy or too difficult.

As expected, the Revisiting Familiar Texts segment may not occur during the first few

sessions, as the child has not yet established a repertoire of texts read in previous

lessons.

Tutor Tips for Revisiting Familiar Texts

• To involve your student in the process of revisiting familiar texts, give her

controlled choices. Rather than asking a “yes/no” question, present options. For example, if you ask, “Do you want to read it now?” the student may respond, “No.” A better approach is to ask, “Which book do you want to read, this one or this one?” Your goal of revisiting a familiar book is met and the student has the opportunity to be involved in her learning.

• If your student struggles with a word, first check to see if it is a word he should know. If so, hold him accountable – don’t jump in prematurely with the right answer; provide him with enough time to figure out a word first. You can scaffold your student by pointing out the initial sound of the word. “What is the first letter? And what sound does it make?” If a student makes a mistake, address the source of the discrepancy. For example, if the student reads “cat” for “car,” you might suggest, “Look at that last letter…t. What sound does “t” make? So what is that word?” If the source of difficulty is a word beyond your student’s reading ability, simply read the word for him. Remember, emergent readers are not yet sounding-out words! They are learning the role letters play.

• Text memorization is a common occurrence among Emergent readers. Be sure

to have your student point to the words! We want them to start developing a “concept of word”–connecting the word they say with a particular word on the page. You may have to help your child do this. They become more accurate over time when they can identify some letter-sounds. In the Emergent Stage consonants are the most helpful. After reading a page, have the student return to a word where the first letter is one that you are working on; prompt the student to say the word slowly while underlining it with her finger, so that the sounds match the letters over the finger. Draw her attention to letter/sound correspondences.

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Word Study

You should spend about 10 minutes per session on Word Study. Word Study helps

students learn new words, teaches letter-sound correspondences, improves students’

skills in figuring out unfamiliar words when they read, and helps them learn to spell

words. There are two parts to Word Study for Emergent Readers: Word Bank and

Phonics.

Word Bank

From the earliest text experiences, students encounter high frequency words. These

words are often not decodable or contain a more advanced phonics element that the

student is not ready to learn. However, they are important to learn early on because

they are seen so often in print. Some examples are: I, the, and me. This section is

designed to help students become familiar with an increasing body of high frequency

words. The goal is to achieve automaticity so that students can read these words

immediately when they encounter them in text. Word bank words are commonly seen

in students’ books and many are irregular words which don’t adhere to letter-sound

correspondence patterns. For Emergent Readers, you should add no more than two

words to their word banks each session. The primary source for selecting word bank

words is the “Can You Read These?” section that appears on the inside back cover of

the text you and your student are reading. Words chosen from this section will provide

students with the opportunity to practice known words in context. You may also choose

to use words that are personally relevant to the child, including his name, names of

friends and family members, color words, etc. You should write the words on note

cards in clear print as they would appear in a published book. Make sure the print, the

size of the card, and the ink color are consistent. This practice will help ensure that

your student is paying attention to the letters in the word as opposed to other

characteristics (For example, if the word “the” is written in purple ink while other words

are written in a different color, the student may only recognize the word by color, a

feature which would not be helpful in reading a standard text). The word bank activities

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depicted below consist of two genres, those designed to

introduce new words, and those designed to help the

student review words already in the word bank.

Word Bank Activities – Introducing New Words The following activities focus on building automatic

recognition of new word bank words or old word bank

words that the student is struggling to recall. If your

student has had sufficient practice with particular

word(s) during reading or writing and you do not feel that

more work is necessary, it is fine to add these word(s) to

the word bank and move into the review section.

Mix and Make. Using letter tiles or magnetic letters,

have your student make the new word. If needed,

display the word bank card so the sequence of letters

can be copied. Next, ask the student to mix up the

letters and make the word again. Repeat this process

once more. You can make this activity into a game by

asking the student to make the word faster the next

time.

Word Puzzles. Write the new word on a sentence strip

and cut the word apart with the child, letter by letter. Mix

up the letters and encourage the child to reconstruct the

word in the correct order. Initially, you may choose to

provide the child with another copy of the target word as

a model, but then remove this model as the child

demonstrates greater facility with reconstructing the

word.

Mix and Make

Word Puzzles

Rainbow Writing

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Rainbow Writing. Use a highlighter or light-colored marker to write the new word on a

blank sheet of paper. Encourage your child to point and identify the letters in the word.

Invite your student to trace over the word multiple times, using a different colored

crayon each time. It is important to note that the child should write the entire word with

one color before switching to the next color.

Word Hunt. Have your student locate the new word in a reading book from a previous

session. Be sure the book is one that the student knows and remembers, as it is

important that books are read for meaning first and used for word hunts and other

activities later.

Word Bank Activities – Reviewing Word Bank Words It is important to review the word bank words at every session. If your student has

many words in the word bank, it is not necessary to review all of the words every time.

The following activities suggest some ways to review.

Pick-Up. Lay out 6-10 word cards. Ask the student to find and pick up the word you

name. Once the student knows how to play, invite him to call out words for you to find

and pick up. You can vary this activity by providing the student with categories of words

to pick up (i.e. “Pick up all the names,” “Pick up all the words that begin with s,” “Pick

up all the words that have three letters”).

Bingo. Create a bingo card using 9-12 word bank

words. As you randomly pick up a word bank card

your child can put a penny or marker on the word.

You can each have bingo sheets and play together.

You can also take turns as the word caller and

player.

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Tutor Tip: Emergent Readers generally develop a Word Bank of no more than 20 words. If the list becomes too cumbersome, retire words that the student no longer needs to review. As students reach this point, more time can be spent on Phonics.

Concentration. Make a duplicate set of 6-8 word bank

cards. Turn all the words face down and take turns turning

up two cards at a time. If the player turns up a matched pair,

she may keep the pair if she can read the words

independently.

Read the Cards. On days when you are short on time, you

can still review your word cards in about one minute. Have

the student read through some or all of the cards as quickly

as he can.

Phonics One of the first steps in learning to read is identifying the letters of the alphabet and

their sounds. If the student with whom you are working knows less than half of the

lower case letters, she will benefit from direct, systematic work with letters both while

reading and writing and in isolation using game-like activities.

As your Emergent reader gains knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, you can begin

to teach initial consonant sounds. You will be laying the foundation for the next stage of

reading, learning to decode whole words. You are setting the stage for your young child

to learn the underlying alphabetic principle of written English: Sounds in spoken words

are represented by letters. The first step in this process is to help children realize that

even one syllable spoken words have beginning, middle, and ending sounds. While you

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will not be teaching Emergent readers to actually decode, it is important to understand

how writing works and what we are getting children ready to do.

The first difficult task for children learning to decode is to acquire the insight that spoken

words can be broken down into smaller sound units (i.e., called phonemic awareness);

that is, they need to be able to break down “cup” into “kuh, uh, puh.” For the Emergent

reader, we are particularly interested in helping them attend to that initial consonant

sound (the “kuh”). That is why you will be doing picture sorts where children sort

pictures, such as putting all the words that start with an /s/ sound like “sun” in one

column, and all the pictures that start with a /p/ like “pig” in another. It helps the child to

understand sounds in words if you do two things: 1) Connect the sound to a letter by

showing the letter as picture sorts happen (e.g., the letter “c” makes the /k/ sound); and

2) Help the child feel the sound in her mouth (e.g., by exaggerating the sound and

noticing how open their mouth is, where their tongue is, whether there is a burst of air –

whatever it is that is distinctive in making a particular consonant sound).

The insights a child needs to learn to read are not easy to acquire! This is why a tutor or

teacher needs to be patient and give children lots of repeated lessons. Don’t get

frustrated if your child doesn’t catch onto the “puh” sound of the letter “p” after only one

lesson!

There are two powerful analytic processes that need to be working smoothly for children

to understand a statement like, “The first sound in “cup” is /k/.” First, they need to

perceive that there is a first sound in “cup.” If you ask a child who lacks phonemic

awareness the first sound in “cup,” she might say, “slurp, slurp.” As you work with

words, elongate and exaggerate the sounds to help children perceive them and feel

them in their mouth (e.g. “kkkkkkkkkuuuuuuuppppp”). You can then have children point

to or write which letter makes the “kuh” or “puh.” The child who writes “cup” as just “k”

reflects the fact that consonant letter-sounds are more easily perceived in spoken

English than vowel sounds. You can feel this for yourself: Say “cup” and feel the

sounds in your mouth as you say it. What are most distinctive are the /k/ sound and the

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/p/ sound because you are more aware of how your lips, breath, and tongue move

during these sounds. On /p/, for example, you can feel your lips purse, the slight holding

of breath, and the little burst of air. Children are often more aware of “feeling their

mouth positions” as they read and write words than are experienced readers. Helping

them feel the sounds in their mouth is good!

Of course, before we can have children learn too much about sounds they need to be

able to recognize and name the letters of the alphabet! Many of our Emergent readers

will just be learning the names of the letters of the alphabet at the beginning of

kindergarten. An alphabet strip for identification and proper letter formation should

always be available for reference during phonics activities. Whenever possible, provide

an alphabet strip that matches the alphabet strip used by your student’s teacher.

Alphabet strips can be found in the appendix section of the manual. Activities to

practice alphabet identification and letter/sound recognition are listed below.

Name Puzzles. A good starting place for students who do not know many letters is the

letters in their names. Put magnetic letters or letter cards in front of the student to

correctly spell the student’s name. Only the letters in the

student’s name should be visible to the student. Have the

student practice saying the letters. Display a name card for

the student to reference. Next, mix up the letters and have

the student build his name again, referencing the name card

as needed. When the student is able to build his name fairly

easily, you can offer less support. Start by removing the

name card. If the student is able to mix and rebuild his name,

give him the letters in his name and have him build the name

independently without reviewing the word card prior to

beginning the exercise. Invite the child to use the whiteboard to practice writing his

name after this activity.

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Kinesthetic Letters. Bring in a plate of salt or colored sand. Model the correct

formation of the letter you are focusing on by writing it slowly in the sand for your

student. Shake the tray until the letters disappear and encourage your student to

practice forming the letters in the sand.

Letter Sorts. Using a set of magnetic letters or letter tiles,

take all of one letter (p for example) and all of another letter (t

for example) and mix them together on a table or magnetic

board in front of the student. Create two circles or spaces

(you can use pieces of paper on a table or use a marker to

draw the circles on a white board). Using both hands, show

the student how to quickly manipulate all of the tiles for one

letter into one circle and all of the tiles for the other letter into

the other circle (for example, all the ts would go into one

circle and all the ps would go into the other). In this way, the

letters will be sorted into two separate groups. The student should point to each letter

and say its name. The student should also be reminded to turn all letters right side up.

Over time, encourage the student to complete this process independently. As the

student becomes more skilled at this activity, add another

letter into the mix so that the student is sorting three letters.

A good way to choose focal letters is to start with the letters

from the student’s name. Letters highlighted in the text

chosen for the current lesson also provide a good focus for

the sort. When planning a letter sort, always choose one

letter with which the student is fairly confident. When the

student has grown fairly secure with the majority of the letters

(upper and lower case), you can plan sorts that focus on

characteristics of the letters. For example, the student could

sort letters with circles (o, p, b) from letters without circles (h, l, y), letters with curved

lines (c, o, g) from letters with straight lines (l, v, w), or letters with tails (letters that go

under the base line of a handwriting sheet) from letters that don’t have tails.

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Tutor Tip: Be sure that your student is manipulating the letter tiles or magnet letters independently, rather than you moving the letters around for him.

ABC Song. Invite your child to practice singing the alphabet song while pointing to the

letters on the alphabet strip.

Rainbow Writing. Use a highlighter or light-colored marker to write

the capital and lower case forms of the focus letter on a blank sheet

of paper. Model the formation of each letter. Ask your student to

write each letter with 8-10 different colors. Encourage your child to

repeat the letter name after each colored letter. It is important to

note that the child should write both the capital and lower case letter

with one color before switching to the next color. Depending on

your student’s skill level, you may want to model how to trace the

letter with the first color.

Capital/Lower Case Match. When students have become

fairly secure with letter identification, take some time to focus

on the connection between capital and lower case letters. One

way to do this is to have the student match pairs of capital and

lower case letters. Focus on a few letters at a time. You might

choose to use letter tiles or you can make letter puzzles on

paper. Some of these puzzles are pre-made for use and can

be found in the cabinet in the tutoring room. Mix up several

capital and lower case letters and invite the child to match

them up correctly.

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White Boards. White boards can be used throughout the above activities as a way to

practice and solidify learning. Call out letters and have the student practice writing the

letters on the white board. Call out sounds and have the student practice writing the

corresponding letters on the white board. Have the student check his letter formation

on the alphabet strip. As a variation, you can write a capital letter on the white board

and invite your student to write the corresponding lower case letter (and vice versa).

Picture Sorts. Sorting pictures can help

students: 1) isolate the beginning sound of a

word and 2) hear the differences between

initial consonant sounds. As students begin

to notice patterns and engage in actively

sorting the words, they begin to think of these

words in terms of the groups to which they

belong. For example, mouse, mat, and

mitten are in the /m/ group, while sun, sand, and sock are in the /s/ group. Ask a TC or

TA about our picture cards. The steps below illustrate one way to teach through sorting:

Sorts adapted from Words their Way: Letter and

Picture Sorts for Emergent Spellers (Bear, Johnston, Invernizzi, & Templeton, 2006)

See picture

sort and book sequences at the end of this

section!

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Steps for Picture Sorting

Planning

Decide on a sort based on your student’s assessment. The sort should compare two initial sounds, such as s and b. At least one of the categories should be one that the child already knows.

Preparing

Create picture cards for your student to sort or use ours. Choose one picture for each category to represent the “anchor picture.” This picture will contain the word that you introduce as the example for that pattern. Be sure there is a letter on this card or place a letter-card by it.

Teaching

Introduce the picture cards. First name them! You can look at the same picture card and label it differently. This can also be a time to build oral vocabulary. Next, talk about the patterns in the sort. Building on what your child already knows, talk about the sound of each pattern.

Model how to sort the words. Be sure to demonstrate your thinking.

Invite your student to sort several cards with you.

Assess your student; does she seem capable of continuing independently?

Allow your student to sort the remainder of the pictures.

Once all of the pictures have been sorted, name the pictures in each group together.

Check to see if any need to be moved. If some words are sorted incorrectly and your student doesn’t notice a misplaced picture after naming all pictures in the group, provide a hint, such as, “I think there are two pictures in this column that don’t belong.” You might need to model the act of looking at each picture and checking the sound to be sure it is in the correct place.

Discuss the auditory similarities among the names of the pictures sorted into each group.

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Tutor Tip: Always use one sound in the sort that the student knows fairly well. This procedure will guarantee some success for the student and motivate him to continue with the activity. If the student doesn’t know the name of a picture used in the sorting activity, tell him what it is. Don’t make the activity into a game of guessing the pictures. Stay focused on the letter sounds.

Labels. Labeling pictures is a great way to help your student begin to write. Bring in

pictures that you draw or download from the internet whose initial sound is a letter that

your student knows or is learning in word study. These pictures can be put into the

alphabet book, a concept book (e.g., “Animals”) or just collected on their own. Say the

picture’s name slowly for your student. Have your student say the word slowly with you.

Then repeat just the beginning sound of the word. Have your student write the first

letter. Say the word slowly again. Ask your student if there are any other sounds he

hears. Ask him what letter makes the sound. Whatever he doesn’t know, do for him.

It’s a good idea to model this process for the student the first time you do this activity.

Alphabet Books. You can create an alphabet

book by stapling together blank sheets of paper

and assigning a letter to each page (There is an

alphabet/letter formation practice book in the

Appendix or you can create your own). The top

of each page is headed by the letter (in both

upper and lower case). Within this book,

students can practice writing the letters, paste pictures of objects beginning with the

letters on each page, and add words they know beginning with the appropriate letter.

When asking a student to paste pictures into the alphabet book, be sure that pictures

are pre-cut. The emphasis for this task should be on developing familiarity with the

letter and corresponding sound, rather than gluing or drawing.

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Tutor Tip: Review the alphabet book often with your student, but only add information to one letter page per session.

Making Words. As your child learns the alphabet you can slowly begin to help him

make words with letter tiles or magnetic letters. Many of the little books you use will

have words which differ only by the first consonant. These are called word families

(e.g., cat, bat, hat, mat, fat, pat, rat, sat). We do not expect the child to learn how to

read these word families as Emergent readers. However, they can be useful in

highlighting initial consonants. You could place magnetic letters that spell the rime part

(e.g. “at”) on a white board and have the child push down the magnetic letter that makes

it into the word you call out. Only put a few letter candidates out for your child to select

from. Here’s how this might look for making words around the “at” spelling pattern.

Notice that the child is not expected to remember “at” but this activity gives the child

both practice with initial consonants and promotes the idea that these consonants can

be used to write words.

c m s b

Can you make it say ssssssat? Move the s down.

at Push the s back up. Can you make it say bbbat?

If this is too hard, you can be more directive: Change the s to a b. What word did you make? Bbbbbat. Now, move the b back up. Move the m down. What word did you make? Mmmmmat.

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New Reading/Sharing a Book

Students learn a great deal of their vocabulary from listening to adults read to them and

from conversations they have with adults about books; vocabulary development is the

most significant predictor of reading comprehension. Moreover, when tutors read and

talk about stories with students, they serve as language models, which is especially

important for English Language Learners who have limited contact with fluent English

speakers. Sharing a book – “reading” the pictures or reading the text to the student,

and talking about the story – facilitates the development of vocabulary, comprehension,

and narrative skills. Shared book reading also facilitates active listening, an activity

critical to the development of comprehension skills. When tutors share books with

students, they are able to communicate their passion and enthusiasm for reading. The

activity offers the student an important opportunity to fall in love with books and

understand reading as a meaning-making activity.

Selecting the Appropriate Book A crucial consideration in New Reading is selecting an appropriate book. First decide on

your objective. If you are planning to focus on the concepts highlighted in Tutor Tips for

What to Reinforce During Reading (see below), then you should select books at levels A or B. If you would like to focus on building enthusiasm about books, a special topic,

or narrative skills, you might choose a picture book to read aloud to the student.

Introducing a new book at level A or B will give your student the opportunity to apply

and practice beginning literacy skills with a new text. Choose a book that introduces

one or two new high frequency words and has a predictable sentence pattern that your

student will remember. If there are 4-5 high frequency words, make sure your student

knows 2-3 of them. Make note of the high frequency words that are new for your

student, as these will be good additions to the Word Bank. It is helpful to keep a list of

words that your student knows to facilitate book choices that both review known words

and introduce new words.

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If you choose a more complex book to read aloud to your student, find a book that is

engaging for your student and supportive of vocabulary development. Ideally, your book

will have an uncomplicated storyline and rich illustrations from which the plot-outline can

be easily inferred. Books with repetitive parts such as The Three Little Pigs make great

stories for English Language Learners in the Emergent stage. Make sure you read

through the book on your own before reading it to the student. Generally, the story

should be short enough to be completed in 10 minutes.

Reading the Book The introduction of a new text involves previewing a book with your student (Introducing

the Book), reading the book to and with your student several times (During Reading),

and discussing the book with your student (After Reading). Each step is described in

greater detail below. If you are reading aloud to your student, and the vocabulary or

sentence structure is too complex, you may want to paraphrase the text to make it more

accessible. Read with expression, act out the story, or do whatever engages the

student and clarifies content. Read the text more than once! The benefits of language

learning accrue through repeated readings.

Introducing the Book

When you do a book preview with Emergent Readers, you should begin by reading the

title and explaining in one or two sentences what the book is about. Try to build the

student’s interest in the topic and make connections to his prior knowledge about the

subject.

Picture Walk. The picture walk is an opportunity to preview the story, identify key

vocabulary items and theme, and engage the student in the narrative. During the

picture walk, look at each page in the book with your student. Remember, for your ELL

student, you are the language model. Begin with a running commentary about what is

happening on each page; this process engages the student in the narrative and

provides an effective scaffold for language and literacy development. Use the words

that your student will encounter in the text while talking about the pictures. Make sure

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your student understands the vocabulary you are using. If you are working with an ELL,

asking open-ended questions during the picture walk (What is this? What is happening

here?) may be too difficult for your student. She may understand the question and

know the answer, but may not have the English language skills to respond. Here are

some examples of how you might introduce a book:

Look at the cover and talk about it. For example,

Let’s look at this picture – there are three mice in this picture. And there are three colors… red, yellow and orange. And the mice are holding paintbrushes. What do you think this story will be about?

Don’t expect the student to make predictions straight away. You might have to model

this process the first few times. For example,

I think this is a story about…

Look through the book and talk about the pictures. Point out objects in the pictures,

name them, and talk about them. For example,

This is a mouse. It’s a white mouse. How many do you see here? Let’s count…one, two, three…that’s three mice. When it’s one, we say mouse. When it is more than one, we say mice. So there are three mice in the story. They are all white mice. In this story, the mice fall into jars of paint. When the white mouse falls into the blue paint, it becomes blue. After that, when it falls into the green paint, it turns yellow. Green and blue together make yellow.

During Reading This step is an opportunity for you to get into the heart of the book and read the text to

your student. Reading with and to the student offers an opportunity to reinforce the

vocabulary and language patterns that were planted during the picture walk. Allowing

the student to then read on his own provides an opportunity to practice print concepts,

such as one-to-one matching.

If you are reading aloud to your student, this is the time to model rich, story-telling

language and to introduce the student to the elements of a narrative. Although it is not

necessary to refer to these elements by name, your reading and talking about the story

must seek to reinforce understanding of the various aspects of the story such as plot,

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setting, character, problem, resolution, and so on (e.g., Where is this? What does that

mouse want? Why can’t he get it? Do you think someone will help him?).

First Read. If you are reading a leveled book, begin by reading at a slow, story-telling

pace, so that the student may follow along easily. Point to the words as you read and

have the student point to the words. Emphasize any letter-sounds that you are working

on. Keep in mind that it is hard for Emergent readers to know how to match the words

coming out of their mouths to those on the page. Don’t emphasize letter-sounds your

student does not know.

Pause wherever necessary in your reading to clarify and explain vocabulary or details in

the plot, and to check for comprehension. Once you have provided some commentary

and modeled the language for your student, questions help check comprehension and

provide an opportunity for the student to reproduce some of the language that she has

heard. Depending on the English language level of your student, you can wait until you

have finished going through the entire book or you can pause at the end of each page.

Choose the type of question that is most appropriate for your student:

• Questions that require pointing and no verbal production:

Where is the mouse on this page? Can you show me?

• Questions that can be answered yes or no:

Are there three mice? Are they black? Is the cat small?

• Questions that offer a choice and can be responded to in one or two words:

Is this a mouse or a cat?

• Questions that require a more substantive answer, of one or more words:

How many mice are there? Where is this story happening? What happens when we mix red and yellow?

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Note that the questions above reflect a progressive sequence and offer a scaffold for

emerging language production; a student who is only able to produce non-verbal

responses may, in course of time, be able to answer open-ended questions about the

book he has shared with his tutor.

If your student is an English Language Learner who is at the beginning stages of

language development, you may avoid reading the text altogether. Instead, it may be

more appropriate for you to “read the pictures” and talk about or tell the story. If this is

the case, then your story-telling segment is really a more expanded, detailed version of

the picture walk, where you are spending more time on each page, elaborating on how

the story progresses.

Tutor Tips for a First Read • Set an objective for your book work. This can be a

simple goal, like asking your student to pay attention to a specific element of the plot.

• Use the pictures as a point of connection. If you are

reading the text, make sure that you connect your reading with the illustrations. Point to the pictures as you read, and stop often to expand upon the visual context. The use of contextual cues to assist comprehension is a key reading strategy, and connecting the text with the pictures allows tutors to reinforce this strategy with students from a very young age.

• Ad-lib the story. Don’t feel compelled to stay faithful to the story. Stop your reading part-way

through the book, and you and the student can make up an alternate ending (This can be the prompt for an interesting follow-up Communication activity).

• Connect the story to real life as much as possible. Share your personal experiences while

telling the story (For example, “I don’t like mice. When I see a mouse, I stand up on a chair and scream”). As appropriate, invite the student to connect his experiences to the story and to share them with you (For example, “Have you ever seen a mouse? Do you have a hamster in your class? Hamsters look a lot like a mice”).

• Use lots of body language, gestures, and vocal cues. • Make a fool of yourself! Get into it! Have fun! Remember, the more fun you have, the more

fun your student is likely to have!

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Second Read. Have the student (re)read (if it is a simple predictable book) or retell the

book on her own as she looks at the pages. Encourage your student to point to the

words if she is reading. Praise your student for her efforts. Provide support as needed

but allow several seconds of wait time before giving an unknown word. Remember to

acknowledge the student’s specific strengths when reading or retelling (For example,

“Wow, you really read with a lot of expression!” or “There were some hard words in

there, but you remembered them” or “You remembered the names of those colors!”).

Don’t expect emergent readers to be able to sound out an entire word.

Tutor Tips for What to Reinforce During Reading

Though Emergent Readers are not yet decoding, or “sounding out” words, there are many things to teach at this level. What follows is a list of some things tutors can teach or reinforce while sharing a book. The list is presented in an approximate order of increasing complexity.

Book Handling

• Book orientation: Where is the front and the back of the book? • The print, not the picture, carries the meaning. • Book orientation: Where is the top and the bottom of the book? • We read the left page first and then the right page.

Directional Behavior • Where to start • Which way to go (left to right) • Return sweep to the left (at the end of a line) • Word – by – word matching (pointing with finger) • Beginning and ending of line, sentence and book

Print Conventions: Function and Terminology

• Question Mark • Period • Exclamation Point • Capital – Lower Case letter correspondence

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Tutor Tips for What to Reinforce During Reading (continued) Words and Letters

• Word – by – word matching • Isolate letters in a word (can point to a letter or two letters) • Isolate words (can point to or show a word or two words) • Isolate first and last letters in a word

High Frequency Words

• Locate known high frequency words in a text. In re-reading: “Point to the word ‘and’ on this page.” In new reading preview: “Do you see any words you know on this page?”

• Notice that words are always spelled the same. “T-h-e” is always the—in the title, within the book, and in other books, too!

• Learn simple high frequency words by sight. • Use high frequency words as “anchors” in reading longer sentences.

For instance, if the student knows “the,” but says “bunny” while pointing to “the,” she can learn to self-correct, trying again and keeping her pointing on track, using known words to guide her.

Phonics/Phonemic Awareness

• Notice that the first letter of the word matches the first sound we hear when we say the word. For example, b is for b-b-bat.

• Notice rhyming words in speech. Identify and produce rhymes orally. • Notice that the last letter of the word matches the last sound we hear

when we say the word. For example, bat-t-t ends with the letter t. Strategies

• Point with your finger. • Look at the first letter. What sound does it make? • Get your mouth ready to make the first sound. • Look at the picture to help you (No this is not cheating!). • Think: What would make sense here? • Cross-checking: Does your word match the first letter and the picture? • Reread: Students should reread from the beginning of the sentence

when: they spend a while figuring out a word, when they read something with the wrong intonation, when what they read does not make sense to them, or when they make a correction.

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After Reading

After reading, talk about the story (For example, “Did you enjoy it?” or “Can you relate to

the story?”). If you were working on a specific skill or strategy, review and check for

understanding as needed. Use this step as an opportunity for the student to comment

further about the book. This practice allows the student to confirm and extend

understanding. Review any vocabulary items or sections of the text that were

particularly challenging for the student. You may also want to revisit the discussion

from the Book Introduction segment, as well as engage your child in a discussion about

their experiences with particular vocabulary items from the text. See the following

section on Communication for more extensive information about post-reading activities.

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Communication

The final part of the Emergent Reader lesson plan is Communication, which should

comprise 5-10 minutes of the tutoring session. The main objective of the

Communication section is to help students build confidence in their oral and written

abilities through the practice of multiple strategies.

Dramatic Reenactment. If you and your student have read a story-based text, dramatic

reenactment provides a great opportunity for oral language development. Your student

can choose to reenact the entire story or a favorite part. Your student may choose to

take the role of one or multiple characters. To add to the reenactment experience, you

may choose to bring in props such as stick puppets or masks to represent story

characters (*Note, if you choose to use props for this activity, plan to prepare them

ahead of time so that you can focus on language and communication). These props

can also be used to help your student sequence the events of the story. The emphasis

for this activity is on dialogue, expression, and vocabulary, rather than story

memorization and retelling. As a variation of this activity, you may have your student

create an alternate ending to the story. Together, you can act out your student’s

creative ideas!

Language Experience/Dictation. The experience of talking about a familiar text with

story language and vocabulary provides significant benefits for your student’s language

development. Engage your child in a conversation about the text. Which part was his

favorite? Were there characters or events in the story that reminded him of his own

life? Together, you and your student can formulate a sentence or two based on this text

conversation. Write the sentence(s) for the student and practice reading it together.

Encourage your student to practice reading the sentence(s) while pointing to the words.

Patterned Book Pages. Make your own patterned book. For example, an “I can” book:

Write the first page for your student using something you know about him (e.g., “I can

run”). Have your student write the “I can” section of the sentence on the next page and

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tell you something else he can do. Say the word slowly and repeat the beginning

sound. If your student can tell you what the letter is, let him write it. Otherwise, write it

for him. Then write the rest of the word as you say it slowly, matching letters and

sounds. Make sure the student is watching you. You can write one page a day, or

more if you have time.

Sentence Puzzles. Invite your student to choose a favorite phrase or sentence from the

text or create a new sentence together. Write the sentence clearly on a sentence strip.

Ask your child to cut the sentence strip apart word by word, emphasizing that spaces

indicate a break between words. Once the words are cut apart, mix up the pieces and

ask your child to put them in order again. Once your child has reconstructed the

sentence puzzle, he can read it in order while pointing to each word. Keep the

sentence in an envelope to mix and make again in future sessions!

Text Writing. Ask the child to choose a favorite sentence from the book read during the

day’s session. On a blank sheet of paper, draw a line for each word of the sentence.

Explain to the child that each line represents one word. Encourage the child to write the

sentence using what he has learned about the target letters, sounds, and word bank

words. At this stage, the child’s attempts may consist of one letter for each word.

Encourage the child to reread his writing while pointing to the words.

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Tutor Tips for Communication

• The student may have difficulty writing some of the

letters… that’s okay. The purpose of this activity is for her to become familiar and comfortable with writing.

• As you talk, make sure you are using the vocabulary of writing (i.e. “letter,”

“word,” “sentence”) and are clearly differentiating between the meaning of each.

• If the student already knows the word, just have her spell it. Don’t stretch it

out sound by sound.

• If the word is in the student’s Word Bank, he can copy the word from the note card to reinforce the correct spelling.

• When helping your student write a sentence, re-read the first word that the

student has written, pointing to it, then say the next word in the sentence. Re-read words one and two, pointing to the words as you read. Say the third word in the sentence and proceed as you did in steps two and three. Continue reading and adding on until the sentence is complete. Ask the student to read the sentence back to you.

• We don’t want the process of writing to become too tedious for the student.

Keep the pace lively and your goals reasonable. If you find the sentence you are doing is too long, you can break it up over two sessions or take turns writing the words to move the activity along.

• Emergent writers will need substantial support with writing activities. Early

Emergent writers may have limited or no knowledge of letters, letter sounds, words, or how speech connects to print. Later Emergent writers may be developing this letter/sound knowledge but are not yet able to stretch out all the sounds in a word to write it phonetically. Your work in writing will help develop these skills.

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Emergent Reader Lesson Plan Student: Tutor: Date: Session #:

Overall Objectives

Oral Language: Phonics:

Activity Description of Activity Time

Revisiting Familiar Texts

Book Titles:

Word Study

Word Bank Activity: Phonics Activity:

New Reading/ Sharing a Book

Book Title: Introducing the Book: During Reading: After Reading: Key Vocabulary:

Communication

Notes (Success, Issues, Ideas)

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Emergent Reader Sample Lesson Plan Student: Alex Tutor: Meredith Date: 10/7/08 Session #: 2

Overall Objectives

Oral Language: Talking about books and how print works, vocabulary development Phonics: Letter Recognition, Letter Formation, Letter/Sound Correspondence for Mm, /m/

Activity Description of Activity Time

Revisiting Familiar Texts

Book Title(s): Mm Muffins Talk to Alex about what he remembers about Mm Muffins, and why he thought it was interesting. Review and possibly reread Mm Muffins to Alex. Have Alex reread Mm Muffins several times. Encourage Alex to point to the words while rereading. Review key vocabulary (muffins, marshmallows, mug, milk), and ask Alex about personal experiences related to these words. Add Mm Muffins to Alex’s reading list and talk to him about how this list will serve as a record of all the books he reads during our tutoring sessions.

5 min. 9:50 - 9:55 a.m.

Word Study

Word Bank – New Word(s): my Word Bank – Review Word(s): Alex Word Bank Activity: * Mix and Make my. Repeat multiple times; encourage Alex to increase speed each time. * Name Puzzle – Review from previous session, ask Alex to point and say each letter in his name. Encourage him to remake the puzzle without looking at his name card. Phonics Activity: * Rainbow Writing Mm (Need: paper, highlighter, crayons) * Alphabet Book (Need: lined paper alphabet book made ahead of time, pencil, glue, pre-cut /m/ pictures)

10 min. 9:55 – 10:05 a.m.

New Reading/ Sharing a Book

Book Title: Monster Mop Introducing the Book: Talk to Alex about what a monster is and share ideas. Show Alex the front cover of Monster Mop and ask questions such as, “Does this look like a monster?” “What color/size/shape is this monster?” “What is a mop?” “Are monsters real or make-believe?” Ask Alex to predict what Monster Mop is about. Take a picture walk through Monster Mop and talk to Alex about what is happening on each page. Emphasize the /m/ sound at the beginning of each picture’s name. Provide background information as needed. During Reading: First Read: Read Monster Mop to Alex, while pointing to the words. Discuss and model pointing one time for each word. Ask Alex to point to and repeat the text on each page. Second Read: Ask Alex to point and read the text of Monster Mop independently (at least once, additional readings as time permits). Talk to Alex about getting his mouth ready to make the /m/ sound at the beginning of each word. Draw Alex’s attention to the “m” at the beginning of each word. Ask Alex to circle the word bank word my with his finger. After Reading: Discuss the content of Monster Mop with Alex. Include questions such as “Which page was your favorite? Why?” “Point to the mat (mug, mop monster, etc.).” “What color is the mat (mug, mop, monster, etc.)?” “Have you ever spilled something at home? What happened? What did you do? How did you feel?” Key Vocabulary: monster, mop, mug, milk

10 min. 10:05 – 10:15 a.m.

Communication

Start a patterned book with Alex called “My…” The book will have four pages. Depending on his skill with the word bank activity, Alex can write my on each page (or I will write it). Alex and I will spend some time talking about things he can refer to with my (i.e. My mom, My dog, My shirt, My shoes). I will write the object word for Alex as I say each word slowly. Once we have finished writing the book, I will model how to read the book while pointing to the words. I will ask Alex to practice reading his new book several times while pointing to the words. We will put this new book into Alex’s reading rotation to revisit in our next session.

10 min. 10:15 – 10:25 a.m.

Notes (Success, Issues, Ideas) Alex was highly successful in both revisiting the previous text and reading the current text after I modeled reading the book for him. Alex struggled with responses to some of the questions I asked in both the book introduction and the after reading segment. He appeared to respond well to questions that required a physical response (i.e. pointing) or a one-word response, such as in the questions where I asked him about the color of an item in the text. I think he understands more than he is able to verbalize. In the Revisiting Familiar Texts section of our next session, I think I will review the key vocabulary words from today’s session and perhaps try giving Alex choices (i.e. “Is this a mug or a mat?”) to continue scaffolding his knowledge of vocabulary words we are learning. Alex seemed to enjoy the word study activities. He was quite skillful at reconstructing his name puzzle quickly. He also exhibits strong fine motor skills – he completed the Rainbow Writing activity with confidence and successfully wrote my on each page of the patterned book. Alex is a pleasant student to work with and eagerly participates in our tutoring sessions.

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Emergent Reader Sequence

Unit Skill Focus Texts (with Level) Sort Picture Cards/Alphabet Book 1 Mm, /m/ Mm Muffins – A

Monster Muffins - A Monster Mop – A My Mess – B

Letter m, alphabet book

2 Ss, /s/ Ss Summer – A Silly Seals – A A Picnic in the Sand – A Silly Soup – B

Sort m, s Letter s, alphabet book

3 Bb, /b/ Bb Baby – A Bumpity Bump – A The Bath – A Baseball – B Two Boys – B

Sort m, s, b Letter b, alphabet book

4 Rr, /r/ Rr Red – A Runaway Robot – A Red or Blue – A My Red Room – B

Sort b, r Letter r, alphabet book

5 Pp, /p/ Pp Pig – A Purple Puppy –A Pink Pig – A My Pocket – B A Pig in a Wig – B Can a Pig Dig? B

Sort r, p (and review any others) Letter p, alphabet book

6 Nn, /n/ Nn Necklace – A No, No Noodles –A Socks – A

Sort p, n (and review any others) Letter n, alphabet book

7 Tt, /t/ Tt Toys – ABC Tiny Turtle – ABC Two Turtles – 0 Terrific Shoes – 1

Sort n, t (and review any others) Letter t, alphabet book

8 Gg, /g/ Gg Garden – ABC Gooey Gum – ABC Good Girl! – 0 A Garden Grows – 0/1

Sort t, g (and review any others) Letter g, alphabet book

9 Cc, /k/ Cc Cart – A Crunchy Carrots – A The Cat Came Back – A We Can Ride – B Cupcakes – B Fat Cat – B

Sort c, p (and review any others) Letter c, alphabet book

10 Ff, /f/ Ff Father – A Furry Feet – A Time for Lunch – A Funny Faces – B A Fin, A Grin, and a Pin – B

Sort c, f (and review any others) Letter f, alphabet book

11 Dd, /d/ Dd Dog – A Daring Dog – A Story Time – A Dig Down – B My Dad – B Who Made That – B

Sort d with any previous Letter d, alphabet book

12 Hh, /h/ Hh Hungry – A Huge Hamburger – A Little House- A The Hat - A How to Make a Hen House – A I Have a Hat – B

Sort h with any previous Letter h, alphabet book

13 Jj, /j/ Jj Jack-in-the-Box – A Sort j with any previous

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Juicy Jam – A Jan Can Juggle – A Jan Packs – B

Letter j, alphabet book

14 Ll, /l/ Ll Lunch – A Lemon Lollipops – A Look Closer – A Lots and Lots of Love – B

Sort l with any previous Letter l, alphabet book

15 Kk, /k/ Kk Kittens – A Ketchup Kisses – A Keep Out! – A A Kiss – B

Sort k with any previous Letter k, alphabet book

16 Ww, /w/, /wh/ Ww Wagon – A Wiggly Worm – A All Wet! – A Whale Watch – A Wiggle Worm Went Home – B Humpback Whales – F Wiggle Worm Went Home – B Who has Whiskers? – B

Sort w with any previous Letter w, alphabet book

17 Xx, /ks/ Xx Box – A X-Ray the Box – A A Big, Big Box – A The Toy Box - A Fix It, Fox – E

Letter x, alphabet book

18 Qq, /kw/ Qq Queen – A Quit Quacking – A Queen on a Quilt – A What can Quack? – B Quack! – E

Letter q, alphabet book

19 Vv, /v/ Vv Van – A Vacation Video – A Vicki’s Van – B Very Big – D

Sort v with any previous Letter v alphabet book

20 Yy, Zz, /y/, /z/ Yy Yellow – A Yellow Yarn – A Zz Zoo – A Zooming Zebras – A Behind a Yellow Yak – B

Sort y with any previous Letters y and z. alphabet book

21 Vowels (for letter recognition)

Aa Animals – A Ee Easel – A Ii Ice Cream – A Oo Orange – A Uu Umbrella A

Practice writing letter in alphabet book

22 Mm, Ss, /m/, /s/ My Socks Are Missing – A School Lunch – A My Monster and Me – B We Are Singing – B

Sort m, s

23 Bb, Rr, Ss, /b/, /r/, /s/ Run, Bunny, Run – A My Room – A Six Go By – C Who Is Ready? – C

Sort, b, r, s

24 Bb, Nn, Pp, /b/, /n/, /p/ Puppy at Night – A Where Is It? – A One Bee Got on the Bus – C Pat’s Perfect Pizza – C

Sort b, n, p

25 Gg, Nn, Tt, /g/, /n/, /t/ Going to Town – A Where Do We Go? – A Nanny Goat’s Nap – C Goose Chase – D

Sort g, n, t

26 Cc, Ff, /k/, /f/ Can Fox Fall – A Can You Find It? – A

Sort c, f, k

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I Like to Count – C As Fast as A Fox – D

27 Dd, Hh, /d/, /h/ Dinosaur Helps – A Up They Go – A Let’s Move – B Where Can A Hippo Hide? – D

Sort d, h

28 Jj, Ll, /j/, /l/ Junk for Lunch – A Little Kittens – A Where Do They Live? – C Jump Right In – D

Sort j, l

29 Kk, Ww, /k/, /w/ The Wet Kitten – A Keys – A Wilma’s Wagon – D Kangaroo in the Kitchen – D

Sort k, w

30 Vv, Yy, Zz, /v/, /y/, z/ Zebra’s Yellow Van – A Good-Bye Zoo – C

Sort v, y, z

31 Introduction to Digraphs - /sh/, /th/, /ch/ /hw/

She Said – A What Is This? – A Chocolate Chip Cookies – A Three White Sheep – A

Sort s and sh (Don’t do if too hard) Sort c and ch Sort w and wh Sort t and th

32 Introduction to Alliteration A Mess – D The Party – D Vultures on Vacation – C

33 Consonant Review 1 Oh the Farm – B Where is my pet? – B The Wet Pet – B Jump on the Bed – B Red Hen Gets a Ride – B For Sale – B Three Litte Bugs – B Little Bug – B What can go up?- B At the zoo! – B Spots – B What is Hot? – B Hop! Hop! Hop! – B Popcorn – B Yes, I can! – D Baby Bear’s Ride – A (wordless)

34 Consonant Review 2 By the Tree – D Night Animals – Funny Faces and Funny Places – D Too Much Ketchup – D Let’s Go Marching – E

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